Vote, Vote, Vote (as Tim Worstall so eloquently puts it). And I should inform you that today is Margaret Thatcher Day in the Falklands. For some of us EVERY day is Margaret Thatcher Day... (that should get a few people spewing some venom in the comments...)
UPDATE: This is from the Comments...
I met Maggie in Crossmaglen August 1979. We'd lost our CO in the bomb attack at Warrenpoint and Maggie came to see us. She stormed into the base like a whirlwind, met most of us and spoke to as many as possible. She then stood on then helipad outside the base waiting on the chopper whilst Gen Creasy etc were cowering inside saying "come back in Prime Minister" to which she replied - "This is the UK no terrorist will stop me standing where I want in the UK!" What a girl.PS: She kept saying things would get better to us as she went round - I then appeared on crutches wearing an eye patch (after an incident a month before) and replied "they can't get much worse Ma'am!" More guts in that one woman than the entire Labour Government!
37 comments:
Oi, oi, oi! Benn lead now 2.4% and growing pretty quickly. It reduced to about 0.5% a couple of days ago. He is such a nice old gentleman after all. Less than 24 hours to go before his worthy coronation.
Maybe they could tie and the award event would be hit by a meteorite - double gain for Labour.
Never! Vote Benn!!!
Looks like Benn will win it, and I'd let him, frankly. It'll discredit the BBC and it will be embarrasing for Brillopad even to announce the winner. Benn has been on the losing side of almost all the political and ideological arguments he has joined during his interminable career. Being a vocal opponent of the Iraq war these last few years hardly makes him unique.
I know this programme is the least bad of the Beeb's output, but their shortlist alone shows them up as lightweight.
These endless popularity votes are almost always got at by a well-organised faction - the Countryside Alliance's victory on the Today poll at New Year being a case in point - and therefore pretty bogus.
And until the Boundary Commission end Labour's gerrymandering, and the turnout increases, even our General Election votes are questionable.
Did you know today was Margaret Thatcher Day in the Falklands?
http://www.falklands.gov.fk/9-holidays.htm
Did you know it is Maggie Thatcher Day on the Falklands today?
The reason Benn has achieved popularity rather late in his life, and despite his political views, is because he appears to have some form of integrity. Integrity that seems to be lacking in PR obsessed non-entities like Blair and Cameron.
Turns out you did!
Er ... what are Louise and Theo going on about?
And why should we bother taking anything the BBC does seriously. Benn's vote catching allure tells you all you need to know. The nice old uncle trick. FFS understand his record, understand what he stands for. His malady is a serious and chronic case of self loathing. Age makes him acceptable for the idiot believers in Utopia.
Louise and Theo - Well, we do now. Thank you.
og says these popularity polls are always got at by a well-organised faction.
True. Remember 10 years ago, before he was elected, when Tony Blair inexplicably won 'most popular man in Britain' or some such? It was discovered later - it was a telephone poll in those days - that the repeat voting had been organised by Blair supporters and they simply called, voted, hung up and redialled.
And when does the next Boundary Commission report and its results get implemented ?
I am not one for war (especially the current ones) but Thatcher was dead right over the Falklands.
The Belgrano was merely a kick up the backside for a fleeing criminal gang and went to show that we don't take no shit from nobody.
So, apart from Bruges, The Falklands, toppling the union bullies and the end of the cold war, what did Thatcher ever do for us?
When is Tony Benn day?
Tony Benn gave up his peerage and wins a political award, Tony Blair sells them and doesn't even get nominated - a bit ironic really.
Sir Menzies Campbell is not on the list. I wonder why?
I wish I could meet her before it's too late.
"Got at"? og "by a well-organised faction"? How is it that almost every Tory blogger is pushing a Thatcher vote while hardly any lefties still less Blairites have taken the trouble and yet your "well-organised" faction seems well placed to, er ... lose?
Is it because the BBC have organised - like Mr Dale - against the VEVO tendancy in the tories that made Ask Dave/id such a laughing stock?
War story alert!
Met Maggie in Crossmaglen August 1979. We'd lost our CO in the bomb attack at Warrenpoint and Maggie came to see us. She stormed into the base like a whirlwind, met most of us and spoke to as many as possible. She then stood on then helipad outside the base waiting on the chopper whilst Gen Creasy etc were cowering inside saying "come back in Prime Minister" to which she replied - "This is the UK no terrorist will stop me standing where I want in the UK!" What a girl.
PS: She kept saying things would get better to us as she went round - I then appeared on crutches wearing an eye patch (after an incident a month before) and replied "they can't get much worse Ma'am!" More guts in that one woman than the entire Labour Government!
I'm sorry to say that every time I hear that chant it reminds me of the minors strike. It was usually followed by out, out, out.
"So, apart from Bruges, The Falklands, toppling the union bullies and the end of the cold war, what did Thatcher ever do for us?"
Bruges? You mean the speech that cost her her job, the party its credibility, and the UK it's place as a respected power in Europe, something that only Blair has been able to repair?
Yes, well done Maggie....
Is that the same maggie that authorised a covert shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland?
I suppose it's easier than having to prove someone's a criminal in a court...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_Inquiry
I voted for Neil Kinnock (no one else there from the Labour center)
Now that should get some spewing in the comments section here ;)
"The reason Benn has achieved popularity rather late in his life, and despite his political views, is because he appears to have some form of integrity. Integrity that seems to be lacking in PR obsessed non-entities like Blair and Cameron."
I've been listening to Benn's political views for most of my life and if he's ever shown a shred of integrity I've missed it. Benn patented the "....now the question I'd prefer to answer..." response to interviewers back around the time of the 'white hot technological revolution' and hasn't come out with an honest sentence since. If some of the things his cousin was saying about him were true, his behaviour in his private life left a lot to be desired as well.
"David"
The Lady also stood fire at PATA.
Didnt flinch.
Blair would have shat his pants, then probably have got Cherie to sue on his behalf.
Why would you prefer the erstwhile Heath Cabinet Minister who later signed the Single European Act over the man who led the No Campaign in the run-up to the 1975 referendum?
Furthermore, while it is true that, as Energy Secretary, Benn closed so many pits that there were not enough left at the end for his record ever to be equalled, this needs to be weighed against the fact that, as Education Secretary, Thatcher did the same thing to the grammar schools. On balance, which was worse?
If people had listened to Benn, the North Sea oil money would have been ring-fenced for economic regeneration (outside the then EEC, of course) in exactly the same way as has made Norway the richest country in the world. That could have been Britain. But instead, Benn was succeeded by Nigel Lawson, who boasted that Britain's energy policy was not to have one, yet who continued to draw a Cabinet Minister's salary as Energy Secretary.
It is beyond me why there is a Margaret Thatcher Day in the Falkland Islands. She practically invited in the Argentines, and they were only removed because the Navy staged a sort of coup by pretending that she didn't exist for the duration of hostilities. She had initially refused to believe that a task force would take three weeks to get there, insisting that it would take only three days!
The British and American military top brass should try something similar today, and simply order a full, immediate and unconditional withdrawal both from Afghanistan and from Iraq. The returning forces would be cheered through the streets as heroes.
Blair and Bush could find out from the television once it had already happened, like everyone else. After all, what could they do? With any luck, resign, and take Brown and Cheney with them.
I'm voting for Tebbit, just to ensure that Claire Short finishes last.
Oh NOes, Maggie treated terrorists as they deserved.
The Argies were treated FAR too gently. The entire fleet should have been sent to the bottom, their bases ravaged, etc. Ideally they should have become a Crown Territory, ruled from the Falklands, of course!
Maggie was great, but far too lenient to her enemies, military and political. Britain today would have followed Chamberlain rather than Churchill. It's been all downhill since Suez. Let's ensure she wins.
Call me a cynic, but I have a vision of a cadre of elite BBC staffers sat in front of their terminals, with every now and then an alarm going off, cries of "She's catching up" rending the air, followed by feverish activity as more votes are registered for Benn, and then, as peace descends for a while, they return to their primary tasks of astro-turfing Guido or piling up the crap on CIF.
Dear Anon 6.25
"Bruges? You mean the speech that cost her her job, the party its credibility, and the UK it's place as a respected power in Europe, something that only Blair has been able to repair?"
Have you read the speech recently? Had you done so you would realise that by today's standards it would be considered mild and consequently you are talking rats nadgers.
Be a good chap and have a look at the Bruges speech, and explain to me which bit you feel is not chillingly accurate or desirable or plain common sense.
Try and explain your points. Try a bit harder and please, get a name.
The SAS shot only at active terrorist on operations, they saved families from heart break and are heroes who have the full respect of every one in Northern Ireland except those who support terrorism. Who's right to complain about shoot to kill is questionable.
how can people who publicly celebrate the killing of children in the name of war complain of the 'enemy' returning fire ? The republicans clearly expose their hypocrisy by simultaneously celebrating their aggressions and claiming that the defence mounted to them was oppression. For these actions on the party of the SAS to be a crime you cannot claim to have been involved in a legitimate war, if you were not at war you were terrorists and your campaign was put down in a much more humane fashion than would have occurred anywhere else in the world, you have been incorporated into the state, had many of your demands meet and have been generously financially rewarded. Despite the steady stream of fatalities and criminal enterprises still emanating from your organizations, this is generosity at the extreme expense of justice and a series of privileges that no one who fits any definition of oppressed that you will find in the English language could possibly boast of.
if you were at war this was simply "unconventional" defence to "unconventional" attack and your complaints border on the ridiculous.
so which is it ? were you cowardly soldiers who complain when they actually have to fight an enemy who wasn't just having a drink in a pub or are you just murderous cowards ? either way the SAS gave you the good medicine.
"Maggie treated terrorists as they deserved", says Hey. How was that, exactly? She of the Anglo-Irish Agreement kept up a continuous contact with the IRA even while insisting that she was doing no such thing. But then, it was at the time being funded by the CIA, through NORAID (as NORAID publications from that time actually say in so many words), in order to take out the Workers' Party, the Marxist faction whose giving up of the gun had led to the foundation of the Provisional Army Council.
As for the Argies, her "treatment" of them was to sign over the Falklands to them in all but name, only realise that this was massively unpopular (not to say treasonable) when they took possession accordingly, and then have to content herself with going on television pretending to be in charge while the people who knew waht they were doing (indeed, who even knew where the Falkland Islands were, which she didn't) sorted out the mess that she had created.
http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/2613/thatcherpostersmallec6.png
Do I smell sour grapes about the place?
Juan: "they saved families from heart break and are heroes who have the full respect of every one in Northern Ireland except those who support terrorism.
You obviously haven't met many people from Nothern Ireland - certainly not from the moderate Nationalist side. They are certainly not supporters of terrorism. However they certainly didn't see the SAS or Paras as heroes. (The Paras often behaved like well armed thugs and no more.) Not by a long shot. Nor to they see Thatcher as anything but a significant factor in NI's bloody history.
Thatcher was seen as arrogant and stubborn and did nothing but drag the people of N. Ireland further into a spiral of violence. She gave no support nor showed any impartiality to the nationalist people. Basically they didn't count. That was not the way to confront the problems of Northern Ireland.
The IRA were the only terrorists in her eyes because they dared to murder people in England. Meanwhile the Loyalist terrorists, in NI, committed more murders & tortured more people than the IRA, but they were ignored. Why would the Nationalist people of N Ireland have any respect for Thatcher when she showed little respect for them - that is just under half of the people of NI!
At least Major & Blair offered much needed impartiality to the situation. Granted too much pandering to Sinn Fein and DUP has now pushed out the moderates. But they accepted strindent No No No was not the way forward. Thank God.
Juan: "they saved families from heart break and are heroes who have the full respect of every one in Northern Ireland except those who support terrorism. Who's right to complain about shoot to kill is questionable."
You obviously haven't met many people from Northern Ireland - certainly not from the moderate Nationalist side. They didn't see the SAS as heroes.
Anonymous 10:36am asked about sour grapes. Sour grapes over what, exactly? The best that can be said about her is that she won the 1983 and 1987 Elections.
But in both of those cases, the Labour and SDP votes were higher than the Tory vote, that split vote being the only (yes, only) reason why she won. And, in any case, she was at that time hated by great swathes of the Conservative Party.
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