Ed Balls: knew Iraq was wrong but still went along

May 21st, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

Ellie Gellard

V insightful @edballsmp interview in Telegraph tomorrow – Iraq “war was wrong”. http://bit.ly/cg4bCW

What Ed actually says about it is…

“People always felt as if the decision had been made and they were being informed after the fact.” Though not yet elected as an MP, Mr Balls – as Mr Brown’s adviser – was party to top level discussions after attempts to get a second UN Security Council resolution failed.

“I was in the room when a decision was taken that we would say it was that dastardly Frenchman, Jacques Chirac, who had scuppered it. It wasn’t really true, you know. I said to Gordon: ‘I know why you’re doing this, but you’ll regret it’. France is a very important relationship for us.”

Ed was only an advisor to Gordon Brown and could only give advice but admits that at the time he knew that what the government was doing, or at least how it was going about it, was wrong. He gave his advice and that was all he could do. Fair enough, I suppose.

But wait. What’s this (click to enlarge)…?

Edward Balls, the MP *strongly* didn’t want an investigation into the Iraq war that he knew to either be wrong in itself or had been sold to the public by lies and subterfuge.

So. What’s more important to Mr Balls? The truth or his career? Innocent people dying or climbing the greasy poll?

Ed Balls says that his mentor, Gordon Brown, retiring has been a “a liberation” because…

For the first time I’m free to be myself

Mr Balls has always been able to be himself. What himself chose was to be part of a lie that has killed thousands of people and to try and keep that lie covered.

Only now owning up because he is far enough up the career ladder and the lie is far enough in the past that it won’t do too much damage.

How Not To Run A Political Party

May 19th, 2010 § 1 comment § permalink

or The BNPs’ Slow Motion Implosion.

Jai at Pickled Politics has gathered together over 15 ‘things’ that have fucked the BNP since the general election.

Such as

4. Griffin’s third public message, including fabricated ‘percentages’ of Barking & Dagenham’s non-white electorate along with the assertion that the BNP is the ‘British Resistance’. Believe or not, Griffin’s apocalyptic faux-Churchillian call to arms isn’t actually a spoof; he really did write this message.

and…

8. Just before Griffin was leaving the premises after the election results for Barking & Dagenham, he was confronted by Nick Lowles from Searchlight about the incident in Barking involving Bailey. Lowles’ impromptu confrontation with Griffin was captured on video. Griffin makes false allegations about the Asians carrying knives and also refuses to condemn Bailey’s actions (especially Bailey’s attempt to forcefully kick the Asian lying on the ground) despite being repeatedly questioned about the matter by Lowles. Also note Griffin’s Freudian slip when he refers to the [white] ‘British majority’ and then corrects himself by stuttering ‘minority’, along with his claim that the BNP now needs to change into a ‘civil rights’ organisation for them.

Go read and follow the links. It’s quite a mood-lifter.

#bercowout

May 18th, 2010 § 5 comments § permalink

The Speaker of the House position maybe up for change, if Iain Fale is right, with Ming Campbell offering himself up.

The uprising is lead by, amongst others, Nadine Dorries. But why the buggery is there the focus on John Bercows wife?

Political Betting

So is Ming going to do it? That’s hard to say but there’s one strong point in his favour – his wife, Lady Elspeth, is never in a million years going to make an arse of herself on Twitter

Mrs Bercow has bugger all to with with House business, and neither will anybody elses spouse unless they are elected.

Maybe it would be a better course of action to look who is leading this and how much of an arse they are rather than their other halves before deciding which way to vote on Bercow.

The Amnesty ad the FT wouldn’t publish

May 18th, 2010 § 2 comments § permalink

What’s with this ad?

betrayed

May 17th, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

Anton Vowl

… thinking about New Labour cheerleaders here, that they feel a bit betrayed by what the Lib Dems have done – getting a bit of power in return for shacking up with the Tories and biting the bullet on stuff they used to believe in.

Why do people feel betrayed?

The LibDems might have compromised on some stuff they believe in, not used to believe in but still do, in return for what? For getting some other stuff they believe in. What was the alternative? Being the third party in the parliament, or a smaller part in a coalition of even more competing voices in ‘rainbow’ coalition, with less say, and less chance to influence things.

Sometimes you have to get what you want in small steps. That is what the LibDems have done. They’ve looked at the bigger picture and thought they could get some stuff done now rather than wait bugger knows how long for the chance to do everything at once.

The Tories are going to do what is most important to them whether they have a junior partner or not. At least this way, with the LibDems in there as well, it’s not going to be all their way.

Betrayl? Look at the bigger picture without your parties blinkers on and it becomes anything but.

The defeat of the BNP

May 15th, 2010 § 2 comments § permalink

The defeat of the BNP

At two minutes past six last Friday morning, Nick Griffin walked to the front of the makeshift stage at the Goresbrook leisure centre in Barking, east London, and tried to make his voice heard above a braying crowd. The BNP leader had just suffered a humiliating defeat, beaten into third place by Labour MP Margaret Hodge in the constituency where he had promised to create a “political earthquake”.

But as he began a flustered and angry speech, Griffin already knew that worse was to come. Rumours had been circulating round the east London count for more than an hour that the party had not only failed to get its first MP, it was on the verge of an electoral disaster in the area Griffin had once described as the party’s “jewel in the crown”.

“Within the next five years, the indigenous people of London will be a minority,” barked Griffin, as jubilant Labour supporters taunted him with shouts of “Out, out, out!” “It is going to be too late for Barking, but it is not too late for Britain.” By then, though, no one was listening.

In the next 12 hours, Griffin’s worst fears were realised – and even exceeded. The party was thrashed in its two key parliamentary constituencies of Barking and Stoke Central. Its record number of council and parliamentary candidates failed to make a single breakthrough; and of the 28 BNP councillors standing for re-election, all but two were beaten.

Read the rest

Via Chicken Yoghurt

Some thoughts on the #GE2010 election

May 7th, 2010 § 2 comments § permalink

The electorate are cunts.

Yeah, I know that’s a big sweeping statement but how else can it be explained? Dr Evan Harris (Lib, Oxford West & Abingdon) lost his seat and Nadine Dorries (Con, Mid Beds) retains her seat with an increased majority. What sort of society are we living in that chucks out an MP that has a rational, evidence based approach to scientific issues? An MP that is against the encroachment of civil liberties and has a positive record on gay issues?

Whereas the other MP, Nadine Dorries has a provable track record of obfuscation and smears. Would rather listen to religious fundamentalists on public health issues because they say things that confirm her own prejudices and dismiss anything that doesn’t. An MP that would rather shout ‘stalker’ that engage in debate.

Where is the justice? Where is the sense?

Posted via email from Sim-O

Dorries does the Flitwick flounce

May 5th, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

Tim Ireland went to Flitwick to record and broadcast a hustings that Nadine Dorries was appearing at.

It didn’t quite go to plan, due to a couple of misunderstandings. Even leaving those misunderstandings to one side, the amount of vitriol spewed by Dorries in the form of lies and smears is incredible. All of which she is unable, to substantiate.

For more see Tim’s post about it:
Nadine Dorries has finally gone too far

and Adam Crofts’ post. Adam was attending the hustings and is not associated with either Tim or Nadine.

(Special mention also goes to Chris Paul that somehow also got dragged in to all this even though he wasn’t present and coined the phrase ‘The Flitwick Flounce’.)

The Pope Song

May 4th, 2010 § 2 comments § permalink

The more I hear Tim Minchin, the more I like him.

via PDF

Fucking Tories

May 4th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

Gary Younge (CIF)

I don’t have a phobia about Tories. That would suggest an irrational response. I hate them for a reason. For lots of reasons, actually. For the miners, apartheid, Bobby Sands, Greenham Common, selling council houses, Section 28, lining the pockets of the rich and hammering the poor – to name but a few. I hate them because they hate people I care about. As a young man Cameron looked out on the social carnage of pit closures and mass unemployment, looked at Margaret Thatcher’s government and thought, these are my people. When all the debating is done, that is really all I need to know.

Where am I?

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