Eats (green) Shoots and Leaves...

[Bbbananas]

Am I alone in thinking the media have gone a tad over the top with this story? Baroness Vadera is this week's Prince Harry on insensitive comments? Oh perlease.. Was her comment so terribly terribly wrong? (Or is it... because she is.... oh my gawd.... Ugandan?)

Pathetic.

[jno]

One of Thatcher's chancellors, Norman Lamont I think, also said he saw the green shoots of recovery and he was totally wrong about it. He used the very same phrase, so people may feel there's a hex on it. But she's a politician, so saying this sort of thing is her job, and she was really quite cautious about it, so I'm baffled about why anyone would take offence. It may just be because the Tories are making a hooha about it and there arre no other new news stories around (Gaza isn't new any more and Harry hasn't been mouthing off again).

Then again you may well be right about being Ugandan.

[Bbbananas]

I was actually being a bit sarcastic about the ugandan bit - in light of all the other 'race' posts on here lately !! I didn't really know she was of ugandan origin - I had to google it.

It's just another mountain out of a molehill story as far as I can see.

[rov1200]

You can fool some of the people some of the time!

[lynbrown]

If you had just been made redundant, not known how you would keep up payments on your mortgage etc, being told there were green shoots would be a red rag to a bull!

[Bbbananas]

green shoots though - not a verdant forest!
And didn't she only say green shoots because the interviewer prompted her?

[Gromit]

The question to her asked her specifically about Green Shoots, so she just answered the question.

On ITV News, she was asked when the UK could expect to see some "green shoots" amid the economic downturn and replied: "It's a very uncertain world right now globally... I wouldn't want to be the one predicting it."

If it was a trick question she should have had the experience not to fall for it.

Tesco announced they were creating 10,000 new jobs this year. Is that bad news or good news?

[New Judge]

What you need to consider, sallabananas are the circumstances that prevailed when it was said.

Yesterday alone some 8,000 or so redundancies were reported to have been declared by various employers. This brings the total to more than 50,000 since January 1st. No doubt countless more have been declared but not reported. None of the individuals affected would have been impressed to hear that �green shoots of recovery� were being seen.

This government has presided over the unmitigated bankruptcy of this country from which, if it ever does so at all, will take a generation to recover. Suddenly, after just a few weeks, we are told by a �politician� (who is, in reality, a merchant banker parachuted into the House of Lords by a Prime Minister bereft of skills among his current ministers) that it looks like it is all over.

Of course, when pressed, Lady Vadera suggests that her remarks have been misinterpreted. And indeed they were, for what she meant was that she saw signs of recovery in the corporate bond market. Good news for many, including 1,000 call centre operatives who are expected to lose their jobs at the Gratton home catalogue firm in Bradford, and for the 2,000 employees of telecom firm Nortel, which yesterday filed for bankruptcy. I�m quite sure they all have stacks of wedge tied up in corporate bonds, and will buy more with their statutory redundancy pay (if they get it).

You ask whether the media�s reaction was over the top. The reaction of her boss, �Lord� Mandelson (another member of the Prime Minister�s Parachute Regiment) answers that when he said that he doubted that we would hear the good lady making similar remarks again. The media�s reaction was to demonstrate that politicians (particularly unelected merchant bankers) are totally out of touch with reality. It is not precisely what was said, but its abject crassness.

[jake-the-peg]

I think NJ if we're talking political crassness it's a pretty long way from the class leader when Norman Tebbit in the middle of Margaret Thatcher's recession suggested that the Unemployed should get on their bikes and look for work!

Parties in Glass houses!

[jno]

she hardly said 'it looks like it's all over'.

She said: "I am seeing a few green shoots but it's a little bit too early to say exactly how they'd grow." A very cautious statement and unable to bear the interpretation Osborne (and Mandelson) put on it. Personally, I'd say it's a good thing if a minister tells the truth cautiously instead of overhyping it as Mandelson would.

According to the BBC: The minister added she had been "having a discussion about the credit market", where a large company had just raised hundreds of millions of pounds, which was "fresh in my mind".

This had been "inconceivable two months ago" and showed there was now some "real lending".

She said: "Is this a positive straw in the wind, or should we say one swallow does not make a summer? It's too early to say."

She's right; the collapse in the credit market is one of the major factors in the recession, so if the credit market improves then the economy may. It doesn't matter whether a newly unemployed person has bonds or not. What it means is that someone who wants to start up a business may now be able to borrow the money to do so; and this creates employment opportunities.

If I'd lost my job I might be pleased to hear things could be getting better; it would mean a greater chance of getting another job than if things were still getting worse.

[Gromit]

New Judge

You seem to resent 'experts' being parachuted into ministerial positions.

Would you sooner have a career politician who has never worked in the real world?

Would George Osborne for example, be 'qualified' for such a Ministerial position?
.His CV reads, left Oxford, became a Researcher at Conservative Central Office, given a safe seat and was elected into John Major's Government. Business experience, zilch. Any job experience, zilch.

[flip_flop]

It is also pretty crass to drag up something somebody said a quarter of a century ago - surely we should be concentrating on the here and now, not what happened in the 80s?

[terambulan]

So we're still mud slinging at saint Hy.....as he & 2mates passed my neice & friend in local high street he called out 'slags' to which they retorted pricxs!

That's the way to deal with playground banter!

[terambulan]

they were all 15ish.

[R1Geezer]

The fact is that Noo Labour and His Tonyness inherited the strongest economy in Europe in 1997 and have systematically destroyed that through incompetance, a major contributor to that is the current PM who as chancellor was an absolute disaster.

To coin a phrase from Jim Royle, Green sh00ts, my ar5e!

[brionon]

It would break Tory hearts to think that All is not doom and gloom. What is good for the Country is NOT good for the Party.

[Hotlardlife]

Ah the usual George Osbourne slate again. So what about all the previous Tories that do have experience, think they wont be there if needed? Perhaps someone wet behind the ears will be more willing to listen to ideas.

Currently we have McBottle and his puppet 'The Eybrows' who have absolutely trashed the UK

Unfortuanltey Bottler will carry on to the bitter end with his scorched earth policy until the Toris - once again have to pcik up the pieces.What a shambles.

[Bbbananas]

What have I started - I only wanted to show off & make a play on words with the title of Eats Shoots and Leaves... now look what's happened.... I stopped involving myself in my own thread ages ago when I realised it was all a bit much for my Thursday-brain !!

[sqad617]

salla...cheer up...tonight you will be eating "shoots and leaves" with Dai Rear.......LOL

[ludwig]

It's a load of nonsense about nothing. Smug journalists congratulating themselves because they managed to force a politician into a gaffe by sneaking a trick question into the interview. Big f*kin deal. What was she supposed to say? 'We're all up sh1t creek' ?