Wednesday 17 December 2008

The Parliamentary Road

At least the EU has today admitted that trying to make the British use the metric system is a waste of time. We should now resume the teaching of both systems side by side, which would greatly improve the numeracy standards that collapsed as a result of metrication and (massively inflationary) decimalisation, which latter is of course irreversible.

But we do not need the EU to make us work sensible, safe, healthy hours. Or, at least, we wouldn’t. If our Parliament contained a proper Labour Party.

16 comments:

  1. Did you see that David Cameron has offered a cabinet post to Frank Field?

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  2. No, and I'd be very surprised if he did. Frank Field is far too conservative for him.

    And he would rebuff it publicly. Unlike Purnell and Adonis.

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  3. Here's the transcript from a Q&A he did last week:

    Q: If you had to have a politician from another party in your cabinet as Prime Minister who would it be and why?

    David Cameron: That’s a very good question. I mean lots of people I admire. Frank Field. I’ve talked a lot about social breakdown and family policy. I think he has been a brilliant thinker about welfare reforms and how we reform welfare in a way that encourages people to work, that it encourages families to take responsibility. I think he is great.

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  4. That's not an offer.

    Mind you, it serves Cameron right for answering a hypothetical question.

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  5. Wow! And has Frank Field rejected this offer?

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  6. It's exactly the same form of wording as his "offer" to Purnell and Adonis.

    Looks like 3 current Lab people in the Cabinet.

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  7. It's at least as much of an offer as Adonis or Purnell have ever had.

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  8. No, Aper, because this is not an offer. It is an amateurish answering of a mischevious hypothetical question, and so certainly does show that Cameron is unfit for office. But that is all.

    Whereas Cameron and Osborne have announced outright that Purnell would keep his current job and Adonis would be given Education. Which is totally different. There is no "If" involved.

    As Purnell's job is the only one that Field would want, there is clearly no vacancy, anyway.

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  9. Why would Cameron want Field? He's a Tory.

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  10. You can watch him say it here, from about 53 mins in. He mentions Adonis too. But not Purnell. It's clear, though, that Field is the first person who comes to mind.

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  11. Frank Field must quickly and publicly reject this job offer, or we will all know that he is planning to join a Conservative cabinet, while continuing to hold the Labour whip.

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  12. In answer to that particular question. Which he was unprofessional enough to answer at all, and which was therefore posed by an interviewer who held him in utter scorn, or else would never have asked such a thing.

    So what? This is just musing. The position-specific Purnell and Adonis announcements have been made.

    Frank Field a Tory? Well, rather than a Whig, yes. In the tradition of Wilberforce's opposition to the slave-trading "free" market, and of Disreali's doubling of the electorate. From such Tory, rather than Whig, roots sprang the Labour Movement.

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  13. Simon, if any such offer were made, then he would.

    In marked contrast to Purnell and Adonis, whose positions are a matter of record, but are now so unremarkable in their and the media's swankier Westminister circles that no one sees the slightest reason to make a fuss.

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  14. Yes, Field is a Tory rather than a Whig. So he has no place in any of the three parties created by Alfred Roberts's daughter.

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  15. At least you haven't had "the CLP would never stand for it". Do CLPs even still exist?

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  16. Not really, no.

    Years ago, they were told in no unceratin terms that they were there to "support the Labour Government, not hold it to account". Things like meeting every month are now practically unheard of.

    Their only real function is to select the designated apparatchik as PPC. Which they do. Always.

    Anonymous, there used to be a local politician character in Corrie called Alf Roberts. Priceless.

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