Fear is the key as Blair apes Bush's victory plan

[cal04]

TONY Blair will place national security and crime at the heart of his bid for a third term in Downing Street under a ‘scare’ strategy similar to the one that helped return George W Bush to the White House.

‘Operation Third Term’, led by campaign supremo Alan Milburn, has identified the issues of fighting terrorism and boosting public safety as the hard edge of a campaign originally intended to focus on reforms to public services.

Beginning with this week’s Queen’s Speech, Labour’s pitch will now be a naked appeal to the electorate’s most fundamental concerns, a strategy known in the US as appealing to the ‘security moms’. And today, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will outline proposals for another tranche of anti-terror laws later in the third term of a Labour government.

Last night Labour faced warnings from within its own ranks that "doing a Bush" was insulting to the British people and that the party would be better to offer hope rather than fear. Blair’s legislative programme, to be unveiled on Tuesday, contains 28 proposed new bills, plus eight draft bills, and has been drawn together under the theme of "safety and security".

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1339812004&20041121072247

[LynnTheDem]

1. ""doing a Bush" was insulting to the British people"

""We should be proud to fight the election on our domestic record, because we have a lot to be proud of," Labour MP Alice Mahon said. "The idea that we can do a Bush is really quite insulting to the British people. We aren't locked into this John Wayne mentality."

(And for the stupid rightwingnut lurkers, LABOUR is BLIAR'S OWN PARTY.)

But "doing a bush" to the American people isn't insulting coz the American people (each & every single bush supporter) are too damned STUPID to know they've been insulted.

[autorank]

2. British to Outsource Their Voting to Ireland and Irish People.

London. 11/21/04 2:34 AM. (Reuters). British Home Secretary Sir Reginald Twit just anounced that there will be some startling changes in the upcoming election. He noted the rapid increase in intelligence and quality of life in Ireland contrasted strongly with the decline of both intelligence and simple common sense amongst almost all citizens of Great Britain. "Cool Britania", as PM Tony Blair liked to call it, has now become "Drooling Britain," a nation whose football fans may not be the only ones banned from EU travel.

<snip>

Twit said the goal of the outsourcing experiment is to see if the Irish, now clearly superior to the English, will take the time to select the next Parlaiment and, thus, Prime Minister.

The Irish have yet to respond to the offer but word has it, they will will assume the extra duty in order to move Tony Blair on to his next stop, The Hague World Court for Criminal Prosecutions.

[LynnTheDem]

4. LOL!!!

:D

[Carolab]

5. Maybe we should have outsourced our election

to Iraq! LOL

[norml]

7. British Home Secretary Sir Reginald Twit?

It sounds like a Monty Python name.

[Democat]

3. If the British keep Blair then they have no right to laugh at America

Come on British liberals, show us what we should have done!

[AP]

6. This is interesting. The conservative press in the UK has been trying to

subvert Blair. Now they're going to subvert him by reminding voters that Blair should run on hope not fear. I think I've seen it all now.

Although I think Blair should run on hope, he's almost definitely not going to lose even if he runs on beans on toast.

The reason right wingers run on fear is because it's supposed to be the distraction from and the excuse for a crappy economy. Blair's actually doing a pretty decent job with the economy, so he's not running a traditional RW fear-based campaign.

Maybe he thinks he's forever going to take the terror issue off the board.

I'd LOVE to know what they're saying in the strategy room.

Blair is in an incredibly complicated situation running against a conservative press at a time when the witches reign in the US. I'm sure Labour has all the switches turned to 11 right now and really know what they're doingl

[Moderator]

8. Duplicate topic--Please continue discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1009126