Blair's face considered a 'liability'

[emad]

By Paul Waugh Deputy Political Editor, Evening Standard
30 March 2005

Labour MPs are being offered the chance to drop "vote-losing" pictures of Tony Blair from their election leaflets, it emerged today.

Candidates have two options - one with the Prime Minister's image and one without - if they use publicity material provided by their regional party headquarters.

And it seems a majority of Labour MPs will choose the "non-Blair" option for their leaflets. One said: "I don't think the party will find many takers. Many of us are opting for the other leaflet. Even the most loyal MP knows he's a liability."

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/17571384?source=Evening%20Standard

[Spazito]

1. That is both funny and sad

The party knows he is a liability yet they won't turf him and choose a new leader who would not have the baggage poodle Blair has. I hope they end up in a minority position with the Liberal Democrats holding the balance of power.

[emad]

2. Lib Dems are in with a chance, especially if they drop the "Lib"

part and re-form themselves as The Democrats.....

[Spazito]

4. A chance for a majority government or a chance in becoming

the balance of power in a minority Labour government or a chance of winning as a minority government?

[Briar]

6. Is this sarcasm?

Name themselves after the pathetic, spineless Democrats? I don't think so...

[emad]

7. The "Lib" part is way past it's sell by. Only by rebranding like

Labour did in the 1990s have the LibDems got a hope in hell. And they should drop old gingernut Kennedy as well, a major liability if ever there was one....

[truebrit71]

12. Liberal isn't a dirty word in the U.K.

However "Blair" is....

[Dirk39]

17. But it means the opposite of what it means in the U.S.

Hello from Germany,
the U.S.A. is the only country in the world - at least as far as I know - where "liberal" has a different meaning. In Europe, "liberal" - it was a bit different 30 years ago - means nothing but "neoliberalism" and Thatcherism. In the past, liberals were free-market warriors, but to a lesser extent they did defend civil rights, too. Today, they have reduced civil rights to the right to endlessly exploit people without power. They are the most cynical advocates of the free free market and the destruction of the welfare-state. It somehow starts to make sense: they want to reduce the government to the role of police and army forces that make sure that the poor and the needy will not interfere the profit of the corporations, who run the world.

One of the hardest lessons you have to take, if you learn english or travel to the U.S. is the absurd meaning of the word "liberal". In the U.S.A., the left and the labour movement along with the Unions were destroyed long ago. It seems that after they were excluded from society and the political discourse, they somehow survived, reducing themselves to the defenders of civil rights, the liberal fractions of the economic elite did once fight for. This is the reason that we still have - although perverted - socialist and social-democratic parties everywhere in the world with the exception of the USA.


Dirk

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. But the continental meaning of 'liberal' is different from the British one

and the British meaning is probably closer to the US one. Here, 'liberal' is normally used when talking about social policy, or justice. For instance:

They are also "liberal", in the broadest sense, perhaps the same "woolly-minded Hampstead Liberals" attacked by Mr Blunkett's predecessor Jack Straw, when in 1999 he faced criticism for attempting to remove the right of trial by jury for some defendants.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3872675.stm

Today's strategy is the culmination of a journey of change both for progressive politics and for the country.

It marks the end of the 1960s liberal, social consensus on law and order.

The 1960s saw a huge breakthrough in terms of freedom of expression, of lifestyle, of the individual's right to live their own personal life in the way they choose.

It was the beginning of a consensus against discrimination, in favour of women's equality, and the end of any sense of respectability in racism or homophobia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3907651.stm

[dutchdoctor]

20. I agree, it's very confusing

The dutch party that most closely resembles the republicans (even though they are quite different) call themselves "the only liberal party in the Netherlands". Liberal to them means free to exploit anyone they can.

[Straight Shooter]

3. The Oregon 2004 election voters pamphlet did not feature Dick Cheney

For the Democrats, it featured photos of Kerry and Edwards. On the Republican side, they only featured bush's ugly, disgusting, reprehensible, bloated, sagging, stroke-afflicted, drooling face. Why did they leave out Cheney's photo? Go figure.

edit: oops

[emad]

5. President Bush's New Public Face: Confident and 'Impishly Fun'

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: March 28, 2005
George W. Bush has been acting like a man liberated from the American presidency.

At an event in Denver last Monday, he mused that sending out quarterly statements for the individual investment accounts he wants to add to Social Security could encourage people to pay more attention to government but then chuckled that investors might conclude from tepid returns that "maybe we ought to change presidents or something."

At a news conference last week, Mr. Bush joked that he did not have the time "to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?' "

And at the end of an interview with a Belgian television correspondent last month, Mr. Bush blurted out to the young woman that she had "great eyes," glanced away slyly and then a little sheepishly, but for the most part seemed sorry that the session was over.

Is this a new George Bush?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/politics/28letter.html

[not fooled]

18. Well, they say that as chimps get older, they exhibit rank behavior

I have read many accounts of the changes in chimp behavior with age--more aggressive, less controllable. So, it's perfectly natural for the chimp in the WH to start behaving more ape-ishly (apologies to magnificent Great Apes in the wild)

[emad]

8. Labour MPs to fight on anti-war ticket

Independent
By Andrew Grice and Colin Brown
30 March 2005


Labour MPs who opposed the Iraq war are to defy Tony Blair by making it a key "issue of trust" at the general election expected on 5 May.

In a setback for the Prime Minister's attempt to "move on" from Iraq two years after the military action, 17 rebel MPs have signed a declaration saying: "I was and remain totally opposed to the war on Iraq. If elected as your parliamentary representative in the forthcoming general election, I will do everything in my power to bring the occupation of Iraq to an end."

The MPs fear a backlash from voters over the war and will try to insulate themselves against one by including the statement in their election leaflets. The rebels' decision to make Iraq "an issue of trust" is a coded attack on Mr Blair.

His personal trust ratings have plummeted after the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq fuelled criticism that he took the country to war on a false prospectus.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=624709

[cliss]

9. Too much

Beluga caviar and pate de foie gras. WAY too much lobster Thermidor and wild French truffles.

Right, Tony?

[cascadiance]

10. He's learning how to pose for the camera from the best!

[autorank]

11. First you erase the images, then the memory. Sorry Labour, you're

going down. You can't de-Blair-ize quick enough. Just think Labour, you betrayers of progressive causes, how it will feel when slick Tony gets indited for war crimes. Will that convince you that you should have dumped him long, long ago.

ABB - ANYONE BUT BLAIR

[VegasWolf]

13. Would'a thought his alliance with King George even a greater liability.

[struggle4progress]

14. kick

[yorkiemommie1]

15. so funny!

n/t

[obxhead]

16. can't wait to see what happens.

Blair's gotta be so "outta there" (I hope)