Re: The UK General Election Thread

[Shoeshine]

I really, really struggle to understand how legal aid can be offered to 3 MPs who earn in excess of £60k a year and not to people who really need it.

[Allan D]

It seems that their defence will be not a denial of the facts (that they effectively stole money from the public purse) but that the courts have no competence in the matter because parliamentary business (including presumably the payment of expenses) is excluded from legal action under the privileges granted to Parliament by the Bill of Rights of 1689.

Curiously, however, when, last October, in the wake of the scandal, the Prime Minister appointed Sir Thomas Legg to conduct an independent audit of MPs expenses over the previous 5 years with the power to issue demands for repayment for any expenses Legg considered to be unreasonable, irrespective of the rules pertaining at the time, there was an immediate howl of outrage from MPs who threatened to seek a judicial review (presumably at their own expense) of this, in their view, arbitrary procedure and the Government was forced to appoint Sir Ian Kennedy, a former judge, to act as a tribunal of appeal to Sir Thomas' findings.

Labour's Bill Etherington, the Sunderland North MP, became the first refusenik of the affair when he warned he would not pay back any money claimed under the rules as they stood at the time. "They can take the matter to court," he told the Sunderland Echo.

Furious MPs fight back in row over Sir Thomas Legg's expenses review

The result was to make the cost of investigating MPs' expenses exceed the value of of the repayments recovered by the independent audit. I don't recall the three defendants currently charged, or anyone else, suggesting that a judicial review was clearly out of the question since expenses were subject to parliamentary privilege granted by the 1689 Bill of Rights.

Thus there is one rule when MPs wish to keep part, or all, of their expenses and they are the plaintiffs and another when they wish to keep part, or all, of their liberty and they find themselves in the dock. Some inconsistency on their part, I would have thought, n'est-ce pas?

[JKLever]

Gordon Broon says the MP's must pay legal aid back. Good luck with that Gordo.

[Allan D]

Another bogus, meaningless statement by Broon in a bid to save face rather like his statement at yesterday's manifesto launch that 90% of cancer patients survive (if diagnosed within 4 weeks of acquiring the illness - although most cancer patients are not diagnosed within that time frame and the UK has among the worst cancer patient outcomes of any advanced economy).

The government changed the rules to prevent "white-collar fraudsters" obtaining legal aid (currently running at £2.1 billion per annum) but the new regulations only come into force in June and so Morley, Chaytor and Devine can still apply under the old rules. The Legal Services Commission can also apply to have all, or part, of the money paid back after the trial but, win or lose the case, the Three Stooges could then apply for a judicial review of the decision using, you've guessed it, legal aid.

It seems also that the three will not have to be subject to the indignity of standing in the dock but will be able to sit next to their expensively-suited barristers US-style during their (separate) trials. As the late Sir John Junor would say in his column in the Sunday Express:

Pass the sick bag, Alice!

At least, Hanningfield, the only Tory in the bunch, had the decency, or the shame, not to apply for legal aid.

[JKLever]

Nick Clegg and his wife, Vince have released their manifesto today then.

Bloody pinko liberals!

[Allan D]

Interesting post on this blog about how the Blessed Vince can no more add up than his counterparts in the other two major parties:

Burning Our Money

Poor St Vince. Back in the day when he could just criticise from the sidelines, his soul could remain reasonably intact. But now he's pitching for hung parliament power, he's been sucked down into the same dark pit of spin and half-truths that ensnare and condemn every other mortal sinner.

May the Lord have mercy.

I don't think Nick and Vince are man and wife (if so, who's the man and who's the wife?). They're more like Penny and Vince in the 1980s BBC-TV sitcom and Just Good Friends.

[Neil D]

Just watched the LibDem party political broadcast.

Is it just me or does Nick Clegg have a creepy John Leslie-style sexual predator aura about him?

[Eric Air Emu]

Aplogies for only skimming over his thread's 31 pages. Three thoughts:

-I am not bloody well joining the government of Great Britain. I've got a job that keeps me busy enough and I pay my taxes so someone can do the government stuff on my behalf. No wonder the tories have taken a dip in the polls today.

-I rather like the cut of the Lib Dem manifesto's gib.

- Apparently my vote (in a borough that has been tory since 1850 something) is worth 0.09% of a vote in the sense that it is likely to be represented in the outcome of the general election.

[Allan D]

Just watched the LibDem party political broadcast.

Is it just me or does Nick Clegg have a creepy John Leslie-style sexual predator aura about him?

Apparently, "not more than" 30 women must think so:

Lib Dem Lothario Nick Clegg admits he slept with 30 women

He is also the only one of the 3 party leaders to have a criminal conviction:

Clegg 'not proud' of conviction

Public school hooligan.

[Allan D]

I wonder who will provide the "Portillo moment" in this election i.e. a prominent personality getting booted out by the voters on a larger than average swing. Top candidates are:

Jack Straw at Blackburn
Alistair Darling at Edinburgh South West (average swing would get him out)

Other potential candidates for the smirky silence after the declaration are:

John Bercow at Buckingham
Hazel Blears at Salford

Longshots are:

Nick Clegg at Sheffield Hallam (only a LibDem gain from the Tories in 2001)
St Vince at Twickenham (due to the mansion tax).

[Basil]

Jacqui Smith at Redditch is vulnerable too

[Allan D]

If the Tories can't get Jacqui Smith out at Redditch (3.35% swing required) they might as well pack up and go home.

[Basil]

Gordon Brown now admits he should have been tougher on the banks when he was chancellor.

No shit Sherlock!!

[Allan D]

As shown by his "golden age" speech at the Mansion House on 20 June 2007:

The financial services sector in Britain and the City of London at the centre of it, is a great example of a highly skilled, high value added, talent driven industry that shows how we can excel in a world of global competition. Britain needs more of the vigour, ingenuity and aspiration that you already demonstrate that is the hallmark of your success.

Speech by Gordon Brown to City of London - 20 June 2007

He was also invited by Dick Fuld (later convicted of false accounting) to open the Canary Wharf branch of Lehman Brothers, whose collapse in October 2008 sparked the world financial crisis, when he spoke in even more fulsome terms of the entrepreneurial spirit prevailing in the financial services industry and the necessity for integrating the financial markets of Europe and the US. As L.P.Hartley pointed out at the beginning of The Go-Between:

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there

[JKLever]

Hands up if you're watching the election debate tomorrow. Apparently no one is allowed to cheer or boo. B'stards, I want to see eggs and flour.

[Basil]

Hands up if you're watching the election debate tomorrow. Apparently no one is allowed to cheer or boo. B'stards, I want to see eggs and flour.

Visions of Brown, Clegg and Cameron on Ready Steady Cook.

[Allan D]

Hands up if you're watching the election debate tomorrow. Apparently no one is allowed to cheer or boo. B'stards, I want to see eggs and flour.

Election to be decided by a leaders' wives' Pancake Race? Odds on the Spanish bint.

[LeFromage]

Hands up if you're watching the election debate tomorrow. Apparently no one is allowed to cheer or boo. B'stards, I want to see eggs and flour.

Bollocks to that. I'll watch the American Presidential debates, but not our mob of dipshits.

Cameron should piss it. If he can't come across better than "Face for radio" Brown on TV, he's f*cked: that's all he's got.

[Allan D]

Strange how these leaders' confrontations are being built up as something new when they occur every week when the Commons are sitting. Same as then except they will last 3 times longer with no yah-booing backbenchers and will probably be about as enlightening as PMQs. Domestic policy (presumably crime, health, education, reform of Parliament and, if they have time for it, which is unlikely, the environment) tonight, international policy next week on Sky (wonder what they'll argue about then - war in Afghanistan? - EU membership? - don't think so, somehow) followed by the economy on BBC the week after exactly a week before polling day.

[Chivalry Augustus]

Watching this debate nonsense.

Too much anecdotal rubbish.

Nothing much of interest.

Clegg comes across pretty well.

[Allan D]

GB comes off worst. Grins too much and interrupts too much. Cameron's got the prime (literally) position by being put in the middle. Presumably they will be rearranged for subsequent debates. Clegg is populist but wordy. Brown looks rattled and waffly. Cameron looks assured and speaks to the point. Both Cameron and Clegg did well on MPs expenses. Broon was awful. He shakes his head around too much and looks nervous and fidgety. Cameron keeps still and generally looks into the camera

[Allan D]

Bit of an ordeal but I would score as follows (out of 10):

Cameron - 8
Clegg - 7
Brown - 3

Cameron had the strongest opening and closing statement although "jobs tax" became a bit repetitious. Clegg was strong but juvenile. Brown simply couldn't answer the point about why Labour manifesto promises such as parliamentary reform, pledges to cancer patients and free care for the elderly have not been introduced in the previous 13 years.

I find General Elections a bit like the Eurovison Song Contest - you have to sit through a whole lot of tedium before you get to the most interesting part which is watching the results come in. The Eurovision Song Contest only lasts an evening whilst a General Election takes 3 1/2 weeks.

[JKLever]

About right, the big winner was Clegg i'd say - these debates will elevate the LibDems way above the public conciousness they would otherwise get.

Think their stance on Trident is bollocks though frankly.

[Chivalry Augustus]

Why?

The country already has a nuclear deterrent and has a big brother with a much greater nuclear force than we can ever have. Trident is an unnecessary extension of something we shall never, ever use. I was most impressed with Clegg I would say as Cameron and Brown bickered too much, but underneath each individual's spiel there was very little substance. None of the parties have any particular policy and each manifesto is there to win votes, whereupon in slipping out of the public consciousness they can giggle as they cross significant parts of said manifesto out.

Brown's constant pushing of his 'recovery' which has been built on printing money, artificially holding the interest rates, and trying to get everybody (including the government) to spend was laughable. He was the least impressive of the three by quite some distance, and I would suggest it is because he is simply an unlikeable, horrible creature who would make an enemy no matter which room he strode into.

[PeterCS]

FWIW my views:

Brown was clearly in an invidious position from the outset. Suggesting innovations he wanted to make on various fronts after 13 years of government was unlikely to come across as plausible, and for the most part it didn't. Of course, he bears the brunt for the worldwide slump, and the expenses scandal, and the digruntlement (and worse) those crises lead to He was utterly dreadful on Education - clinging on to the overbearing, invasive, philistine and resources-wasting fat-cattery of "target culture" which New Labour inherited from Thatcherism, and came to believe in, plus the "hitsquad" panacea" of the Academies and the superheads - which simply shows that technocratic New Labour forged by Blair and continued by Brown does not understand Education, and what fosters learning and results

Having said that - and that he is not a natural as a leader or public performer - I thought Brown held together better than I expected him to as regards substance on most issues, and landed a few successful blows on Cameron (particularly on the specifics of his party's cuts) as he was briefed to do. BTW: I don't see regard blows as "unPrime-Ministerial" (Osborne) - Brown's not the bloody Queen. (Or even Freddie Mercury,) I though he came across as uncomfortable, tired and solid.

Cameron, as Allan suggests, was straight-backed, level-headed and professional. He did come across as reasonable, and reasonably conciliatory (clearly a decision to be seen as non-divisive, post-Thatcherite). And he was strongest when taking Brown to task on traditonally strong Tory issues, and on Brown's weakest points (making new proposals after 13 years of inaction - a bit unfair, see above, but effective). On the other hand, I felt he came across as a bit TOO assured, i.e. as a sort of (over)polished PR man, giving a proficient confident performance. He seemed discomfited, even ruffled when taken to task for the unsaid elments of his manifesto. Principally, on how hard specifically the cuts would fall. The worst of Cameron is (of course) not Cameron - a likeable, insightful chap in himself - but his limits: .... that he is a figurehead for the George Osbornes of this world, those who are shamelessly opportunistic and self-interested under a guise of national interest.

Clegg, I thought, was astonishingly good. First time I have been impressed by him. His lines on Trident were spot on - built and financed for an era where the point was to threaten to flattern St Petersburg and Moscow is exactly it. His (admittedly old) approach of a plague on both their houses was probably effective - and with some justification, given the politics of the last 50-60 years, and especially that of the last 35

It's true, as Cameron pointed out, that Clegg had it easy, had the luxury of being able to sound on moral high ground. But I thought he came across as frank, style with substance, and relevant.

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