Ed's stretched too far??

[roosterboost]

The ship is most definitely not sinking, the Lib Dems are quite rightly seeking to look after their own interests after 4.5 years of acting most honorably in putting the country right after the Labour debacle.

 

Lib Dems and Tories are not natural partners but the seriousness of the situation was such that it was necessary for them to subsume their differences in the interests of the nation. They have done that and a good job they have done to.

 

I have some sympathy with the Lib Dems as some of the more simple minded of the electorate will undoubtedly blame them for the necessary austerity that has been required. Others will waste their vote with UKIP.

 

Cameron has shown excellent leadership over his period in office, the opening up of overseas markets making us less reliant on the loonies in Europe, lowering of taxes, reduction in welfare spending are absolutely necessary and right.

 

A new mandate next year will see a further attack on immigration, strengthening of the economy and further reductions in welfare wastage.

 

Cameron is the right man for the job for the next five years.

 

Milliband will help his party when he resigns.

 

You want a party in crisis? Here's a party in crisis.

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/10/fall-reluctant-leader-inside-story-scottish-labours-crisis

 

On Friday 17 October, Ed Miliband’s chief of staff, Tim Livesey, phoned Johann Lamont, and informed her that the Scottish Labour general secretary, Ian Price, was no longer in his position. The opening shot in what would be her final week as party leader had been fired. Enraged that Price had been driven out without Lamont’s consent, an aide told Miliband’s team that it had made her look “ridiculous” and that her position was now “untenable”. To this, the response came that this was not the intention and that Miliband wanted her to remain in place.

 

It was several days later that Lamont’s team concluded it had been lied to. By its account, Margaret Curran, the shadow Scottish secretary and a friend of Lamont’s since freshers’ week at Glasgow University 38 years ago, phoned members of Labour’s Scottish executive committee on Miliband’s behalf to canvass opinion on whether she should step down. It is a claim flatly denied by Curran’s office.

 

“The only person she spoke to that week was the chair of the Scottish executive and it wasn’t about that [Lamont’s leadership],” a spokesman told me. But Lamont’s allies maintain that Miliband was guilty of a “ham-fisted plot”. “If Ed had wanted her to go, he just needed to sit down and say to her, ‘Thanks for what you’ve done over the last three years, I think it’s time for a change of direction,’” one told me.

 

Several Labour MPs attributed what one described as the “brutal knifing” to polls, analysed in detail on the New Statesman’s election website May2015.com, showing that the Scottish National Party could win as many as 25 of the party’s 40 Scottish Westminster seats. One source spoke of “panic” in Miliband’s office.

 

Others suggested that Jim Murphy, the shadow international development secretary and the front-runner to become leader, was preparing to publish a list of MPs and MSPs calling for Lamont’s resignation. As rumours of her departure swirled, Lamont concluded that she was, in the words of a political namesake, “in office but not in power”.

 

Even those inured to the gang warfare that periodically engulfs Scottish Labour (an institution said to have more factions than members) are astonished by what happened next. After informing her closest aides of her intention to resign on the evening of 23 October, Lamont attended a policy meeting in Glasgow at which the deputy leader, Anas Sarwar, the Paisley MP and shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, and the business manager, Paul Martin, were present. Having chosen not to tell them of her decision to step down, she went to the offices of the Labour-supporting tabloid the Daily Record on Central Quay, Glasgow.

 

What resulted was one of the most remarkable political interviews of recent years. As well as announcing her resignation, of which Miliband’s team was only informed on 24 October, Lamont co-opted nationalist rhetoric and accused Labour of treating the Scottish party as the “branch office of a party based in London”. One MP spoke of a “nuclear button” having been pressed; another source compared it to “walking out of a room and throwing a grenade behind you”.

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With the Republicans winning the midterm and taking over the senate it sounds like all politics will be stuck in mud for a few years. How is this a good thing?

 

Its like having two governments, one who can do things, another who can block those things but not do things, in essence creating a stalemate through extreme squabbling. Double the trouble!

[geared]

Isn't it quite a common feature over there that during the mid-term elections the president looses control of the senate??

 

Thats why they push through all the legislation during the first half, so they can spend the rest of the time preparing for elections and making the other side look bad.

[top4718]

He's made some pretty magnificent promises but I think this is far and away the biggest thing he's said yet.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29857849

 

 

 

If he sticks to his word I'd probably vote for him to be fair

 

I wouldn't bank on that, I'm still staggered in this country that the big three parties issue a manifesto/make speeches for things they have no intention of keeping to and we still fall for it every 4-5yrs, amazing.

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Talking about taking things too far, Ed wastes all his questions at PMQ's on a single question even though it was answered straight away. Doh!

 

So Ed says he wants to stay in EU no matter what and tries to undermine the PM's stance / hand to renegotiate... Basically selling us out every which way.

 

Labour = no EU vote.

 

Labour = scupper any chances of EU reform / renegotiation.

 

[geared]

I'm still staggered in this country that the big three parties issue a manifesto/make speeches for things they have no intention of keeping to and we still fall for it every 4-5yrs, amazing.

 

I'm with you on that, there should be some kind of legislation put in place to force the to deliver on their promises or provide a damn good excuse why they have not.

 

It's not right to promise everything under the sun and then don't even bother to follow it up when you get in power.