Check it out. At present UK: 2.84m vaccinations, Italy 800 thousand, Germany 689 thousand ... so UK is well ahead of the rest of Europe. Behind only China (10m) and USA (9.3m) - though per capita those nations are a fair bit further down the league table.
Check it out. At present UK: 2.84m vaccinations, Italy 800 thousand, Germany 689 thousand ... so UK is well ahead of the rest of Europe. Behind only China (10m) and USA (9.3m) - though per capita those nations are a fair bit further down the league table.
How are they being counted? Because I'm wondering to what extent this is a function of a first vaccine dose vs both doses.
Towards the bottom of that page it says they're reported doses given - which will ultimately be twice the number of people vaccinated (at least for the currently approved vaccines), more than that if there's a need for an annual booster shot.
Part of the problem with Johnson is that he acts on his overpromises. He thinks that because he's said that a problem will be solved it has been solved, and then he loosens the restrictions too early. Or else, he campaigns for Brexit.
(I note that Telford still thinks the Brown overpromising no more boom and bust on the economy is a sign of incompetence, even though he kept the promise for more than ten years, which is a good deal more than anybody had thought he could. Whereas Johnson can't keep his promises for more than ten weeks, which is less than everbody else could see was going to happen. And actually directly kills people.)
Sure, that's all well and good, but my mum isn't getting her 2nd dose because they've run out.
Expect every other country to overtake ours in the next few weeks.
I always suspected that there would be a supply issue but I'm not blaming Johnson for that as well.
The thing is; he's trying to claim credit for the wonder of vaccines (of which he had relatively little input) whilst not accepting any blame for the supply delays (which equally are not really his fault).
And then as others have noted, he constantly over-promises.
Part of the problem with Johnson is that he acts on his overpromises. He thinks that because he's said that a problem will be solved it has been solved, and then he loosens the restrictions too early. Or else, he campaigns for Brexit.
(I note that Telford still thinks the Brown overpromising no more boom and bust on the economy is a sign of incompetence, even though he kept the promise for more than ten years, which is a good deal more than anybody had thought he could. Whereas Johnson can't keep his promises for more than ten weeks, which is less than everbody else could see was going to happen. And actually directly kills people.)
Interestingly Brown never failed in avoiding Boom and Bust. What he was referring to was the cycles that the UK had had since WW2 of growth leading to excessive inflation meaning interest rates had to be put up leading to recession. He did manage to achieve sustained growth from 1997-2008 without excessive inflation. The crash of 2008-9 was of an entirely different aetiology and could only have been avoided in the UK if we'd completely changed our economy such that the financial sector was only a small fraction of the overall economy. There's an argument to be had about whether or not that is desirable (The City of London is basically a world-wide hedge fund and the UK creams the profit from running this fund) but it's the kind of change that takes decades and the direction of travel at least since the 1980s had been in the opposite direction.*
So, actually Brown had achieved exactly what he promised.
Oh the contrasts between Brown and Johnson are so stark. Although, having read Alastair Darling's account of the crash, I suspect GB is incredibly hard to work with, so they probably have that in common... otoh, GB is an honest man.
AFZ
*Of course, post Brexit we may be about to run this experiment in real time...
Part of the problem with Johnson is that he acts on his overpromises. He thinks that because he's said that a problem will be solved it has been solved, and then he loosens the restrictions too early. Or else, he campaigns for Brexit.
(I note that Telford still thinks the Brown overpromising no more boom and bust on the economy is a sign of incompetence, even though he kept the promise for more than ten years, which is a good deal more than anybody had thought he could. Whereas Johnson can't keep his promises for more than ten weeks, which is less than everbody else could see was going to happen. And actually directly kills people.)
The voters delivered their verdict on Brown in 2010. It's all on record
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
Brown did not crash the economy any more than Johnson injected a bat in China with Covid. You're capable of grasping the latter point.
And to cap it all Brown resigned and allowed even worse people to take his place
The voters decided to give Nick Clegg the choice to form a coalition with Brown or with the worse people. He chose poorly.
(I notice you change the subject rather than disagree with my logic.)
He chose correctly. Labour had been rejected by the voters. He formed a coalition with the largest party.
And ripped up his own party's manifesto to do so.
Oh and caused his country to suffer a lost decade of economic stagnation.
Said stagnation is probably a major reason people voted for Brexit.
And to top it off his coalition government gutted public health and put the NHS under huge pressure with the Health and Social Care Act. I mention this because it may be relevant now for some reason.
This must be some strange definition of 'correctly' with which I wasn't previously familiar.
To be fair, being the minority party in a coalition is always going to require you to compromise on a significant fraction of your manifesto.
You can certainly make a case that Labour's 2010 manifesto was a closer match to the Lib Dem one, and so Clegg might have been able to get a better deal with Labour, but it's also the case that Labour / Lib Dem wouldn't have been enough for a majority - any rival coalition would have needed the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and probably the SDLP to join with Labour and the Lib Dems in some kind of agreement (even if not a full coalition).
I think the worst error Clegg made in negotiations is trading away so much of his capital for that stupid AV vote, rather than holding out for substantive policy commitments.
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
I should have clarified that "losing an election" in the context of discussing Gordon Brown was meant to indicate moving from having enough MPs to form a government to not having enough MPs to form a government. Though, I can see that not gaining enough to force the other party out would be a form of losing, but one that's harder to define; Corbyn, for example, 'lost' the 2017 general election by Labour getting the largest vote share since 2001, the first time Labour had gained seats since 1997, and rather than a predicted Conservative landslide forced Theresa May to form a minority government relying on the DUP - by any estimate an outstanding achievement. It could be argued that by losing an outright majority in the Commons Theresa May lost that election ... and, the eventual succession of Johnson to PM was a delay to the normal process of changing leader after losing an election.
Churchill is an exceptional situation, he was a wartime PM and lost the post war general election but remained leader of the Opposition. Wilson the only peace-time PM I can think of who remained leader of the Opposition after losing a general election (though there was a leadership contest). Heath, of course, lost the 1974 election and was replaced as Conservative Party leader by Thatcher so I'm not sure why he's on your list at all. Gaitskill and Kinnock were never PM. So, "very unusual" is what I said and we have two people who were PM and lost an election yet remained as leader of the Opposition (excluding the short periods between the election and conclusion of a leadership contest).
Brown did not crash the economy any more than Johnson injected a bat in China with Covid. You're capable of grasping the latter point.
And to cap it all Brown resigned and allowed even worse people to take his place
The voters decided to give Nick Clegg the choice to form a coalition with Brown or with the worse people. He chose poorly.
(I notice you change the subject rather than disagree with my logic.)
He chose correctly. Labour had been rejected by the voters. He formed a coalition with the largest party.
Clegg comes across as politically naive and idealistic. Before the 2010 election the polls were predicting a hung Parliament with Labour being the largest party, and he declared that the LibDems would support a coalition with the largest party. In the end, the polls were partially right - a hung Parliament but with the Conservatives being the largest party. He was naive in committing to a coalition with the largest party, he was idealistic in thinking that that was binding so he went into coalition with the Conservatives who held a very different political philosophy to the LibDems (in the process alienating a lot of his party and supporters). A politically realistic position would have been to make enough demands for LibDem support that Cameron wouldn't have accepted them (there was a lot in the LibDem manifesto that he could have insisted on that Cameron would have choked on - a referendum on adopting PR, greater integration with the EU, reform of the Lords, no support for increasing tuition fees or cutting budgets ...), and then offer support to Labour (with whom the LibDems share a lot of common ground, and which would have carried the support of his party and supporters).
To be fair, being the minority party in a coalition is always going to require you to compromise on a significant fraction of your manifesto.
You can certainly make a case that Labour's 2010 manifesto was a closer match to the Lib Dem one, and so Clegg might have been able to get a better deal with Labour, but it's also the case that Labour / Lib Dem wouldn't have been enough for a majority - any rival coalition would have needed the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and probably the SDLP to join with Labour and the Lib Dems in some kind of agreement (even if not a full coalition).
I think the worst error Clegg made in negotiations is trading away so much of his capital for that stupid AV vote, rather than holding out for substantive policy commitments.
Indeed. But the democratic argument depends on doing at least some of what your voters wanted. Pre-election the party platform was (correctly (sic)) anti-austerity. The manifesto was clear that they opposed tuition fees. And on and on. The only real policy win for Clegg was the AV referendum which is not what they promised their voters anyway so was always doomed to fail.* There is no democratic argument for joining the coalition; the Lib Dems were neither enacting parts of their manifesto** (whilst doing the opposite in some areas) nor supporting policies that the majority of the country had voted for (Cameron got under 33% of the vote).
And their justification for reversing several key positions in order to enter government was because they wanted ministerial cars Britain was "in danger of becoming Greece" which is empirically false.
It would have been possible to let Cameron form a minority government.
He choose unwisely. He destroyed his party in the process which is sad. He did huge damage to the country as well which is the real problem. There is a causal link from the formation of the coalition to Johnson's ridiculous premiership.
As I implied suggesting it was a correct choice is ridiculous.
AFZ
*I happen to think that the UK would be very well served by AV but that's beside the point. Cameron opposed it and no one really supported it. The result was inevitable.
**The one real exception to this is the raising of the personal allowance which is a stupid policy as it costs a fortune and provides very little benefit to those who need it most and make the demonisation of the poor easier.
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
I should have clarified that "losing an election" in the context of discussing Gordon Brown was meant to indicate moving from having enough MPs to form a government to not having enough MPs to form a government. Though, I can see that not gaining enough to force the other party out would be a form of losing, but one that's harder to define; Corbyn, for example, 'lost' the 2017 general election by Labour getting the largest vote share since 2001, the first time Labour had gained seats since 1997, and rather than a predicted Conservative landslide forced Theresa May to form a minority government relying on the DUP - by any estimate an outstanding achievement. It could be argued that by losing an outright majority in the Commons Theresa May lost that election ... and, the eventual succession of Johnson to PM was a delay to the normal process of changing leader after losing an election.
Corbyn lost in 2017 because he had 55 less seats than the Conservatives
Churchill is an exceptional situation, he was a wartime PM and lost the post war general election but remained leader of the Opposition. Wilson the only peace-time PM I can think of who remained leader of the Opposition after losing a general election (though there was a leadership contest). Heath, of course, lost the 1974 election and was replaced as Conservative Party leader by Thatcher so I'm not sure why he's on your list at all. Gaitskill and Kinnock were never PM. So, "very unusual" is what I said and we have two people who were PM and lost an election yet remained as leader of the Opposition (excluding the short periods between the election and conclusion of a leadership contest).
Gaitskill and Kinnock lost electios and remained as leaders. Heath lost badly in 1966, remained as leader and won in 1970. He lost twice in 1974 before being replaced.
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
I should have clarified that "losing an election" in the context of discussing Gordon Brown was meant to indicate moving from having enough MPs to form a government to not having enough MPs to form a government. Though, I can see that not gaining enough to force the other party out would be a form of losing, but one that's harder to define; Corbyn, for example, 'lost' the 2017 general election by Labour getting the largest vote share since 2001, the first time Labour had gained seats since 1997, and rather than a predicted Conservative landslide forced Theresa May to form a minority government relying on the DUP - by any estimate an outstanding achievement. It could be argued that by losing an outright majority in the Commons Theresa May lost that election ... and, the eventual succession of Johnson to PM was a delay to the normal process of changing leader after losing an election.
Corbyn lost in 2017 because he had 55 less seats than the Conservatives
Churchill is an exceptional situation, he was a wartime PM and lost the post war general election but remained leader of the Opposition. Wilson the only peace-time PM I can think of who remained leader of the Opposition after losing a general election (though there was a leadership contest). Heath, of course, lost the 1974 election and was replaced as Conservative Party leader by Thatcher so I'm not sure why he's on your list at all. Gaitskill and Kinnock were never PM. So, "very unusual" is what I said and we have two people who were PM and lost an election yet remained as leader of the Opposition (excluding the short periods between the election and conclusion of a leadership contest).
Gaitskill and Kinnock lost electios and remained as leaders. Heath lost badly in 1966, remained as leader and won in 1970. He lost twice in 1974 before being replaced.
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
I should have clarified that "losing an election" in the context of discussing Gordon Brown was meant to indicate moving from having enough MPs to form a government to not having enough MPs to form a government. Though, I can see that not gaining enough to force the other party out would be a form of losing, but one that's harder to define; Corbyn, for example, 'lost' the 2017 general election by Labour getting the largest vote share since 2001, the first time Labour had gained seats since 1997, and rather than a predicted Conservative landslide forced Theresa May to form a minority government relying on the DUP - by any estimate an outstanding achievement. It could be argued that by losing an outright majority in the Commons Theresa May lost that election ... and, the eventual succession of Johnson to PM was a delay to the normal process of changing leader after losing an election.
Corbyn lost in 2017 because he had 55 less seats than the Conservatives
Churchill is an exceptional situation, he was a wartime PM and lost the post war general election but remained leader of the Opposition. Wilson the only peace-time PM I can think of who remained leader of the Opposition after losing a general election (though there was a leadership contest). Heath, of course, lost the 1974 election and was replaced as Conservative Party leader by Thatcher so I'm not sure why he's on your list at all. Gaitskill and Kinnock were never PM. So, "very unusual" is what I said and we have two people who were PM and lost an election yet remained as leader of the Opposition (excluding the short periods between the election and conclusion of a leadership contest).
Gaitskill and Kinnock lost electios and remained as leaders. Heath lost badly in 1966, remained as leader and won in 1970. He lost twice in 1974 before being replaced.
Oh look, a squirrel...
I guess you find such matters a bit difficuilt to understand. It doesn't make you a bad person.
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
I should have clarified that "losing an election" in the context of discussing Gordon Brown was meant to indicate moving from having enough MPs to form a government to not having enough MPs to form a government. Though, I can see that not gaining enough to force the other party out would be a form of losing, but one that's harder to define; Corbyn, for example, 'lost' the 2017 general election by Labour getting the largest vote share since 2001, the first time Labour had gained seats since 1997, and rather than a predicted Conservative landslide forced Theresa May to form a minority government relying on the DUP - by any estimate an outstanding achievement. It could be argued that by losing an outright majority in the Commons Theresa May lost that election ... and, the eventual succession of Johnson to PM was a delay to the normal process of changing leader after losing an election.
Corbyn lost in 2017 because he had 55 less seats than the Conservatives
Churchill is an exceptional situation, he was a wartime PM and lost the post war general election but remained leader of the Opposition. Wilson the only peace-time PM I can think of who remained leader of the Opposition after losing a general election (though there was a leadership contest). Heath, of course, lost the 1974 election and was replaced as Conservative Party leader by Thatcher so I'm not sure why he's on your list at all. Gaitskill and Kinnock were never PM. So, "very unusual" is what I said and we have two people who were PM and lost an election yet remained as leader of the Opposition (excluding the short periods between the election and conclusion of a leadership contest).
Gaitskill and Kinnock lost electios and remained as leaders. Heath lost badly in 1966, remained as leader and won in 1970. He lost twice in 1974 before being replaced.
Oh look, a squirrel...
I guess you find such matters a bit difficuilt to understand. It doesn't make you a bad person.
Brown did not crash the economy any more than Johnson injected a bat in China with Covid. You're capable of grasping the latter point.
And to cap it all Brown resigned and allowed even worse people to take his place
(I notice you change the subject rather than disagree with my logic.)
He chose correctly. Labour had been rejected by the voters. He formed a coalition with the largest party.
I notice you still aren't trying to pick a hole in the logic about Brown and Johnson.
There is no requirement that says which parties may or may not form a coalition, as long as they can avoid a vote of no confidence. Even if we assume the premises of your argument, if the voters had been sure they rejected Labour they could have given Cameron a majority. The voters left the option open.
No, they really didn't. It's a complete fiction that 'the voters' decided any such thing, and there's no conceivable way they could have. (Almost) everyone who voted were either voting for a single party to form a government, or voting against a single party so that they wouldn't.
No, they really didn't. It's a complete fiction that 'the voters' decided any such thing, and there's no conceivable way they could have. (Almost) everyone who voted were either voting for a single party to form a government, or voting against a single party so that they wouldn't.
Of course. I did say I was assuming Telford's premises for the sake of argument. I didn't have the energy to explain why his premises are wrong in addition.
The future PM, Mr Rashford, may have something to say on this...
I no longer have a vote in the UK, but I would totally be behind a campaign for the Right Honourable Marcus Rashford MP to start running the country at the first available opportunity.
I don't think Gordon Brown had much choice but to let Cameron take his place once the LibDems decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour. That's how our democracy works, someone doesn't carry on as PM after an election when another party gets to form the government. It's very unusual, though not actually impossible, for someone to stay on as leader of their party after losing an election.
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
I should have clarified that "losing an election" in the context of discussing Gordon Brown was meant to indicate moving from having enough MPs to form a government to not having enough MPs to form a government. Though, I can see that not gaining enough to force the other party out would be a form of losing, but one that's harder to define; Corbyn, for example, 'lost' the 2017 general election by Labour getting the largest vote share since 2001, the first time Labour had gained seats since 1997, and rather than a predicted Conservative landslide forced Theresa May to form a minority government relying on the DUP - by any estimate an outstanding achievement. It could be argued that by losing an outright majority in the Commons Theresa May lost that election ... and, the eventual succession of Johnson to PM was a delay to the normal process of changing leader after losing an election.
Corbyn lost in 2017 because he had 55 less seats than the Conservatives
Churchill is an exceptional situation, he was a wartime PM and lost the post war general election but remained leader of the Opposition. Wilson the only peace-time PM I can think of who remained leader of the Opposition after losing a general election (though there was a leadership contest). Heath, of course, lost the 1974 election and was replaced as Conservative Party leader by Thatcher so I'm not sure why he's on your list at all. Gaitskill and Kinnock were never PM. So, "very unusual" is what I said and we have two people who were PM and lost an election yet remained as leader of the Opposition (excluding the short periods between the election and conclusion of a leadership contest).
Gaitskill and Kinnock lost electios and remained as leaders. Heath lost badly in 1966, remained as leader and won in 1970. He lost twice in 1974 before being replaced.
Oh look, a squirrel...
I guess you find such matters a bit difficuilt to understand. It doesn't make you a bad person.
Please, please explain it to me oh wise one.
AFZ
You couldn't think of anything relevant to say so you posted something daft.."Oh look a squirrel". It doesn't make you a bad person.
Brown did not crash the economy any more than Johnson injected a bat in China with Covid. You're capable of grasping the latter point.
And to cap it all Brown resigned and allowed even worse people to take his place
(I notice you change the subject rather than disagree with my logic.)
He chose correctly. Labour had been rejected by the voters. He formed a coalition with the largest party.
I notice you still aren't trying to pick a hole in the logic about Brown and Johnson.
There is no requirement that says which parties may or may not form a coalition, as long as they can avoid a vote of no confidence. Even if we assume the premises of your argument, if the voters had been sure they rejected Labour they could have given Cameron a majority. The voters left the option open.
Well, they've learnt their lessons well; all this does is consume a few more news cycles, the only people who don't like it enough to matter already don't vote Tory, and to a large percentage of their voters the cruelty is the point.
The future PM, Mr Rashford, may have something to say on this...
I no longer have a vote in the UK, but I would totally be behind a campaign for the Right Honourable Marcus Rashford MP to start running the country at the first available opportunity.
Do you really think that Rashford would give up £250K a week for £81K a year ?
Imran Khan, former cricketer, is now PM of Pakistan. The President of Mongolia is a Sambo wrestler. Several former Taoiseach were Gaelic footballers. Nicola Selva (former sprinter) is Captain Regent of San Marino. There are far too many others to mention who have been professional sportspeople and went on to hold political office. Even, and especially, in the UK.
One requirement for someone to be elected is to be known, sometimes "I recognise that name on the ballot paper" is enough to get a vote irrespective of policies. Successful sportspeople are well known, even if they don't get as involved in social and political issues during their career as Rashford. Being known also applies to movie stars (Arnie Schwarzenegger for example, who was an athlete before an actor so ticks multiple boxes), TV funny man (BoJo for his HIGNFY appearances) or even renowned failed business men who can run a casino into the ground (Donald Trump). Sometimes you get good people into politics after a successful public facing career, sometimes you don't, and occasionally you get disaster. I'm not sure there's much difference in the distribution between those when people had been in professional sport, or reality TV compared to former corporate magnates (someone like James Dyson or Richer Branson would be no better than BoJo).
Comments
I hear that there are some delays, but it's a massive job, so perhaps understandable:
https://theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/vaccine-supply-is-what-is-holding-back-jabs-programme-says-matt-hancock
How are they being counted? Because I'm wondering to what extent this is a function of a first vaccine dose vs both doses.
Expect every other country to overtake ours in the next few weeks.
I always suspected that there would be a supply issue but I'm not blaming Johnson for that as well.
(I note that Telford still thinks the Brown overpromising no more boom and bust on the economy is a sign of incompetence, even though he kept the promise for more than ten years, which is a good deal more than anybody had thought he could. Whereas Johnson can't keep his promises for more than ten weeks, which is less than everbody else could see was going to happen. And actually directly kills people.)
The thing is; he's trying to claim credit for the wonder of vaccines (of which he had relatively little input) whilst not accepting any blame for the supply delays (which equally are not really his fault).
And then as others have noted, he constantly over-promises.
Interestingly Brown never failed in avoiding Boom and Bust. What he was referring to was the cycles that the UK had had since WW2 of growth leading to excessive inflation meaning interest rates had to be put up leading to recession. He did manage to achieve sustained growth from 1997-2008 without excessive inflation. The crash of 2008-9 was of an entirely different aetiology and could only have been avoided in the UK if we'd completely changed our economy such that the financial sector was only a small fraction of the overall economy. There's an argument to be had about whether or not that is desirable (The City of London is basically a world-wide hedge fund and the UK creams the profit from running this fund) but it's the kind of change that takes decades and the direction of travel at least since the 1980s had been in the opposite direction.*
So, actually Brown had achieved exactly what he promised.
Oh the contrasts between Brown and Johnson are so stark. Although, having read Alastair Darling's account of the crash, I suspect GB is incredibly hard to work with, so they probably have that in common... otoh, GB is an honest man.
AFZ
*Of course, post Brexit we may be about to run this experiment in real time...
The voters delivered their verdict on Brown in 2010. It's all on record
And to cap it all Brown resigned and allowed even worse people to take his place
No he didn't. He lost an election. And it was Cameron who took over...
(I notice you change the subject rather than disagree with my logic.)
Stayed on since WW2...Churchill, Gaitskill, Wilson, Heath,Kinnock,Corbyn
He chose correctly. Labour had been rejected by the voters. He formed a coalition with the largest party.
And ripped up his own party's manifesto to do so.
Oh and caused his country to suffer a lost decade of economic stagnation.
Said stagnation is probably a major reason people voted for Brexit.
And to top it off his coalition government gutted public health and put the NHS under huge pressure with the Health and Social Care Act. I mention this because it may be relevant now for some reason.
This must be some strange definition of 'correctly' with which I wasn't previously familiar.
AFZ
To be fair, being the minority party in a coalition is always going to require you to compromise on a significant fraction of your manifesto.
You can certainly make a case that Labour's 2010 manifesto was a closer match to the Lib Dem one, and so Clegg might have been able to get a better deal with Labour, but it's also the case that Labour / Lib Dem wouldn't have been enough for a majority - any rival coalition would have needed the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and probably the SDLP to join with Labour and the Lib Dems in some kind of agreement (even if not a full coalition).
I think the worst error Clegg made in negotiations is trading away so much of his capital for that stupid AV vote, rather than holding out for substantive policy commitments.
Churchill is an exceptional situation, he was a wartime PM and lost the post war general election but remained leader of the Opposition. Wilson the only peace-time PM I can think of who remained leader of the Opposition after losing a general election (though there was a leadership contest). Heath, of course, lost the 1974 election and was replaced as Conservative Party leader by Thatcher so I'm not sure why he's on your list at all. Gaitskill and Kinnock were never PM. So, "very unusual" is what I said and we have two people who were PM and lost an election yet remained as leader of the Opposition (excluding the short periods between the election and conclusion of a leadership contest).
Clegg comes across as politically naive and idealistic. Before the 2010 election the polls were predicting a hung Parliament with Labour being the largest party, and he declared that the LibDems would support a coalition with the largest party. In the end, the polls were partially right - a hung Parliament but with the Conservatives being the largest party. He was naive in committing to a coalition with the largest party, he was idealistic in thinking that that was binding so he went into coalition with the Conservatives who held a very different political philosophy to the LibDems (in the process alienating a lot of his party and supporters). A politically realistic position would have been to make enough demands for LibDem support that Cameron wouldn't have accepted them (there was a lot in the LibDem manifesto that he could have insisted on that Cameron would have choked on - a referendum on adopting PR, greater integration with the EU, reform of the Lords, no support for increasing tuition fees or cutting budgets ...), and then offer support to Labour (with whom the LibDems share a lot of common ground, and which would have carried the support of his party and supporters).
Indeed. But the democratic argument depends on doing at least some of what your voters wanted. Pre-election the party platform was (correctly (sic)) anti-austerity. The manifesto was clear that they opposed tuition fees. And on and on. The only real policy win for Clegg was the AV referendum which is not what they promised their voters anyway so was always doomed to fail.* There is no democratic argument for joining the coalition; the Lib Dems were neither enacting parts of their manifesto** (whilst doing the opposite in some areas) nor supporting policies that the majority of the country had voted for (Cameron got under 33% of the vote).
And their justification for reversing several key positions in order to enter government was because they wanted ministerial cars Britain was "in danger of becoming Greece" which is empirically false.
It would have been possible to let Cameron form a minority government.
He choose unwisely. He destroyed his party in the process which is sad. He did huge damage to the country as well which is the real problem. There is a causal link from the formation of the coalition to Johnson's ridiculous premiership.
As I implied suggesting it was a correct choice is ridiculous.
AFZ
*I happen to think that the UK would be very well served by AV but that's beside the point. Cameron opposed it and no one really supported it. The result was inevitable.
**The one real exception to this is the raising of the personal allowance which is a stupid policy as it costs a fortune and provides very little benefit to those who need it most and make the demonisation of the poor easier.
Oh look, a squirrel...
I guess you find such matters a bit difficuilt to understand. It doesn't make you a bad person.
Please, please explain it to me oh wise one.
AFZ
Meanwhile, back in the Real World, Bozzie Scrooge's *government* is at it again:
https://theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/14/schools-in-england-told-not-to-provide-free-school-meals-at-half-term
The future PM, Mr Rashford, may have something to say on this...
There is no requirement that says which parties may or may not form a coalition, as long as they can avoid a vote of no confidence. Even if we assume the premises of your argument, if the voters had been sure they rejected Labour they could have given Cameron a majority. The voters left the option open.
Now we see that when you said you didn't insult people you were in fact lying.
No, they really didn't. It's a complete fiction that 'the voters' decided any such thing, and there's no conceivable way they could have. (Almost) everyone who voted were either voting for a single party to form a government, or voting against a single party so that they wouldn't.
I no longer have a vote in the UK, but I would totally be behind a campaign for the Right Honourable Marcus Rashford MP to start running the country at the first available opportunity.
What was a lie? The first sentence or the second?
Well, they've learnt their lessons well; all this does is consume a few more news cycles, the only people who don't like it enough to matter already don't vote Tory, and to a large percentage of their voters the cruelty is the point.
Or, you didn't understand my point and so patronised me.
You could have asked.
Do you really think that Rashford would give up £250K a week for £81K a year ?
Indeed. Why, he's practising already (as footballers do)!
The current President of Liberia is a former professional footballer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Weah
Far enough but telling the government to spend more on school dinners does not make you a great politician.
No, apparently writing newspaper articles lying about the EU is where one needs to start...
Exactly.