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On Jun 3, 7:38*am, James Farrar wrote:
Please explain how?

I'll accept "Because I'm a Tory, and hence am incapable of rational
thought", if you can't come up with anything else.

Given that second sentence, it's not worth the hassle.

(BTW, I'm not a Tory.)

Meh. "Please explain how Cameron is less bad than Tony Blair". I'd
probably accept at this point that Brown is a worse party leader than
Major.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

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On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 04:14:46 -0700 (PDT)
wrote:
Meh. "Please explain how Cameron is less bad than Tony Blair". I'd
probably accept at this point that Brown is a worse party leader than
Major.

I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't just for his own ego that Blair kept
Brown out of No10 for so long. Perhaps he realised just how truly bad he'd
be for the labour party as leader.

B2003

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On Jun 4, 7:36*am, James Farrar wrote:

wrote:

On Jun 3, 7:38*am, James Farrar wrote:
Please explain how?

I'll accept "Because I'm a Tory, and hence am incapable of rational
thought", if you can't come up with anything else.

Given that second sentence, it's not worth the hassle.

(BTW, I'm not a Tory.)

Meh. "Please explain how Cameron is less bad than Tony Blair".

He seems to have some idea of what he wants to do with power. Blair never
did.

That's just nonsense - I'm not going to wage some massive defence of
Blair, but to say that he didn't have any idea of what he wanted to do
in power is just plain ignorant.


Of course it's possible that appearances are deceptive; only the event
will prove it.

I'd probably accept at this point that Brown is a worse party leader
than Major.

It would be difficult to argue the other way, quite frankly.

I'm sure someone could come up with an argument, but I'm not going to
waste my effort trying! The Tories problem in the 90's was Europe, and
also that John Major wasn't Margaret Thatcher. The Labour Party's
current problem is Gordon Brown himself. That, and the fact they're
going to lose the next election, the two issues being rather fused
together.

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Mizter T wrote:

That's just nonsense - I'm not going to wage some massive defence of
Blair, but to say that he didn't have any idea of what he wanted to do
in power is just plain ignorant.


What Blair wanted to do was to modernise Labour so that, having obtained
power thanks to John Major, it could retain it and gain the full second
term Labour had never previously managed. And he achieved that.

But where James is right is that, once in power, Blair didn't know what
to do with it. He came to power promising that his top three priorities
were "Education, education, education" then presided over the most rapid
decline in educational standards in living memory.

Labour doubled spending on the NHS in real terms only to squander the
money on increasing the salaries of consultants, GPs and nurses and
employing vastly more of them, to the point where there was hardly any
money left for patient care. The doubling of spending (tripling in cash
terms) led to an increase in procedures (the best available index of
output) of only 17%. Now it's true that nurses needed to be paid
significantly more after a decade of declining remuneration, but does
your local GP really deserve to be paid £107,000 on average, or a
consultant £170,000? This was the price Labour paid for getting them to
agree to a modernisation that is far from the significant root and
branch reform of the NHS that was needed.

And then there was the illegal war(s). Blair cynically looked at them
from a party political point of view, and realised that he would be
toast with some of New Labour's new Middle England voters if he opposed
the war(s). So he wrong-footed the Conservatives and joined up with
some of the most repugnant war criminals that have enjoyed power since
1945 - Cheney, Rumsfeld and their idiot stooge, Bush, all for domestic
party political gain.

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On Jun 4, 10:21*am, Tony Polson wrote:
But where James is right is that, once in power, Blair didn't know what
to do with it. *He came to power promising that his top three priorities
were "Education, education, education" then presided over the most rapid
decline in educational standards in living memory. *

Err, cite? Your own crazy rantings don't count.

Labour doubled spending on the NHS in real terms only to squander the
money on increasing the salaries of consultants, GPs and nurses and
employing vastly more of them, to the point where there was hardly any
money left for patient care.

What exactly do you believe consultants, GPs and nurses do, if not
patient care...?
And then there was the illegal war(s). *Blair cynically looked at them
from a party political point of view, and realised that he would be
toast with some of New Labour's new Middle England voters if he opposed
the war(s). *So he wrong-footed the Conservatives and joined up with
some of the most repugnant war criminals that have enjoyed power since
1945 - Cheney, Rumsfeld and their idiot stooge, Bush, all for domestic
party political gain.

Can't disagree here.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

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In message
, at
02:56:29 on Thu, 4 Jun 2009, remarked:
Labour doubled spending on the NHS in real terms only to squander the
money on increasing the salaries of consultants, GPs and nurses and
employing vastly more of them, to the point where there was hardly any

....I think there's an "extra" missing here ...

money left for patient care.

What exactly do you believe consultants, GPs and nurses do, if not
patient care...?

A good question. If doubling the money spent hasn't increased the amount
of care proportionately, then there must be something else. More admin,
perhaps?
--
Roland Perry

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On Jun 4, 10:21*am, Tony Polson wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

That's just nonsense - I'm not going to wage some massive defence of
Blair, but to say that he didn't have any idea of what he wanted to do
in power is just plain ignorant.

What Blair wanted to do was to modernise Labour so that, having obtained
power thanks to John Major, it could retain it and gain the full second
term Labour had never previously managed. *And he achieved that.

But where James is right is that, once in power, Blair didn't know what
to do with it. *He came to power promising that his top three priorities
were "Education, education, education" then presided over the most rapid
decline in educational standards in living memory.

Proof? In the round, educational standards have improved. But we've
been here before, and so I'll just repeat what I said then - "I
suspect you have very little exposure to what goes on in education
these days, and not enough to have a properly informed opinion on it."


Labour doubled spending on the NHS in real terms only to squander the
money on increasing the salaries of consultants, GPs and nurses and
employing vastly more of them, to the point where there was hardly any
money left for patient care. *The doubling of spending (tripling in cash
terms) led to an increase in procedures (the best available index of
output) of only 17%. *Now it's true that nurses needed to be paid
significantly more after a decade of declining remuneration, but does
your local GP really deserve to be paid £107,000 on average, or a
consultant £170,000? *This was the price Labour paid for getting them to
agree to a modernisation that is far from the significant root and
branch reform of the NHS that was needed.

Healthcare has improved significantly. Wages for many in the NHS
needed to go up too, as you concede. I absolutely agree that the very
high pay settlements reached with consultants and GPs were absolutely
astounding - essentially it seems as though the DoH moronically simply
agreed to the BMA's opening gambit in the negotiations.

I also agree that by no means did the NHS as a whole manage to get
anything near as big a bang out of the bucks that were spent as should
have been the case.


And then there was the illegal war(s). *Blair cynically looked at them
from a party political point of view, and realised that he would be
toast with some of New Labour's new Middle England voters if he opposed
the war(s). *So he wrong-footed the Conservatives and joined up with
some of the most repugnant war criminals that have enjoyed power since
1945 - Cheney, Rumsfeld and their idiot stooge, Bush, all for domestic
party political gain.

I disagree - I really don't think Blair approached Iraq from a party
political standpoint at all. I think he essentially agreed to back
Bush, and then justified it to himself and others by focussing on the
evilness of Saddam Hussein's regime coupled with the somewhat forlorn
hope that the new Iraq could be a beacon to the rest of the Middle
East (and to an extent the wider world), plus a few other ideas (e.g.
felling a 'rogue state' would demonstrate to others that they should
be good).

I don't think either Afghanistan or Kosovo/Serbia were approached from
a party political angle either (and I would also demur with you in
labelling them as "illegal wars" but that's moving onto new territory).

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"Mizter T" wrote in message

On Jun 4, 10:21 am, Tony Polson wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

And then there was the illegal war(s). Blair cynically looked at them
from a party political point of view, and realised that he would be
toast with some of New Labour's new Middle England voters if he
opposed the war(s). So he wrong-footed the Conservatives and joined
up with some of the most repugnant war criminals that have enjoyed
power since 1945 - Cheney, Rumsfeld and their idiot stooge, Bush,
all for domestic party political gain.

I disagree - I really don't think Blair approached Iraq from a party
political standpoint at all. I think he essentially agreed to back
Bush, and then justified it to himself and others by focussing on the
evilness of Saddam Hussein's regime coupled with the somewhat forlorn
hope that the new Iraq could be a beacon to the rest of the Middle
East (and to an extent the wider world), plus a few other ideas (e.g.
felling a 'rogue state' would demonstrate to others that they should
be good).

I don't think either Afghanistan or Kosovo/Serbia were approached from
a party political angle either (and I would also demur with you in
labelling them as "illegal wars" but that's moving onto new
territory).

Blair had got the UK into several other small wars, from which the
outcomes were largely successful, so he probably had become
over-confident. He also probably remembered what the Falklands and first
Gulf wars did for the re-election prospects of the PMs of the day.

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In uk.transport.london message , Wed, 3 Jun 2009
11:32:27, posted:
On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 04:14:46 -0700 (PDT)
wrote:
Meh. "Please explain how Cameron is less bad than Tony Blair". I'd
probably accept at this point that Brown is a worse party leader than
Major.

I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't just for his own ego that Blair kept
Brown out of No10 for so long. Perhaps he realised just how truly bad he'd
be for the labour party as leader.

Then he should have "appointed" John Prescott, who at least would have
been better able to handle dissidents.

Blair's position as the "appointer of the worst successor as political
head-of-country" can surely be challenged at most by the family Kim.

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