[Malcolm Armsteen]

They are not out of ideas they are just out of catchy three word slogans.

I've got one.

Bunch of cunts.

[Bones McCoy]

I wonder if our new Foreign Secretary is planning a trip to Argentina anytime soon?

She'll bring a box of Ferrero Rocher and seek the ambassador's job.


Looking at the new Argie Prez, I wondered whether somebody had fed Michael Fabricant after midnight.

[Bones McCoy]

They are not out of ideas they are just out of catchy three word slogans.

I've got one.

Bunch of cunts.

Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head

[Abernathy]

Just watching PMQs. It is very noticeable that in every question he "answers", Sunak - the slimy little turd - is throwing in a variation on ".... unlike the Labour Party , who would turn everything to shite and borrow squillions and squillions of pounds"'

Yup - the fuckers are worried.

[AOB]

Rachel Reeves is ripping them a new one in her Shadow Chancellor response.

[davidjay]

This is their last throw of the dice; if the polls don't improve for them now they never will. After this it will be culture wars like we've never seen them before.

[Abernathy]

I got that impression, too. Desperate, and surprisingly half-hearted stuff, obviously intended as some sort last ditch (though no doubt the cut to inheritance tax will come along in the spring) election bribe.

But the vast majority of voters have obviously made up their minds already, and quite firmly - this government has got to go, just as soon as the election comes.

I know I'm fond of banging on about the parallels to 1997, but it seems to me that the gargantuan size of the (unprecedented, and largely unanticipated ) Labour landslide then resulted in large part from a majority of voters having arrived reasonably early on at a similar conclusion : that the Tories simply had to go, and that voting Labour was clearly the way to achieve that.

We could well be heading for a similar result next year. If there is no measurable reduction in Labour's lead come the New Year, I'm more certain than ever that it'll happen.

[Andy McDandy]

What stands out for me about 1997, as opposed to every other GE I've lived through (both as a voter and too young) was the sense that something really was up for grabs. It wasn't a choice between the two least worst options. It wasn't a case of building up false hope as had been in both 1987 and 1992 (where at least among the young, the cool option was Labour). Everyone seemed engaged in it, and I know I've mentioned the train journey I took on May 2nd, during which at every stop people were getting on and giving the entire carriage an update.

I still smile at the stunt done by Armando Iannucci, involving the actress Sally Phillips playing a prostitute flying in a helicopter over London looking for a surviving Tory MP to have sex with. For me it seemed as if all the potential of the preceding years - yes, cool Britannia and all that (but sloganeering aside, there was a renaissance in British cultural output, fashion, music and more from about 1994 onwards, thanks in part to the national lottery) - was ready to be released.

Yes, yes, great in that dawn it was and so on. And yes, within a year or so, Three Lions had given way to Vindaloo, and everyone realised that both Blur and Oasis were full of shit. But just for a short while it felt as if anything was possible.

[Abernathy]

But just for a short while it felt as if anything was possible.

Remarkably, it still felt a little bit like that in the second year of the coalition. Danny Boyle and Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s remarkable opening ceremony for the 2012 London Olympic Games was quite literally the one and only time I have ever felt pride in my country. Since then, of course, well you know. Literally makes you weep.

[Andy McDandy]

I know what you mean. I still suspect that being booed by the crowds (and not in that pantomime "yes it's me, the guy you love to hate" way he obviously thought, but genuine dislike) is what made Osborne (and many of the others) give up any pretence of giving a shit.

[Crabcakes]

You could hypothesise that many in the current Tory party saw the aforementioned 2012 Olympic Games intro and vowed to do their best to destroy, taint, sell or ruin every single thing in it that you could be proud of, up to and including defunding sports for kids to ensure it could never happen again. It was everything they loathe, because it shows exactly what we can do if we work together, treat people fairly and humanely, and encourage creativity, innovation and imagination.

And while of course it would be absurd to think this actually true, I also put this to you - how would it look any different to the failing, poorer, dirtier, more expensive, more divided and cruelty-driven wasteland that only ‘works’ for the ultra-rich that we live in today if it were?

The Tories always claim to be patriots and love their country. They are, never have been, and never will be anything of the sort. They love power and money, and the acquisition of more of both - ideally coupled with the denial of the same to others.

Last time, there was a sense of inevitability but despite the sleaze of the Major govt. it was still primarily from exhaustion - they’d run their course. This time, it’s that but coupled with the incumbents being morally bankrupt. They’ve made everyone poorer. They killed thousands through indifference and ineptitude. They’ve indulged in horrendous nepotism. And they have all been relentlessly incompetent, entitled, dishonest and corrupt.

I hope the landslide is sufficient this time to leave the rump unable to reform with any sort of cohesion, and that they are finished.

[davidjay]

On the day of the 1997 election I was on phonebank duty and as it wore on there was a real sense of excitement amongst people we were calling - they were asking how it was going and saying "We" rather than "You". We're not going to have anything like that this time round, partly because Blair did offer a genuine hope for the future and partly because Johnson and Corbyn in their own ways have poisoned the waters. And I swear that as I walked down the hill from the club where we'd been watching the count and celebrating, the sun was rising ever so faintly on the distant horizon. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive.

[Andy McDandy]

There were some decent sorts in the Major government - either basically harmless (Hanley, Lang, Bottomley), or former heavyweights there to manage the decline (Hurd, Heseltine). Or at least it's comforting to think so.

Just remember that when the Scott report (into dodgy arms sales) was released, Robin Cook was given just 2 hours to read it, not allowed to make a copy or take notes. And that was only the tip of the self serving cowardice Major and his government demonstrated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Report

[Malcolm Armsteen]

On the day of the 1997 election Mrs A and I went, with all 3 sons, to vote together.
Afterwards we went to The Greyhound at Carshalton Ponds and sat, at even tide, in the pub garden, overlooking the ponds, and drank to the incoming Labour government.

It was a moment of transcendental relief, hope and optimism, which was largely fulfilled over the ensuing years.

[Abernathy]

People used to say things like “Say what you like about that John Major, basically he’s a really decent guy”, and I’d gently point out that the terms “really decent guy” and “Leader of the Conservative Party” are mutually exclusive. The last 14 years in particular have led me to revise that opinion of Mr. Major fairly radically.

[Tubby Isaacs]

[davidjay]

Scorched earth.

[Watchman]

No pens left to even write a note

[AOB]

Here's 2% off your NI from January.

18 hours later: your energy costs are going up 7% from January.

Not that the last couple of quarterly drops of energy prices benefitted most when they bunged up the daily standing charges.

OFGEM need to be sacked off and replaced with a completely independent committee with zero ties to Government.

"Non-Ministerial Government Department". Well that's me convinced off their absolutely scrupulous impartiality.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Scorched earth.

Yep

And the structure with the OBR can't even flag it up. The Governent just lies about all these cuts and tax rises it's going to do to create the "fiscal headroom", And the OBR just has to take that on trust. When the election comes, they'll no doubt drop the tax rises they told the OBR they'd do, and the OBR aren't allowed to comment on the manifesto.