Gordon Brown
"My thanks are due to the Civil Service for their hard work and, on occasions, their forthright advice - or should I say 'Comrades'?" - a reference to Lord Turnbull's description of the Chancellor as a man of "Stalinist ruthlessness".
"I am told that in the last two centuries only one other Chancellor has delivered 11 budgets, and then a 12th, and that was when Mr Gladstone combined the position of Chancellor with Prime Minister. Something no-one should ever contemplate doing again."
"The British economy is today growing faster than all the other G7 economies - growth stronger this year than the euro area, stronger than Japan and stronger even than America."
"Just as our monetary discipline is the foundation of our economic strength, our fiscal discipline is the foundation of the strength of Britain's finances."
"The next stage in this Budget is to do more to equip British people with the new skills for the jobs of the next decade and beyond."
David Cameron
"You have finally given us a tax cut. You normally do that before a General Election but you are in such a deep hole you have had to do it before the leadership election."
"It is a bit like Stalin. They are cheering him on now, he'll wipe them out later" - A reference to noisy Labour MPs.
"Your great experiment in tax and spending has failed. You are an out-of-date politician wedded to state control. The question everyone is asking is where has the money gone?"
"The Labour Party are just realising their next leader has the tendencies of Stalin and the poll ratings of Michael Foot."
Sir Menzies Campbell
"This is the budget of a Chancellor ready to move on. It's a wait-and-see Budget from a wait-for-me Prime Minister."
"He had the chance to build a fairer Britain, but he has ignored it; the chance to create a greener Britain but he shunned it and the chance to shape a prudent Britain, by saving billions of pounds on government waste and he has avoided that too. He has spurned all of these opportunities. He has concentrated, not surprisingly, on his own political succession."
"He should beware, as the Americans say - it isn't over 'til it's over" - Warning that Blair might rise "from his political coffin like Dracula".
21 comments:
Someone called D Haslam over in Comments in The Telegraph has christened the chancellor, Prudence McCavity-Brown.
Quite good!
Iain, Cameron should have started by saying taht unlike Robin Hood, Brown was robbing the poor to give to the rich (which is what the scrapping of the 10p rate means)
I have my own initial take here:
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/2007/03/brown-robs-poor-to-give-to-rich.html
"The British economy is today growing faster than all the other G7 economies - growth stronger this year than the euro area, stronger than Japan and stronger even than America." --
Which would be really impressive except Japan's economy has been in reverse gear from ages and is only just showing signs of recovery. He might as well have said we have lower inflation than Zimbabwe.
If Brown had Lady Di as DPM he would still lose the next election. Love the Labour backbench Turkey's cheering on christmas......
Tory slogan for next election must be;
"Vote Brown Get Brown" what a disaster he is, Ed Balls was equaly as moronic in his interview. These guys are without doubt totally incompetent. Why didnt anyone mention that massive spending cuts are required in teh next few years to keep to his rules?? Thats before his 100 day marathon piss-in-the-wind giveaway.
rubbish
Am I the only person who thinks Blair will still be PM this time next year?
Ming (and indeed theo spark) hit the nail on the head. Blair will not relinquish the reins of power willingly. He has all the legislation in place to assume the mantle of dictator.
Blair is waiting for the announcement of the position of permanent President of Europe at the end of March.
"It is a bit like Stalin (replace with Hitler, Pol Pot, etc). They are cheering him on now, he'll wipe them out later"
Still as funny? Not being contemptuous (well, I guess I am a wee bit). It just caught my eye ... is Stalin the one purveyor of genocide we are 'allowed' to joke about?
verity said...
With the greatest of respect shouldn't it be Macavity with the occasional Scottish dig about his teeth, if you see what I mean.
Whilst on the topic could we also agree on Blaurence of Arabia leaving Florence I believe with Noel Coward who apparently said to O'Toole that if he was any better looking this should the films revised title).
It was always going to be those same soundbytes - you could have written their scripts beforehand. Brown was going to offer minimal tax cuts and the opposition were going to tear him to pieces for his abysmal record.
Deserved, but predictable.
Brown will tax us to the hilt and then make us apply to get some of it back as tax credits and other "benefits".
Being an emotionally unstable control freak, a pathological liar, an obsessive compulsive, and a personality disordered attention-seeker he won't be happy until he is in control of the finances and the lives of the vast majority of the population.
I would assess him as being very dangerous indeed particulary if he becomes PM.
Ha ha ha, Ming Ming Ming ... and ha ha ha, Jungian shrink. Not sure you lot have caught up with the sums yet ... have to wait for this evening's TV news ... watch that and learn something. The supposed snatch from the poorest costs them/us £215 which is more than made up for in other adjustments and the general direction of the economy. Even if that weren't true I'm not sure why you Tories are so exercised with this budget. It's not that much of a thing, but it has business and the city seeming quite content, the greening is a good practical start, and not bad for personal economies across a wide range.
Clearly I'd be ramping up tax on the rich myself and clamping down on iffy residence and domicile rules that are costing billions in leakage. But I'm a silly tax and spend lefty and Gordon is clearly still a Tory Boy at heart.
Cameron was obviously to busy thinking up jokes to have noticed the abolition of the 10p rate. according to the Daily telegraph it was David Laws that spotted it. Ming used to the clear chagrin of the Tory front bench, that had been asleep.
The Labour benches cheered him on today, of course. But if abolishing the lower rate really does increase tax for the lower paid, they might give him a rough ride later on.
Theo Spark - No. You're not the only one.
bof2bs - No. Because teeth are not what TS Eliot's poem was about. It was all about McCavity's power to fade from a scene without trace.
verity said..
OK but TS Elliot spelling is Macavity I think - somewhat overtaken by events as I am in awe of the poem Iain has posted
Some good comments from Cameron, but by acknowledging the phrase 'tax cut' [even though for many the rate has gone from 10 to 20 percent] he has shot himself in the foot slightly.
Ming's comment may be prescient.
Simon Hoggart is also of the view that Blair's exit is something he will only believe when he actually sees it.
If there were some 'crisis' [perm any two from 'terror outrage', Iran developing 'WMD', 'civil war' in Iraq, Osama popping his head up in Afghanistan] Tony could decide to stay on for another year or two as 'the national interest demands it'.
david anthony - take your point, but the cat was out of the bag when 'Sky' used Joe Stalin himself in one of their more stupid adverts. Of course, there were a lot of complaints and I think it got banned, but rather like 'fcuk' the shock impact had been made by then...
verity - think some people were trying to forge a link with that famous Scottish dentist, who would have been ideal for Gordon, Phil Macavity...
"The British economy is today growing faster than all the other G7 economies - growth stronger this year than the euro area, stronger than Japan and stronger even than America."
But not G8, G9 etc. Most of G7 are old EU members which only proves how badly the RU is doing. Outside that China, India, Russia, Argentina, Ireland are not merely growing better than us they are doing 3 times better. World average growth is 5% - twice ours. Brown has used this line before & Cameron should have been prepared to disect it.
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