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THE AGE OF (PLUS CA) CHANGE (Richter eat your heart out)

The Obama boom rang out: 'I come to Berlin' (and although only his first coming, one somehow sensed a frisson of secondness about it) followed by fifteen assertions that THIS IS THE MOMENT when it all comes right; when, under Magic Obama, we 'REMAKE THE WORLD ONCE AGAIN'.
How telling that Tony ('a new dawn has broken, has it not') Blair, intoned (sic) to the 2001 Labour Party Conference: 'The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, LET US REORDER THIS WORLD AROUND US.'
Well, if Rentagod Obama does as much for REORDERING as Messiah Blair did for REMAKING, Climate Change and Terror will pass unnoticed in the chaos he will wreak, and Ikea are going to do a roaring trade in DIY bunkers.

Does it mean an opportunity for the goose steppers. NO! Hah hah!

Perhaps its worth thinking now about whether this translates to a probable SNP 2010 referendum victory. If so we should prepare for it.

It could be that the SNP vote was seismic in that the Labour vote is no longer "genetic" in the heartlands. It could be that come 2010 people won't vote for the SNP even if they continue to do well.

But personally I think the head in the sand routine is not working and the complacency of the politicians and the media means we are sleep walking into radical change.

If people choose to go down that route that fine by me by the way.

I suppose political pundits need to earn a living and suggest all sorts of scenarios about whether Brown stays or what Labour has to do next, which, unlike those traitors north of the border who would sell out to SNP, I will still be Labour. "When the going gets tough" saying comes to mind.

However, as I have mentioned until someone will notice, the next election will be won by the Tories for no other reasons that traditionally the British Electorate subscribe to the "buggins turn" theory. Obama's "change" mantra, adopted by the copy-cat Cameron will win the day. Change for what and how the Tories will get us out of the World-wide mess, then we will hear them start to mumble and talk in slogans and generalities.

Put another way I have some sympathy with Cameron's latest outburst to call an election now. Then we will see how he will transform the market overnight. When electing a Government might focus the minds of those who want to give Labour a "good kicking" and then they will find they have got something worse.

Anyone with half a political brain will see and hear the normal incoming party excuse that it will take a few terms in office the "clear up the previous Government's mess". So don't expect anything radical for at least 5 years.

I'll stick with Brown for I see no other able minister to do anything any better in the party.
As I predicted to my own Labour MP a few weeks ago that we will lose Glasgow, I will make another prediction. Brown will lose his seat at the next election.

Then we will see a lot of Labour MP's that are left being promoted to the Lords so ex-ministers can be parachuted into those few Labour seats left.

OUR DAY WILL COME AGAIN AFTER ANOTHER 18 YEARS OF TORY MISRULE. You never learn!!!

given wholesale gas prices have dropped by 25% we have edf raising them by 22%.

because the uk has little energy storage facility it must sell its gas at the low summer price to europeans who will store it and then sell it back to us at the higher price.

and the govt thinks there is nothing left to do but 'managed decline'.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#3 Billbradbury
Personally I think until the electoral system is changed to PR you can't have the granularity that allows both public aspirations to be met and parties to be replaced if they aren't performing properly.

If the Tories reflected on their "wilderness years" they may decide that they would have less power when in office but there would be less risk of becoming so detached it takes a decade and more to recover.

Labour pretended to be interested in PR when they thought there may be a hung Parliament. But thats their trouble - you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.

10p, 42 days, extraordinary renditions, Iraq, GM, nuclear power, energy insecurity, failure to control the financial sector etc etc.

Labour misrule?

There's been an interesting suggestion the abortion issue may have played a part in the by-election result.

In Glasgow east, a third of voters are Catholic and the winning candidate, John Mason, was well known as being the only one of the four main candidates who supported the recent moves to lower the upper limit for abortion.

Having said that, the late selection of the Labour candidate and the suggestion that in the past, the party may have been a bit complacent (ie not being especially active and visible around the constituency in years past), may have played a part.

F-R-E-E-D-O-M ....of speech!.. I feel a William Wallace moment coming upon me. What was it MR/MISS/MRS mod? the line about bringing back Enoch Powell with the aid of a gardening tool or my desire for the the death of socialism in reference to Jack Straw waiting in the wings?...guess i'll never know. Was it the 'geese' line???

only 3 economics teachers trained out of
38 000 teacher training intake?

cause money is boring?

the gangofone,
PR would certainly provide a lot of work for the "pundits" with regular elections, as per Italy, if the larger party did not do what the Lib/Dems wanted.
What you would get would be a permanent Lib/Dem Government, the only way they will get any power and of course why they would support PR.
I have never been sold on the idea but many feel it is a fairer way to reflect the voters, an argument I will return to with my two drinking pals who think it is a "good idea"(Both Gruniad readers!!!)

I can live with a two party state on the basis that it gives the supporters of the "big two" a chance to moan at "The Government" with the minor parties sniping at the edges, guaranteeing that they would not be required to deliver on their promises.

So I am in for 18 years of saying "I told you so", currently the postion of the newly refurbished Tories, back from their death.

Barrie, you'll probably love this article on Obama in The Times


entitled:
"He ventured forth to bring light to the world
The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers"

It's hillarious!

#10 Billbradbury

PR would not suddenly mean the Lib Dems got elected!

Lots of people in Labour and the Tories think its a good idea by the way.

What it would do is encourage higher voter turnout as in Europe. That discourages politicians from treating power as a fiefdom.

It also means that people like Blair don't have the kind of skewed majority that allowed Iraq.

As things stand you would expect Cameron to have a huge majority in an election today. Its not that hes done anything. With PR to get the huge majority you have to earn the respect of the public.

As you know most countries in the world don't have a first past the post system. Germany and France have never fallen apart.

The fact that you are talking of a pendulum swing that will allow the Tories to do whatever they like for 18 years says it all.

Why not interview Tom Clarke MP whose Coatbridge seat would be the only one
left in Scotland if this swing is repeated
at the next General Election according
to professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University's Department of Politics? Tom
is a Catholic too - what is the secret of
his success? Has he any advice for GB?



It would also be good to get reaction from Paul Mason on how the unions are going to play the Warwick Forum given that Labour is politically and financially bankrupt now?

Fraser Nelson of The Spectator was also very good on Lesley Riddoch's ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ radio
programme 'Riddoch's Questions' at lunchtime - which also had Ian McWhirter of The Sunday Herald commenting ..............

Fraser had been taking lots of soundings amongst Labour and Tory circles in London and had a particularly good joke about how some MPs at Westminster had described the SNP as 'The Cameronian Highlanders'!

A great night for Alex Salmond. But The Richter Scale is exponential so 'off The
Richter Scale' is perhaps too dramatic?

Labour will also now be praying for the health and welfare of its backbenchers
(not least the Fife MP who was quite ill
but was talked out of standing down??)

Margaret Curran was their strongest card in the East End - but like Ken Livingston down in London, powerless to stop this tsunami.

So what does Labour do now? Well why not make Tom Clarke Secretary of State for Scotland? He used to shadow the job
- but was replaced by Donald Dewar.

Or perhaps they need John Reid MP,
the current Celtic Chairman - whose
absence from the campaign was odd?

YEA VERILY YEA

Thanks Mistress76uk. Positively cathartic - redolent of an occasional biblical piece in Private Eye. Yes: I loved it.

But the chill of realization that he is so like Blair is 'still upon me'.

Trust not the souls of the unborn to the lawyer mind, for the unwarranted righteousness of Law knows naught but the way of 'winning at all cost' and that road leads nowhere worth the going.

Re #12 thegangofone

All absolutely spot on.

The real trouble is that both Tories and Labour tend to go for "strong" leaders like Bliar and Thatcher who can quash the desire for fairness with their own hunger for power.

It's only the likes of Callaghan who see the writing on the wall who go for it, but they always do it too late in the day.

If Brown survives until Christmas, he might just have the sense to invite nice Mr Clegg for a cosy chat before all hope has gone.

I can't see Cameron doing that anytime soon because (a) he doesn't need to and (b) his couldn't guarantee bringing his party with him.

FEMINISM: SOLIPSISM OR NARCISSISM?

Barrie (*#14) "Trust not the souls of the unborn to the lawyer mind, for the unwarranted righteousness of Law knows naught but the way of 'winning at all cost' and that road leads nowhere worth the going."

That's pretty much W.V.O Quine's advice to his grandchildren in his contribution to the anthology: 'Take My Advice: Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two' (2002). Sadly, 'Pursuit of Truth' isn't rated highly at all these days, just Faustian celebritism/narcissism.

That's feminism/solipsism alas.

Richard,

As Programme Producer did it occur to you to cover what happened in Glasgow East as voters booted out Labour by covering their opinions why?

I'm left at a complete loss why voters voted the way they did. Do you know?

An election is made by the people, for the people to demonstrate their democratic voice. On your programme I didn't get 1 minutes coverage of the many reasons why.

As a public service broadcaster do you think it would be a good idea to cover the public?

Or do you think an hour of introspection into the small out-of-touch world of politics demonstrates the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ are wrapped up in their own small political world out of touch with the public!

I didn't learn anything new from your coverage. Brown is living on borrowed time. Labour are heading toward election slaughter and the Party hasn't a clue what to do. Pretty clear 1 hour ago and just repeated 1 hour later by your programme.

What I'd like to have known is how much is the smoking ban, Bully/Nanny State, high tax low public services, the junk science behind climate change and CO2 taxes etc etc is effecting voters.

Not that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ really let any real public debate about real issues ever take place. When was the last Newsnight debate about climate change or the smoking issues?

SMOKE, MIRRORS AND MARXISM

"The French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wrote novels; monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues; essays, biographies, and an autobiography. She is now best known for her metaphysical novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, and for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. It sets out a feminist existentialism which prescribes a moral revolution. As an existentialist, she accepted Jean-Paul Sartre's precept that existence precedes essence; hence "one is not born a woman, but becomes one"."

Sartre was a Maoist.

That females aren't born women is trivially true. They become women at puberty after dramatic physical changes.



But this verbal equivocation has been egregiously exploited (like the low birth rate/immigration) (via Gramsciist Political Correctness) to corrupt three generations' of females as is indisputably evidenced by the declining EU birth rate amongst secular Europeans.

The modus operandi? Vilification (by clever propaganda) of command or centrally planned economies (e.g. Old Labour or the USSR) in favour of 'free-market' anarchism/Bolshevism/Neo-Conservatist Liberalism) - but..... to whose benefit? What's eroded in the process? Authority.

THE NATIVES ARE RESTLESS

Dear accommodating Newsnight, your forbearance in freely posting, in the face of mounting criticism - much of it reasoned and justified (if a little vehement) - is acknowledged and applauded. But you remain silent. Is your silence SULLEN? MOCKING? DISMISSIVE? EMBARRASSED? DISINTERESTED? none of the above? You have instituted this forum, you moderate it, but you rarely comment and then usually on other issues, rather than with regard to the actual function of Newsnight. Is the can of worms so potent you must leave the lid firmly in place? Give us a clue. Across the threads, tonight, you have some serious challenges. Why not invite some of your detractors on (as silly season fills perhaps?)
To go head to head with Paxo or wearing wild gear to clash with Kirsty? Come on - you know you want to . . .

THE IRISH WERE EGYPTIANS LONG AGO (music-hall song)

Oh JJ - too much information. When 'they' have had their way with us, dividing and ruling and the like, who will be in charge? Mandelson? The Pope? Cloned Hitler? The Dark Lord?

Charles Forte said: 'I think we are property'.
He meant in the same way that an ant colony is owned by a human. I am reserving judgement, but it would help the creationists no end. Perhaps the major extinctions are when our feckless owner goes on holiday. It's very late.

WHO WILL BE IN CHARGE

Barrie (#20) "who will be in charge?" This certainly doesn't appear to be what they have in mind looking at the EU Lisbon Treaty which seems to enshrine free-market liberal-democratic anarchism/Trotskyism. But is the following such a bad system? Are the Chinese leaders 'goose-steppers' and was the 'collapse' of the USSR that significant?

"Article 3. The state organs of the People's Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism. The National People's Congress and the local people's congresses at different levels are instituted through democratic election. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the state are created by the people's congresses to which they are responsible and under whose supervision they operate. The division of functions and powers between the central and local state organs is guided by the principle of giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the local authorities under the unified leadership of the central authorities.

Article 25. The state promotes family planning so that population growth may fit the plans for economic and social development."

NOT BUCKING ... JUST EXTINCTING



Whilst the same problem blights the rest of Europe (and other emancipated liberal democracies) whilst it's happening here in the UK (although cunningly disguised when the ONS and others talk about a rise in the birth-rate - i.e. it's largely the progeny of immigrants) there are no incentives or prizes here for bucking this pernicious and insidious trend which counts on the long delayed, i.e. not immediately obvious, outcome.

Richard,

Once again I ask you. When will we see a programme devoted to peoples views of what's deeply wrong with this bankrupt government that has NO support in Britain. When will you show people expressing their views instead of the gormless deceipt of Milliband and other Labour cronies saying "we're listening" and then saying "it's all about the economy".

Is he right? Do you know? You are a PUBLIC broadcaster who not only did not show the SNP winners but also showed no local public and their opnion why they booted out Labour with a massive landslide.

What are factors - the nanny state, the growth of jobsworths with jack-boots on, climate change, the smoking ban etc - and why aren't you covering them? We've had enough of listening to Labour telling us they're listening. The country don't believe a word these disingenuous creeps say anymore.

1. Labour claim climate change is the "single biggest threat to the globe" today (we all remember the same claim about Iraq/WMD don't we!). The Oregon Petition has 30,000 scientists now that say climate change is junk science. When will Newsnight have a serious democratic debate with 2 pro and 2 anti scientists or experts for 30mins rather than the constant regurgitating of scare stories and PR spin from Govt and international agencies. When?

2. Labour claim "success" over the smoking ban which is a new apartheid for over 10m adults in this country banned from all public buildings (1 in 4 adults excluded). The Govts ban has increased the pub closure rate from 2-3 pubs a week to 7 (2,000 publicans have lost their livelihhods and 40,000 staff their jobs). Labour lied about the health benefits and lied about pubs being full of happy non-smokers. When will you, a public broadcaster, have a democratic dabate (2 pro-ban and 2 anti-ban) about something that effects 10m people and alot more in this country?