Friday, July 20, 2007

Cash for peerages....and those by-elections

So, after a drawn out enquiry, dawn raids and the like, no charges are to be laid.
Talk about a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The fact is that all the large parties have been doing this sort of thing for years, and with the huge upsurge in spending at election time, the pressure has increased to make it more not less likely

What we need is a downsizing of political campaigning so that there are very clear limits on expenditure. But will the main parties agree to this? I doubt it somehow.

And what about those by-elections? The Tories did extremely badly. How can anyone say otherwise? If the main opposition party is falling from 2nd to 3rd in a safe Labour seat, and does noticeably badly in the sort of seat they have to up their game in (Southall) after a very high-profile campaign, then they are surely not about to win the next election?

3 comments:

Benedict Farrer said...

Yes, well, New Labour hardly did fantastically either.

It really is a bit early to call the next election yet, although I agree with you that those who think a Tory victory is assured really are living in cloud cuckoo land. Brown has hardly begun as PM and the only policy Cameron seems to have is "by a nasty, right-wing Thatcherite but talk a lot of wet bollocks to the press to try and hide the fact". Doesn't fool me, I'm afraid.

The Tories haven't changed even a single microscopic jot. They are still the party of homophobia, boom and bust, protecting unmerited privelledge and shitting all over the vunerable. Norman Tebbit is the true voice of the Tory party, and he is a thoroughly repulsive, clueless, sack of shit who doesn'tlive in the real world and whom I wouldn't trust with, well, anything.

Merseymike said...

Well, half way through a parliament usually means dreadful results for the Government (of any colour) and these werre really quite respectable.

Put it like this . If the Tories are still behind in the polls and cant win any by-elections, then they are not going to form the next government.

Can't say I agre with a lot of what NL have done either but rather them then the Tories, and the LD's are all things to all people.

Benedict Farrer said...

Well, I will be voting Labour at the next election. And probably the one after that. And probably the one after that, and so on.

Now that The Inane Grin has gone, voting for them feels like less of violation of my conscience.

Besides, who else is there to vote for? As you say, the choices are not exciting.