The beginning of the end? (For Tony Blair)

I dont understand what the fuss is about.

28 days or 90 days nobody seriously believes it makes a scrap of difference in preventing terrorist attack do they?

BUT when the next bomb goes off Blair will be able to say "I wanted to give the police the powers they said they needed... you denied it to them...dont blame me for bombs in Manchester or London or Hemel Hempstead"

AND the Tories have made themselves look complete jerks in the eyes of the public.

FURTHERMORE the really important stuff on health and education reform might actually go through easier, because rebels realise if they vot against that stuff it really could be the end of PM Blair.

SO I think Mr Blair is looking wounded and feeling quite chipper.

I would like to know how many MP's can say, hand on heart, that they were purely voting with what they thought was best for the country, as opposed to political game playing.

Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

I dont understand what the fuss is about.

28 days or 90 days nobody seriously believes it makes a scrap of difference in preventing terrorist attack do they?

BUT when the next bomb goes off Blair will be able to say "I wanted to give the police the powers they said they needed... you denied it to them...dont blame me for bombs in Manchester or London or Hemel Hempstead"

AND the Tories have made themselves look complete jerks in the eyes of the public.

FURTHERMORE the really important stuff on health and education reform might actually go through easier, because rebels realise if they vot against that stuff it really could be the end of PM Blair.

SO I think Mr Blair is looking wounded and feeling quite chipper.

What did the Tories do?

Lord Ellpus wrote:

I would like to know how many MP's can say, hand on heart, that they were purely voting with what they thought was best for the country, as opposed to political game playing.

I'd like to know such in most other cases (and not at all only related to those MPs in Parliament) as well. (In Germany, in accordance with Article 38 of the Basic Law, members of the Bundestag are not bound, in their parliamentary work, by instructions from voters, interest groups, parties, parliamentary groups, etc )

"If Collins had been put forward as McCartney's candidate instead of Blair's, he would have got the job," one insider said.

Blair warned of party 'civil war'

Tony Blair has been warned by a former senior whip that "civil war" could break out in the party if Labour MPs feel they are being ignored.

Ex-deputy chief whip George Mudie, MP for Leeds East, said the number of people threatening to rebel on education reforms "scared" him.

Ex-minister Frank Dobson predicted up to 100 Labour MPs would join a revolt.

Meanwhile, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said backbenchers had a duty to back the government's reforms.

Calm down

Mr Mudie, who voted against the government on Wednesday over the detention of terror suspects, urged ministers to respond to rebels' concerns.

He told BBC Radio 4's World This Weekend programme: "Unless we all calm down, take a deep breath and reconsider how we are all acting, I can see the next four years being civil war and Tory government after four years, and whoever is prime minister is going to have a party that is probably unmanageable."

Warning government whips against strong-arm tactics he said: "If somebody is reaching automatically for the stick, that is the worst thing that could happen.

"We have got to get the Parliamentary Labour Party coming together again and trying to make everybody feel they are involved, they are being listened to and what is being said is being acted upon."

He added: "I can tell you, just from speaking to colleagues, the numbers of people who said 'I am going with them on terrorism, but he has no chance on education' scares me, because it will mean disaster."

'Serious trouble'

Mr Dobson estimated that the 49-strong ranks of Labour rebels last week could be doubled in size in votes on education.

"I think there are at least 40 or 50 people who voted with the government on the 90 days detention without charge who would vote against an Education Bill based on the education White Paper," he told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby.


Serial rebel Jeremy Corbyn said Mr Blair would be in "very serious trouble" and could be forced out of office if he went down to another defeat in the Commons.

And former home office minister John Denham urged the government to engage in a two-way dialogue with backbenchers, many of whom were worried about "untested" assumptions to do with policy.

He told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour: "What won't work is an approach which just says: `We have decided what we are going to do and we are just going to spend a lot more time explaining it to you'."

Temptation

But Conservative leader Michael Howard raised the prospect that Mr Blair may be able to rely on Tory support to get flagship policies through Parliament.

"It won't be me making the decisions but my view would be - if what the government brings forward is in the interests of the country we should support them," he said.

Tory leadership hopeful David Cameron also told the BBC's Politics Show he would "resist the temptation" to vote against the government purely to inflict further defeats on Mr Blair.

"I think the temptation to try and bring down the government by voting against something with which you fundamentally agree, I think that is a mistake," he said.

Mr Blair has admitted he faces a "rough ride" but told the News of the World that he and the Cabinet had agreed to "continue doing what is right, not what is easy".

Think twice

He suggested the government's programme of reforms will target education, hospital waiting times, pensions and welfare benefits.


"All of this will require more difficult decisions and strong leadership....but there is no doubt it will be worth it if, as a result, Britain is better, fairer and stronger," he said.

But Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy described Mr Blair as a "wounded animal" and said his peers would be seeking to overturn his plans for ID cards in the House of Lords on Tuesday.

He told Politics Show: "When you've got a Government which is elected on 36%-37% of the popular vote and it can't carry... its own backbenchers to a sufficient extent, that's a government that needs to think twice about the way in which it goes about public policy."

Earlier, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said MPs had a duty to get behind Mr Blair on reforms set out in the Labour manifesto.

She told BBC1's Sunday AM programme: "Every single Labour MP stood on that manifesto and was elected on that manifesto. A manifesto isn't an a la carte menu that you select the bits off that you like."



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4433988.stm

Published: 2005/11/13 20:26:48 GMT

Labour has run out of steam say voters

Poll puts Cameron's Tories in lead

Michael White, political editor
Tuesday December 20, 2005
The Guardian



Two-thirds of voters believe the government has run out of steam, according to a Guardian/ICM poll which places the Conservatives ahead of the Labour party for the first time since 2000.
The poll finds that the Tories are ahead of Labour by 37% to 36%, with the Liberal Democrats on 21%, compared with Labour's five-point lead a month ago. Minor parties have also been squeezed from 10% to 7% by the David Cameron-led Tory revival. It is the first time in five years the Tories have been ahead - the last was during the fuel crisis - and the second time since 1993, after the pound crashed out of the European exchange rate mechanism. It suggests that a solid majority of voters, 55%, is now dissatisfied with the job Tony Blair is doing as prime minister, though he remains overwhelmingly popular (82%) among Labour voters.

But Gordon Brown's chances in a 2009-10 election against Mr Cameron and Charles Kennedy are rated even more pessimistically. With Mr Brown in charge of Labour, the Tory lead widens to 41% to 36% with the Lib Dems on 18% as they lose votes back to Tory candidates.
Even 46% of Labour supporters agree with the proposition that the government has run out of steam. Among all voters the figure is 66%, rising to 78% among Lib Dems, 86% among Tories and 71% among supporters of other parties.

Labour will write off the findings as part of a temporary Cameron bounce. But they will set alarm bells ringing among strategists in No 10. ICM confirms that, so far, Mr Cameron's leadership is satisfactory to 51% of voters overall, with Labour and Lib Dem supporters almost as impressed. One in five disagrees.

As well as firing a warning to Mr Blair, it may unsettle the Labour leader-in-waiting. Under Mr Brown's leadership Labour would do worse than it would do under Mr Blair. ICM's findings put Labour on 36% under both men - roughly what Labour got in the May 5 general election.

But the Conservatives do much better because they take votes back that were "loaned" to Mr Kennedy in the years of rightwing Tory flatlining just above 30%. ICM finds that a majority (63%) of Lib Dem voters see Mr Cameron as a potential prime minister who could change the way they feel about the Tories - and almost half (46%) might consider voting for him.

ICM's findings are broadly in line with a clutch of post-Cameron newspaper polls which have given the 39-year-old leader a lift of two to four points. ICM puts the Tories 4% up since the election under Mr Blair's Labour leadership, 8% up under Mr Brown's, with the Lib Dems taking a hit of 2% and 5% respectively.

· ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,004 adults aged 18 plus by telephone between December 15 and 18 2005. Interviews were conducted country wide and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.

The necessary health warning again: this is a single month's poll. It is not a trend; nor is Mr Brown the actual Labour leader. If and when he is, he may have a more positive effect on the voters' mood, as Mr Cameron has had since his own election.

The people of voting age in this country are becoming more apathetic by the day, as in the USA, so whether they care about the situation as deeply as M.P's is neither here nor there, as far as the Blair machine is concerned.

Nope, I think that Labour have to come up with something pretty drastic to compete with the new kid on the block (Cameron), or that the Conservatives have to shoot themselves in the foot somehow.

Cameron has looked pretty impressive so far. He is ice cool under pressure, seems to have that "common touch" (surprising, taking into consideration his "toff" lineage and upbringing) and has a razor sharp wit.

I will make a prediction now ....Cameron will be the next ELECTED Prime Minister.

If Cameron turns out to be as good as he appears to be, he could very well be rated as one of the best PM's that we have had.

Poll shows tide turning against Blair

A large and growing majority of Britons are dissatisfied with Tony Blair's performance as Prime Minister, a new opinion poll reveals today.

Sixty-nine per cent are 'very worried' or 'quite worried' at how he is tackling the country's main problems, and just 29 per cent are 'very confident' or 'quite confident' he is making the right decisions. [..]

Blair has the worst approval ratings of any leader among the six major countries Ipsos MORI surveyed for its quarterly G6 poll - the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the US. He was the only one of the six leaders to inspire confidence among fewer than three in 10 voters.

Worryingly for Blair, the survey was conducted in mid-February, well before last week's revelation that Labour had concealed the fact that three rich party backers whom Blair had nominated to become peers had between them secretly lent the party £4 million before the last general election.

Cameron = sports car. Brown = tank

David Cameron is seen as either a BMW 5 series sports car or a thoroughbred racehorse, while his social event of choice could be mingling at a Live 8 concert or other big stadium gig.

Regarded as a dynamic, virile figure, he would also be at home at a disco, laughing, talking and most importantly listening. His single biggest drawback - and strength - is that he is seen as too similar to Tony Blair, a leader with whom voters have lost faith, and now regard either as a defunct Rover, or minicab. Chancellor Gordon Brown is seen as a tank. [..]

Other focus group work, undertaken for Labour, regards Mr Cameron as an alcopop, but voters like the things the Conservative leader likes, including his home, his choice of shoes and his clothes. As a result, they think he is like us, the voters.

Three months on, David Cameron's star stops rising

[..] Perceptions of the leaders are fleshed out in an online focus group study by ICM, commissioned by the Guardian. [..]

Overall, the findings suggest that while Mr Cameron is seen as new and fresh - if inexperienced - his rivals are seen as old and out of date. When voters were asked to compare the men to cars, Mr Cameron was likened to a sports car but the prime minister was a Lada or defunct Rover.

In a similar scenario people in the focus group said they thought Mr Blair would be happiest at a fancy dress party - where he could hide his real self - and would "talk about anything he would think you wanted to hear".

But Mr Brown was a "tank" who would force people to do what he wanted instead of manipulating them like Mr Blair. He would drink scotch at a party - but only if someone else bought it for him.

Sir Menzies was an old Jag. He would be found sipping sherry or tea at a garden party and was seen as "honest and experienced", but also "older and worried". [..]

The first 100 days

[..] 38%: number of people who would rather have a night out with the Camerons than the Blairs (who polled 33%) (Dec, BPIX)