A couple of days ago I published a list of Ten People Who Are Having a Good Election. So you won't be suprised if I now balance things up. These are ten people who perhaps haven't had the best of times over the last month...
Gordon Brown
Needs little explanation. He's headed a hapless and shambolic campaign, committed the biggest gaffe of the campaign and looks totally worn out despite there being five days to go.
Jeremy Paxman
Having suffered with a cold for the first part of the campaign he suffered the indignity of being beaten up live on air by a Plaid Cymru economist ("Do your homework, Jeremy!"). A week after failing to land a blow on David Cameron, he repeated the experience with a knackered looking Gordon Brown during an interview on BBC1 yesterday.
Harriet Harman
Suffereed the most embarrassing interview of the campaign at the hands of Radio 5 Live's Stephen Nolan. Not afraid to step up to the mark when the going gets tough, she then appeared on the Campaign Show after Gordon Brown's 'bigot' gaffe and looked close to tears, as well as totally knackered.
Kerry McCarthy
It was bound to end in tears for one of the seemingly thickest politicians in the House of Commons. Labour's self styled Twitter czar could end up in prison for revealing the details of a postal vote count in her own consituency. She's a government whip and a lawyer, yet seems completely ignorant of basic electoral law.
Lord Pearson
He's a lovely guy, but not cut out for the rough and tumble of being a party leader. After his buttock clenching interview with Jon Sopel - so bad Sopel repeated it - his 'make it up as you go along' policy of asking people to vote Conservative in some constituencies has angered many in his party.
Vince Cable
Cable's halo was well and truly dented by the combined might of Stephanie Flanders and Andrew Neil and has also been eclipsed by his leader. Who'd have thought it? Saint Vince has become a mere politician. Just like the others.
Peter Mandelson
His dream of being Foreign Secretary is disappearing as fast as the plum coloured dye in his hair. He's run the most incompetent Labour campaign since (and possibly including 1983) and will no doubt already be preparing a strategy of how to shift the blame onto others.
Ed Balls
Blinky Balls and Labour's TV 'experts' clearly believe he is good on television. He isn't. Every appearance loses Labour more and more votes, yet he constantly appears. He might do better to spend his time in his constituency, which could be the surprise Tory win of the night.
The Internet
As I wrote in Wednesday's Telegraph, this has not been the internet election. Not that I ever thought it would be. But the impact of the internet has been even less than I predicted. OK, there have been a couple of scalps, but that's not how to measure influence. Only one say's news agenda has been dominated by an internet generated story - four days less than predicted by Derek Draper. Now, whatever happened to him?
Sue
She became the 'whipping girl' for Bigotgate, yet Sue Nye is one of the sharpest brains in the Brown entourage - not that there's a lot of competition.
"Sue Nye is one of the sharpest brains in the Brown entourage - not that there's a lot of competition"
ReplyDeleteHahahahAhahAHahahaHa!
Quite Right!
no conservative on the list which, if they don't get an overall majority, would be quite fitting: they are all so useless that even squandering a huge poll lead and failing to get a majority against gordon brown, i mean, seriously, gordon brown, would not count as having had a bad election. funny.
ReplyDeleteseriously, i think this is one of the few underdiscussed themes of this election: the last 13 years have lowered expectations on conservatives sooo low that it would not be a scandal if they failed to get a majority.
and governing a country in this financial state, without even a commons majority, is possibly the worst thing that could happen to any party in terms of long-term prospects. especially if a minority government means some electoral reform concession to the libdems (and therefore to parties on either side, politically, of the conservatives: libdems, ukip, bnp).
by becoming PM Cameron could, paradoxically, damage the conservative party more than his predecessors have done by losing the last three electons. funny.
On Balls, see this article in today's Daily Telegraph:
ReplyDeleteBlinking often 'sign of a wandering mind'
Researchers have discovered that you can tell whether someone is really listening or not by how frequently they blink. Closing their eyes too often is a sign that their thoughts is elsewhere, their study found ...
The Internet will get TwatterGit Kerry McCarthy's scalp.
ReplyDeleteI agree about Lord Pearson, but he's a cut above all Labour politicians. If they had his charisma and Tory policys they could have won easily!
ReplyDeleteShameful that you have not included a single conservative in this list.
ReplyDeleteIf Brown and Mandelson have run such a bad campaign, etc etc, how come Tories doing no better than 31-33%?
This has proved a sold this country is solidly center left.
Kerry4HMP!
ReplyDeleteNo Tories on your list ?
ReplyDeleteanyone would think you were a Conservative iain !
Chris Grayling if he's either Home Secretary or Shadow Home Secretary
after the election i'll be surprised and the gay community worried.
Boy George the more he appears on camera the happier the Labour party are.
Andy Coulson and Steve Hilton
whichever clown said to Cameron that the TV debates were a good thing should be shot. Just imagine the election without the Clegg bounce.
DC would be PM with a huge majority.
George Gideon Oliver Osborne
ReplyDeleteRupert Murdoch
Paul Dacre
Fraser Nelson
Boris Johnson
Dominic Mohan
Nick Griffin
Nigel Farage
Michael Gove
and
wait for it...
David William Donald Cameron
The only Tory having a bad campaign is Chris Grayling. If it hadn't been for the Lib Dem surge I'm sure we'd have a huge Tory lead by now.
ReplyDeleteThe Tories are having a great campaign, just hampered by the Lib Dem surge. That's not doing badly.
We'll soon know if God has a sense of humour!
ReplyDeleteThe 'castration' of Ed Balls would be the perfect indicator.
Check this out for a laugh
http://www.mybillboard.net/
Talking about hoping that Ed Balls gets 'castrated' in Morley, what about Jack Straw in Blackburn?
ReplyDeleteThe mother of Garry McKinnon, Janis Sharp, is standing against Straw! Janis, who lives in Hertfordshire, said she blamed the justice secretary for pushing through the extradition treaty with the US.
Under the treaty, her son Gary, from Wood Green in London, could be sent to the US for trial due to the one-way Extradition Treaty Britain has with America.
Gary's defence lawyers say an assessment of his actions has to take into account his Asperger's syndrome.
Mr McKinnon is accused of breaking into US military computer systems.
A spokesman for Mr Straw said it was right that people with differing views were able to stand in the election, but he must be bricking it.
Come on all you lovely voters in
Blackburn, 'castration' for Balls, 'decapitation' for STRAW.
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/the-boris-johnson-guide-to-the-election/
ReplyDeleteIain, I am so glad you have noticed the demise of Paxo, because I know the reason!
Since Boris ran rings around him (details of the humiliating, emasculating encounter on the link above, with the video) Paxo has been a shadow of his former self. Boris made such a fool of him, he has been neutered, unmanned even, prone to depressions and odd fits of laughing that leave him close to tears. One feared, his last interviews show he has lost his confidence completely. He stares at blank walls for ages and ages, some fear he is losing his mind! There is a rumour that he is going to be replaced, by, gulp! Dermott O'Leary!
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/poster-for-the-tories-number-3/
Isn't it Sue Nye whose brother is a Tory spin doctor? I'm sure that didn't influence your rather friendly description of her!
ReplyDeleteActually, I think you're missing quite a few people who've had a bad election - one could well argue that George Osborne has had a terrible time. David Cameron would also be seen as much, much worse if were not for the servile media support he gets across most of the printed press.
Cable did not get slaughtered by Andrew Neil, that's just myth-mongering by the Tory press and their fellow-travelling blog poodles. Anyone watching that interview on youtube will see that Cable puts up a good fight.
Iain gives some rationale for his choices which you can agree with or not. Paddy Briggs list is just 10 people he doesn't like!
ReplyDeleteYou are making a mistake Iain to minimalise the impact of the internet. Its influence is primarily in the spreading of ideas and opinion; it subtly dismantles hierarchies and encourages transparency: as technology develops it will become very powerful indeed.
ReplyDelete"She became the 'whipping girl' for Bigotgate, yet Sue Nye is one of the sharpest brains in the Brown entourage - not that there's a lot of competition."
ReplyDeleteIf she's that bright, why's she there?
I heard Brown saying soo nye will be going; something like that.
ReplyDelete