Clare Short 25%Alan Johnson 21%
Hilary Benn 11%
Jack Straw 11%
Harriet Harman 10%
Tessa Jowell 6%
Hazel Blears 6%
David Miliband 3%
Hilary Armstrong 2%
Friday, June 16, 2006
Poll Result: Clare Short for Labour Deputy Leader
Over the last ten days I've been asking you to vote for who you think should be the next Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. 550 of you did, and you voted for Clare Short! Astonishing. Here is the result
Clare Short 25%
Alan Johnson 21%
Hilary Benn 11%
Jack Straw 11%
Harriet Harman 10%
Tessa Jowell 6%
Hazel Blears 6%
David Miliband 3%
Hilary Armstrong 2%
Clare Short 25%Alan Johnson 21%
Hilary Benn 11%
Jack Straw 11%
Harriet Harman 10%
Tessa Jowell 6%
Hazel Blears 6%
David Miliband 3%
Hilary Armstrong 2%
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30 comments:
Yer its not going to happen. Alan Johnson is a much safer bet, but the weight seems to be lifting from Prescott, so he may have got away with it. For now that is...
We have to remember this is a Tory blog. Clare Short is the MP for Birmingham Ladywood where the Birmingham pub bombing atrocities took place in 1974. Clare Short is also on record as saying that "the IRA never targetted civilians". In a nutshell I would love Clare Short to be next DPM because she would be a big juicy target.
Why is it astonishing? I'd expect Tories to vote for the worst option on offer.
withe, shaw (I'm pleased to see you are honouring the best strikeforce ever) you have to ask yourself why those Birmingham Ladywood constituents keep on giving her such good support.
Well being a Tory blog I don't trust such a poll, for the simple reason a large no of people will likely vote for the candidate who they think will most damage Labour.
That said, some of the results were interesting. Alan Johnson was an almost-unknown not so long ago, now some people look at him as leader (post Brown) or deputy material.
Well I voted Short in this poll, and Tory in every other. I think that gives a clue as to why she wins. I would play money to watch her wreck the Government. She is an evil witch though.
On the basis of Witheshaw's argument, the next deputy leader should be Hilary Armstrong, since she is the candidate with the least support amongst Tory bloggers.
Gawd help us.
I never voted because Gordon Brown asn't on the list.
A dredful woman - strongly supported bombing hospitals in Yugoslavia to help the genocidal KLA, voted to invade Iraq & has spent the time since whining about her "conscience". She & the Blairites deserve each other.
I remember Clare Short being lambasted by the fascist Labour big wigs for daring to talk about cannibis 15 years ago.
Now New Labour have made cannibis more legal, more available and more acceptable, along with 24 hour binge drinking, legalised brothels and super casios next door to you soon and almost legal gay sex in public toilets and they wonder why violent crime has quadrupled under Blair.
If you want every vice you can think of to be encouraged, vote Labour and vote Clare Short, the woman who voted for the illegal War in Iraq.
anonymous - The war in Iraq is "illegal" how? It was formally and properly declared.
Or are you one of those fantasists who thinks there is something called "international law" that operates in competition with, and supercedes, national laws?
Where is this great debating chamber where this "international law" is debated and hammered into law? Who are your elected representatives to this debating chamber in the sky (or are you suggesting that "international law" is not democratic?)?
The only real international instruments are treaties, and treaties only last as long as the signatories find it in their national interest to adhere to them.
- Anonymousette
Anonymous, it sounds like your dream ticket would be something along the lines of Oliver Cromwell and Mary Whitehouse.
Or would having a woman as DPM smack of "positive discrimination" and "political correctness"?
Sweetie, wtop reading the Daily Mail and you'll stop getting so angry. I promise.
She also said that Al Qaeda's aims were 'just'. Like the destruction of Israel, a caliphate including southern Spain (regardless of what the mainly Catholic population might think), the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, and East Timor being turned back to Indonesia.
There's also the way she's tried to re-write history. In her review of John Kampfner's Blair's Wars in the New Statesman a few years ago, she criticised Blair for having referred to the 'stench of fear' at the Stenkovic refugee camp in Macedonia, not mentioning how gung-ho she'd been herself over Kosovo, including her spat with the BBC and John Simpson.
She was very lucky not to be sacked by Blair for the incident at Conference in 97, when she caused a scene after she tried to re-enter the security zone after having forgotten to show her pass (and while tired and emotional), forgetting that everyone has to show their pass and that the rules apply to everyone - when she resigned (very belatedly) in 03, there was very little time for in the PLP, when she'd been so full of her own self-importance. Byers, by contrast, received a lot of sympathy when (for all his other shortcomings, such as not being able to run a department very well and having made misleading statements on TV), he'd always taken time to talk to backbenchers in the tearoom.
Quite apart from that, Short is a shouting (or whingeing) bully. I remember all too well watching her whinge at one audience member on QT (or another programme), 'You're not listening'. She probably can't help having a face which looks like a swollen haemorrhoid, but she probably can help the way her lip curls when she speaks (which, oddly enough, is reminiscent of that other nasty piece of work, Dick Cheney).
As for her obsessive animus against Blair, it reminds me a lot of the grudge of that other Brummie politician, Enoch Powell, towards Ted Heath. Except that Clare Short doesn't (unlike Powell) have the distinction of having helped swing a General Election (as Powell did in February 74). She has, instead, the distinction of a 20% swing against her last May.
And, compared to the late Robin Cook's very readable (if slightly Pooterish in places) The Point of Departure, her book on Iraq is dreary crap.
Couldn't agree more anonymousette. I wish people would not just let this phrase "international law". What an absolute nonsense. It is as AJP Taylor always said..."nations will be nations"...meaning that decisions in international relations are determined by their ability to force decisions. Legality doesn't come into it.
Anonymousette
Clearly you do not believe in the UN, whose General Secretary stated the war was illegal.
So on what basis did you support killing of tens of thousands of innocent people on a pack of Labour lies and spin?
It clearly wasn't any breaches of UN resolutions if you do not believe in the UN.
So tell us the legal basis for the invasion? Go on, tell us.
Clare Short for Deputy Labour Leader? I'm reminded of Sir Alf Ramsey's response when some cheery Celt greeted him with 'Welcome to Scotland, Sir Alf'.
Then again, I'm sure many Labour Party supporters would, if faced with a poll suggesting a Deputy Tory Party leader, vote for John Hayes, Desmond Swayne, or either of the two Julians (Lewis or Brazier).
Deputy LD leader? Lembit Opik or John Hemming.
Anonymous....I don't know if anonymousette agrees with this but...
No I don't believe in the UN. If we were waiting for the UN, then we would still be talking to Milosevic(if he had lived) about Kosovo, and playing games with Saddam and the Taleban. Surely noone serious believes in the UN any more. The Secretary General would perhaps be more respected if he prevented corruption within his own organisation. And to quote Hitler(I think) of the Vatican: "How many armies does he have?". Frankly, stuff the UN.
Am sick of hearing about the dead people in Iraq. Did people not die under Saddam Hussein? Why was the country invaded? Because it was a menace and a nuisance to the United States and the region. A despot was removed and a democracy began. Most of Iraq is peaceful and surveys repeatedly show that for most people in Iraq, they believe that their lives have got better.
No legal basis for the invasion...whatever "legality" means in the actions of nations. Some nations thought it was right, others didn't. C'est la vie. One nation, and its allies took action. Powers will be Powers. But it was three and a half years ago, so maybe time to get over it I think.
Michael Oakeshott - I agree with a lot of what you say.
But let me respond to anonymous's question: Do I believe in the UN? Yes, I believe there is such an organisation in a building on the East River. I have seen it, and I can smell its toxic stench from here.
Kofi Annan is a corrupt, lying, pretentious, self-regarding, sneaky, vile little sleaze bag. He has neither moral nor legal authority. He is not the boss of the countries of the world. He is a servant - the Secretary-General. To imagine that he has some mystical authority over the elected heads of governments around the world is delusional and somewhat alarming.
Anonymous challenges me: "So tell us the legal basis for the invasion? Go on, tell us."
O-k-a-a-a-y ... It was legally approved by the US, British, Australian, Polish governments, and all the other legally elected governments of the other brave members of the Coalition of The Willing. When a government passes something into law, this is what we call "legal".
- Anonymousette
What a shame Mousette that you have to resort to personal attacks on the General Secretary on the UN, presumably fuelled by unproven allegations, initiated by those who choose to undermine the UN for political reasons.
What a shame Mr Oaskshott is "sick of hearing about the dead people in Iraq."
With such a cold-blooded attitude, of course you don't care about the legality. You are right and they (innocent Iraqis) are wrong so you reserve the right to allow your government to bomb them without any checks of accountability or international approval.
You open the door to any nation doing as it wishes, because you reject that the UN represents international laws only when it suits you.
The Iraqi people are sick from their injuries, their cluster bombs blowing off their childrens' limbs and their depleted uranium poisoning and deforming their babies and you are sick of hearing about it.
The legality is quite clear. There was no legal authority. The commons vote was a result of MPs being given dossiers that had been sexed-up, with caveats removed by political spin doctors.
Cambpell's team even fabricated one dossier after plagiarising a student thesis. The Attorney General's advice was after being leaned on and was based on breached UN resolutions that you reject as you reject the UN.
Tony Blair gave assurances on live TV that he would only attack Iraq with a second resolution. Most of the nations at the UN council wanted the inspectors to be given more time.
The UN was created after WW2 to prevent unprovoked agression against other nations. You two seem to be in favour a world dominated by agression, because you happen to be on the same side as the aggressors.
Iraq has become a bloodbath on the verge of civil war. Every single day in Iraq is like 7/7. It is all Blair will ever be remembered for. The trouble with you two is you won't admit you are wrong. But the tide has turned and most people have seen through Blair and Bush. Your time will come. No shame in admitting your errors. Only pride prevents you.
The allegations against the UN are beyond doubt. Annan's son was proven to have been one of the benificiaries. If by "political reasons" you mean that we believe it is feeble and useless, then yes our attacks are because of "political reasons".
I AM sick of hearing about the deaths in Iraq. It makes people believe falsely that the country is a worse place than three years ago. If only the media had reported daily on the people who died in Saddam's prison cells. But then that is not so spectacular, and you liberal types tend to only hate their own countries, and go very quiet over nasty little dictatorships.
You are mistaken. I do care about legality. But when did we have a vote for "international law"? There is no such thing. So no I don't care for INTERNATIONAL law...how can I care for a thing that does not exist? As I said before "international approval" amounts to waiting forever while dictators "take the piss". Not any more thank you.
Any nation can ALWAYS do what it wants, and they always do. Sure, they couch their actions in the veil of morality when it can be implied. But they have always and will always do what is in their best interests. I express no approval or disapproval for this, I merely acknowledge the existence of such things.
How well you do to speak for the people of Iraq. They can however speak for themselves, and have a democratically elected Government. This Government of the people have not asked the troops to leave have they? No. Surveys show that most of the people believe their lives have improved since the days of Saddam. No amount of media driven hype and rubbish will allow me to overrule the opinion of these brave people. Yes people got killed - it was a war. People do.
The Commons vote? Well the PM decided and his party followed. They would have done anyway. The war would have happened whether the British Parliament thought it was right or not. So what if the dossier was sexed up? Bloody good thing too, it got the MP's to get behind Bush and do the necessary thing.
I don't reject UN resolutions, I just don't take any notice of them. The world will always be dominated by the strongest military powers. You don't have to support this, but you would be a fool to deny it is inevitable. I think we are fortunate that the power is as benevolent, democratically inclined and supportive of free trade as the United States.
Iraq did provoke the strike, with their invasion of Kuwait and their evasion over twelve years. Saddam got, or is about to get, exactly what he deserves. If I thought I was wrong I would admit it. Your arrogance is surely inspired by a media that feeds you this rubbish. But I don't long for the days of Saddam Hussein again. I am glad we went in. I only hope we can be as bold when it comes to the crisis over North Korea, Iran, Syria and the other. Does it sound like I regret Iraq? I don't think so.
Anonymous, who twits me for a "personal attack" on Kofi Annan: Mentioning that he is corrupt is like mentioning that Sun Tzu gave a lot of thought to military strategy; that Darcey Bussell practices for long hours; or that the Dalai Lama believes in reincarnation.
The UN was formed after WWII to prevent "unprovoked aggression" against other nations? It was formed because the League of Nations cratered. They couldn't do it right the first time and they couldn't do it right the second time because it is an unworkable, lunatic idea. No country - especially a country with democratically elected representatives - is going to subvert its own interests in the name of "world peace" or some off-with-the-fairies notion of "international law".
As Michael Oakeshott notes in his excellent diatribe above, nations are going to suit themselves. Surely you don't believe that any treaty between nations is forever? It lasts as both nations find it in their interests. What happens when it doesn't suit one party any more? Does one country call the international police and have the reneging country arrested?
To reiterate - and you have not addressed this question - there is absolutely not a scintilla of realism in your notion that there is some supranational "international law". You have not told us who are the legislators that make this "international law" nor when we have elections to elect them.
The Iraqis now have a legitimate government they elected themselves and that will devote itself to the Iraqi national interest, as indeed it should. In other words, the Iraqis now have someone looking after the interests of the ordinary citizen. How can you dismiss that? It's not perfect, but it's only been three years since we went in, for heaven's sake!
- Anonymousette
Also, Anonymous, you write: "their depleted uranium poisoning and deforming their babies...". If uranium is depleted, that means it has lost all its properties. I mean, please! You have been reading too many leftwing rants written by Jane Fonda, Polly Toynbee and the Yazzmonster.
I accept that bullets and bombs kill people. But depleted uranium?
- Anonymousette
Mousette, depleted uranium has a half life of 4.5b years. I find it shocking that anyone is callous enough to mock the reports of higher numbers of deformed children in all areas where DU has been deposited. If you cared to look at the photographs of the deformities maybe you would watch what you say.
You no doubt will argue this has never been proven. Like USA and UK couldn't be bothered to count the number of Iraqis they killed they can't be bothered to assess the impact of DU. Bothered isn't the right would. It's just a little too politically inconvenient for the truth to be seen.
You and Oakeshott condemn yourselves with your own words.
Let's put the legality of this war that has seen the use of some of the most evil weapons invented, inspired by the neo-cons who propose that a biological weapon "that can target specific genotypes" would be a "politically useful tool," as documented in the report Rebuilding Americas Defenses, co-authored by Paul Wolfowitz who was Bush's defence deputy. This is the sort of people we are talking about, with ideas that would make Hitler proud.
Let's put the legality to the test and put Blair before a war crimes tribunal as he should be and if found guilty, let's see his fitting punishment be carried out in Parliament Square as an example that the British people do not tolerate war criminals. Maybe at that point you might decide not to side with him.
Well, actually, Anonymous, I like this bit of your post: "Let's put the legality to the test and put Blair before a war crimes tribunal as he should be and if found guilty, let's see his fitting punishment be carried out in Parliament Square as an example that the British people do not tolerate war criminals. Maybe at that point you might decide not to side with him."
There is no such thing as a war crimes tribunal, but I am prepared to overlook this in the case of Tony Blair. Maybe Kofi and his son Con Crema (full fat)could conduct this solemn occasion. The jury could be all the rapers of children in places like Somalia, paid for with your tax pounds.
DEPLETED Uranium has surely no half life since it has DEPLETED. I can understand the point you are trying to make...you just haven't made it.
With all due respect...you don't seem to have anything useful to say, apart from repeating the same old horror stories about war. Yes it's bad, but it always has been. Read some of the accounts of the Punic Wars or WWI. The suffering today is different but hardly worse. You then haphazardly band that with legality. And then wantonly ignore the points made by anonymousette and myself. Mix it with a bit of jargon about "neo-cons" and "horror weapons"(zzz) ...then add the usual final ingredient(Hitler). I always tended to notice the similarities between the soon to be late Mr Hussein and the former housepainter and Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich. But then I don't hate my country.
And I am sorry to disappoint you but there will be no "war crimes" trial. When the a senior figure of a victorious power ever faced such a thing? Get real. Blair could be charged with many things(insert your own cheap joke here about the National Grid), but you are whistling in the wind if you think there will be a trial for this. I think the point has been made that you have clearly been listening to some lunatic lefties and anti-western nutcases. I recommend you don't, purely on the ground that they are detached from what the Great Powers are going to be doing in the world.
Anonymous, missing the point once again, writes: "as an example that the British people do not tolerate war criminals. Maybe at that point you might decide not to side with him."
Neither Michael Oakeshott nor I have said we "side" with Tony Blair, who is irrelevant in this argument. Once again: There is no such thing as some mystical "international law" hammered out in some debating chamber in the sky. There are no "war tribunals". You still haven't told us how this fantasy works, by the way. Who are our elected representatives and where is this universal debating chamber that none of us has ever heard of?
And again - "as an example that the British people do not tolerate war criminals." Of course they do! They tolerate the "war criminals", or war mongers, preaching bombing, murder, mayhem and the overthrow of Britain in mosques throughout the country. In fact, they are eager to share intelligence information with them before acting on it. And I read in the paper today that they are going to hire more people who have been indoctrinated with anti-Western civilisation toxicity since birth to police indigenous Brits and other peaceful, integrated immigrants. I assure you, Anonymous, the British will tolerate anything.
Anonymousette
Michael if as you say "Any nation can ALWAYS do what it wants, and they always do" then International Law is non-existent & all the war crimes trials we have been involved in since we, presumably unjustly, hung a few Nazis at Nuremberg have been less honest than those of Stalin.
Nonetheless it has been the position of every UK government since that this was not so. Thus you are in a bit of a cleft stick. Either international Law exists & there is at least a prima faci case that Blair & co are guilty or every Britisg government since Churchill has been wholly dishonest.
All law ultimately derives from its acceptance. There are areas of Britain in which drug dealers appear to be largely above the law but this does not mean we accept that murder is legal, merely that currently the authorities are unable to convict. In the same way there is an enormous difference between saying that the arrest of Clinton, Blair, Karadic etc is currently impossible & saying that in princple they should not be (though I think the indictment against Mladic is wholly corrupt).
In any case we live in a world in which it is increasingly possible for even the smallest superpower to deliver WMDs. If we do not accept some limit on state power we are all in trouble but if we do not accept that such limits must be based on a set of rules (what is known as law) rather than just who is able to prove they currently have the most bombs to back it up, then we are in worse trouble.
Of course Government's are dishonest! Who would ever be stupid enough to think otherwise?! Nuremburg was a farce. Of course many of the people indicted indeed behaved terribly, but the charges were rubiish and everyone knew it. Victor's justice, it has always been. Just as Churchill, Harris and most of our other war leaders would have have faced trials if we had lost. Every British Government may have claimed International Law exists. They all used it for their own ends. Of course they were lying, and they knew it!
The law in Britain is simple. We vote, make laws, then enact. It has legitimacy. How is "international law" set? When did I get a vote for this, and the accompanying world government?
As for the last argument. What do you think holds the current World Order down. "International Law"?! Be serious. No set of values makes any nation do anything, it never has. The United States is able to project its will on a global scale. I like this, others don't. But THIS is what makes the world behave the way it does, and this power has far more chance of preventing the likes of North Korea and Iran getting WMD's than the ridiculous UN has. How much was Saddam influenced by "International Law"? He noticed the Americans though didn't he?!
"The United States is able to project its will on a global scale. I like this"
There are 2 main problems with this:
1) Most of us don't. Even those who approve of particular things like invading Iraq, do not like the idea that the US should be sole arbiter over the lives of the rest of us. Yet by your reasoning the only way in which the US can & should be opposed is by destruction. I do not believe this is the optimum position for anybody, including the people of the US.
2) US hegemony is not a law of nature. At present growth rates the Chinese economy will overtake that of the US. Currently China has been fairly scrupulous about, at least the letter of, international law but I suggest that a world run on something better than the straight Might Mkes Right philosophy we are currently practicing would be a good legacy.
While Might Makes Right is a self-consitent & intellectually coherent philosophy it is inherently at odds with any cooperative society. That is why law has been developed, to a greater or lesser extent, by any society above the caveman tribe. A world order cannot be permanently sustained on the nukes of one power.
While I am not idealistic enough to believe that WW2 was purely, or perhaps even mainly, an idealistic war against a regime devoted to genocide I do not agree that it was entirely cynical imperialism either, nor that the British people would have fought for the latter.
At the very least the fact that leaders from Churchill, Lyndon Johnstone, Brezhnev to Blair & indeed Short have had to clothe their bombings in morality proves that their respective electorates believe, even against their own nation's short term interests, that there is more to relationships than power.
It may be that Stalin was right when he initially wanted the allies to just round up & shoot 50,000 senior Germans but I think that the allies nominal adherence to the Nuremberg rules was, however weakly & fumblingly, a step forward.
Unfortunately since at least the Yugoslav interventions our steps have been backward.
The point about this debate is that I am trying to talk about reality. "The United States is able to project its will on a global scale". You mention most people don't like it. Tough. It is the way it is, and their lead in all the determinant factors is huge. Niall Ferguson's Colossus describes it brilliantly. Current Chinese growth rates may be impressive, but they are a long way behind and there is no reason to assume that their growth rates will not drop off when the impact of new technologies wears off. I can't see them catching America in the next 100 or even 200 years to be honest.
You may well disagree that the arguments I make are a good thing. But nations behave as they always have. Whether we wish it or not, it is the way it is. The problem with the World Co-operative, as in all previous models(the League of Nations for example), is that it tends toward inaction.
The British people in WWII fought for what they were told to fight for. The masses always have. They fought to preserve the balance of power in Europe, so that Britain could pursue their imperial interests. British foreign policy has been consistent for the last three hundred years, and even now they seek to avoid European engagement. Defeating a dictatorship was a very good line to feed the people, but it just wasn't the reason we went to war. If we had such moral scruples then why did we end up fighting alongside the Soviets?
These politicians fed their people a line, because it was the best way to unite their nations. Of course the masses can be sentimental, and put their individual interest ahead of those of their nations. Politicians have always deluded them, and always will. It is necessary for both groups, for the game to proceed.
Nuremburg was a farce. Many of the wrong people were tried, and many others who should have been were not. Alas Goering was right, it was victor's justice and everyone knew it. History will always be written by the victor. They could have cited the bombings of Cologne, Dresden, Leipzig and Tokyo. Humans rights are just the victors way of making the victory moral as well as military.
Like it or not, this is just the world is and has always been.
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