political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Ironic Headlines of our Time: No 94
I do realise that Polly Toynbee doesn't write the headlined which appear over her columns, but today's is a Guardian classic...
SIR FRED'S JUST ONE OF MILLIONS TO DO BETTER UNDER LABOUR
Polly says, "Many who voted Labour in 1997 will weep at the opportunities missed. But they should also consider this: what would have happened had the Conservatives stayed in power?"
So: we face the worst economic crisis since 1929? 1873? 1698? but had the Tories been in power it would have been the worst since 1066.
Like the smirking hoodie who sticks one finger up at the judge's sermon on antisocial behaviour, Sir Fred is a product of Britain's winner-takes-all culture that Labour never attempted to civilise.
So, it's the Tories fault that the no-blame, no-consequences "progressive" society is a mess? She's utterly doolally!
Has dear Polly the remotest idea of what is happening at the bottom end of the income scales? There has been some coverage about how pensioners are badly hit, but almost none on the increasingly dire situation for those in flats with service charges to pay to property management companies owned by financial magnates who are now in trouble.
Coffee House once asked for imaginative cabinet appointments - I nominated Polly Toynbee for SoS for Creative Writing. I stand by that. The woman can twist any story, and position to paint Labour in a good light. It's a skill, we've got to give her that.
Toynbee is so thick she does not recognise a slap in the face when it hits her. Toynbee equates wealth with borrowing not with productivity.
The reason many have 'felt' better is that they have been living on borrowed money on borrowed time and thanks to people like Sir Fred the chickens have come home to roost.
The 'good times' we have had have come not from real increases in wealth, not from real increases in education, opportunities and genuine rising prosperity.
it has come on tick it has come from borrowing it has come from always assu ing there would be another year to put of the day of reckoning..
We have been led down this path by labour.
Even now Labour are spending money they have not got that we have not got, putting of the payment date to our children and children's children. Maybe Labour believe we will never have to pay it off, that we can continue to borrow borrow and spend spend and print money for ever.
Polly Toynbee is completely tribal, in fact she glories in that fact. She is on record as saying that she could not imagine writing for a right wing newspaper or socialising with Tories as they are 'not my tribe'.
Therein speaks a very narrow mind.
I've often come across this attitude amongst people on the left: I remember one socialist acquaintance who was amazed I could like the band 'The Smiths' because Morrisey was left-wing!
It always seems to me that this kind of tribalism - which has clearly always polluted Gordon Brown's policies - is more prevalent on the left than the right...or is that just my own tribal prejudice?
If ever there was an example of why women should never have been given the right to vote, Polly Toynbee is that!
But I prefer to recall Richard Littlejohn, On Question Time, putting down the Grande Dame of the left by informing us all of the champagne socialists lifestyle!
She is a person who writes so much crap she must write whilst sitting on a commode!!
Your last paargraph should come to the conclusion it deserves. We have had a bubble of personal borrowing, we are now in a bubble of government borrowing.
Right now, we are in the good times. Just wait until the government can't raise money on the gilts market anymore, sterling falls through the floor and the gimp in charge starts printing money to keep the wolf from the door.
You think it's bad now? You haven't lived yet. We're still in the bubble.
I'm just back from a warehouse sale of remaindered books. It is with great joy that I can report seeing a trestle table full of books by Polly Toynbee (one vast heap of Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today, which only came out last August, and one of Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain, which is nice because at £1 per copy, I'm sure the low-paid will be snapping it up). There was also an untouched heap of Gordon's Everyday Heroes. I left full of delicious schadenfreude.
Liz said "I'm just back from a warehouse sale of remaindered books. It is with great joy that I can report seeing a [copy of] Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain [by Pollyanna Toynbee], which is nice because at £1 per copy, I'm sure the low-paid will be snapping it up."
That's still quite expensive for toilet roll, however.
"Liz I'm just back from a warehouse sale of remaindered books... February 28, 2009 7:11 PM"
I had a look at the reviews on Amazon. Here's one:
"Everyday Heroes" A good cure for insomnia. Repeating the words 'hero' and 'courage' makes you neither heroic nor courageous. He should have written 'British Bullies' or 'Cowardice: the Autobiography"
Polly says, "Many who voted Labour in 1997 will weep at the opportunities missed. But they should also consider this: what would have happened had the Conservatives stayed in power?"
ReplyDeleteSo: we face the worst economic crisis since 1929? 1873? 1698? but had the Tories been in power it would have been the worst since 1066.
The woman's off her rocker.
... as opposed to the tens of millions who have done FAR worse.
ReplyDeleteAlan Douglas
Is she on drugs?
ReplyDeleteLike the smirking hoodie who sticks one finger up at the judge's sermon on antisocial behaviour, Sir Fred is a product of Britain's winner-takes-all culture that Labour never attempted to civilise.
ReplyDeleteSo, it's the Tories fault that the no-blame, no-consequences "progressive" society is a mess? She's utterly doolally!
Has dear Polly the remotest idea of what is happening at the bottom end of the income scales? There has been some coverage about how pensioners are badly hit, but almost none on the increasingly dire situation for those in flats with service charges to pay to property management companies owned by financial magnates who are now in trouble.
ReplyDeleteCoffee House once asked for imaginative cabinet appointments - I nominated Polly Toynbee for SoS for Creative Writing. I stand by that. The woman can twist any story, and position to paint Labour in a good light. It's a skill, we've got to give her that.
ReplyDeleteTruly a classic.
ReplyDeleteCan I have some of what she's on?
Toynbee is so thick she does not recognise a slap in the face when it hits her. Toynbee equates wealth with borrowing not with productivity.
ReplyDeleteThe reason many have 'felt' better is that they have been living on borrowed money on borrowed time and thanks to people like Sir Fred the chickens have come home to roost.
The 'good times' we have had have come not from real increases in wealth, not from real increases in education, opportunities and genuine rising prosperity.
it has come on tick it has come from borrowing it has come from always assu ing there would be another year to put of the day of reckoning..
We have been led down this path by labour.
Even now Labour are spending money they have not got that we have not got, putting of the payment date to our children and children's children. Maybe Labour believe we will never have to pay it off, that we can continue to borrow borrow and spend spend and print money for ever.
I suspect the best and most apt word to descibe the Toynebee chattering class in the MSM and BBC is quite a small word. SMUG.
ReplyDeletePolly Toynbee is completely tribal, in fact she glories in that fact. She is on record as saying that she could not imagine writing for a right wing newspaper or socialising with Tories as they are 'not my tribe'.
ReplyDeleteTherein speaks a very narrow mind.
I've often come across this attitude amongst people on the left: I remember one socialist acquaintance who was amazed I could like the band 'The Smiths' because Morrisey was left-wing!
It always seems to me that this kind of tribalism - which has clearly always polluted Gordon Brown's policies - is more prevalent on the left than the right...or is that just my own tribal prejudice?
:)
If ever there was an example of why women should never have been given the right to vote, Polly Toynbee is that!
ReplyDeleteBut I prefer to recall Richard Littlejohn, On Question Time, putting down the Grande Dame of the left by informing us all of the champagne socialists lifestyle!
She is a person who writes so much crap she must write whilst sitting on a commode!!
Trevorsden 12.24
ReplyDeleteYour last paargraph should come to the conclusion it deserves. We have had a bubble of personal borrowing, we are now in a bubble of government borrowing.
Right now, we are in the good times. Just wait until the government can't raise money on the gilts market anymore, sterling falls through the floor and the gimp in charge starts printing money to keep the wolf from the door.
You think it's bad now? You haven't lived yet. We're still in the bubble.
At last the Grauniad has found a good sub-editor.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1990s I remember she wrote a column in the Radio Times at the same time as radio DJ John Peel.
ReplyDeletePeel's column was wonderful and I can still remember to this day some of the things he said.
Needless to say I can't remember anything Polly said.
At last we have discovered a person who is even more deluded than Gordon Brown - Polly Toynbee!
ReplyDeleteAll pigs are equal ....but some pigs are more equal than others
ReplyDeleteYes truely one of the Harriet Harman tribe....
ReplyDeleteI'm just back from a warehouse sale of remaindered books. It is with great joy that I can report seeing a trestle table full of books by Polly Toynbee (one vast heap of Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today, which only came out last August, and one of Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain, which is nice because at £1 per copy, I'm sure the low-paid will be snapping it up). There was also an untouched heap of Gordon's Everyday Heroes. I left full of delicious schadenfreude.
ReplyDeleteLiz said "I'm just back from a warehouse sale of remaindered books. It is with great joy that I can report seeing a [copy of] Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain [by Pollyanna Toynbee], which is nice because at £1 per copy, I'm sure the low-paid will be snapping it up."
ReplyDeleteThat's still quite expensive for toilet roll, however.
"Yes we have dozens of steaks in our shops in the Glorious Soviet Republic of UK..next question please?"
ReplyDelete"Liz
ReplyDeleteI'm just back from a warehouse sale of remaindered books...
February 28, 2009 7:11 PM"
I had a look at the reviews on Amazon. Here's one:
"Everyday Heroes"
A good cure for insomnia. Repeating the words 'hero' and 'courage' makes you neither heroic nor courageous. He should have written 'British Bullies' or 'Cowardice: the Autobiography"