Crisis

[123everton]

Martin Luther King once said that "the mark of a man is'nt made in times of ease and plenty, but in times of challenge and controversy in such times it is better to be a man of conviction than a man of cnformity" with that in mind and Brown's rise in the polls has Cameron been found out?
Tories did'nt want regulation on most anything (red tape) so what would they have done differently?
I say Cameron is all mouth and trousers nothing more than a salesman all plastic smiles and expensive suits, his tax plans were a demonstrative failure that convinced nobody and he's currently scrabbling around trying to find anything to attack the government with.
At least the Lib Dem's can say they saw it coming.

[jno]

I'm not a Cameron fan, but I think passion, conviction etc can be overrated. After all, al-Qaeda have them; it doesn't make them nice people. More pertinently perhaps, Hitler had these qualities too, and they got him elected. There's something to be said for conformity - for the notion that even if you think you're correct, the rights of others to disagree should be respected as far as possible. Brown could temper his convictions with a little thought for others - eg those affected by the 10p tax band.

You're right about the Lib Dems.

[123everton]

It is true that the job of the opposition is to oppose, it's just that the Tories were'nt particuarly opposed to the Labour policy's when Brown was chancellor in fact the accusation then was that their policies were Tory policies and there was not a hapeth of difference between them.
I feel sory for the Lib Dems thaey work out their policies, they are different to the other 2 parties, they're probably more socialist and left wing than Labour have been for sometime but nobody votes for them because they'll never get in. If you don't vote for it you will never get it.
As am sure most of you are aware I'm no fan of Hitler, but, if you read his manifesto (Mein Kampf) in it you will see that he did everything he said he was going to do, should Hitler actually be regarded as the world's most honest politician?
Think about it....

[jno]

Neville Chamberlain struck a deal with Hitler at Munich because Hitler assured him he had no further territorial demands in Europe (after the Sudetenland).. This proved to be not strictly honest.

[123everton]

Chamberlain bought us time and he did re-arm the country also I think the French had a treaty obligation to guarantee their borders a treaty they had no intention of honouring. Chamberlain knew if the French were attacked they'd collapse almost immediately.
In "Mein Kampf" he says he'd overturn the treaty of Versailles, he'd seek land in the east, he'd subjogate the Slavs and get rid of the Jews.
We're going off the point though.

[jno]

oh I don't know, your original point was about honest politicians, and I agree: I don't think Cameron is one. I'm not sure if Brown is or not.

[123everton]

Yeah I suppose one bunch of lawyers is pretty much like another.

[Kromovaracun]

I'm not quite sure if I'd call Brown dishonest. I mean, he isn't exactly a pillar of integrity, but I'm not sure I'd say he's a liar. He can be undoubtedly one-eyed (pun intended) and also sometimes views things through rose-tinted spectacles (e.g. his constant touting of unemployment decline over the past 10 years as a Labour triumph). But I'm not sure I'd quite call him a liar. Compare Blair for instance who consciously told something he knew wasn't true to Parliament.

Cameron's a lightweight. He always has been. But on the other hand I don't think there's anything too bad about politicians seeing that they've been proved wrong. So if the Tories change their stance on regulation in light of recent events, I don't see that it's quite the same as lying so much as just pragmatism. It's very difficult to be right from the beginning. Sometimes events you can't see coming prove you wrong (and then everyone calls you a liar...)

Of course, they haven't acknowledged in any way that they made a mistake, which is extremely annoying.

Bear in mind it's very easy to call a politician a liar - but put yourself in the positon of a politician on the campaign trail. Imagine that you have a really great policy idea that you firmly believe in, then when you get into office, you suddenly discover there's some impracticality that means you can't do it, or some other important event springs up before it etc. I'm not sure politicians are always actively telling lies while campaigning (though naturally the 'moral majority' will dismiss any kind of optimism toward people is always dismissed as 'naive'...)

[jno]

Kromovaracun, I was thinking of the aborted election. Brownites spend weeks talking up the prospects of one being called, then the polls show Labour support falling, so Brown says there won't be one after all. He insists he never said there would be. But it was clearly his allies who did, generally talking to journalists on condition they weren't named. So I thought that made Brown look dishonest - perhaps just 'shifty' would be a better word - and people were right to conclude that he was a ditherer.

[Kromovaracun]

The non-election was fuelled by media speculation following the 'Brown Bounce'. After that, Brown's associates began talking about it (without any kind of sanction from the man himself). Brown never actually said he was going to call one and then didn't - he was trapped by speculations on either side.

Now, I'm not saying he handled it well (he didn't) but although he admitted he'd considered it, Brown personally never outright lied about it. All the flip-flopping about whether was/wasn't kind of happened around him and he didn't really know what to do. That's weak - but it's not the same as being dishonest.

[jake-the-peg]

I don't see anything wrong with changing your mind about an election if you think you're going to lose.

Sticking to your guns when you realise it will end badly is a sign of stupidity not principle.

Just as well he didn't

An International financial crisis with George Osbourne at the financial helm doesn't bear thinking about

[123everton]

We appear to have a loose consensus that David Cameron has been found out.

[jno]

you may be right, Kromovaracun, but I'm not sure politics works that way. Policy is often decided by flying kites anonymously to see which way the wind is blowing, and it looks like that was happening with the 'election'. We have no way of knowing whether Brown sanctioned the poll talk by his subordinates or not; but he certainly had the power to stop it (by telling them:'Shut up, there's not going to be an election') and he didn't. To my way of thinking, that implicates him. And while jake is correct to say there's nothing wrong with changing your mind when circumstances change, that's just what Brown denied doing. That's why I find him shifty. There's more to dishonesty than 'outright lies'.