Re: The UK General Election Thread

[Shoeshine]

Great change in topic BTW

We're bored with the election already. To be fair, they've been campaigning for at least a day now. Just another month to go...

[Basil]

Frankly, I love it - you won't hear me crying boredom. There are millions the world over who would give their right arms to be bored by an election campaign.

[JKLever]

Yeah, I quite enjoy it too.

Broon got his first public heckling today I see!

Watched a bit of QT, Tories didn't come accross all that well - whoever put the lightweight Theresa May up in that debate needs shooting!

[Basil]

Yeah, I quite enjoy it too.

Broon got his first public heckling today I see!

Watched a bit of QT, Tories didn't come accross all that well - whoever put the lightweight Theresa May up in that debate needs shooting!

The Tories' achiles heel is everyone but Cameron. Some of them are clearly rent-a-gaff inc.

[Allan D]

Just to identify the (inner) War Cabinet in this picture posted earlier which was taken around the end of December 1940 for those who might not know:



L-R Standing:

Arthur Greenwood, Minister Without Portfolio, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (left the government completely in February 1942 to become Leader of the Opposition)

Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service from May 1940, member of War Cabinet from October 1940 (later Foreign Secretary in 1945-51 Labour Government)

Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production from May 1940, member of War Cabinet from August 1940, later Minister of Supply and War Production (left government in March 1942 but returned to War Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal in September 1943). Canadian newspaper proprietor who owned the Daily Express and the London Evening Standard and friend of Churchill, he had briefly been a Conservative MP before WWI when Bonar Law, the then Conservative leader, recommended him for a peerage. He is the only person, apart from Churchill, to have served in the British government during both world wars (he was Minister of Information from February-November 1918)

Sir Kingsley Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer from May 1940, member of the War Cabinet from October 1940 but omitted in February 1942 whilst remaining Chancellor (only occasion when Chancellor of the Exchequer has not been a member of the Cabinet), he died in office in September 1943.

L-R Sitting:

Sir John Anderson, Lord President of the Council, member of the War Cabinet from October 1940, previously Lord Privy Seal (overseeing civil defence) 1938-9, Home Secretary 1939-40, he succeeded Wood as Chancellor (with membership of the War Cabinet) in September 1943. Known as "The Great Panjamdrum" he was nominated by the War Cabinet to become PM if both Churchill and Eden had been killed in transit to one of their many wartime conferences.

Winston Churchill, Prime Minister and Minister of Defence.

Clement Attlee, Lord Privy Seal, Leader of the Labour Party, Dominions Secretary 1942-3, Lord President of the Council from September 1943. He was given the formal title of Deputy Prime Minister by Churchill in 1942 (the first time this had been done although as leader of the smaller party in the coalition he would not have succeeded Churchill) and chaired the War Cabinet during Churchill's frequent absences abroad. He became the first Prime Minister of a majority Labour Government in July 1945.

Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary and member of the War Cabinet from December 1940. Eden had been Foreign Secretary previously from 1935-38 but resigned in February 1938 over secret talks held with the Italian Government. He rejoined the Government, along with Churchill, on the outbreak of war as first Dominions Secretary then, under Churchill, as Secretary of State for War. He succeeded Viscount Halifax as Foreign Secretary on the former's appointment as Ambassador to Washington. He succeeded Churchill as Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister in April 1955.

Appears to be missing: Herbert Morrison, Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security and member of War Cabinet from October 1940. Former Leader of the London County Council from 1934-40, he lost out in the ballot for Labour Leader in 1935 to Attlee and was Lord President of the Council and Deputy PM in the !945-51 Labour Government. He was also the maternal grandfather of Peter Mandleson.

Subsequent members of the War Cabinet:

Oliver Lyttleton: Minister of State resident at Middle East HQ June 1941-March 1942 with membership of War Cabinet, Minister of War Production from March 1942. Former Chairman of AEI industries he was sent to Cairo to sort out supply problems of the Eighth Army. He was Colonial Secretary in Churchill's 1951-55 administration mainly dealing with the Malayan Emergency, a communist-led insurgency against the British presence. As Lord Chandos he was instrumental in establishing the National Theatre on the South Bank and one of the three auditoria is nnamed after him.

Sir Stafford Cripps: Lord Privy Seal February-November 1942. Expelled from the Labour Party in 1939 Churchill appointed him Ambassador to Moscow in May 1940 and Lord Privy Seal and member of the War Cabinet on his return. Mounted the only serious political challenge to Churchill arguing for a reorganisation of the way the war was conducted. In November 1942 he became Minister of Aircraft Production but outside the War Cabinet. He became successively President of the Board of Trade, Minister of Economic Affairs and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1945-51 Attlee Government. He resigned due to ill-health in 1950 and died in 1952. He was succeeded as MP for Bristol East in a bye-election in November 1950 by the son of one of his colleagues in both the 1929-31 minority Labour Government and the 1945 Government, Anthony Wedgwood Benn.

Richard Casey; Minister Resident at Middle East HQ March 1942-January 1944. The only non-UK resident and non-UK citizen (apart from Beaverbrook) to be a member of the UK War Cabinet. Although, being based at Cairo, he rarely attended meetings of the War Cabinet his function was to represent the interests of the Dominions fighting alongside Britain. A Cabinet minister in the government of Robert Menzies, Menzies appointed him to be the first Australian Ambassador to the United States in 1940. Churchill appointed him to succeed Lyttleton as his political representative in Cairo in March 1942 when Lyttleton was recalled to head the new Ministry of War Production (after Beaverbrook had resigned after three weeks following clashes with Bevin), much to the annoyance of the Australian Labour Government under John Curtin who had replaced Menzies in 1941.

Churchill appointed Casey Governor of Bengal in 1944 but he returned to Australia after the war serving in various posts under Menzies and hoping to succeed him. However in 1960 he accepted a UK peerage from the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. In 1965 Menzies recommended that Casey be appointed Governor-General, the first Australian to hold the post. Since then every Governor-General has been an Australian. Casey's most controversial decision was to appoint John McEwen, the leader of the minority Country Party, rather than William MacMahon, then Deputy Leader of the ruling Liberal Party, as Prime Minister following the disappearance of Harold Holt, Menzies' successor, in December 1967 (McEwen later resigned in favour of John Gorton). Casey died in 1976.

Lord Woolton: Minister of Reconstruction from September 1943. Formerly the retail store owner, Frederick Marquis, he had been a popular and efficient Minister of Food, administering the ration scheme from May 1940 (although outside the War Cabinet). After the war Churchill appointed him Chairman of the Conservative Party Organisation and he was largely instrumental in returning the Conservatives to power in 1951 by improving local party organisation and persuading the Liberals to withdraw most of their candidates in the 1951 General Election (the number of constituencies contested by the Liberals went from 475 in 1950 to 109 in 1951) resulting in Churchill being returned to office despite the Conservatives securing 200,000 less votes than Labour.

To correct my previous posting, although Hugh Dalton did serve as Minister for Economic Warfare from May 1940-february 1942 and then subsequently as President of the Board of rade he was never a member of the War Cabinet (although he attended meetings on request). He subsquently became Chancellor of the Exchequer (and member of the cabinet) in the Attlee Government from 1945-7 and then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister of Local Government andPlanning from 1948-51.

The above was also not the group that decided to seize or disable the French Fleet at Oran and Mers-el-Kebir on 30 June 1940 following the French surrender, "by all necessary means". The War Cabinet at that stage consisted of the following:

Winston Churchill - Prime Minister and Minister of Defence.
Neville Chamberlain - Lord President of the Council
Clement Attlee - Lord Privy Seal
Viscount Halifax - Foreign Secretary
Arthur Greenwood - Minister without Portfolio.

[Allan D]

Here is a photograph of a more relaxed War Cabinet with a wider group of ministers taken in the garden of 10 Downing Street in October 1941:



Morrison can be seen standing in the centre immediately behind Churchill and Attlee. Standing on the extreme left is Sir Archibald Sinclair, Leader of the Liberal Party, who had been Churchill's ADC when Churchill served (briefly) in the trenches during WWI and who was then Secretary of State for Air. Next to him is the Labour MP, A.V.Alexander, whom Churchill appointed to succeed himself as First Lord of the Admiralty and who later took the decision, along with Attlee, Bevin and Dalton for Britain to acquire its own atomic bomb.

Standing on the extreme right is Brendan Bracken, the owner of the Financial Times and Churchill's 'faithful chela' who supported Churchill both politically and financially during his "wilderness years" on the backbenches from 1931-9 and who was Minister of Information at this time.

[eowyn]

Apropos of nothing, why does/did Anthony Eden always look terribbly effete in any photo you see of him?

[tac]

maybe he was terribly effete?

doesn't that mean he'd just given birth?

[Merlin]

...doesn't that mean he'd just given birth?

Judging from the position of his hands, I'd say he was trying to warm something to the task ahead ...
Note his smile ... dead give-away!

[JKLever]

Michael Caine apparently walked into the Tory press conference with David Cameron - would not have put Caine down as a Tory

[Shoeshine]

Why not JKL?

[JKLever]

Why not JKL?

Just his background and upbringing, doesn't strike me as a traditional Tory.

[Zat]

Caine's a bit of a mercenary, goes wherever the money's offered him. Explains some of the shit movies he's been in.

[Shoeshine]

Why not JKL?

Just his background and upbringing, doesn't strike me as a traditional Tory.

Huge swathes of the working class voted for Thatcher. There's a pretty strong history of the working class going for the Tories. Cynically, you could then ask why it would be unusual for multi-millionaire Michael Caine to vote for the Tories. However, listening to it, he hasn't come out as a Tory, he's backed a specific idea.

[JKLever]

Well he just farked it up a bit... 'This government doing a wonderful job'

[Merlin]

Michael Caine apparently walked into the Tory press conference with David Cameron - would not have put Caine down as a Tory

He's been a staunch Tory since his youth JK ... I think that both his parents were (as were a lot of Eastenders), hence the influence.

[Allan D]

Caine was a non-dom in the 1970s & '80s living in LA and it is thought that his knighthood may have been delayed as a result. Like most entertainers he is scornful of the disincentive UK tax rates provide to high earners. He has spoken of the Chancellor's proposal to increase the top rate of tax to 50% as follows:

Tax got to 82% [in the 1970s] and I thought this was kind of unfair ...I see ... that the government has taken it up to 50% and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America.

I will not pay the government more than I get. No way, ever. So they've reached their limit with me. That's the lot.

We've got three and a half million layabouts laying about on benefits and I'm 76 getting up at six o'clock in the morning to go to work to keep them.

Hang on, lads, Ive got a great idea

In a radio interview plugging his recent film Harry Brown he claimed he was closest to the US Democratic Party. He stated that what so depressed him when talking to the young people in the Elephant and Castle area of South London where the film was shot was their lack of aspiration and initiative compared to when he had been their age living in the same area.

I see, according to the article, that Ladbrokes are offering 500/1 on Caine succeeding Cameron as Tory Leader. Didn't someone tell them he was only supposed to blow the b***dy doors off Labour?

[Shoeshine]

Except that he won't pay income tax. It'll all be routed through his own company, so he'll pay minimal national insurance, and 28% Corporation Tax.

[Allan D]

I doubt it works that way. As an actor the film company pays him a salary and like all employers would deduct tax at source.

[Shoeshine]

No, Allan, not so. He's not an employee of anyone, he's a freelancer. As such, he will have his own company through which all work is routed. He doesn't work for one company, he works for loads of different ones. It's exactly how it operates. He could choose to pay income tax in just the same way as I could - by registering as a sole trader. If you do that, you are a complete cretin.

He will do it through his own company and pay himself dividends. Trust me. It's how I do it in a different sphere.

[Allan D]

So you're not supporting Labour either, I take it?

[Shoeshine]

I don't believe Labour deserve to be re-elected, any more than the Tories deserved to be in 1997.

A contrary opinion it may be in these times of hysterical screaming about him, but I thought that Blair was a very good PM, and I struggle to imagine the last 3 years ineptitude we've seen under Brown had he remained as PM.

But as a small business owner, I can tell you that the first half of this government offered extremely benign conditions for small businesses, whilst the last few years have been horrific. One of the less publicised things the government did a few years back was to increase the Corporation Tax for small businesses (but not big ones - good eh?) by 15%. That's before you take into account all of this National Insurance stuff they're talking about now.

The last few years of this government have been a disaster for small businesses, they've absolutely caned them left, right and centre. So what, people might ask. Well, that's part of the reason that we've seen so many private sector jobs, terms and conditions and hours whacked in the last couple of years. It's sheer, unadulterated madness. The complete failure of the government to sort out the banks at the same time has made things infinitely worse.

[Allan D]

Rather dull, I know, but totally agree with all of the above. I couldn't have put it better myself although I might have put it rather longer.

[JKLever]

My big beef with Labour is the ever larger nanny state and encroachment into the are of civil liberties by the state.

[Allan D]

I lost all sympathy (not that I had much to begin with) with Brown over the Damian Green Affair which I thought was the biggest constitutional outrage since Charles I tried to arrest the Five Members in January 1642. I shall be voting tactically (LibDem) in an effort to remove the ultra-left MP, Jeremy Corbyn, from Islington North.

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