Harry’s Place

I don’t know whether Ken was a young tory or not - although I some what doubt it! Neithertheless look at the old tory now, Brett - rimming Boris’s arse like their no tommorrow.

“like their no tomorrow”?

Who is the illiterate above?

PS I DO hope the story is true.

Where’s Graham?

Blimey - we only have an hour and a half left for Brett to discover “Ken - the BNP years!”

The Standard has been comprehensively out-Gilliganned.

May I say the new graphics on the new site are cute

Well, I’ve heard that story before, too….I have no idea whether it’s true or not, but do have a more than vague sense that his parents leant more to the Conservatives than Labour.

Actually, one of the things that I do appreciate about Ken (and which is eminently a good thing for a position such as mayor of London) is that he has long proven to be more independently minded (and thus responsive both to the electorate and the workings of his conscience and mind) than mere party hacks who just follow the line of the moment.

(Now I think of it - wasn’t it Chris Patten - the lost great Tory Leader who would have been a fantastic PM - who supposedly applied to join both the Tories and Labour when he went to university (or graduated - I can’t recall the exact details), and joined the first party to respond.

Being non-partisan, or shifting party loyalties is good. Oh, yippie, is this the chance I’ve always waited for to compare Ken Livingstone to Winston Churchill? I think it is!

So, Londoners, you have 1 hour and 9 minutes to go and vote for Ken - the thinking man’s independently-minded candidate.

Erm, all the best

Oh, and by the way, there’s a big difference between being a Tory and being a Nazi. Being the first is fine (a lot of decent people are): being the second ain’t.

The saying goes “If you are not a socialist at 20, you have no heart, if you are one at 40, you have no brain”.

There was me, thinking this was a left wing site. But with every post from Brett it becomes clearer and clearer that HP is about to be ruined by some tw@t who thinks this sort of thing is interesting or funny.

Oh, and by the way, there’s a big difference between being a Tory and being a Nazi.

About 6 weeks given any possibility of a military coup :-)

Well, look at the new mayor of Rome, if you want to worry about anti-democratic leaders…..it’s very alarming that such a scumbug (who makes Berlusconi look like an angel) can be elected to run the city at the very, historic, heart of Western civilisation (one might expect a far right-winger to get in in certain other European capital cities*), but Rome? Oh dear.

*fairly obvious code for “Vienna”

“I have no idea whether it’s true or not, but do have a more than vague sense that his parents leant more to the Conservatives than Labour.”

I remember reading his dad canvassed for him when he first ran for the GLC, but voted Tory in his own ward. So it wouldn’t be that surprising.

Either way, another truly great post from Brett. Well done tiger.

“The saying goes “If you are not a socialist at 20, you have no heart, if you are one at 40, you have no brain”.

There was me, thinking this was a left wing site. But with every post from Brett it becomes clearer and clearer that HP is about to be ruined by some tw@t who thinks this sort of thing is interesting or funny.”

Sheesh. I was hoping you’d be fast enough to work out that the joke is that, if this gossip is true, Livingstone wasn’t a socialist at 20, and thus - har-har - ‘has no heart’. Tongue firmly in cheek, etc, etc…

Actually I’ve just realised what the truly shocking thing about this thread is: it’s that a Respected Harry’s Place Poster and Commenter, even if it is birthday, just posted a smiley face thing. Time to be emoticonoclastic, surely

My headmaster (At a fake comprehensive school that, none the less was said was less snobby that would have been the case) used to like coming out with that line about socialists and conservatives, and added that he joined the Conservative Association when he was a young man so that he “could meet girls and play ping-pong” (this may possibly have been a Humphrey Lyttleton-like innuendo about Samantha that entirely passed me by at the time, and possibly still does).

Can I just add that Norman Tebbitt is far less obnoxious than Qaradari?

I think that, amongst other verities he has been known to utter, his “on your bike” speech (which of course does not actually include that expression) was spot on - stop whinging, and expecting the state to do everything for you, and make your own good fortune.

(This doesn’t mean that I wasn’t vaguely horrified to see Tebbitt, in the company of Thatch and Andrew “my dog Spike is a patriot! He even died on St George’s Day, and by the way did you know that, according to my sources in the Islington Green Party, I am allegedly a former shamed Tory mayoral candidate is my illegitimate son” Rossendale campaigning for the Conservatives in Romford at the time of the last general election. I was horrified. But let’s get things in perspective)

having voted, I took to reading the election details of the candidates, imagine my shock when a chunk of them didn’t actually live in inner-city London, but some cosy retreats or gated dwellings?

Venichka,

For your information, Vienna has had a socialist mayor for the last 30 odd years. Like Ken, he has encouraged wanton immigration resulting in 30% of the whole city occupied by Turks, Yugoslavs and former East Europeans who love his free hand-outs (and votes!). The right-wingers that you infer are the FPO (Freedom Party) which enjoy little more than 10% of the voting. Maybe you should be worrying about the BNP who will surely grow in the same way when immigration really gets a grip. Oh, and by the way, Brown is supporting Turkish membership of the EU and if that happens the UK will see the mother of all immigration chaos.

Nevertheless the extremely undemocratic campaign against Livingstone by the Evening Standard and its cronies make a nonsense of their calling Livingstone’s supporters “weird and nasty.”
I have come across nothing more Orwellian in any political campaign I can think of and whatever tomorrow’s result I think a public inquiry would benefit all those with any residual belief in the democratic process and only be opposed by the vested interests who want an establishment Mayor.

The communication by the media of information (…) on matters of public interest and importance is a vital part of life in a democratic society. However the right to communicate such information is subject to the qualification (…) that false accusations of fact impugning the integrity of others, inculding politicians, should not be made.
(Lord Hutton, 28th january 2004.)

it’s that a Respected Harry’s Place Poster and Commenter

Who’s that then?

Get with the 21st century daddio ;-(

Ken “has encouraged wanton immigration”, has he? (what exactly does that expression mean, anyway? How does one immigrate in a wanton fashion?) I wasn’t aware he had powers over who was permitted to enter the country and who wasn’t.

London attracts people from the world over for many reasons - the last thing it would need is a petty-minded bigot provincial mayor who tried to turn immigrants away or discourage them bringing all the good that they bring to our city. And I don’t think you’ll find t

And all I will say that before their split, and general collapse, there certainly were elections (not municipal ones, I’ll grant you)

Graham - I was being polite. I didn’t want to sully the smart, embourgeoised, appearance of the site :)

Happy birthday Graham! Even if you should be renditioned to suburbia for unspeakable crimes against Ken haters everywhere. :-)

Ken “has encouraged wanton immigration”, has he? (what exactly does that expression mean, anyway? How does one immigrate in a wanton fashion?) I wasn’t aware he had powers over who was permitted to enter the country and who wasn’t.

London attracts people from the world over for many reasons - the last thing it would need is a petty-minded bigot provincial mayor who tried to turn immigrants away or discourage them bringing all the good that they bring to our city. And I don’t think you’ll find that the Mayor has any “hand-outs” that he can offer, either, even if he wanted to.

And as for the FPOe, all I will say that before their split, and general collapse, there certainly were elections (not municipal ones, I’ll grant you) where they received far in excess of 10% (I think as much as four times that amount) in Vienna: maybe I would find this less shocking (only a little less, I grant you) had it happened in a backwards provincial town, but one expects better of a capital city, especially one that was formerly the capital of a cosmopolitan empire.

It’s disgusting & inexcusable to make excuses for the xenophonic policies and bigotries of the BNP or FPOe.

Graham - I was being polite. I didn’t want to sully the smart, newly embourgeoised, appearance of the site :) No-one has even sworn at or been rude to Benji yet.

I have been vigorously supporting Ken for the last couple of weeks and I very much hope he wins tonight. But in two minutes I can start slagging him off again!

Wahoo!

So when will we know the results?

Not until tomorrow evening, probably.

I don’t believe that. Some results will be tomorrow evening - those in Mubage’s rual heartland - but we’re gonna know who the mayor is before then, surely?

Nope - the London election count doesn’t even start until tomorrow morning. Assembly results expected by early to mid-afternoon, Mayoral ones not till around 8pm

The electoral commission may use the time to fiddle with the votes. We must protest!

Ven, I’ve already mocked Benji in the ebay thread.

I’m alarmed to admit I know Graham is 46.

:lol::evil: :roll: :!: :?: :idea: :mrgreen:

Hmm, HP will not be the same if the above work, and not necessarily ina good way.

(I presume the final one is a reference to Darren Johnson - remember him)

In the good voters of Hartlepool elected a m0nkey for a mayor, I fail to see what’s wrong with electing Boris J.

I do hope the British left will face an Italian-style reckoning on Friday evening. Harsh and horrid as it would be, it is deserved.

If Ken had stuck to local issues within his remit and done the right thing, I would have voted for him, given the chance.

Instead he’s a sad posturing fool wherever he can be, including in jihad, which is now a local issue that he does not understand, or does not want to understand.

Supporting al-Qaradawi, which is what Ken has done up to the end, is every bit as revolting as embracing the BNP.

More so, really, if you count the bodies.

Draping his arm over terrorist-supporting Galloway was, I hope, a last straw for some camels.

The electoral commission may use the time to fiddle with the votes. We must protest!
I don’t know about fiddle, but this afternoon I met the young Tory lad standing for the Council by-election in my constituency, who lives in my street, and he was highly exercised at a collection of glitches- apparently this morning ballot boxes had not arrived so people could not vote, and many proxy votes and postal votes had not been delivered. I would have assumed any such glitches would not be candidate or party specific, but he seemed most distressed. I didn’t tell him of my voting dilemma- he is a nice grammar school boy studying at LSE and I like him much better than the Labour candidate who is also just a boy, but strikes me as a callow posturing Oxford grad very much in the Cameron mould. But this is a marginal constituency for Labour and I can’t afford to let personal feelings get in the way.
Its bad enough I had the impossible choices for mayor…

Hmm, HP will not be the same if the above work, and not necessarily ina good way.

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Lol.

Respectfully, habibi, I disagree.

These moments of satisfaction of the kind “they deserved it, bastards!” last – what – a day? A week at most… An opportunity for a total clown and fool to take a great city apart and turn London into Disneyland will go on for four years.

Yes, Livingston grates also on my nerves and I hold a brief for neither Qaradawi nor Galloway. Moreover, given his behaviour, I don’t see any reason whatsoever to support him because of tribal loyalties. Even the disgraceful campaign of Evening Standard is not sufficient to support Ken in reverse revulsion. The only reason to hope that, no matter what happens, Boris Johnson doesn’t become the Mayor of London (and it is a two-horse-arse race), is that he is a useless clown, with an attention span equal to one of Ken’s newts. 90% of mayor’s work is not making fancy speeches or cozying up to this-or-that group. 90% of their work, the real work, is reading reams of boring documents, briefs, position papers, accounts, sitting during interminable committee meetings and keeping your attention and remembering your brief. Can you really imagine Johnson, an Eton schoolboy that never grew up, being equal to that task?

This stuff is getting seriously tiresome, Brett.

The polls suggest you’ll get your preferred result tomorrow.

Nevertheless the extremely undemocratic campaign against Livingstone by the Evening Standard and its cronies make a nonsense of their calling Livingstone’s supporters “weird and nasty.”
“I have come across nothing more Orwellian in any political campaign I can think of and whatever tomorrow’s result I think a public inquiry would benefit all those with any residual belief in the democratic process and only be opposed by the vested interests who want an establishment Mayor.” Graham

That’s a public enquiry into how the LDA gave out public money to Lee Jasper’s cronies - money which vanished without trace - and without any apparent accountability, is it then Graham? (I for one should be interested to see Lee Jasper’s complete audit trail for these “grants”)

Turn London into Disneyland?

It’s a while since I went there but as I recall it was spotlessly clean and very well run.

Go Boris!

Muffin wrote:

The only reason to hope that, no matter what happens, Boris Johnson doesn’t become the Mayor of London (and it is a two-horse-arse race), is that he is a useless clown, with an attention span equal to one of Ken’s newts.

agreed,but there is a more than adequate secondary reason, should Boris become Mayor of London then the Tories would hope to use it as a springboard in the general election thus heralding a new Tory dawn for Britain

which isn’t terribly good prospect for anyone (aside from the rich and greedy I suppose)

so whilst I have grave reservations about Livingstone I truly could not face the prospect of another Tory government and that is the bigger picture, not just the mayoral elections but what follows from it

it is not so significant for Labour but very for the Tories, to demonstrate that they can be a competent and “caring” administration which is a prelude to a general election win

the Tories have to extinguish the idea of a meanspirited and aggressive Thatcherism along with incompetent and dithering Majorism, so the mayoral election is very important for them

and why Boris should be returned to nothing more complex than managing the Spectator stationary cupboard

Luke Akehurst is the Labour blogger on the BBC tonight giving insights on the Brown bounce.

http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/

Iain Dale is the Tory blogger.

Bad news. Most of the pundits seem to believe that Ken has lost, given that Labour has its lowest share of the vote ever nationally.

Wow.

Amazing that Ken can get defeated on issues like crime when it’s actually gone down 12%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8__EwAT8VM

The saying goes “If you are not a socialist at 20, you have no heart, if you are one at 40, you have no brain”.
I think that’s a tad lenient; I’d say holding to socialist views much beyond 20 is a sign of wilful myopia - a critical thinking failure, or plain stupidity.

Oh and I think you’ve been a little harsh on Norman.

That’s a public enquiry into how the LDA gave out public money to Lee Jasper’s cronies

You can have one into that as well as far as I am concerned. But the subvertion of democracy by a newspaper is far more serious IMHO. Perspective needed.

Turn London into Disneyland?</i?

Well it will certainly be a Mickey Mouse town under Boris.

Portillo was slagging Boris off last night, saying he was a very unreliable person so is totally unsuited to be mayor.

Seemingly, the London mayoral vote is quite close, but it’s beginning to look as if it is indeed going Boris’s way.

Let’s hope so, one in the eye for the proto fascist.

It looks as if Labour is getting a serious drubbing all over. This will no doubt precipitate more internal squabbling resulting in a death-spiral for Labour. All redolent of what happened to the Tories just over a decade ago; there seems to be a certain unavoidable inevitability about this.

The new model of British politics, both main parties are emulating each other. We need less doctrinaire politics, and more focus on competent administrators and cutting unnecessary bureaucracy….

I have no idea who Luke Akehurst is.
But he appears to be well-known enough (or hated enough) to have spawned a spoof blog, which is actually quite entertaining.

http://lukeakehurstsblog.blogspot.com/

“agreed,but there is a more than adequate secondary reason, should Boris become Mayor of London then the Tories would hope to use it as a springboard in the general election thus heralding a new Tory dawn for Britain”

But surely if Boris is an unrelaible clown and his administration is “a disaster” for London, then the best thing Labour could do is hope for a Boris win. What better way to rid the party of the unprincibled Livingstone AND demonstrate the smoke and mirrors of Tory politics than let Boris make a hash of it. Better to temporarily concede London than lose the Government. no?

What would be worse: a fluffy Boris who danced in a thong on a Pride float, or a nasty Boris?

My money is on the Tories going uber-nice Boris: as they’ve correctly realised that they can’t win if they’re the Nasty Party. They tried this with Howard, and it didn’t work.

I think that, amongst other verities he has been known to utter, his “on your bike” speech (which of course does not actually include that expression) was spot on - stop whinging, and expecting the state to do everything for you, and make your own good fortune.

I think within the context of 3.5 million unemployed, many of whom couldn’t afford bikes to get on, it was utterly crass. The clear implication is that if you don’t have work, you haven’t looked. As boneheaded as this sounds to a lot of us, there are millions of people who believe this. And most of them are Tories.

Ah … but think of the dire foreign policy implications of a Boris win. No chance of cheap fuel concessions from Chavez to run the thirsty bendy buses and what will London do without the bosom-close solidarity of yore with blighted ‘Palastinian’ suicide bombers. Britain’s major city will become but a Zionist municipality.

“I think within the context of 3.5 million unemployed, many of whom couldn’t afford bikes to get on, it was utterly crass.”

Quite right. Having been one of those 3.5 million at the time I could never, even if some of my core beliefs had changed, have voted for a party that idolised the person to whom those remarks were attributed. They still revere him. They still don’t deserve to win.

But surely if Boris is an unrelaible clown and his administration is “a disaster” for London, then the best thing Labour could do is hope for a Boris win.

Ah. The first appearance of the “Hiroshima was a good thing for Japan” argument this spring.

. Better to temporarily concede London than lose the Government. no?

Cutting off your head to spare your face. Ken has markedly more support than the government in general does - not least because of the perception that he is semi-independent of, and above, the Labour Party, and because he isn’t associated with any of its (actually relatively minor) fiascos at national level (and e.g. over PPP for the tube has been a vocal opponent of certain of them).

If Labour wants to win the next election it needs to have a serious discussion. Sacrificing one of its leading, most inspirational, figures is not the way.

And hoping for Boris to be a bad mayor is wrong too - that stinks of petty party sectarianism.

I hope (if he wins) he will be compenent, inspirational and every bit as prepared to step beyond the confines of the conventional expectations of his party - to put London, not the Tories or Labour, first.

Graham wrote: Ah. The first appearance of the “Hiroshima was a good thing for Japan” argument this spring.
Not quite the same type of argument, indeed there may be…dare I say it…just a hint of hyperbolism in there somewhere!

Though, as it happens, I agree with both Brett’s democratic argument and the Hiroshima assertion - which is a complete no brainer for anyone that’s bothered to even casually parse the history.

But Boris IS a blonde bombshell!

Though, as it happens, I agree with both Brett’s democratic argument and the Hiroshima assertion

I doubt you do. You can argue that Hiroshima was good for allied troops and for the rest of East asia which was suffering as a Japanese slave empire. But it is hard to argue that Hirsohima was a good thing for anybody underneath the fall-out! Likewise you can argue that Boris is a good (or bad) thing for Cameron/Brown but it is very hard to argue that such an inexperienced racist buffoon is good for London and Londoners.

What Brownie and Tim said.

Graham wrote: But it is hard to argue that Hirsohima was a good thing for anybody underneath the fall-out!
Indeed it would be hard to argue that, and of course I didn’t. The ‘underneath the fall-out’ was a new qualifier added post-hoc by you!

It would be similarly difficult…and equally trite to front as a counter argument… that the declaration of War by Britain on Germany was a good thing for any of the 68,000 British civvies killed in the Blitz and the 360 odd thousand British service personell killed on as a result of operations against Axis powers.

No the argument is, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in very considerably fewer Japanese casualties, than if the US had not used atomic weapons to force a Japanese unconditional surrender. For anyone that looks into the history, the arguments supporting this, are quite compelling.

I seem to remember Oliver Kamm dealt with this topic rather well a goodly while back.

I seem to remember Oliver Kamm dealt with this topic rather well a goodly while back.

Then you will also remember me arguing on his side and introducing the subject of the millions of starving East Asians still under Japanese rule for whom Hiroshima was quite literally a life-saver..

Indeed it would be hard to argue that, and of course I didn’t. The ‘underneath the fall-out’ was a new qualifier added post-hoc by you!

Indeed it was not. I said Hiroshima was not “good for Japan” (as an analogy of disaster with which to compare Boris Johnson’s likely effect on London with those arguing that dropping such a “bomb” would be good for us.) Perhaps I should have said “not good for those evaporated” although you could have asked if my meaning extended outside either city before assuming I was taking the wider view you impute to me:-)

Maria madre del dio! I am a year older than Graham.

I am not overly thrilled by a politics informed by experience that is reduced to a matrix of identity and oppression.

A politics that can decide bombs, or shock therapy, or tough love can be for the common good, is devoid of any sense of empathy any sense of how, more than, the other half lives.

I have been unemployed and homeless in Thatchers London and I had my, sole affordable transport, my bike stolen when I had just got off it looking for work.

I still feel sick to my stomache thinking about those years and the smarmy supercillious, arrogance of the eras politicians revelling in their nastiness.

Boris is a died in the die bath with his sweater on Thatcher era Tory as we shall all soon witness as the, thinly, made in China, ‘New Tory nice’ faux Gabardine comes off in the warm weather.

Boris Johnson as Mayor will be about as useful as an epidemic of Anthrax.