Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Show us Your Vision, Gordon!

Today is the day when we get to see Gordon Brown's much heralded "vision". Or not. Unless he's got a rabbit to pull out of the hat we already pretty much know what is going to be in the speech. We also know that the government didn't have enough Bills ready so had to dust a couple of Bills off the shelf. It's not so much a vision, more of a threat. It's full of pieces of legislation which threaten our freedoms rather than enhance them. It's full of legislation which reeks of 'government knows best'. And that, ladies and gentlemen, tells us all we need to know about Brown's so-called 'vision'.

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

i cant think why you even bothered to mention it. nhs reorg, 3m million new homes, eco towns, terror bill zzzzzzzz same as last years ..... utterly pointless

Anonymous said...

I have no idea why people are putting so much emphasis on the Queen's speech from Brown's point of view. The country knows he hasn't got a vision and this speech certainly won't change that.

Anonymous said...

Gordon's vision: Concrete over England to punish the middle classes.

strapworld said...

Vision!

The Government have created a School Bus (Yellow Buses like USA) Commission and the Chairman?

Someone who has great knowledge of Transport? No.
Someone who has great knowledge of Education ? Well he was Sec of State!! So NO!

Someone who has an unblemished record in public life ? NO!

The job has gone to
DAVID BLUNKETT.

Visionary!

Patrick said...

Gordon Brown is a big government, tax and waste, Stalinist control freak with zero personal charm and contempt for anyone who fails to kiss his ring?

I'm shocked!

Who knew?

Fidothedog said...

Why do I think that this vision will be very narrow in view, much like Mr Browns vision....

Anonymous said...

I feel so sorry for 'Her Majesty'...

Having to read that Nulabour garbage with all its neologisms and hyperbole - let us all remember that classic Private Eye cover where the little speech [thought?] bubble from the Queen is saying 'I hope you lot do realise I don't write this rubbish!'

Yea, verily...

Newmania said...

The leader has a vision
He won’t tell us what it is
He says he dreams it nightly
and it full of umph and fizz

He can’t call an election
'Til the vision has been said
He hasn’t told us for ten years
He`s kept it in his head

Some say it first appeared to him
Like bushes set afire
When Cameron kept calling him
An indecisive liar

They say it wasn`t there before..
He had to run away
And it was all the sweaty Scot
Could come up with to say

More of this garbage on my feeble blog , although its all Brown deserves for this pathetic vision thing. If he has a vision it should be explained during an election campaign and not whilst in government when he has no mandate for chnage .

Alex said...

The most pathetic piece of legislation is the Climate Change Bill that will impose a legal obligation on ministers to reduce CO2 emissions. No government can bind its successors so any successor can simply repeal the legislation if it finds it inconvenient.

If it is an important issue the government should be taking executive initiatives rather than drawing up posturing legislation. It seems that taking practical steps is beyond the ability of this worthless government, which is why they resort to such pointless gestures.

Anonymous said...

Can a blind man have a vision ?

Anonymous said...

I have a vision for this government. It involves ropes and lamp posts.

Anonymous said...

when will Gordon get the message, we dont like you and we dont want you now **** *** back to Scotland

Unsworth said...

I am utterly pissed off with all this garbage about 'Vision'. Why can't these cretins just get on with the business of governing the country without innumerable changes or reverses of direction?

These constant 'visions' are no more than hallucinations which we are being expected to share. They bear no relationship to reality whatsoever. This government is completely deluded - largely as a result of its constant self-deception. It has reached the point where it even believes its own lies, spin and 'visions'.

It's a government on LSD.

Anonymous said...

What's all this about "didn't have enough bills ready"??!

Is this another target that the Government's set - to push through x amount of legislation per session? If you ask me, we'd all be a damn sight better off with rather LESS legislation, including the removal of much of the rubbish that this lot have already placed on the statute book.

The Creator said...

The Bottler's 'vision' consists solely of remaining in Downing Street as long as he can. He is obsessed with the thought that he must at least beat Heath's four and a half years as PM. (To his bitter chagrin, Blair's 10-plus years are clearly beyond reach.) Policies are accordingly to be hacked around with a single purpose: to limit damage and to gain whatever short-term advantage may be on offer. No media opportunity can be passed up. Simultaneously, ever-more desperate efforts are made to suggest that he is the real heir not just of Thatcher but of Churchill, the personification of the stout-hearted, freedom-loving Briton.

In short, there is no vision. None whatever.

Anonymous said...

Gordon's Vision:
Let's start with Red, Gordon's core colour.Add some Yellow for an aborted election. Add a dollop of Blue for pinched Conservative policies. Add a touch of Green for a bit of Climate Change. Mix it altogether to make Brown. Nothing original, nothing Prime.

Greg said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7079333.stm

"The prime minister ... is seeking to regain the political initiative after his decision not to call an autumn election so he could set out his vision for the country."

Good to see that the BBC isn't just parroting Brown's excuse for bottling it, or anything.

Mulligan said...

To be fair you it takes some sort of vision to think that bunging foreign criminals £1500 to go home (because not enough of them took up the £800 offer) will solve our problems, especially if that vision goes no further than Christmas 2007 and a self imposed target.

Anonymous said...

The "National Insurance Contributions Bill" effectively increases the top rate of tax to 51% from 40%. Once this change has been made, there can surely be no excuse for not calling this income tax.

I am surprised that people aren't making more of an issue about this bill.

I'm sure the government will try to sell it as "only for the rich", but this applies to those earning over £34,000 or so, which many people will aspire to. Moreover it is one of the largest stealth tax rises, and very clear for all to see.

Anonymous said...

The Left have no vision or imagination. We don't need rafts of legislation we want to be left alone (no pun intended)

Anonymous said...

These 3 million new homes that are promised - who is going to build them and at whose expense? Are we still going to put a fair proportion of them on flood plains as Yvette Cooper said not so ong ago - when this announcement was made for the second time?

Victor

Anonymous said...

I'm not kissing Brown's ring...it would be,well,brown

Anonymous said...

Is this the best you can do:-

Think back to last weeks Tory newspaper advert regarding the non election. You have been in opposition for nearly 11 years, yet the pathetic Cameron ad could only list 8 areas of policy change, and nearly all of those were vague, uncosted, Woolley drivel.

11 Years of opposition to come up with:

Taxing polluters not families. Vague Un-costed

Proper immigration controls and a Border police. Vague un-costed.

I wouldn’t go on about the vision thing, 4 weeks ago Cameron was a Liberal Conservative concerned with eco issues, today he is an Anti European rambling on about migration all the time.

A queen’s speech with 20 bills 11 years into government is pretty visionary me thinks. No cone hotlines here:

Post-charge questioning and possible extension of pre-charge detention beyond 28 days

Raises age of youngsters in education or training to 18

Bill paving the way for new generation of nuclear power plants

Climate change; powers to meet target of cutting CO2 by 60% by 2050

Constitutional reform, giving MPs formal say over going to war

Simplifying the planning system for minor home improvements

..I could go on.


AND YOUR VISION. IHT to £1m. ( YAWN )

Anonymous said...

At least now we know the number of tired, ill-conceived, bodged, repackaged, recycled and frankly mad Bills it takes to make up a Vision. It's 23.

My personal favourite is the lunatic Education one, where according to a Mr Balls who is allegedly in charge, if you are under the age of 18 it will become illegal to do nothing.

Yak40 said...

Twenty-eight bills ?

More control over our everyone's lives.

"We know what's best for you" continues, and to think they won three elections.

Anonymous said...

The only good thing that Labour have done is to raise the school leaving age to 18.

E ducation for all til 18, whether vocational or academic, is right and proper.

Letting children leave school at 16 with no plans and no qualifications is Dickensian.

So - That is the only good thing that Labour have managed to pull off.

Anonymous said...

Gordon's Vision : 3 million new homes strategically placed in key marginal constituencies to be allocated to Labour voters but funded mainly by Conservative voters. Also, 7 years imprisonment for anyone using the term Gay Gordon.

Anonymous said...

Are you sure you REALLY want to know ANYTHING Gordon has in HIS mind?

Just thinking about such a thing gives me the willy's.

If you mean what is the vision his Masters have for Britain. You will have to wait at least as long as Gordon is.

As a general guide to understanding the reality of this/the vision, a few golden rules should be applied.

The nasty bits like terrorist legislation and the continual sadistic victimization of small business will happen ASAP.

But the nice bits will not happen ever. The reality's will be almost, if not exactly the opposite to what Gordon will indicate they are.

If you cant use common sense or real insight to find an answer,10 years experience is the next best thing.

Anonymous said...

It certainly won't be 20:20 vision.

Anonymous said...

"Show us your vision Gordon."
God forbid!

Patriccus said...

Was it just me willing Jack Straw to trip up over his robes and fall arse-over-tit in front of a bemused monarch and assembled parliamentarians? That would give the smug-faced pillock something to think about.

hatfield girl said...

Why is he building 3 million low cost houses in the middle of a subprime- mortgage-induced global financial crisis?

Lowering all the transaction costs and taxes on the current housing stock and abolishing death duties on the family home would release housing to meet demand, and in the right places.

Greg said...

.. they've now changed the wording of the paragraph I mentioned in my earlier comment on this thread. Good.

Anonymous said...

Why the hell did GB go into politics? because he hasnt got a clue what to do.Its all spin no ideas and "im not blair"
so its no mandate,no vision and no chance to rid us of this irritant.
The Queen should have yawned said groundhog day and gone home what a waste of an old ladys time.

Anonymous said...

cont. p94

James Higham said...

Brown is a man who is marking time. The Lisbon provisions and the regional admin structures and ID legislation has to be prepared first, then he can move. His vsion is simple - the dismemberment of England and the downgrading of Scotland and Wales, in line with EU direction.

Anonymous said...

In stealing anti-immigrant slogans from the BNP, Brown is gifting votes to them as most voters now realise he is all spin and bullshit whereas the BNP really mean it.

He is raising expectations that he has no intention of fulfilling. He is playing with fire for what he sees as short-term advantage.

Yet another example of his dishonesty, hypocrisy, and total incompetence.

The man is unfit to be Prime Minister but would probably pass muster as an estate agent or traffic warden.

Anonymous said...

Oh 'come on' Iain, this post is equivalent to the cobbled together reports that senior managers and CEOs prepare before a board meeting. Space fillers can be right hostages to fortune!

boanerges said...

You have to admire the sheer effing gall of the guy. Not content with inflicting thousands of ill educated 16 year olds onto society as a result of his moronic education system, he now wants to nobble the few bright children that go through the comprehensive system and have the potential to make something of themselves.
I went through the 'system' and like others around me had to suffer the consequences of being bright and wanting to work. I still have the scars to prove it.
One of the few things to keep me going was the thought that at the end of the 5th Year (or whatever its called these days) the cretins would leave and I could spend the next two years working without fear.
The thought of everyone staying in 'education' until they're 18 will drag standards down even further.
Typical Labour social engineering. Not all kids can achieve, so none should. That's not equality just lowest common denominator socialism - the politics of envy

Anonymous said...

his only vision was to become prime minister. Power for power's sake.

Now his vision is fulfilled, there's nothing left. only the stark bleak horror of losing power.

i wonder if, in a years time, we'll have a very good candidate for worst/most useless prime minister ever?

Anonymous said...

"British jobs for British workers" and photo opps with Margaret Thatcher.

Just how does the Labour party have any members left?

Or do they no longer believe in anything but a label?

Anonymous said...

a dead traffic warden.

Anonymous said...

Two bits of good news.

1) A first-rate response to the Queen's speech by Cameron.

2 Liberty & Law have referred Gordon Brown to the Commission for Racial Equality. His 'British jobs for British workers' slogan would be unlawful to implement and appears to have been borrowed from the BNP.

Anonymous said...

Lower the school leaving age to 14.

DiscoveredJoys said...

It was hardly worth Her Maj putting her shoes on, was it?

Look, Brown is following in Blair's footsteps, speaking soothing words and doing nothing. Blair perfected the misdirection of the governed which started with Major.

Modern politicians have decided that their stance must be "We need lots and lots of change, but nobody is going to suffer or be obviously worse off." It can't be done, it is dishonest to say so.

I hope the next Prime Minister (and Cabinet) are brave enough to say what needs to be done, explain why there will be some people discomforted by the changes, and then get on and do it.

Vienna Woods said...

...and keeping some of the little turds in school until they are 18 aint going to improve them one iota, as we all know.... so what's it all about?

Of course, one has to see it from the Brown perspective....the increasing unemployment figures will be reversed at a stroke!

Anonymous said...

vienna woods [9.29 AM] Yes, and the beauty of it is, from Brown's point of view, it doesn't actually matter whether they turn up for school or not. The point is, they will be counted in the stats as in full time education. And that's the only point.