How red is Red Ed?

Any of us that follow British politics will know that our Ed was elected to the leadership of the Labour party by a very narrow margin of votes that were bolstered by the votes from the unions. With this in mind, I am tempted to ask:

Is Ed Miliband, like his father was, ( an intellectual Marxist ), or is he a closet Blairite ?

I think we all knew that his brother David WAS a Blairite and now that he is gone and out of British politics there is surely nothing to stop Ed Miliband from admitting that he is a true Socialist.

I think we know that Ed Miliband, as the leader of the Labour party and as the opposition leader in the commons has to keep many of his plans for Britain's political future under wraps because he does not want to give too much away to the opposition before the general election hustings in 2015, BUT.... do you people think that he is holding too many of his cards too close to his chest when potential voters like us are crying out for signs of a future Labour Prime Minister ?

OR.... do any of you think that Ed Miliband just has not got it in him to be the next Labour Prime Minister of Britain?

Regards.....

Papaumau.

Much to debate there, Papamau, but the probability is that the Cameron/Osborne/Clegg triumvirate have dug themselves a pit that will be deep enough to bury them in at the next General Election - which at the moment looks like it is Labour's to lose.

The fickle electorate may find themselves rather fascinated by the notion of a new Prime Minister who is a slightly unknown quantity. Politics may even briefly stop being a total yawn to the Great Unwashed in 2015.

Yes Oftenwrong, I too think that Ed Miliband's unknown quantity CAN BE a two edged sword as on the one hand nobody knows what he is about, ( especially his supporters ), and on the other hand the "triumvirate" that you speak of know little about him either.

This could make for a very interesting few months before the next GE, and, as you say, it might even shake a few of the plebs out of their voting lethargy.

Personally, I would still like to see "our Ed" becoming more of a statesman, as if he stays in his shell he may lose votes because the punters will not be sure what they might be voting for.

Sadly Blair had the charisma but did not have the vision, and even if Ed Miliband does not have much charisma I would hope that he might have the vision to take the Labour party back to its roots, where it should be.

I am totally sick of governments of the past kowtowing to the right wing, ( including New-Labour ), when there is a magnificent tradition of middle-of-the-road Socialism just waiting to be reborn.

I honestly hope that Ed Miliband has the heart and soul that is going to be required to carry out this task.

At the moment I don't know if he has !

Regards....

Papaumau.

Sadly Blair had the charisma but did not have the vision, and even if Ed Miliband does not have much charisma I would hope that he might have the vision to take the Labour party back to its roots, where it should be.

Papa....I think you do Blair a disservice, he got middle England voting for Labour once again. His vision was to bury the worst of the Labour party in the past and the a great extent that's what he managed to do

I am totally sick of governments of the past kowtowing to the right wing, ( including New-Labour ), when there is a magnificent tradition of middle-of-the-road Socialism just waiting to be reborn

I agree Papa, there is an imbalance in our society that favours the right, but I think the right have gaged the mood of the people and exploiting this to their advantage.
On the other hand Left wing socialism has disconnected with the realities of the modern world we live in and if it was possible to stick to 'Middle of the road socialism' then (taking my Tory hat off for a moment) I think we would have a better society. The problem is with both the Left and right, when you give them too much power they always go to the extremes and this is where you lose the publics faith...and ultimately their vote

Papaumau wrote:Any of us that follow British politics will know that our Ed was elected to the leadership of the Labour party by a very narrow margin of votes that were bolstered by the votes from the unions. With this in mind, I am tempted to ask:

Is Ed Miliband, like his father was, ( an intellectual Marxist ), or is he a closet Blairite ?

I think we all knew that his brother David WAS a Blairite and now that he is gone and out of British politics there is surely nothing to stop Ed Miliband from admitting that he is a true Socialist.

I think we know that Ed Miliband, as the leader of the Labour party and as the opposition leader in the commons has to keep many of his plans for Britain's political future under wraps because he does not want to give too much away to the opposition before the general election hustings in 2015, BUT.... do you people think that he is holding too many of his cards too close to his chest when potential voters like us are crying out for signs of a future Labour Prime Minister ?

OR.... do any of you think that Ed Miliband just has not got it in him to be the next Labour Prime Minister of Britain?

Regards.....

Papaumau.

Papaumau I think Ed Miliband does hold his cards very close to his chest for good reason the Tories are always trying to find out what he has in store for the 2015 general election, so much that it is starting to look like desperation from the Tories, which says to me they are worried very worried that they will suffer the same fate as Labour did in the 2010 general election.

Papaumau wrote:

I think we know that Ed Miliband, as the leader of the Labour party and as the opposition leader in the commons has to keep many of his plans for Britain's political future under wraps because he does not want to give too much away to the opposition before the general election hustings in 2015, BUT.... do you people think that he is holding too many of his cards too close to his chest when potential voters like us are crying out for signs of a future Labour Prime Minister ?

OR.... do any of you think that Ed Miliband just has not got it in him to be the next Labour Prime Minister of Britain?

Regards.....

Papaumau.

All this stuff about Miliband, and the Labour party, having to play their cards close to their chest is absolute bluster and nonsense. Why can't they stand up and speak honestly about what they will do/believe in? What are they frightened of - scaring off voters, giving the Tory party ammunition?

Methinks they tread far too cautiously, and would do better to stand tall, speak proudly, and truthfully about their intent/vision for the UK; and take the fight to this dreadful coalition head on.........instead of tip-toeing around weakly, and ineffectively.


...of course they might also be revealing very little as they might realise that they wouldn't really be doing too much different to our current government?

sickchip wrote:

Papaumau wrote:

I think we know that Ed Miliband, as the leader of the Labour party and as the opposition leader in the commons has to keep many of his plans for Britain's political future under wraps because he does not want to give too much away to the opposition before the general election hustings in 2015, BUT.... do you people think that he is holding too many of his cards too close to his chest when potential voters like us are crying out for signs of a future Labour Prime Minister ?

OR.... do any of you think that Ed Miliband just has not got it in him to be the next Labour Prime Minister of Britain?

Regards.....

Papaumau.

All this stuff about Miliband, and the Labour party, having to play their cards close to their chest is absolute bluster and nonsense. Why can't they stand up and speak honestly about what they will do/believe in? What are they frightened of - scaring off voters, giving the Tory party ammunition?

Methinks they tread far too cautiously, and would do better to stand tall, speak proudly, and truthfully about their intent/vision for the UK; and take the fight to this dreadful coalition head on.........instead of tip-toeing around weakly, and ineffectively.


...of course they might also be revealing very little as they might realise that they wouldn't really be doing too much different to our current government?

Sickchip you know the state of the country at the moment but do you know what state it is going to be in May 2015, if Ed tells us NOW making promises that more than likely will have to break I would imagine that the voters would be ANGRY to say the least. The voters would not be very happy and think Ed as bad as Cameron for breaking promises after getting them to vote for him so unless you have a crystal ball and can see into the future I would suggest you contact Ed and let him know what state the finances are going to be in May 2015.

It would be reassuring to have some strong statements about principles, and for the party to be coming out pointing out the fallacies underlying a lot of government policy.
Stuff like the lies being told by the DWP doesn't seem to be being raised strongly or loudly enough in parliament, and lots of the government rhetoric about what we can't afford as a country needs challenging too.
I think Milliband genuinely has a plan and a set of priciples I can respect, but it's not being made clear, whereas the Tory and UKIP squit is clearly expressed all the time in words of one syllable that readers of the Sun can understand.
I guess what I'm saying is, there aren't any Labour slogans, and maybe there need to be to get the message out there.

This is something that I have been somewhat puzzled over, and can't work out if this is strategic or not. The very face of UK politics is changing, first coalition government in 60+ years and if the current local council elections are anything to go by, the 2 previously dominant parties in the UK may never again look at holding that dominance in the UK, when parties such as UKIP beat the Conservatives in local elections? So the question I am raising is this anything to with Labour's new found silence, essentially getting a new feel for a changing political landscape or do they as yet not have any cards up their sleeve? The latter I feel wont be the case but has to be addressed, or is it more simply offer enough rope in order to let them hang themselves with Public opinion, they could very easily retaliate on numerous issues but when the coalition are so good at hanging themselves more often than not ~ Does labour really need to offer the final push, therefore freeing themselves up to work on how to sort out the mess that the coalition have made with regard to policies for the 2015 G.E?

Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?
He got an ice pick that made his ears burn
Whatever happened to dear old Lenny?
The great Elmyra and Sancho Panza?

Whatever happened to the heroes?
Whatever happened to the heroes?
Whatever happened to all the heroes?
All the Shakespearoes?
They watched their Rome burn
Whatever happened to all the heroes?
Whatever happened to all the heroes?
No more heroes any more
No more heroes any more

Read more: STRANGLERS - NO MORE HEROES LYRICS

And your point is?

As has been ably said above, there is no doubt that Ed Miliband IS trying to keep the Tories wrong-footed by not giving them any "stuff" to latch on to.

As all the Tories have left is destruction and criticism I think that Ed Miliband is right to keep them guessing.

I just hope that he does give us enough in the months that are left so that we can decide if the next government is going to be one based on the best of Labour traditions and values rather than on the very discredited "New-Labour" view of centre-right politics.

Yes, Tony Blair made Labour electable again by dragging the party screaming and kicking hard over to the right and conning a lot of disaffected ex-Tory voters to vote for him and his vision, but THAT, I would like to suggest, is not a true or accurate Labour party vision of centre-ground politics.

I would hope that our Ed might have the intelligence to refresh the old "Old-Labour" ways so that the electorate will no longer see Labour as a tool of the unions and driven by Communist values rather than true Labour values.

I see no reason why the Labour party can not come back as a middle-of-the-road and Socialism-based party WITHOUT having the attached lead weight of the "Old-Labour ways to hold us down.

There HAS TO BE a Socialism-based political Labour party out there that is not going to be dragged down by the hard left values of history or the hard right values of Tony Blair so that at long last we will see a true centre-ground government that cares about the poor and weak just as much as it cares about the rich and powerful.

That is what I want to hear from Ed Miliband as the months pass going towards the general election.

Regards....

Papaumau.

Milibands and Labours silence has contributed in many ways to the recent rise in UKIP polularity. When and electorate is looking for an alternative how can they vote for a party that says nothing ( I am talking floating voters here, not die hards )
The only thing the voters can judge Labour on at the moment is their last few years in government as since then they have not come up with anything to woo the voters back. Their silence tells people it will be more of the same...thank you very much.

Take South Shields...a strong safe Labour seat, but the share of their vote was slightly down on 2010 with UKIP taking 24%. How can this be when you have a coalition government in mid term who have basically failed to get us out of the mess we find ourselves in......Don't get me wrong the Tories and Lib Dems are in much deeper trouble

blueturando wrote:Milibands and Labours silence has contributed in many ways to the recent rise in UKIP polularity. When and electorate is looking for an alternative how can they vote for a party that says nothing ( I am talking floating voters here, not die hards )
The only thing the voters can judge Labour on at the moment is their last few years in government as since then they have not come up with anything to woo the voters back. Their silence tells people it will be more of the same...thank you very much.

Take South Shields...a strong safe Labour seat, but the share of their vote was slightly down on 2010 with UKIP taking 24%. How can this be when you have a coalition government in mid term who have basically failed to get us out of the mess we find ourselves in......Don't get me wrong the Tories and Lib Dems are in much deeper trouble

I think what Papaumau has said in the previous post says it all, Ed Miliband is keeping his powder dry and in turn the Tories guessing and they are unable to do what they want to do is pick holes in anything the Labour party say. Even UKIP have not grasped what the people are saying to gov't of any colour and that is "JOBS & GROWTH" and yes Immigration and the EU are in that equation and both of them connected.

On South Shields Labour won the seat with a reduced majority thanks to the entire Tory party Telling Lies about its all Labours fault, the banks did not take the peoples savings and mortgage and go off on a jolly to the Casino for the night, or transfering jobs from the public sector by selling off the public sector to the private sector then say the private sector have created over a Million jobs when that is nothing more than BLATANT LIES

Red, your passion for the Labour Party is beautiful to behold, unfortunately the majority of Labour, Lib dem's and Tories are now significantly one and the same, they all share similar views and if a robot synthesised their voices and you couldn't see their faces it would be very hard to ascertain the difference in what they are offering. The modern day politician has become pretty much a clone believing they are appealing to the centre masses. basically a bunch of plastic toffs with no life experience to fall back on. UKIP have become a voice of fresh air, talking in a manner that the man in the street understands, talking about things that worry a working person without fear of being called a racist, homophobic or little Englander. The worst case scenario is the main 3 begin to change their stance to suck people in. The best case scenario would be they manage to gain an mp or two, mind you prior to that watch them gain more seats in the European elections first.

tlttf wrote:Red, your passion for the Labour Party is beautiful to behold, unfortunately the majority of Labour, Lib dem's and Tories are now significantly one and the same, they all share similar views and if a robot synthesised their voices and you couldn't see their faces it would be very hard to ascertain the difference in what they are offering. The modern day politician has become pretty much a clone believing they are appealing to the centre masses. basically a bunch of plastic toffs with no life experience to fall back on. UKIP have become a voice of fresh air, talking in a manner that the man in the street understands, talking about things that worry a working person without fear of being called a racist, homophobic or little Englander. The worst case scenario is the main 3 begin to change their stance to suck people in. The best case scenario would be they manage to gain an mp or two, mind you prior to that watch them gain more seats in the European elections first.

That is where we differ tittf No political party could be as HEARTLESS or UNCARING as the Tory party as they have proved in this term in office,Thatcher was bad but Cameron really takes the biscuit he is making people homeless (bedroom tax) while not providing a smaller house or flat for them to move too, but he knew that before he brought this tax in it was just another way of squeezing those that do not come from the same background as himself, as it has been proved with the "JOBS for the BOYS" employing his friends from his Eton days and the Bullingdon Club.

As for the Lib-Dems even though I would not P**S on them if they were on fire they are just spineless, when the Tories offered them crumbs of power they took it and forgot their party beliefs, and do not say it's a coalition and they had to compromise what they did was more than compromise it comes down to Prostitution nothing more or less. I know that if Labour had got back into power in 2010 they would have had to make cuts, but they were going to do it over two terms of Parliament which at the time there was growth and people still in work paying tax and NI thus helping to pay the deficit down whereas Osbourn is having to borrow more than he said he would borrow JUST TO PAY JSA which to most Economists is plain stupidity.

The questions to ask: will the Labour party, if elected, reverse Tory policies on welfare - 'bedroom tax', etc? Will they reverse Tory policy on the NHS and education?

What do you think?

The Labour won't reverse a thing sickchip we all know that, they'll simply raise taxes again, a standard policy. The quasi labour bunch in power at present are setting the stall out to ensure who ever gets their snouts, in the electorate will be ruled (am I allowed to write ruled?) by another bunch of plastic grey people who's only consideration and/or policy will be ensure that the trough is flowing over.

All parties are obsessed with the EU because it's a natural progression and pocket liner prior to retiring (ask that well re known socialist `Lord Kinnock and family` what the EU stands for.

Most people on here assumes my politics leans to the right simply because I believe in individuals rather than state, I know my judgement on where to spend my money is far more relevant and worthy than any judgement passed by a parliament of pigs whoever they kid to represent, bring on more independents and more UKIP please!

Does anybody know of anyone that has been made homeless because of the loss of bedroom benefits?

sickchip wrote:The questions to ask: will the Labour party, if elected, reverse Tory policies on welfare - 'bedroom tax', etc? Will they reverse Tory policy on the NHS and education?

What do you think?

Sickchip Ed Miliband is no Tony Blair he will NOT carry on with Scam..er..ons policies, I think Ed has a good idea what he will do about the bedroom tax and all the other NASTY bills he has brought in that is why he has been so quiet he will know where he will take the money from to pay for the bedroom tax been SCRAPPED,.

The next thing that Cameron will do is the working time directive this is where instead of working for no more than 40 hours per week it will go back to what it was under Thatcher 70 or more hours per week for BUTTONS , because the other thing he will do away with is the MINIMUM WAGE he intends to make the people who pour money into Tory party funds and his friends in big business a HELLVA lot more wealthier than what they are at the moment that is Scam..er..ons idea of the "BIG SOCIETY"

Thanks for the replies, tlttf and Redflag.

I fear tlttf may be correct - but hope Redflag is.

sickchip wrote:Thanks for the replies, tlttf and Redflag.

I fear tlttf may be correct - but hope Redflag is.

Sickchip I do not think that Ed Miliband would carry on TORY POLICIES knowing the pain and anger of the UK public at the moment with the sick and disabled being Pilloried by this Tory gov't because if he carried on with the Tory policies he would be no better than Cameron and his shower of ASS HOLES. I think Ed is a much more caring person caring for ALL and not just the chosen few.

Does anybody know of anyone that has been made homeless because of the loss of bedroom benefits?

A question that says so much.

The so-called bedroom tax started in April. Around 660,000 people will be affected by it and will have to find an extra £14 a week on average. As the policy only took effect about three weeks ago, nobody will have been evicted yet because the arrears for having a spare bedroom are only likely to be about £42 to date.

There are around 30 people who post regularly on this forum. I don’t know anyone who receives housing benefit - and who could therefore be vulnerable to this pernicious legislation, brought in at the same time as a massive tax cut for millionaires – and I doubt if many, or even any, of the others posters do. But then the question has only been asked because the questioner is fairly certain that he knows the answer.

What if we did know someone who is on housing benefit and vulnerable to possible eviction in the future? What would the anecdotal knowledge of a poster on here tell us about the fate of 660,000 people across the country?

We’ve established that nobody has been evicted (yet), so that makes everything okay, I suppose. Perhaps we’re just imagining that this sick government of sociopaths is implementing vicious policies that hurt some of the poorest people in the land. And if the bedroom tax isn’t going to affect us, or anyone we know, who cares? If we live in a nice leafy suburb in the south, why should we worry about people living in inner cities, faced with exorbitant rents that they won’t be able to afford? We can just bury our heads in the sand and pretend that it isn’t happening.

Good post, Ivan.

People should realise that, aside from the threat of eviction, this cruel tory reform will further impoverish the already impoverished. The problems with this will begin to surface in the months ahead as details of arrears, debt, and hardship begin to surface as a result of this reform.

A cruel tory policy that will simply serve to increase poverty and the queues at food banks.

There is no doubt that - as has been said above - the governments of the past thirty or so years have been right-wing governments, ( Including Tony Blair's New-Labour ), and this has created a desperate need for politics to move gently back to the centre-left.

The people are now so sick to the back teeth of rampant privatisation and uncontrolled attacks on the state-delivered services, ( especially our marvellous NHS ), that I have NO DOUBT that at the 2015 election these greedy and carenought privatising political parasites will get their come-uppance.

There is now a gaping hole in British politics that Ed Miliband and his team are going to fill and I am sure that if we are patient we will see a new political vision coming from him and his supporters - including me - that will satisfy the needs of the people who have been continually put upon by the cowardly rightists just because they saw us as weak and vulnerable.

The worm IS about to turn and I have waited a long time for this to happen.

( Oh... and what's wrong with some honest direct taxation in the future as the governments of the past have been too terrified to even mention the words "direct taxes" and have hammered us instead with stealth taxes, thinking that we are gullible enough to see that as them being the good guys ). They are not the "good guys" !

Regards....

Papaumau.

Twenty-four postings are not quite enough upon which to base a Doctoral thesis, but anyone seeking an underlying common theme, might easily detect a general dis-satisfaction with the established Westminster Parliamentary system, which is effectively seven-hundred years old.

The Party machines rule, and whipping soon irons out any individualistic tendencies in a new MP, so after every General Election there is very quickly a resumption of the same old same old - of which the Electorate is heartily sick and beginning to show it!

It IS broke, and DOES need fixing. But don't expect the members of London's most confortable Club to be the first ones to make a move in that direction.

Hear hear

oftenwrong wrote:Twenty-four postings are not quite enough upon which to base a Doctoral thesis, but anyone seeking an underlying common theme, might easily detect a general dis-satisfaction with the established Westminster Parliamentary system, which is effectively seven-hundred years old.

The Party machines rule, and whipping soon irons out any individualistic tendencies in a new MP, so after every General Election there is very quickly a resumption of the same old same old - of which the Electorate is heartily sick and beginning to show it!

It IS broke, and DOES need fixing. But don't expect the members of London's most confortable Club to be the first ones to make a move in that direction.

Yes Oftenwrong, you are right again there !

Party politics and the liberal, ( with a small "l" ), use of the whips in parliament has stopped many individual MPs from properly serving their constituents for many years.

That is why I think that there should be many more uses of the conscience-vote, where each MP can vote with his or her conscience without drawing the wrath of the whips on to their heads.

Having said that, with little hope it will actually happen, I have to go back to the old way that we are supposed to know how each of the parties are going to behave once we give them the power.

This is done via their individual manifestos and if they do not stick to their published manifesto then they should pay a very heavy price.

Regards....

Papaumau.

Unless something unexpected and significant occurs in the next two years to give some advantage to Miliband ( a decent enough man) , I suspect that he will not become PM and, therefore, not even have the chance to show what he could have done.

Once he has failed to achieve a general Election victory, the Labour Party will dispose of him and it will be at least another Parliament before Labour gets a stab at seeking to save the country from the mistakes of the electorate- which will have been born of mistaken hysteria generated by The Sun and Daily Mail.

If I'm wrong I shall deny I ever said it, and will renounce my membership of Pease Pottage Conservative Club...

I hope the first part of your post is very wrong PH, this country cannot take another 5 years of a right-wing gov't, it's on it's knees now and another 5 years and this country will have died a nasty death.

Thinking about the above words, I have often thought quietly to myself that even although David Miliband was a Blairite and Ed Miliband leans more to the left, I think that David might have made a better Prime Minister than Ed is going to make.

Sadly, now that David has lifted his ball and run away we are only left with Ed, and the fact that David is away in America doing stuff means that Ed will not have his brother casting a long shadow over his efforts.

I honestly hope that Ed Miliband is a greater statesman than he looks at the moment and that is he is given the chance by a win in 2015 to show his worth, as, just like the old saying: "Cometh the time, cometh the man" we may be surprised that there is much more to Ed Miliband than we can see just now.

Regards....

Papaumau.

John Major's sleaze administration hardly even tried to resist the onslaught of an emboldened (New) Labour Party in 1997, knowing that on their own record their chances of being re-elected were not very high.

A 2015 General Election will not favour any one Party over another, because now the electorate are thoroughly dis-satisfied with all of them. The Nation is heading towards another Coalition unless perhaps one Group produces a credible plan for economic recovery.

Whatever happened to all the heroes?
No more heroes any more
No more heroes any more

Thinking about that over the weekend - the 'heroes' I could bring to mind in the political sphere were - Hitler, Stalin, Alexander the Great, Mao Tse Tung, Margaret Thatcher - I'm not aware any of them did much good for those around them, or addressed much social injustice - maybe we can do without heroes.
Ed Milliband is NOT a hero, but maybe he's someone who will try to be honest and to work out a solution to our current ills that will give a fair outcome to everyone - I can go for that.

My experience has been that genuine heroes are generally unassuming people and rarely make much of a song and dance about it.

If you claim to be great, you probably aren't. Unless you're Muhammad Ali.

boatlady wrote:

Whatever happened to all the heroes?
No more heroes any more
No more heroes any more

Thinking about that over the weekend - the 'heroes' I could bring to mind in the political sphere were - Hitler, Stalin, Alexander the Great, Mao Tse Tung, Margaret Thatcher - I'm not aware any of them did much good for those around them, or addressed much social injustice - maybe we can do without heroes.
Ed Milliband is NOT a hero, but maybe he's someone who will try to be honest and to work out a solution to our current ills that will give a fair outcome to everyone - I can go for that.

I agree with your post boatlady, Ed is very quiet at the moment no jumping around after Farage picked up quite a few council seats last week I tend to think he knows something that the rest of us do not know, but I'm sure he will let us all in on what he has in mind soon.

oftenwrong wrote:John Major's sleaze administration hardly even tried to resist the onslaught of an emboldened (New) Labour Party in 1997, knowing that on their own record their chances of being re-elected were not very high.

A 2015 General Election will not favour any one Party over another, because now the electorate are thoroughly dis-satisfied with all of them. The Nation is heading towards another Coalition unless perhaps one Group produces a credible plan for economic recovery.

I think that you are sort-of right again Oftenwrong, ( sorry for the pun )....

The British people are sick, tired and bored with two-party politics and they are looking for a true "third way". Our Tony Blair promised us this "third way" but failed miserably after his vision of a "third way" turned out to be nothing more than a poor and ersatz copy of the Tory first way.

As I see it the only true "THIRD WAY" is going to come from a party and government that are going to serve ALL of the people of Britain - especially the old and the weak and the sick instead of just serving the rich and powerful ones, to the detriment of the rest.

The only party that I believe will have the desire and the political direction to do this will be a revitalised, refreshed and truly centre-left party that carries the forgotten values of the great Labour movement without being controlled by the Communists among us.

I hope and pray that this government will be a Labour government under the leadership of Ed Miliband, who, ( while he may have many of the values of his late father in his mind ), when he starts to shape the government of the future he will finally do way with the swingometer politics that have plagued us for so long.

Regards....

Papaumau.

In the darkest days of WW2, Churchill had the honesty to say that he had nothing but blood, sweat, toil and tears in prospect for the electorate, which they thoroughly understood, and were willing to accept, temporarily, for the common good.

Compare that with the weasel words of today's Politicians who tell lies about a glittering future for workers stupid enough to vote Tory because they think they might share in the wealth by so doing.

When are the aspirational workers going to realise that the best chance of "fair shares for all" lies in the Socialist movement - not from the Boss Class?

oftenwrong wrote:In the darkest days of WW2, Churchill had the honesty to say that he had nothing but blood, sweat, toil and tears in prospect for the electorate, which they thoroughly understood, and were willing to accept, temporarily, for the common good.

Compare that with the weasel words of today's Politicians who tell lies about a glittering future for workers stupid enough to vote Tory because they think they might share in the wealth by so doing.

When are the aspirational workers going to realise that the best chance of "fair shares for all" lies in the Socialist movement - not from the Boss Class?

Once again OW you have hit the nail on the head great post.

Ed Miliband.... an unknown quantity?

And long may he stay as such, there are enough idiots in power that believe they know what's best. Why swap them for somebody that blatantly has no idea?

It often takes me an hour or two to prepare a message for this forum. Others can do so in less than three minutes, and boy, doesn't it show!

I always feel it's a shame when landy has nothing in the pantry for tea and finds himself with too much time on his hands...