Politics: savaged by a dead sheep!
16 November 2007
After watching a couple of hours of stimulating maggot crunching TV in the shape of 'Im a Celebrity get me Outa Heeere' I turned over the watch the latest Question TIme on BBC1. Straight away I noticed how horrendously dull it all was, and it gamely brought back to memory, that great oul phrase by that Labour Bruiser all those years ago when referring to Geoffrey Howe's attack on Mrs Thatcher..." It had all the impact of being savaged by a dead sheep!" or words to that effect. He may have included the term "gummy" in the dead sheep quote, and if he didnt, then he should have. Last nights sheeep was definitely gummy! Dull by any other name...
IN case people dont know, and who could blame them as there has been little or no coverage..zero zilch zippo, the Liberal Democrats are having a Leadership Election and the two main contenders were on the programme last night.
In the left corner we had the all new and polished David Cameron clone...one Nick Clegg, the great white hope of Liberal Democracy, and in the right corner, sensible shoolmastery Chris Huhne, older greyer but not older and greyer as in the Ming Campbell scenario...Ming sadly was tooo too ancient for modern day TV visual politics.
In the centre, working hard to try and breathe some life into the proceedings, but well aware of the failings by the end of the night, was David Dimbleby. David, as is his tried and trusted method, moved to get some electric argumentative charge into the evening but it was all too woolly and cosy, back to the sheep again, and the entire evening failed to spark into any kind of life.
The whole process was of interest to Lib Dems only I guess, and failed to reach out into the vast disaffected 40% of the British Public who now see politics as a yawn and wouldnt know a Polling Booth if they tripped over it.
The truth is there is very little to choose between these two respectable and respected guys. Both privately educated, both well off, both clean imaged, both nicely suited and so on. Both see the future for the Party in very much the same way, so you pays your money and you takes your choice. Either one will do, and will do a good job. The only real difference to surface between them concerned the Trident Missile system replacement. Nick Clegg(see pic left) wants to go ahead with it and use the fact that we have nuclear weapons as a bargaining tool towards world peace, we'll get rid of ours if you get rid of yours kind of thing, and the eventual eradication of nuclear weapons everywhere. A tall want alas.
Chris Huhne (pic left) on the other hand wants to get rid of nuclear weapons straight away, not replace Trident, but go it nuclear free. A brave man indeed in a crazy world where every unstable nation is rushing headlong into nuclear weaponry where they can.
As I said, unless you are already a LibDem you may not have much interest in any of this, or in last nights programme for that matter. But then on the other hand you might see this as a quiet new dawn for the LibDems and a quiet new dawn for politics, and be willing to cast your vote in their fresh faced direction.
Dennis Healey was the Labour Bruiser.
After watching a couple of hours of stimulating maggot crunching TV in the shape of 'Im a Celebrity get me Outa Heeere' I turned over the watch the latest Question TIme on BBC1. Straight away I noticed how horrendously dull it all was, and it gamely brought back to memory, that great oul phrase by that Labour Bruiser all those years ago when referring to Geoffrey Howe's attack on Mrs Thatcher..." It had all the impact of being savaged by a dead sheep!" or words to that effect. He may have included the term "gummy" in the dead sheep quote, and if he didnt, then he should have. Last nights sheeep was definitely gummy! Dull by any other name...
IN case people dont know, and who could blame them as there has been little or no coverage..zero zilch zippo, the Liberal Democrats are having a Leadership Election and the two main contenders were on the programme last night.
In the left corner we had the all new and polished David Cameron clone...one Nick Clegg, the great white hope of Liberal Democracy, and in the right corner, sensible shoolmastery Chris Huhne, older greyer but not older and greyer as in the Ming Campbell scenario...Ming sadly was tooo too ancient for modern day TV visual politics.
In the centre, working hard to try and breathe some life into the proceedings, but well aware of the failings by the end of the night, was David Dimbleby. David, as is his tried and trusted method, moved to get some electric argumentative charge into the evening but it was all too woolly and cosy, back to the sheep again, and the entire evening failed to spark into any kind of life.
The whole process was of interest to Lib Dems only I guess, and failed to reach out into the vast disaffected 40% of the British Public who now see politics as a yawn and wouldnt know a Polling Booth if they tripped over it.
The truth is there is very little to choose between these two respectable and respected guys. Both privately educated, both well off, both clean imaged, both nicely suited and so on. Both see the future for the Party in very much the same way, so you pays your money and you takes your choice. Either one will do, and will do a good job. The only real difference to surface between them concerned the Trident Missile system replacement. Nick Clegg(see pic left) wants to go ahead with it and use the fact that we have nuclear weapons as a bargaining tool towards world peace, we'll get rid of ours if you get rid of yours kind of thing, and the eventual eradication of nuclear weapons everywhere. A tall want alas. Chris Huhne (pic left) on the other hand wants to get rid of nuclear weapons straight away, not replace Trident, but go it nuclear free. A brave man indeed in a crazy world where every unstable nation is rushing headlong into nuclear weaponry where they can.As I said, unless you are already a LibDem you may not have much interest in any of this, or in last nights programme for that matter. But then on the other hand you might see this as a quiet new dawn for the LibDems and a quiet new dawn for politics, and be willing to cast your vote in their fresh faced direction.
Dennis Healey was the Labour Bruiser.
- paulb
I put a comment on this subject which Barryw and can finally agree on
sadly that article has disappeared
oh well
k - Yes you are right BarryW, sadly the whole contest has failed to capture the publics imagination as the same public are only too well aware that neither man will ever be Prime Minister, hence the lack on any real interest. Dimbleby was almost apologetic at the end on the night. On paper it looked like it might be of interest...hence yours truly tuning in and writing about it.
Keef not sure what you mean there, maybe there was an error and someting was deleted or something. I have been known to make the odd clanger !!lol..its not unheard of. Put anything you have up again. All is fine. - It was wierd
As soon as you put the article on i put a reply which your wonderful machine put it up
looked at it later and it had gone!!
anyway to recap
Like Barryw says(yes we can agree!!!!!!!)
Its always been so easy for the Lib Dems they can say whatever they like in whateve they are in, and often did!
because they knew they would NEVER be in Govt.
Even more local in priory they were the party who had a candidate in the ward but he didnt do well, his only consolation was pushing tories into 3rd
but thats just crumbs. that was the recent bye election
its all about who wins seats.
They have only 2 cllrs out of 45 so wont change the world up at District either.
They have NO county cllrs and thats unlikely to change
They will never even make a dent at MP' s Dover/Deal sat
So i agree with Barryw(put the flags out!!!)
lib dems are just a protest party.
keith - Thanks for that Keith..doing it again. I didnt delete anything so it may have been an anomaly of some sort.
- i was surprised to read that "question time" is still on the box.
seems well past it's sell by date, just a few political stooges trying to score points.
everyone knows that tickets are sent out to political parties so that they all have activists in the audience.
a lot of cheering and booing , but no serious debate.
Howard yes I agree with you about Question Time. I used to be a fan but when they started including comedians and TV celebs on the panel in an effort to prop up flagging figures it put me off. With these people you can see them clearly going for the easy applause and its a bore. Previously to this latest programme I hadnt looked at it in quite a while.
But at an Election Time it would probably be of interest. On this occasion with the prospect of a minor election I figured it might make good televison. But sadly no.- paul
it livened up today on a politics programme with a lot of abuse being thrown around.
no-one came across as statesman like.
i do not not know why they got rid of menzies, at least he was intelligent. - Yes Howard..just when we thought this leadership election was as much fun as a limp biscuit.. whooosh.. the whole thing took off yesterday like a rocket. So things are not as cosy and smarmy in the Libdem camp as they like us to beleive.
It seems Huhne supporters released a document nastily nastily castigating clean limbed Clegg on a number of issues...the significant word there is 'nastily' as up to now it has been ever so nice. Oh dear!
Huhne claims he knew nothing about it and that his supporters have run amok. Hmmm a likely story.
Unfortunately I didnt see this explosive encounter...went out yesterday to that Gallery open day in the London Road.Will have a pic or two of that in due course.
So the gloves are off amongst the LibDems..some might say not before time. - Gloves are off? Don't you mean mittens with a bit of string attached lol! As in Mummy might let them play with the grown-ups
Clegg has a bit more common sense and savvy than Huhne (however he spells his name!) but apart from the they are indeed much of a muchness.
They have no prospect of forming a Government themselves so it really is a non-event and the only role they play is as a protest vote. When you have not been in Government and have no prospect of forming a Government you can be all things to all men, say whatever might be popular without the worries of having to live up to what they say. Life in that way is easy for the LibDems.