nope - it's the walkover labour leadership election
you don't think the Gorgon will risk a general election - he wants his moment of glory as "the great leader" for as long as possible before he'll risk losing his power by losing a General Election.
He's been waiting 10 years - he'll hang in there till the very last second
Shame we can't 'devolute' him back to Scotland permanently
will say that i am in fact sad to see him go (waits to be shot down!) the labour government has done more for this country than ANY other party, and i think its a shame so too many people are quick to shoot down a person who served our country well
Please, what has he done other than take us into war as Bush's lap dog, ban hunting to keep his popularity and we are now looking at rampant inflation and farmers going out of business - Sorry but I cannot stand Blair or Brown. May I be the first to say Bollocks to Brown too!!!
I dont support him really in any way whatsoever but lets be honest Brown is going to be Ten times worse!!! And who are you going to vote in next!?!? The Tories just cause they will bring hunting back?? The Iraq thing was a mistake but when you work with a country as big as the U.S any leader would join in because theres millions and millions of Cons if we stop major relations with them!!
So dont scream and shout in happiness until someone else takes over that knows what there doing!
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will say that i am in fact sad to see him go (waits to be shot down!) the labour government has done more for this country than ANY other party, and i think its a shame so too many people are quick to shoot down a person who served our country well
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I have lived under a few more PMs than you have, and in my experience not one of them has done as much to damage the fundamental essence of the UK as Blair has done - not even Margaret Thatcher, and she made a lot of radical changes. Blair has gone out of his way to sweep away all tradition, and introduce 'Cool Britannia'. He has led us into an illegal war which has cost 148 British lives, not to mention the countless 1000s of civilian lives, to support his pal in the USA. He wants to be remembered as a great statesman, but he will be remembered as a man who made Britain a dangerous place to live and a permanent terror target. When those planes hit the twin towers, life here changed permanently for the worse, thanks to his actions. I no longer recognise this country as the one it was ten years ago, or the one I grew up in, and I could weep. The damage done by Brussels and its endless edicts is nothing to the damage done by this one man. I am just dreading the sequel, starring Gordon Brown, even more. I don't know what is wrong with British politics, but there is not a party there that represents the 'man in the street' any longer. Our prisons are full, our borders are out of control, the judicial system is breaking down, there are still students leaving school unable to read and write, and hospitals are being closed at an alarming rate. We are taxed to the hilt through stealth taxes, there are few police officers on the beat (none round here), and the majority of pension funds (not those of MPs...) have been plundered and are worthless. Oh yes, this government has been amazing.
Why do you think we fled the UK in 1985?
Now it would be almost impossible for us to go back and live there, culturally, education-wise for kids and financially.
I don't blame you for going. I don't blame anyone for leaving! The trouble is, I love this country and want to live here. I just don't like what the place is becoming...
It also seems that under blair, anyone who wanted to make something of themselves is taxed out of existance. Mum bought 2 businesses and the amount of times they have nearly gone under in the last 10 years due to the tax burden is phenominal. Yet now she is making enough to employ a tax lawyer she is paying very little tax at all. So it seems that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the tax burden sits exclusively on the middle classes who are just trying to get along!
Also the inheritance tax was only supposed to hit the very rich, but now it hits almost every one except the rich who have ways round it (like mums 3 million pounds of business that myself and my 2 siblings are set to inherit, but due to the way mum has set it up, what we are inheriting is the shares in the business which are worth less then £100, so no inheritance tax).
She is now thinking of packing it all in and moving to NZ anyway.
Consider, what you would do if you wanted to build an authoritarian state. You would:
Take a threat and magnify it.
Demonize the group whom you claim are posing the threat
Declare that the threat is so serious that civil liberties have to be suspended to deal with it
Institute arrest without knowing the charges against you, for the demonised group [at first]
For those arrested institute imprisonment without trial and limit of time
Try to ban or minimize protest.
Enact strong anti-terrorist laws and then apply them to ordinary protesters
Claim that the security threat is so serious that it justifies universal surveillance, including identity cards.
Build up a database on all citizens, recording even trivial data.
Vastly expand the powers of public officials.
Try to weaken the parliamentary process by neglect or atrophy.
Try to politicize the police and civil service
Does all this sound familar? It is the strategy of all illiberal regimes, including the present British one.
The above is taken from another person on a farming forum and credit to him for a brief but telling synopsis of the state of this country after 10 years of New Labour.
Tony Blair (or B-Liar) is no loss - the only annoyance is the megabucks him and 'that dreadful woman' (Cherry) will earn on the 'celeb' circuit now.
Whatever Maggie Thatcher's faults - at least the war we fought under her leadership - we WON !!!
(and she didn't expect our troops to go to war with shoddy (or non-existent) kit and an MoD starved of funds and stretched so thin that very very soon the elastic is going to snap)
What I feel I should add though by way of balance is to point out that many of the changes in the last 10 years are nothing to do with the government. I dont see how the government has encouraged more crime, more litter, less respect in general, and things like house price inflation. These all come about as a result of uncontrolled forces in society, not from the government. And the last 10 years has seen nothing like the 'winter of discontent', the 3-day week (caused by coal shortages), the miners strike, endless strikes in general......
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What I feel I should add though by way of balance is to point out that many of the changes in the last 10 years are nothing to do with the government. I dont see how the government has encouraged more crime, more litter, less respect in general, and things like house price inflation.
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Do you not? I am surprised. Could increased crime be anything to do with a diminshing and demoralised police force? Could it be to do with uncontrolled immigration? Could more litter be to do with reduced waste collections, and the banning of trailers from tips, thus encouraging fly-tipping? Local authorities are being capped by central government, and are struggling to provide basic services. As for house inflation, the government was reluctant to encourage the BoE to raise the base rate as it would have reflected the rise in the RPI, on which the inflation figure is based - they were determined to keep it low at all costs. Anyway, rising house prices produced a nice bonus in death duties. As for less respect, that has come from the top - how can anyone have respect for a PM who has been found guilty of outright lies regarding the WOMD, yet refuses to apologise?
its encouraged more crime by reducing the sentances and jail terms for offences, i mean 10 years ago if you stabbed someone to death you got put in jail for approximate 25 years. Now if your particularly unlucky you might get 5 years. you used to get a jail term for stealing someones purse, now all you get is a slap on the wrist and told dont do it again!
Less respect in general is due to the fact that people are no longer being held accountable for thier actions or the actions of thier kids