James Farrar wrote:

Tony Polson wrote in
:

For example, the Labour government is doing all it can to cling on to
power until it has to call an election, probably in June 2010. It is
not addressing the colossal hole in the public finances, preferring to
leave a substantially worse problem for the next government, which
Labour in all probability won't lead.

Presumably you support this stance?

False analogy, because the government isn't doing nothing. It's borrowing
money hand over fist (the PSBR figures are out in 20 minutes so we'll find
out how much).


No, it's a very good analogy, because the reason that borrowing is so
high is that the government is sitting back doing absolutely nothing
about the ballooning deficit. The Governor of the Bank of England said
as much in his speech at the Mansion House last night, much to the
embarrassment of the Chancellor, whose speech is not normally upstaged
at this key annual event.

Further evidence of the government doing nothing is that the Chancellor
has no plans for major reform of the regulation of the banks. The
Governor of the Bank of England said reform was vital, but New Labour
are sitting on their hands. Meanwhile, over the pond, President Barack
Obama announced an unprecedented major reform of the regulation of the
banks. At least Obama realises what needs to be done. Meanwhile, New
Labour does a Nero, and fiddles while the public finances burn.

Massive cuts in public spending are needed, but New Labour are still
sitting on their hands. It looks like they will delay any cuts until
after the 2010 election, when whichever party is in power will have to
make cuts that will be much deeper and much more damaging than if they
were made now.

This is a government that makes a virtue out of doing nothing, and is
doing enormous damage to Britain's future as a result. And Boris is
doing something comparable in London, which you seem to support. So by
implication, you must also support what New Labour is doing to the
country.

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:16:17 -0700 (PDT)
John B wrote:
Yes it does: to the extent to which you have a point, it's that
Boris's stupid decisions are justified by the fact that a lot of
people voted for him in the full knowledge that he'd make stupid
decisions.

Speaking for myself and a few other people I know who voted for Boris, it
wasn't so much a case of voting for him , more a case of voting against Ken.

B2003

wrote:

Speaking for myself and a few other people I know who voted for Boris, it
wasn't so much a case of voting for him , more a case of voting against Ken.


How sad that people should put personalities before policies, and elect
an incompetent idiot (albeit an intelligent and ambitious incompetent
idiot) in place of someone they didn't like but who was dedicated to
doing his absolute best for London and its people. When celebrity comes
before policies, God help us all.

Boris had one policy; to beat Ken. Now he's done that, and forced Ian
Blair out, he has not one single good policy idea left. So he will
twiddle his thumbs until the next Mayoral election, and do nothing.

Except that he will turn on the boyish grin at every photo opportunity.

In message
, at
01:16:17 on Thu, 18 Jun 2009, John B remarked:
But since more than a million people voted against him, the absolute
number of votes for him is irrelevant - the only thing you can cite as
'justification' is the margin by which he won.

But the million voted *for* someone else, not *against* him. Many of
them might have been almost as happy with his policies, but voted the
other way for reason unconnected with bendy-busses (or whatever).
--
Roland Perry

Huge wrote:
On 2009-06-18, Tony Polson wrote:
wrote:
Speaking for myself and a few other people I know who voted for Boris, it
wasn't so much a case of voting for him , more a case of voting against Ken.

How sad that people should put personalities before policies, and elect
an incompetent idiot (albeit an intelligent and ambitious incompetent
idiot) in place of someone they didn't like but who was dedicated to
doing his absolute best for London and its people.

Ken? "dedicated to doing his absolute best for London and its people"???????

Bwahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahah[gasp]hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.



Care to amplify that? Remember most of what you know about Livingstone
comes from people biased against him, so correct for that first, please.

Tom

On Jun 18, 12:52*pm, Huge wrote:
He's a politician, and therefore dedicated to doing his absolute best for
exactly one person. Like all politicians.

Yeah, that bloody Aung San Suu Kyi, just in it for the perks.

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

John B wrote:
On Jun 18, 12:52 pm, Huge wrote:
He's a politician, and therefore dedicated to doing his absolute best for
exactly one person. Like all politicians.

Yeah, that bloody Aung San Suu Kyi, just in it for the perks.


Abe Lincoln was well known to have freed the slaves and fought a bloody
civil war just to get a big f-off statue of himself in Washington, of
course, and what Arthur Wellesley wouldn't do to get an item of footwear
named after him, eh?

No one's saying that politicians aren't, in some way, ego-driven, flawed
and with a desire to be loved, but the best of them couple this with
administrative ability and understanding of the state of the world and
what's needed (and is feasible) to change it for the better. The people
who work this out are, however, historians rather than the electorate,
who have an annoying habit of electing idiots with good PR people, but
no one ever said democracy was perfect, just better. Generally it all
comes out in the wash, and my prediction that Livingstone's legacy to
London is going to be stratospherically better than Johnson's is still
looking good.

Therefore what we're saying is that Boris is not, thus far, showing much
sign of being amongst the best of them.

Today's news - the former 'London Freewheel' cycle event is now the
'Mayor Of London Skyride', sponsored by Sky*. His image is more
important than the city, for Boris - it shows up too frequently to be a
coincidence, like having 1 in 5 staff at City Hall engaged on external
relations, with his chief spin doctor Guto Harri elevated to head one of
the four main divisions in the administration.

Tom

* Previously sponsored by Hovis, if memory serves. There was some kind
of mixup over sponsorship last year.

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:58:20 +0100
Tony Polson wrote:


wrote:

Speaking for myself and a few other people I know who voted for Boris, it
wasn't so much a case of voting for him , more a case of voting against Ken.


How sad that people should put personalities before policies, and elect

Who said it was anything to do with personalities?? As a person Ken comes
across fine, its his moronic politics I can't stand. Chavez and Lee Jasper
were the final straw for me.

B2003

wrote:

Who said it was anything to do with personalities??
As a person Ken comes across fine,

It's been said that everyone likes him until they know him. AFAIK he is the
only person in public life whose repeated drunken abuse led to him being
boycotted by so many of London's 20000+ taxi drivers that he ended up
completely incapable of successfully booking one. (This happened before he
became mayor and gained control of them.) No rock star or catwalk model has
achieved that.

On Jun 18, 4:37*pm, wrote:

Speaking for myself and a few other people I know who voted for Boris, it
wasn't so much a case of voting for him , more a case of voting against Ken.

How sad that people should put personalities before policies, and elect

Who said it was anything to do with personalities?? As a person Ken comes
across fine, its his moronic politics I can't stand. Chavez and Lee Jasper
were the final straw for me.

You're still putting stuff which is utterly trivial and irrelevant
ahead of policies, whether the trivial thing is "is a drunken tit",
"did a deal with a ropey-albeit-democratically-elected politician to
get London cheap oil", or "has mates who nick trivial amounts of money
from the budget".

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