I’d be interested to have your own ideas of how he should have managed it, Tim. 
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Brown had no idea how to spin the media.
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The coalition made a decent fist of government for five years and as a consequence the UK didn’t suffer as much as France from the crash.
Now who is being deceitful! And disingenuous.
Liam Byrne’s now infamous ‘there’s no money left’ note has not been erased from memory. Gordon Brown made £6bn - worth of spending pledges in his last 6-months of government with no clue how to pay for them and knowing the state of the coffers. These are facts. Get used to having to face them. Labour vote? Unlikely!
Even if it were tactical voting?
It never fails to amaze me how some SF readers who clearly live in France and benefit from the ( basically) socialist approach to life ( paying taxes to fund working hospitals, infrastructure, clean roads without potholes, free uni education, bla bla bla) take great pride in aligning themselves with a UK political party that is happy to deny these things to anyone that can’t pay.
No wonder we are often seen as freeloaders!!
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I think I am mainly French these days even if I haven’t got nationality yet!
Getting so embarrassed by the comments that I hear from friends / colleagues apropos my ‘countrymen’ 
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Some of us criticise Labour but loathe what the Tories stand for.
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The trouble is that British politics has been a question of supporting the party that you dislike the least for some time - one might argue that the same has been true in France.
In other news the LibDems have dropped the “Revoke if we win” promise.
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Precisely, Catharine. If we stand back from all the noise, the fundamental choice facing UK voters is between ‘the European social model’ - free enterprise but within a strong welfare state, of which France is not a bad example - and the kind of free-market-free-for-all we see in America.
On most counts (size of state, tax rates, welfare benefits, etc) the UK currently falls somewhere between the two - Labour’s manifesto would steer it towards the European model, the Tories towards the American.
I know which is preferable, but have little faith in the UK’s ability to take the right route - which is why I for one am very glad to be here in France!
(By the way it seems it’s not just me - did you hear that French nationality has just been rated best in the world? - and the UK’s position predicted to fall from 8th to around 50th if brexit goes ahead?)
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This is the link to Geof’s post about French Nationality
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More info here…
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They tried so hard in Parliament to get a Peoples’ Vote without success.
As yet another election candidate (SNP) is withdrawn due to previous anti-semitic comments just how widespread is this and how come this wasn’t picked up before?
Judging by previous conversations here and elsewhere I think this sort of attitude is exceedingly common and noticed only when someone actually makes a point of questioning it.
Anti-Semitism is a manifestation of racism, IMO, with all the same hallmarks.
In that respect it is endemic, and to suggest it is more or less prevalent in any institution, including party-politics, is fatuous, and/or a deliberate falsehood.
I’ve not encountered blatant anti-Semitism amongst the Party membership myself, but not a few members are very critical of the attitude of many Israeli Jews, who have strong convictions of racial purity; believe in a divine and exclusive right to territority and natural resources; and encourage a polity that has set up an apartheid regime in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Some Party members are hot-headed and need to be reined in or chastised. Some are no doubt racist but keep their racist views/biases or bigotries to themselves.
We all have this tendency, including me. I have to manage it: it’s a challenge we all have to come to mature terms with, as many of you well know.
Having experienced the ‘original’ apartheid at first hand, I believe I am justified in drawing the comparison between Jews and the agents of apartheid in Africa, and I make no apologies for doing so.
There have been Jews in my life whom I have loved, and who have loved me. But I won’t fail to call them to account for wrong-doing, or conniving in wrong-doing, or excusing it (to all of which Jews are as prone as anyone else).
This despite my sympathy and fellow-feeling for their suffering, the persecution they experienced, and the threats they fear.
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And they complain about Gove being denied a place on the Leaders Debate on climate change hosted by Ch4…
I wonder if Gove can read, after all it was called ‘the leader’s debate’ and there’s a crucial word there…
What a coincidence he should turn up unannounced at the last minute all miked up, good grief he is a rubberfaced loather and a howling creep.
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and his equally awful wife Sarah Vine of the Daily Wail…
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