And Another Thing…

“Car Crash”? Hardly. Kerr waffled, got found out on Afghanistan, walked into a trap over the postal strike, obfuscated about his place of birth and generally lacked gravitas and credibility. But a car crash it was not. Car Crashes are what you get on QT or The Commons when people like Jacqui Smith try to mitigate the expenses fiasco.

The sad truth is, on the basis of the Newsnacht interview, Kerr is no candidate.

He has spent too long responding to messages in his ear along the lines of “Dave, we are running early, can you fill for two minutes”. Never underestimate the ability of broadcast journalists to spout total sh*te on cue.

So, hey, leave off labelling us all “cyber nats”. Yes, I support the SNP in general, but only if they are up to it. When it comes to voting, I shall make up my mind based upon the record and the strength of the local candidates.

“The nation holds its breath”

That made me laugh.

As do the SNP on occasion.

@Quietzapple Tuesday 3 November 2009 at 9:43 am
//
While the thread has been moved over to pontificating on the natures of its participants
//

So. It is OK for you to call people trolls, but not for people to comment on you. Jolly good. Keep it consistent, QZ

Tom,

Remember this?
http://www.alba.org.uk/nescotland/nescot8.html

Quietzapple’s First Law of Spoelling:

Always get the critical word wholly correct, especially if it is being used for emphasis.

Quietzapple’s First Law of Corrections

Those whom the Gods use to correct others they frequently cause to make a bit of an alec of their corrections.

Academic performance of school children who smoke cannabis daily deteriorates; they have a chronic low-grade intoxication.

http://url.ie/2r

Look forward to hearing those who defend the Nutt pro dope publicity defend the kids whose lives fall into this downward spiral. (V unlikely, it has been quite appalling how so many ‘adults’ consider solely their own drug positions, some as though it is everything to them)

Elsewhere it is made clear that 1/5 of the schitzophrenics in the UK are on drugs which contribute to their appalling and unpleasant conditions.

Anyone who checks out the Dutch story will find a wider variety of drugs have moved in behind cannabis.

Nutt wanted Cannabis downgraded. Those who praise his credentials might ask wether all the experts they have lauded, imagining that thereby they managed to attack an excellent Labour Home Secretary, support their libertine views.

If there is ever again a Conservative Government there will have to be a referendum to confirm, as seems most likely, that the British people wish to remain in the EU.

The alternative is that Carswell, Hannan, and others who will be as determined as Major’s bastards, will not let up. Chameleon (or Osborne’s) only shot to stop them will be a direct appeal to the people.

The issue would have to be put to the people.

Chameleon will not get some imaginary concessions from the rest of the EU. Less chance than there is of a Blair Presidency.

When he loses the GE, if the Tory Party survives in something like its present form, the sixth tory leader in 13 years will have to bring in some sort of oath, for members, inc MPs & MEPs to agree the new leader’s position – In or Out?

We shall see.

A real social democrat, it’s a pity Tom, your generation has thrown away his strongly held beliefs and instead opted to sell out to thatcherism and in the end neo-conservatism.

I am sure he was all that you say Tom and to reach 96 he did well.

Well he was erudite and, for a politician, appeared fairly bright.

I do wonder at all the hoopla now he has died, I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but adulatory paens from those who probably hadn’t known him does seem a bit odd.

Oh, I thought he was an excellent leader, open and honest with little or no deviousness and guile.

Chris Wills: “he was erudite and, for a politician, appeared fairly bright”

Out of interest, since you’re clearly far cleverer than any politician, would you mind sharing with us exactly what you do for a living? I imagine you’re at the very least a captain of industry? A leader of men, a self-made millionaire? Perhaps you’ve authored some modest-selling but vastly intellectual and well-reviewed academic books? What did you do with your double-first from Oxford, then? Wait a minute – are you Richard Branson? You are, aren’t you? Go on, admit it…

(Just routine tedious pedantry -which isn’t very senstitive given the subject of this post. Still.

I won’t be gutted if it doesn’t appear)

“…entirely, or even wholely,…”

‘wholly’ and don’t both words mean the same thing anyway?

Regardless of their personal view of Mr Foot, many will be thinking that 96 is not a bad innings for a male. Thirty more than poor old Paul.

You’re absolutely right – lazy writing by me. I meant to write “largely” rather than “wholly” (or even “wholely”. Damn.

He had every chances of winning the election until the Gang of 4 ran off to form the SDP on the highly dubious principle that only MPs should elect the party leader.

Not the Falklands, not the so-called Donkey Jacket, not the longest suicide note in history.

He did of course get more votes than William Hague managed for the Tories in 2001.

I loved the guts of Michael foot and voted for him…..

“infighting and civil war” politics was a lot more interesting then and you actually had a difference between competing visions.

The tendency of decent men and women is of course to remember the good and hide the bad of the departed; a perfectly understandable human emotion and one that is right.

Michael Foot was a disaster as labour leader electorally but like many before him (but not many after) in both main parties, he was a man of principle and should be respected as such.

As someone who supports the conservatives, I always thought I’d have liked him personally, had I had the opportunity to meet him.

Maybe the reputation of politicians now suffers from the lack of great thinkers, a category into which Foot undoubtedly falls. Its quite hard to compare the current front bench and shadow front bench with him and his like intellectually

Hi Tom

I work for a living helping to produce actual products that people want to buy.

I fully understand if the concept of making things people want to buy escapes you.

As I didn’t know him I can only go by appearance, make of it what you wish.

Just wondering, why the reference to Oxford?
A reference to Glasgow or St Andrews I would have understood.

A very sad loss. He was a link back to the radical 30s, when he was against appeasement, whilst the government was letting Hitler run rings round them. He is mostly associated with the unhappy time he was Labour leader, and he was horribly vilified and caricatured by the press. It was a mistake for him to be leader, despite the fact that he undoubtably had a great intellect.

He had the air of a professor, someone who actually had a thorough and deep knowledge of history, politics and literature. Contrast that today, where politicians have to use soundbites to get their message across – the polar opposite of Foot’s style. Take for example these TV debates that are coming up – the format is that each of the party leaders has just one minute to answer the question. That is ridiculous. This seems to assume that the viewer has the attention span of a goldfish, which is rather insulting. I hope they have a rethink on this, because that’s not a debate, it’s a gameshow.

Another thing about Foot – he was advocating the UK’s withdrawal from Europe in the 80s, and the Tories dismissed the idea as bonkers. Now, Europe is what the Tories tear themselves apart over, and it could even prove their Nemesis. Maybe they should have listened to Mr Foot, after all.

RIP Michael, a great man and great parliamentarian.

Michael Foot was beyond “reasonably bright”. He was a true intellectual, who could easily have passed his life in the cosy world of academia, writing and teaching. Instead he followed his socialist ideals into the world of politics. He was a great thinker, and a brilliant orator, but not the greatest of leaders. I suspect that among other difficulties, he lacked a ruthless streak. And it’s doubtful that any leader could have achieved a Labour victory in 1983.

He was also unfailingly loyal, to his wife, to his friends, to his party and to his beliefs. No flip-flopping for him.

And I doubt, although he was a great debater, and would argue his point fiercely, that he ever made a snide or discourteous remark about any colleague, on any side of the House. A real gentleman.

@ Eric: yes, I’ve seen plenty of those comments, praising MF whilst having a swipe at Labour post ’97. Lots of those on Guardian Talk, perhaps not unsurprisingly. However, this comment on there (from a Tory) highlighted the flaw in all that nostalgic longing for old Labour:

Good to see the old news footage of proper labour politicians – bad clothes, bad hair, bad ideas and totally un-electable, ah those were the days.

“I work for a living helping to produce actual products that people want to buy.”
Not in this country though is it…?

“As I didn’t know him I CAN ONLY GO BY APPEARANCE, make of it what you wish.”
Says it all.

A great man, nearly.
Not one anyone could dislike.
I think of him as a Radical before a socialist, a socialist by deduction as it were or by way of updating of his radicalism. Ah, the Old Left! With its virtues and weaknesses but Foot somehow just short of quite the verymost irritating of the latter if you know who I mean.

Very English IMHO (enriched and absolutely not contradicted by his Welsh connections), by birth or adoption part of the English intellectual aristocracy, a believer in democracy and a strong House of Commons man (in his time and until very recently the two would not have been seen as in contradiction, anything but, he wanted it to be true to what he saw as its best traditions), steeped and consciously cultivating, perhaps trying to replay, the traditions of English radicalism the old bibliophile was author of so many articles and books in and about the traditions of English radicalism, er, Cobbett (even if he was a Tory), Hazlitt (note to self, look up who was Hazlett, I am a bit hazly about him) about Swift (who was also a Tory some of the time) and about Cromwell no doubt, anyway about Marlborough (damn me, not sure he wasn’t a Tory too). Whatever that was – note to self, revise what was a Tory in those times, I have read it several times but never really got the hang if it. Anyway lots of English radicals especially literary ones, Chartists, Hunt, Byron, Wilkes and Liberty, and always to be relied on, as Bernard Levin remarked, if you wanted a rousing speech on Spanish Civil war… (contd on p. 94)

The mantle of Bevan descended on him. That would have been when Bevan started dressing more smartly, maybe it was a secondhand duffel coat. Friend of Beaverbrook if he had any, protege’ anyway. That’s enough Tories.

He had a lucky or inspired moment in 1940 when he made his reputation with a book ‘The Guilty Men’, something I now read that may have been more influential even than Churchill in inspiring the anti-appeasement sentiment of WW2 and (as it is nowadays to me looking) myth thereafter. The best man to help the nation towards what he needed also for himself – amnesia!? “to ignore the record of the party of which Foot himself was a member” “first stood for parliament at the age of 22 in the 1935 general election when he contested Monmouth. During this election Foot criticised the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, for seeking rearmament.” Yes I have in the past read accounts of his of that, and they were not really supporting appeasement and opposing rearmament you see, it was all about if only those Tories (them again!) had enlisted at the same time the strength of the League of Nations plus an alliance with that friendly Soviet Union. So that’s all right then.

I am sad to hear of his death. Not because it is premature, at his age he was not owed much more; in fact in the CND marches of the ‘60s people were already saying how unwell he was looking. But because he belongs to a world and outlook it will soon be impossible to imagine. Because the things I have alluded to above, only beginning to question them, will come in for wholesale revisionism, no doubt just starting with the obits I haven’t got round to reading yet. Sad and nostalgic for a vanished world in which we could afford a Michael Foot (though not as LP leader or PM).

@Alec
Ah, it’s a swarthy man of toil! Teachers, doctors and makes of spectacles… watch out!

What on earth are you rabbiting on about?
Medication running low?

Did I write that teachers, doctors or spectacle makers don’t work?
No I didn’t.

I also didn’t equate being rich with being intelligent as our gracious host did.

[...] Hythlodaeus who describes his death as a great loss to the socialist tradition in Britain,  Tom Harris states the oft reported comment that Foot was unlucky to lead the Labour party when it was [...]