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He sounds well bonkers!

Good to see his mummy is cross with him -

Mr Sood's mother, Manjula Sood, also a Labour councillor in Leicester, has criticised her son for his comments.

"My late husband gave his life to the Labour Party and my loyalty is to the party and to what Gordon Brown has done for the country," she said.

"My son holds his own views but I'm very angry about this and very angry with him."

 

Blizz'ard
As Vic Reeves would say, "It depends whether you are looking into the cupboard or out of it!" As far as we are concerned in this neck of the woods Thatcher was easily the worst. We still haven't recovered from her scorched earth policy regarding our industries and the fact that she took all of our wealth to give to the South East who pissed it up against a wall, or hid it offshore.
Garage Joe
If he feels like that, then why the hell is he standing for the Labour Party?  His comments are absurd for a Labour candidate to make.  Mid life crisis, attention-seeking Prima Donna, trailing a bad third in the polls and making a desperate attempt to appeal to voters - who knows.  Perhaps he thinks the Daily Mail will give him a Gillian Duffy style pay out.



One thing is for certain, his local party and its activists must absolutely love him.  If he felt like that he should have stood down so his local party and his potential constituency could not have a egotistical moron representing it.



I understand at this stage parties can't deselect candidates, I wonder if he'd have made those comments a few weeks ago.



In my mind Thatcher was the worst PM this country has had and Brown, for all his faults, doesn't come close.
Carnelian
Last edited by Carnelian
Reference:
And she also chased a man down a runway, who was responsible for the genocide of swathes of his own people, to give him a parting kiss (Pinochet).......and labelled a man (who many accept as living saint) as a terrorist who should accept apartheid (Mandela).
 Brilliant memory. What a woman. She is solely responsible for me never, ever, ever trusting one single tory, no matter how they dress themself up.
cologne 1
Of the prime ministers in the last 20 odd years I rate them in order from worst to least worst:
Maragaret Thatcher whose policies were instrumental in damaging the fabric of our society
Gordon Brown for leaping from one crisis to another without truly getting to grips with them
Tony Blair for dragging us into the Gulf war
John Major for being OK but not outstanding
James Callaghan for being the best of these

Unfortunately for this country John Smith died far too young and I think could have been the greatest prime minister this country had ever seen.
El Loro
This is a quick summing up of Jim Callaghan's time as Prime Minister, it is long I am afraid but its quite a subject to cover

James Callaghan's Government.

Inflation had reached 26% under Harold Wilson.  The country's public services sank into decay as union barons continued to demand hefty increases for their members (Wilson had already awarded the miners 32%).  A headline in The Wall Street Journal read "Goodbye Great Britain it was nice knowing you".

After two years floundering with his perilously thin majority Wilson stood down in March 1976 just weeks after a sterling crisis revealed how far the markets had lost confidence in Britain's ailing economy.

Jim Callaghan took over as Labour Prime Minister.  At a time of economic turmoil he was seen as experienced, reassuring, a familiar figure loved by Labour activists, the Jack Straw of his day.

Nemesis was catching up with Labour.  By refusing to cut spending in 1974 and allowing inflation to approach terrifying proportions a year later, ministers had forfeited all confidence on the international markets.

After the pound began a calamitous slide, Chancellor Healey warned that unless the government cut spending, collapsing confidence might force it to call in the International Monetary Fund for help.

But a desperate struggle to stave off disaster culminated in the shambolic events of September 28 1976 when, with the pound in free-fall, Healey was forced to call in the IMF.It was a moment of utter national humiliation.

By the beginning of December Callaghan had been forced to agree to a massive ÂĢ2.5 billion of cuts package - a fraction of the amount our next government will have to implement if international confidence is to be maintained in our debt-ridden economy.

Although Callaghan and Healey had learned the hard lesson of failing to cut early enough,most of their Cabinet colleagues were unconvinced and their loyalty to the unions took precedence over basic rules of finance.

In th summer of 1977 3 Labour ministers went on to the picket lines at the Grunwick photo-processing plant in North London where a bitter strike, whipped up by extremists such as Arthur Scargill, became a symbol of the confrontation between union militants and employers. In view of the pickets' violence public opinion turned against the unions.

By March 1977 it seemed that Callaghan's government had run out of time.  His majority had been reduced by deaths and by-elections, and many of his own activists lost faith in Labour after the IMF humiliation.  His government was virtually paralysed, virtually unable to pass any legislation without relying on the support of fringe parties.  In the face of Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher tabling a Commons vote of no confidence Callaghan set out secret talks with the Liberals and agreed a Lib-Lab pact to ensure the government's survival, as many predict Gordon Brown will attempt to do in the event of humiliation tomorrow.

Thus begun long days of horse-trading with David Steel of the Liberals as the pact became a cynical parliamentary deal to keep a dying government alive.  Like Brown Callaghan had never been elected by the people but seemed determined to cling on to power.  Even Tony Benn saw the pact as a compromise too far saying it will compromise the integrity of the party and the government.

When the Lib-Lab pact ended in the summer of 1978 Callaghan was left with a paralysed minority government.  Most people thought he would call an election but he didn't.  Hoping to keep inflation down he limited pay increases to 5% but after years of weak government the unions were in no mood to listen.  When Ford car workers extracted a 17% increase the Winter of Discontent began.  Oil tanker drivers went on strike for a 40% increase and by January 1979 all the country's lorry drivers went on strike.  Ports were picketed, petrol stations closed, the railways were shut down and even supermarkets ran out of food.

Yet as Britain shivered in blizzards Callaghan was swimming in the Caribbean sun at an international summit.  On returning to Heathrow he uttered the immortal words "Crisis? What crisis".
squiggle
Reference:
My real fear El Loro is, as they say, those who refuse to learn from past mistakes are destined to re-live them.
Quasi correct Squiggle! But after Thatcher won in 1979 we knocked up a survival plan PDQ which has served us well throughout the last thirty years or so. Should Cameron win then we are prepared for anything and everything.
Garage Joe
I wouldn't have thought there was anything quasi about it GJ, I tried to stick to the facts rigorously.  I didn't even roll my eyes at the extortionate pay rises demanded and I never even mentioned when the gravediggers went on strike in Liverpool and me and my hubby had to pile our dustbin bags on to our daughter's pushchair (we didn't have a car) to take them to the skip the council had provided because the dustmen were on strike.  We could hear the maggots crawling about because they hadn't collected the bags for weeks.
squiggle
I
Reference:
I know - but who could tell? Same with Michael Howard, who managed to lose any Welsh accent he ever had. You can be Celtic if you must, but keep it quiet..
I read a very funny piece in the paper this morning, and of course I don't know how true this is but where Ed Balls is standing near Leeds they do say that some people are finding him a bit too posh and the Conservative guy who is proper Yorkshire is proving popular.
squiggle

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