That's the subliminal message behind this PEB just issued by the Labour Party. And they lie about Tory policy on child tax credits. What a disgusting bunch of shits they really are. No, strike that.
The people who approved this are c***s. And I don't use that word very often.
TalkSport's Sean Dilley, who is by no means a Tory supporter, is as outraged as I am and has written an impassioned plea to Labour to withdraw this PEB. He might as well whistle in the wind.
Did you really expect anything better? Did you really expect Labour to go into the political night without raging at the fading light?
ReplyDeleteFrankly, this is disgusting. Frankly, it is reverting to type.
Labour is warning well-off families in high-quality Victorian terraced houses that the Tories'll cut off their benefits. WTH are well-off families in high-quality Victorian terraced houses doing on benefits in the first place?
ReplyDeleteHow come single people don't get any bribes?
But it's true about the cancer guarantee, isn't it? The two week guarantee will go, won't it?
ReplyDeleteTruely disgusting. They are pond slime - no check that - they are actually evil.
ReplyDeleteThe same people who approved the cancer leaflets - but of course Brown was not involved!
ReplyDeleteThey are all c***s that's why they HAVE to go - they are like a disease.
Just when you thought the Labour party couldn't sink any lower they come out with this. C***'s is an understatement,there isn't word to describe how disgusting this is. The Tories really need to make a lot of noise about this.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnd they call the Tory party the "Nasty Party".
ReplyDeleteUnspeakable. Labour really reached rock bottom. I hope they are annihilated at this election.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope Cameron raises it in the Thurs debate. It was effective on the leaflets issue....time to nail him on scare tactics.
ReplyDeleteThey really are the lowest of the low and Brown is just utter scum.
Is your other article off comment?
ReplyDeleteLabour are getting desperate, they have wheeled out the dirty tricks brigade, Comical Ali and Mandy . .
ReplyDeleteThere goes the "Moral Compass" argument.
ReplyDeleteNew Liebour. New low.
Gordon brown you are a c**t and it was a pleasure to vote conservative today via postal ballot.
ReplyDeleteThis PEB is beneath contempt. The child trust fund is a waste of money we cannot afford and the tax credits system needs reforming.
Just to think in a little over a week we could have a conservative government that will wash away the 13 years or labour lies and spin
Hurrah - the penny has dropped Mr Dale.
ReplyDeleteBut did not Brown reel off a series of lies at the college of nurs=ing yesterday?
You say they lie about Tory policy on tax credits. Tory policy on tax credits is to start to withdraw them from families earning £40,000 (i.e from couples earning an average £20,000 each), up to a point at which families earning £50,000 would receive none at all. The IFS explains this in more detail in its analysis of the three parties' plans published today.
ReplyDeleteIt also says that the Conservatives would need to cut tax credits more than this in order to save as much money from the measure as they have asserted, although that's a separate point.
What irony. The idea of an official knocking at your door or car window to deliver a piece of social engineering is a vision fast becoming a reality.
ReplyDeleteNoelinho, if you really care about this issue, then I suggest you read this:
ReplyDeletehttp://dizzythinks.net/2010/04/latest-political-football-that-misses.ht
@ Noelinho
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth makes you think Labour have either the ability or intention to implement this 'two week guarantee'?
GPs around the country already urgently refer patients with serious symptoms to Hospitals as a matter of routine - the more urgent the patient's need, the quicker they are fast-tracked through the system.
In other words, patient's cannot be fast-tracked any more quickly than they already are - this is a 'non policy' from Labour and the Consrvatives cannot scrap something that does not exist.
This advert is a disgrace, rather like the Party it promotes...
WG
When you're in as much shit as they are what care have you for principles?
ReplyDeleteObjectively (and I don't say that very often), it's like watching the hysterical begging of a condemned man. Promising anything, screaming, humiliating and pissing himself with fear.
Their is no dignity in their final thashings.
It was, and I use that term carefully too, a great party with a noble tradition. Principled and civilised.
And now look at it....How very, very sad.
Labour are desperate. If they come third, they will be racked by in-fighting more gruesome than in the early 80s. The Lib-Dems will overtake them as the major left-of-centre party.
ReplyDeleteAs a result, they lack any sense of proportion. On cancer care, the target of seeing a specialist within two weeks is mostly met, but survival rates for most cancers are amoungst the lowest in Europe. On cutting costs, you start with the least needed. Family Tax Credits to those in the 40% income tax band is a good place to start. Another is improving efficiency of government.
Same old Labour. A vote for anyone else is a vote for cutting your benefits. The tragic thing is, it'll work in Labours safest seats, but I reckon this sort of PEB could well backfire on them in Lab/Lib and Lab/Tory marginals
ReplyDeleteIt must be better to get your scare stories out by inviting the editors of favourable press into your office and feeding them smears then.
ReplyDeleteAt least Labour are up front with what they are saying, not hiding behind secret meetings with press editors and then blatantly lying by saying that it didn't happen.
Or do you all still believe the line that Coulson didn't invite the editors in one by one to give them their smear stories at Tory HQ?
low, even by Alistair Campbell 'standards'
ReplyDeleteWhile a repeat of what has been said above, this is as low as it can get. Telling lies in candidate campaign literature is bad enough – albeit no authorised at the centre of the party (apparently!) – there can be no such excuses in a PEB. This rotten party should make the stomach churn of any decent person in the UK.
ReplyDeleteA disgrace
Do you find the tory political advertising with the noose in it equally offensive? I'd expect it off the BNP maybe, but not the tory party.
ReplyDeleteNot defending labour either, all scaremongering just turns voters off. They see all this 'vote clegg get brown/cameron' crap, and the negative politics and just think, why bother voting? It's also the sign of a weak campaign when your strongest message is "don't vote for the others" without saying what you would do instead.
Iain, look at it dispassionately, are you really saying that it is any worse than your lot's attempt? It may have been conjecture, but there were no untruths.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it is very simple, if Cameron makes a pledge tomorrow to maintain the 2 week cancer target and the 18 week referral to treatment target, then no one would be able to say what the consequences of abolishing them would be. You have to ask why Cameron thinks it is acceptable for people to wait longer than 4 1/2 months for treatment. 18 weeks is too long in my opinion, but if the target is removed waiting lists will get longer than 18 weeks. That is simply not acceptable.
And yes I have had treatment for cancer, and it was within the target waiting time and I am so glad that it was a right to have treatment in such short time.
Unlike my friend who died of cancer in 94. In 92 he went to his GP with a lump in his armpit and she said that the waiting list to see the hospital specialist was 3 months, my friend was a trainee accountant and had health insurance through work, so he used that and saw the same specialist the following day. It was diagnosed as cancer and he had surgery the day after. That surgeon said he would not have survived the 3 month waiting list.
My friend had a year of private treatment and then a year's remission before the cancer returned. The insurance company would not touch him. He *had* to use the NHS, and as I said, he died a year later. Very sad, but at least he had three years of extra life.
Iain,
ReplyDeletewith your kind permission, I should like to respond to 'Red Rag's awful defence of this disgusting scare-tactic since he has posted the same comment on my blog, as appears on yours.
As posted on my own blog, in response to 'Red Rag'
Hi Red Rag,
Thanks for posting.
I am sorry to say that I cannot see how your comment changes anything.
This isn't about the Tories - I've criticised their PEB. This is about scaring the most vulnerable people in society in to voting for one party over another, based on nothing more than partisan speculation.
It is very wrong and I am afraid, it is (in my view) wrong to defend it!
Sean Dilley
Labour are truly spooked. I find myself smiling at how desperate they are but then think about how this PPB could affect vulnerable people. In that sense it is very low.
ReplyDeleteThis is sick and wrong, its awful at the best of times. I had to watch my mother die of cancer, and this I find tremendously insulting. Whoever sanctioned this is sick.
ReplyDeleteIain, why are Tory PPCs being told not to sign up for Cancer charity campaigns?
ReplyDeletehttp://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/04/secret-memo-tells-tory-mps-not-to-sign-up-to-cancer-charities-campaigns.html
A bit of a poor show, especially since it should be a personal choice.
Red Rag...tampon...bloody waste.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you even attempt to defend it speaks more than any words you may write...btw, are comments allowed on your blog? I note your 9:17 comment here and it amused me as I've been to your site on various occasions and find freedom of speech to reply to your partisan lies and junk curtailed, weird eh?
Didn't the labour movement once stand for something so much more principled than this?
ReplyDeleteLabour Party activists should be ashamed of their party.
Yes, it's a pretty disgusting PEB. But what about the Tories one tonight trying to drum up fear about a hung parliament? Not only is it scare mongering and sensationalist about what a hung parliament could mean, it also seems like a pretty dumb tactic to me.
ReplyDeleteDo they really want us to believe that if we get a hung parliament that they won't get involved in the "politicians wrangling" that they are saying is such a bad thing?!
That actually makes me sick.
ReplyDelete"They're taking away our child tax credit." "What?!! That's not fair we work hard..."
Get over it woman. Why should I, a childless 26 year old, pay for your children? Would that not count as 'fair'? Or does my hard work not count? No-one forced you to have children. Pay for them your f***ing self.
Walsingham, Nigel, thank you for your responses.
ReplyDeleteI genuinely don't understand this hysteria.
ReplyDeleteLabour have a two week cancer target. The Tories don't. The advert shows a dramatization of this fact, and illustrates the sort of distress this policy WILL cause further down the line for real people.
Is the argument 'we musn't mention cancer in any electioneering?'. I guess that's a point, but, as so many people will suffer cancer, it's odd to make it taboo.
Incidentally - from an NHS person - the Tories in Hammersmith are not blameless. Baseless scaremongering of the 'closure' of Charing Cross hospital has been threatened over two general elections. That's entirely playing on the vunerable.
I detest this mudslinging but it's not fair to paint Labour entirely as the dirty party.
Is it just me that finds Labour portraying the Tories as the "man from the Government is here" as a bit rich?
ReplyDeleteWhat utter... utter... fandango-twisters!
Thanks for posting this video Ian, what a wonderful and informative film!
ReplyDeleteBlue2002 said: "Labour have a two week cancer target. The Tories don't"
ReplyDeleteIn the words of Ed Balls "So what?".
Labour's targets are meaningless as has been proved over and over again. Hospitals pull tricks like renaming the A&E dept as "Intake Ward" and then claiming that all new patients go straight into a "ward" whilst they really sit in the A&E dept. People are dumped off waiting lists and then put back on them as a fresh patient so that the waiting list targets can be met.
Labour have proved 2 things in 13 years.
1) Throwing money at problems does not solve them
2) Targets are meaningless and will be "got around".
It was not worth 13 years of socialist incompetence to find that out.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw this on ConHome I was left shaking with anger. As I said there, goodness knows what it'll do to the target audience. Your response is entirely justified, and I hope it'll be reflected by any decent-minded viewer.
@ blue2002
ReplyDelete'I genuinely don't understand this hysteria.
Labour have a two week cancer target. The Tories don't.'
The core point is Labour are only dealing with inputs; the real issu is outcomes.
And do you really believe this PEB is grown-up campaigning?!
Both my parents died of cancer under Labour.
ReplyDeleteOne was starved to death, the other was covertly killed with morphine.
This is a dispicable PEB.
My God, Iain. I've followed your blog for a while and you are usually so calm about such things - but I fully understand why you lost it over this!
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame the Conservatives don't sue them for libel. This takes lies and scaremongering to a whole new level. They are clearly unfit to govern!
Couldn't agree more. No party has been blameless but this is by far the most vile example of mudslinging of this or indeed any recent election.
ReplyDeleteAlso one other point that I don't think has been questioned so far. Since when is £50,000 a middle or modest income?
Elvis has left the building. Unfortunately Mandelson and Campbell haven’t. Good grief, next, they’ll be suggesting that Tories will murder your first born..
ReplyDeleteIf the ad is completely false (and I have no reason to believe it's not...), wouldn't it be much more sensible for you to quote from the Tory manifesto the bits that contradict the ad? Or show Labour's numbers are wrong and Child Tax Credits are safe? Or explain why Cancer care will be better under a Tory Govt?
ReplyDeleteThe ad is well presented and clear, and your post refuting it is just aggressive.
Most people aren't going to have time to look these facts up, and who're they more likely to believe? A professionally presented Labour ad, or a sweary angry man who seems pretty smug about someone once calling him witty...
Surely we have to see the popularity of Clegg at this election as a sign that people want more than name calling and groundless assertions from politics.
Please step up with facts, figures, analysis and new information, or stop ranting angrily and making the the party you're trying to support look bad.
Read the next post, clever dick.
ReplyDeleteDislike the advert (not to mention the Labour Party!) but this is a much more effective advert than the Tories' "Hung Parliament Party" effort, which looked like it was put together by the same team responsible for the FCO's papal brainstorming. As Bush/Cheney showed in 2004, scare tactics work, but you have to know how to deploy them.
ReplyDeleteIf Brown thinks he got it tough over the dodgy leaflets last week, Dave will nail the bastard to the wall this week!
ReplyDeleteTheir true colours should be obvious to everyone by now - they are too disgusting for words!
The Child Tax Credit thing is true though isn't it? And the Baby Bond? And, in fact, the ending of the two-week referral target? Or is the Tory Manifesto not true on those points?
ReplyDeleteAll those of you who are "shaking with anger" and "feeling sick" need to read your own Party manifesto a bit more closely. I suspect it's that document that makes you feel sick with anger.
ReplyDeleteDespairingLiberal said...
ReplyDelete"All those of you who are "shaking with anger" and "feeling sick" need to read your own Party manifesto a bit more closely. I suspect it's that document that makes you feel sick with anger."
I presume you are despairing at the LibDem's apology of a manifesto and its totally bonkers unrealistic promises. Barking socialist nonsense from a party knowing it can say what it likes as its about as much chance of influencing government as the Greeks sorting out their economy?
Quite right made me puke.
To be brutally honest, I'm more likely to die of cancer than I am to vote Labour.
ReplyDeleteThank you. This post is so informed, decent, educated, well thought out, and not at all offensive to women. Everything for which I love the Conservative Party.
ReplyDelete