This Thursday evening again brings a double-bill of liveblogging….
“You lucky people”, as Tommy Trinder used to say.
First up at 8.30pm we will be live blogging the 3rd Leaders’ Debate which is being broadcast on the BBC between 8.30pm and 10:00pm. Rather like the last Debate chat this promises to be great fun as once again 10 blogs will all be hosting it simultaneously. Let’s see if Dimbleby will be as fair and balanced as he is on Question Time! Moderating again we’ll have David Mosque, AllSeeingEye and B-BBC QT-chat regular Daniel from Governmentitus.
This ‘chat’ collaboration will be between All Seeing Eye, Barking Spider, Biased-BBC, Corrugated Soundbite, Dick Puddlecote, Governmentitus, GrumpyOldTwat, Man Widdicombe, Subrosa and The Red Rag, – all excellent and highly recommended blogs. If you haven’t been to some of them before then please take this chance to try them out.
After a pause for breath we’ll be running our own regular chat for Question Time and This Week starting just before 10:45pm. Hopefully you can make both.
See you here on Thursday night!
Yippie, the all Labour debate, the BBC will have it all stuffed…
Dimbleby:
‘And my first question for you, Mr Cameron is – when did you stop beating your wife?’
Dimbleby:
‘And my second question for you, Mr Cameron is – as you bear full responsibility for what has happened to the British economy over the past 13 years, what are you going to do to rectify any problems?’
Brown, Cameron and Clegg all misguidedly agree to ‘ring-fence’ UK spending on Foreign Aid from cuts.
The following article puts a rare, but sensible counter-argument:
“The truth about foreign aid that the politicians won’t admit”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/7643605/General-Election-2010-The-truth-about-foreign-aid-that-politicians-wont-admit.html
So it will be another socialist set up, nothing changes. I’ll bet they do not discuss the “economy” or the Greek tragedy.
Sod the lot, I say.
Mark Easton is also rising to Mr. Brown’s defense. He says Mrs. Duffy isn’t a bigot – “even the Prime Minister accepts that.” The fact that he has to qualify it that way speaks volumes.
Easton tries to muddy the waters a bit by reminding everyone of Powell’s infamous speech, and Michael Howard’s own turn at being called a racist. But then Easton goes further. He compares and contrasts the statements on immigration in each of the three party manifestos, and points out that Labour is the only one talking tough. The Conservatives and LibDems are portrayed as being soft on immigration, even though both Cameron and Clegg have spoken in much stronger terms than Brown when discussing policy.
Then Easton adds his name to the very long list of Beeboids who feel they must explain how Mr. Brown actually feels. And of course he says that Brown really thinks it’s a very complex issue, and he was only annoyed that simple folk like Mrs. Duffy tend to have a xenophobic reaction without understanding the complexities.
So simple-minded types have a “xenophobic response”, but…er….they’re not bigots.
In his next report, Easton will explain how people who stab their victims so many times that they die should not be considered murderers, and that they really just had an overly penetrative response,
David P: “And of course he says that Brown really thinks it’s a very complex issue, and he was only annoyed that simple folk like Mrs. Duffy tend to have a xenophobic reaction without understanding the complexities.”
===============================
Easton put it precisely the wrong way round: it is Brown and the Labourites who have adopted the knee-jerk, fingers-in -ears response of “Raaaacist” whenever anyone raised the topic of immigration and it is the ordinary people in towns and cities who have identified the economic and social aspects (the complexity) apparent in the effects on job availability, wages, schools, housing, benefits, health services etc etc.
That’s how Easton thinks about it as well. He, too, thinks that Mrs. Duffy is a bigot. So he uses the smokescreen of big words like “xenophobic”, as if nobody will notice. It’s a total joke.
An economic background piece, relevant to tonight’s debate, by Roger Bootle (a Keynesian):
“We’ve got to find £100bn in cuts or tax – give thanks we’re not in the euro”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/rogerbootle/7632761/Weve-got-to-find-100bn-in-cuts-or-tax-give-thanks-were-not-in-the-euro.html
Did anyone else notice that in the first debate Clegg said the only referendum needed on the EU was ‘in or out’ but tonight he said he wouldn’t take Britain into the Euro without a referendum? What a liar! I’d rather have Brown than Clegg!
This is easily the most controlled election that I’ve been conscious for and I was wondering if anyone knows where I can find the forty odd rules of engagement for these “debates”?