Tail Wagging the Dog

jusm Tue Oct 09, 2007 at 08:45:41 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

The Pre Budget Report is the worst example I have ever seen of the opposition setting the agenda. If this continues voters will soon get sick of such opportunism and vote for the real thing which will mean a Tory Government.



First the election fiasco which allowed Cameron to clearly be seen as the person calling the shots, then Alistair Darling today stealing all the most popular ideas from the most recent opinion polls which were last week criticised for not adding up- where is it going to end! How did we get to a position where the tories are seen to be the ones with all the good and popular ideas to the extent we blatantly take them (and don't try and argue they are different things, the political bloggers are the only ones who will see that)? Cameron is setting the agenda and we look clueless, directionless and shameless! Let us hope the election is far enough way for voters to forget this blatant opportunism! If they don't then they may decide that the guys who keep coming up with the ideas deserve a crack. We have lost the political initative big time and we need to set out a clear, distinctive agenda to get it back!

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Tail Wagging the Dog | 11 comments (11 topical)

Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#1)

by Otleyred on Tue Oct 09, 2007 at 09:26:15 PM GMT

Tory Blair was accused of stealing the conservative clothes when he was Prime Minister. At least he didn't do it in broad daylight.

This blatent opportunism must stop and our cabinet must come up with their own ideas, or else the Labour Party will become a laughing stock, lame government.

Flash has had ten years plotting to take over. Surely he must have thought of someting original?


Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#2)

by Wilberforce on Tue Oct 09, 2007 at 10:28:17 PM GMT

How do you know he had not already thought this up and planned it?

I strongly believe it was the Tories who rushed theirs out.

We did not only review inheritance tax but increased spending on Schools and Hospitals... thats something you would never get from the Tories. 

The GE fiasco might have been a mess, but lets do the governing properly and not let the Tories throw us off our game. I was pleased this put a smile back on Gordon's face too... so he can focus on the many tasks ahead.


[ Parent ]

Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#3)

by MM on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 12:38:30 AM GMT

'How do you know he had not already thought this up and planned it?'

Even as a Labour member, I'm not prepered to believe that.  We all know that the inheritance tax/non-dom proposals were introduced after the Tory conference and the election was called off.  It just looks really shabby.


[ Parent ]

Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#7)

by swatantra on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 11:39:07 AM GMT

Of course Brown had thought of it before, there are only a few select ways of raising revenue by introducing new taxes or increasing old taxes and duties. The question is why didn't he tackle it earlier. We've been talking about taxing aircraft fuel for some time now, but no action has been taken. We've been taliking about reforming council tax but no action has been taken and of squeezing the non-doms, again nothing. Timing is the most important thing in politics and Brown got it wrong. I have no reservations in borrowing good ideas from wherever eg I would dearly like the Lib Dem proposal of local income tax instead of council tax to be introduced. But the Govt won't do it.


[ Parent ]

Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#9)

by treborc on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 05:20:35 PM GMT

That was not a smile wind was more like.

Sorry Labour looked like a government without idea's and if labour had been thinking of this before we would have known about it.


[ Parent ]

Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#4)

by MM on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 12:51:35 AM GMT

I agree with the sentiments expressed, watching the statments yesterday it was depressing viewing.  I thought the killer line of the day was Osborne jibe “From this day on let there be no doubt who is winning the battle of ideas.”   Who can blame him when Darling was taking policy after policy from the Tories.  Darling seemed out of his depth as well, the speech seemed to have been written for him by Brown.  Does Darling actually have any radical idea's for the Treasury or for tax?  Would he like to see an increase in green taxes?   Does have any vision for the British economy instead of the tired old mantra.  One can see that Brown will live upto the title of 'First Lord of the Treasury' and Darling is just a puppet.


Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#5)

by NorthernMonkey on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 01:10:24 AM GMT

It does sometimes make you wonder why Brown wanted to be Prime Minister so badly since he doesn't seem to have any grand vision which he badly wants to implement.

A lot of the stuff so far has either consisted of reversing Blair's actions (eg. supercasino, withdrawing troops from Iraq) or copying what the Tories say and do (tougher stance on drugs, criminals & immigrants; IHT, non-dom taxes etc.)

I'm pleased it was announced that homophobic crimes will become hate crimes as I was worried that Brown's government wouldn't fight for equality as much as Blair's did.

But Brown needs to set out a clear vision for the future across a whole range of areas. What is Brown's big vision? He needs to start showing us that he passionately wants to change things and then get on with doing it.

And it would help if he actually had a few big names in the top jobs, like a Chancellor who isn't a 'puppet' as MM says or actually making Harman Deputy Prime Minister and allowing her to say something important once in a while.


Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#6)

by MM on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 01:49:23 AM GMT

Perhaps the dirty secret is that the 'grand vision' all these years was getting rid of Blair, rather than a masterplan.  The more I see Brown even when he was at the height of his popularity when dealing with the floods etc, I sense there is no vision, no agenda, no real plan of action.  The only real agenda is a 4th term/and destroying the Tories.  But I thought a purpose of a political party is to fundamentally change the country.  Hand on heart has Brown taken tough decisions on public services?  Instead at the Labour Conference we saw a retreat to the comfort zone.  Yesterday we were told by puppet Darling that spending on Health will £110bn by 2010, but no word on how much reform he wants to see?  

I think the point about the lack of big beasts in the Cabinet is a important one.  But Brown is hardly going to have people around him who are likely to challenge and disagree with his views.  One just has to look at the Labour backbenches for evidence of that. 


[ Parent ]

Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#8)

by rwendland on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 12:44:37 PM GMT

It can be argued that these times of steady growth prevent radical change. As a governor of the US Federal Reserve once said "growth is a substitute for equality of income. So long as there is growth there is hope, and that makes large income differentials tolerable" - quoted by Monbiot who also said "Growth is a political sedative, snuffing out protest, permitting governments to avoid confrontation".

So maybe defending the NHS and BBC, resourcing Education better, and easing lives with Tax Credits is all that can reasonably be expected of recent times - and keeping the Tories out is central to that. There certainly seems little widespread polical interest amongst the general public for anything much, let alone radical change, in these generally comfortable times in the UK.

I know the alternative view is that growth gives the resources to make change painlessly, and I for one would have wanted a direction of travel toward Socialism. But there do seem few widespread drivers for radical change lately, and maybe the electorate would oust radicals whilst no large problems were apparent to them. Perhaps it is a time when avoiding mistakes is key, i.e. low-risk policies. Mistakes seem to have done for Blair eventually, but luckily Labour were able to recover from that.

I do wonder if Monbiot is right and we have to wait until times get uncomfortable before radical action becomes acceptable again. An unpleasant and depressing view - which I rather hope is wrong, but I'm not holding my breath. Perhaps some "politics of envy" (aka obvious unfairness) is needed again to drive radicalism, which the global economic realignment toward the emerging economies may bring.


[ Parent ]

Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#10)

by treborc on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 05:23:22 PM GMT

Sorry when you said big beast I thought you said big breasts, I was looking through the web to find out who you were talking about.


[ Parent ]

Re: Tail Wagging the Dog (#11)

by Radford Mann on Thu Oct 11, 2007 at 11:02:58 AM GMT

It used to be that the Fabian Society would provide ideas for Labour. Now it's the Conservative Party that performs that function. Sigh.


Tail Wagging the Dog | 11 comments (11 topical)