And Another Thing…

I’m suprised at you Tom.

You appear to think that a Conservative victory is assured, defeatism from a former junior minister I’m astounded.

Old Holborn;

You appear to imagine that everything which contradicts the well established, conventional views supported by commonsense and evidence is true.

Try a bit more soma with whatever it is, perhaps?

Tom, I recall a Roald Dahl story in which someone collects the tears of his paid subjects for his incomprehensible pleasure.

When will you be offering your wanna be tory ( and mock tory) trolls their proper recompense?

Who gains out of making drugs illegal?

Well the criminals who import them get rich.

The people employed to stop them getting in get a wage and don’t stop the drugs from entering the UK.

The users suffer a number of ways, even for fairly innocuous drugs such as hashish.
They have to trade with criminals and can come under physical duress.
They find it hard to obtain help as the police will be there to bang them up.

The politician gets a good line in the Mail as it shows he’s tough on drugs

Let’s say we made all drugs legal, what would happen?

Does anyone seriously expect we’ll all become junkies?

1)A source of funds to criminals would disappear.
2) Those failing to stop drugs from being brought into the UK could be found useful work to do. Say catching burglars or tracking down miscreants who steal from the public purse.

I think part of the problem is that Nutt has been sacked from an (unpaid) post for doing things that might be considered part of his (paid) day job.

The papers that have got him in trouble – the ones in the Journal of Pharmacology and The Lancet, and the one based on his CCJS lecture – are such that a distinguished professor might reasonably be expected to write, whether or not he was working for HMG.

By sacking him, the message Johnson sends to scientists is this: if you advise the Government, you must be careful not to publish, promote or discuss research that apparently undermines Government policy.

How can scientists tolerate that? Their professional careers depend on them being able to analyse, discuss and criticise scientific ideas freely.

Forget about Cameron, Blair, Brown etc – as a Labour candidate in 2005 Mr Harris promised his own constituents that he wouldn’t vote to approve the treaty without them having the opportunity to vote themselves, first, directly, in a national referendum.

So how did he do on that, when it came to the Commons votes?

And please don’t give us all the two-faced garbage about it not being the same treaty – even the BBC’s Mark Urban repeatedly referred to “the constitutional treaty” on Newsnight last week.

Like it or not, the European Constitution was rejected by France and Denmark. It is dead, we could keep a promised and have a referendum on it too, but it would be pointless.

So after it died something needed to be done. So yet another treaty was introduced, as opposed to replacing all the previous treaties with a constitution. And the UK ratified it as it has ratified every other EU treaty.

People who bleat on about the Lisbon Treaty being the same as the EU constitution have either rather severely missed the point or are guilty of a crude and ill-thought out deception.

Nutt has not been sacked for publishing erudite scientific papers.

Alan Johnson has given his reasons.

It seems to me that the underlying cause is that Nutt in effect promoted the use of various dangerous drugs through the media.

Should we entertain experts on other committees publicising their views to promote other illegal actions among the vulnerable young? Aggravated assault vs actual bodily harm perhaps?

Had he promoted tobacco there would most likely have been a still more vociferous furore.

Contradicting the sound and sane message: “Just say No!” is hopelessly irresponsible.

Sorry Tom, but no.

Prf Nutt was stating *facts*. Politicos may not like these *facts* but that doesn’t stop them from being *true*.

We need an adult conversation about this whole subject. Johnson’s intellectual argument is no better than assuming everyone who turns 18 is now a potential paedophile *because it might happen – despite 99.9% of people *not* being guilty*

You are usually a jolly sensible voice of reason – get a grip Sir and tell it like it really is. Those aged 15-30 already know that Es and a joint aren’t as Gordon would have us believe LETHAL.

Jay:

Perhaps a vegetable seeking revenge, see “The Little shop of Horrors.”

Guido suggesting that Gordon could see HMQ as early as this weekend.

The Downing Street bunker must be very tempted with the opinion polls so close…

It is depressing however you look at it.

If, as I expect, the AV referendum is in favour, there may well never be another conservative party government.

The closing of the polls is not surprising, there is no good reason for a change, just as there wasn’t in 2001.

The country is a better place, we are richer (in terms of GDP/head) and the UK is a leader in world counsels.

People’s assessments of how their locality fares have rarely been more encouraging, as I discussed, together with other factors I then thought would bring a fourth labour Government in a row here:

http://quietzapple-musing.blogspot.com/2009/08/labour-44-or-conservative-42.html

People prefer a Labour Government, we must campaign to persuade them to do so, in parallel with the shambolic efforts of Chameleon and his friends which have been having a similar effect.

The danger for the tories is that, having already attempted a liberalisation on colour, sex, race the next leader will only have UKIP and BNP territory to invade. A merger will split the right for a generation.

From a Tory Landslide to a Tory Plummeting in the Polls..

And the funniest thing is a little while back the denizens of the Tory Diary were so full of Boasting! over the Cameron 120 seat+ Landslide.

On and on about what they were going to do with all these extra seats blah! blah !blah!

And now if you mention “how is your landslide victory coming along”….

Complete silence! all their Tory Lips zipped up not a word from them.

http://www.licensing.biz/media/images/news/758/184_763_Zippy-Web184pxl.jpg

“Two wheels on my wagon….”

If Brown wins the next Election, there will be no lights for the last person leaving the Country to turn out.

We will only know what’s going to happen once “Bottler Brown” has the guts to call the election.

The poll lead has slipped – but who believes the polls?? (ask Neil Kinnock! ) False sense of security anyone?

Look at the polls “1000 people were asked and then the results adjusted to reflect regional factors” or some such gobldigook. They are a nonsense.

Besides, pollsters and the media don’t make money from runaway victories now do they?

And to expect that the election campaign will bring just “more of the same” is to be extremely naive.

The Tories really havn’t said too much of late & I so would fully expect an assault on Brown the likes of which has seldom been seen the moment he calls it.

Tin hats on for you reds!

Powder, dry, kaboom!

Cameron trying his best

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qFdFy3gFK9M/SPWXJvKOx-I/AAAAAAAAAXc/hI92nJMbFbg/s400/sisyphus.jpg

Tom, I’m sure you know my loathing for Labour knows no bounds. However, this might amuse you.

It still seems to me that ‘bottling’ a decision in the face of the wishes of the nastier sort of opponent is rather a courageous option, especially as those who like to pretend they held the metaphorical broken bottle would run a mile . . .

Well Tom, will you permit the appropriate response to these wannabe and failed bullies?

“The talk has gone from how large the Tory majority will be, to how many seats short of a majority the party will win, to whether or not they’ll even be the largest party after polling day.”
Because they will only have 20% more votes than Labour!
I don’t think that Cory Aquino’s majority over Marcos was one-tenth of that…

Not even a slight hat tip? Or had you already read it?

Really sorry! I forgot – now sorted.

QZ – so myopic as always. So selective in your accusations as always. A “Nastier opponent”??? Who? Mandy, Campbell, Brown, Balls, Whelan, Draper & Mcbride & the rest of the “Forces of hell?”.

As yet the Tories can’t hold a candle to any of them in a contest as to just how low in the gutter you can sink. Collectively they are about the most unpleasant Cabal to ever run this country by far. Or do their “activities” sit well with you? Perhaps ask Dr Kelly’s widow how she feels about them.

In about 10 weeks (maybe as few as five) this will all be over – so what WILL you do if Labour doesn’t win ?

I have no idea what’s going to happen. By every obvious measure Labour ought to be consigned to the scrap heap for 2 if not 3 parliaments (if it can even stay solvent and in existence that long). But so perverse and corrupted is the state of our politics that it may indeed not happen and they may yet win or at least “force a draw”.

I can deal with it if that’s the way things turn out, we’ll quite likely just get on the plane & go – contingency plans are well advanced.

But what, dear fellow, will you do if it does happen and Brown has to call Pickfords?? I can only imagine the despair that would ensue in the ‘zapple household .

The polls ask what would happen if there were an election tomorrow, which there isn’t. Various factors are sure to change – the Lib Dems always increase their share during an election campaign because the media have to give them the attention they do not usually get. So this will happen at whose expense? Brown is doing the Iraq Inquiry next week – will that be good for him? Could be, could not be. There are the three debates. They could change the whole position in Brown’s favour if he performs better than expected, or the opposite. And there are so many Labour seats with tiny majorities – my own Labour MP has a couple of hundred. So these uniform swings will not apply. As for the enthusiasm that greeted Blair – I think it will be a long time before we as a whole have a mass excitement towards one individual or party. Because so much has happened, and so many people feel so let down by the Blair / Brown period. Sadly that seems like a rather childish and innocent time – believing one party will change the world for the better. This has been the longest election campaign ever and it hasn’t even started yet, I think there should be fixed terms. I do wonder how much of the Government’s time has been spent this year studying polls and thinking tactics, rather than concentrating on making the cocuntry a better place, and working towards a fixed election date. I would like to go to sleep and wake up when it is all over. And I would like whoever wins to have a very small majority, so that they never again think they can get away with murder. As the expression goes.

If there is a hung parliament then David Cameron is finished.

David Cameron’s appeal as a leader was that he had what was required to win an election. He didn’t have any appeal for the party in any other area. He is a lightweight, an inexperienced man who’s only area of strength is presentation.

Oh yes. Fame at last! You’re welcome.

I think you are right Tom. The concern is that Cameron turns out to be another Heath, but unlike Labour if this turns out to be the case and Cameron does not look like turning things around he will be replaced. Labour fails to do this out of misplaced loyalty to its party, that it it always puts before country.
So there is no fear of Cameron staying on if he fails unlike the current situation.

Agree with Patrick’s assessment of DC’s personality. He is a lightweight, and he and Osborne are now completely out of their depth – and the general public are beginning to realise that.

When DC became Tory leader five years ago, pre-global crisis, things were much simpler. He presented himself as Blair minus all the Iraq baggage. His aim was just to get his team, the Tories, back into office (because of their unwavering view of themselves as the ‘natural party of government’) plus of course to grab a bigger slice of the national pie for his supporters. He would be quite happy to rest on the laurels of the prosperity created by a Labour government and claim all the credit for himself and his party. But then … everything went horribly wrong.

As Obnoxio says (and he’s not alone, as media commentators have said the same), this is an election that the Tories, for their own sake, need to lose. I agree with that, only for rather different reasons. They think if Labour stays in power, then they will get the flak that will inevitably come, because the economic situation is so dire. Therefore the Tories’ reputation for economic competence will not be tested (and found wanting). However, I think that Brown and Darling need to stay in office – not because of any party political point scoring – but because it’s actually better for the country that they handle this crisis and see it through, that we have a consistent and coherent approach. That is not what we’d get if we allowed the clueless and woefully inexperienced Osborne to take over.

Another factor that is beginning to alienate the public from the Tories is the incessant character assassination of Brown. They are tired of it, don’t see Cameron as a particularly appealing alternative, and also are more likely (than in the past) to actually question the slanted way news is presented.