From Stalin to Mr Bean in matter of weeks

They should just make Vince Cable the Lib Dem leader and dump the other 2 blokes.

You may well be right

quote:

Originally posted by Diccus62:
From Stalin to Mr Bean in a matter of months - class line

Most impressive for that little lib dem homunculus! He seemed rather to enjoy himself didn't he?

It's the beginning of the end when those losers start calling you names, Brown must be getting his CV together...

EW

quote:

Originally posted by Diccus62:
From Stalin to Mr Bean in a matter of months

Poor fellow... I know where this process leads. Another few months, he'll be hanging upside down in a tree in Brazil. (Hmm, doesn't sound so bad...)

I heard PMQ's yesterday and had a chuckle at this quip. Cable sounds like a man having fun most weeks.

I've developed a bit of a PMQ's habit, especially since Blair left. His slipperiness brought me close to violence but Brown v Cameron is beginning to shape up nicely. Any day now Brown is going to blame his predecessor over some cock-up or another, I just sense he is dying to do it in the way that Blair blamed previous Tory governments for everything that went wrong when he was in control.


Yesterday a Tory grandee woke up from his slumbers and asked Mr brown what he wanted for Xmas. Surreal.

Anyone else got the PMQ bug?

Bruce

PS One question about this donor issue nobody seems to have asked; why would a donor wish a substantial donation to be covert? Embrassment? Did he know his money would have been rejected because he is a shady character? Does he not want a peerage?

quote:

PS One question about this donor issue nobody seems to have asked; why would a donor wish a substantial donation to be covert? Embrassment? Did he know his money would have been rejected because he is a shady character? Does he not want a peerage?

Profile: David Abrahams

The wealthy recluse who spent many years in the public eye


Martin Wainwright
Wednesday November 28, 2007
The Guardian

For a man who hates the limelight, David Abrahams has been an unsuccessful recluse. His name, face and wealth are familiar across his native north-east and particularly in the Labour party, which has taken his money for more than 30 years.

At the turn off the A1 for a break at Durham services, there is a billboard advertising his 200 hectare business park, initially refused permission but now set to go ahead after a government ban was lifted.

Article continues
The next sign on the A177 marks the cycleway to Sedgefield, the former constituency of Tony Blair, where Abrahams's diffident face was in the front rows at the his farewell bash in June. "Good at business but a bit bonkers," was the pithiest précis of Abrahams's character from Labour party colleagues in the region, where he inherited his property instincts - and party status - from his father Bennie, lord mayor of Newcastle in 1981-2.

A divisive figure, Abrahams senior was known for rows with colleagues and his family, once bedding down on a sofa at the civic centre rather than going home.

He built up an empire of rented housing, much of it of a standard which might now be called "sub-prime". After inheriting the property, David Abrahams was accused of illegally evicting a tenant from a flat and faced a crown court trial in 1992. He was engulfed in headlines but cleared of all the charges.

The case marked the beginning of a reticence which had not been there at the start of his would-be career in politics, when he used the media to exploit a Tory attempt to tap him for funds.

A bungling Conservative researcher identified him as a thriving property developer in 1979 but failed to note that he was also a Labour member of Tyne and Wear county council and on the party executive in Newcastle West. In 1992, he was dropped by Richmond Labour party in North Yorkshire. He was involved in a series of rows, culminating in claims by a divorcee, Anthea Bailey, that she and her 11-year-old son had been hired as his "family" for the election campaign.

Abrahams dismissed this as false and a smear, along with related allegations. The fallout, however, was such that Labour party officials, including the chair and agent, walked out of the first attempt at deselection; Abrahams won by one vote.

He went on to chair a Labour party conference fringe meeting on the care of the elderly in the 1990s, and pulled off a major coup with the Durham Green business park by the A1.

The site at Bowburn was blocked in 2004 by the Highways Agency to prevent congestion on the Great North Road. After regional protests the ban was lifted in October last year. Abrahams has strongly denied any link between his donations and the campaign to overturn the ban.

His donation proxies and co-directors in some very big property companies turned out to be a homely secretary, Janet Kidd, in her Gateshead semi and a builder, Ray Ruddick, with his now famous battered Transit and dislike of politicians.

And the neighbours in the middle-class Newcastle suburb of Gosforth get on well with him despite building work at the two houses he is knocking into one £900,000 home going on "for years and years".

But years are another part of the questions surrounding him. He explained his use of two names (David Martin as well as David Abrahams) in a court affidavit as a suggestion of his father, to distance his businesses from the lord mayor's political role. When Abrahams senior took office, council officers were given a reminder about the family's business interests.

But as well as Abrahams junior's official age of 53, he is also reported to have been born in Newcastle in 1944. There is much for the coming inquiry to sort out.

Diccus

That article contains a lot of innuendo and suggestion but little fact.

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
I heard PMQ's yesterday and had a chuckle at this quip. Cable sounds like a man having fun most weeks.

I've developed a bit of a PMQ's habit, especially since Blair left. His slipperiness brought me close to violence but Brown v Cameron is beginning to shape up nicely. Any day now Brown is going to blame his predecessor over some cock-up or another, I just sense he is dying to do it in the way that Blair blamed previous Tory governments for everything that went wrong when he was in control.


Yesterday a Tory grandee woke up from his slumbers and asked Mr brown what he wanted for Xmas. Surreal.

Anyone else got the PMQ bug?

Bruce

I've got the habit too, and sometimes wonder whether the questions are given to each other before the session begins, just so they can formulate a suitable reply.

Beano

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
Diccus

That article contains a lot of innuendo and suggestion but little fact.

Bruce

Isn't that the point of modern journalism Bruce.

Have you read front pages of Express and Mail in the last six months in regards Maddy McCann and Princess Diana. And by god the money they must have made particularly on the back of that poor girls disappearance is gross.

Regards

Diccus

Maddy - is a figment of the press no such person exists.

Abrahams - we're back to Poulson territory here, aren't we?

Beano I thought that is exactly what they do, and its public knowledge.

LEader of the op gets three questions, liberals 1 question then others can put in to ask a question.

Or am I thinking of something else?

quote:

Have you read front pages of Express and Mail in the last six months in regards Maddy McCann

No but I've read the Private Eye spoofs. Near the knuckle but side-splittingly funny.

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
Beano I thought that is exactly what they do, and its public knowledge.

LEader of the op gets three questions, liberals 1 question then others can put in to ask a question.

Or am I thinking of something else?

I've only been an avid watcher since Bungle got the job, and what you say may well be correct but I've looked high and low on the No 10 website in the past, which says nothing that would confirm your number of questions theory. You are probably bang on the money though.

Beano

Not a bit like him.....................

quote:

Originally posted by Diccus62:



A quote from Lib Dem acting leader today in the Commons. Brown does seem to be having a bit of a nightmare start. Northern Rock, folk sending off the whole country's details on a couple of dvd's by second class post, dodgy payments to Labour by a 'anonymous' Newcastle property developer who is a well known Labour figure who has two names in case folk at the Council mix him up with his dad.

Even Diccus as a Labour chap wonders if it is Blair's detritus that Brown has inherited or whether he really is up for the job and Blair (and Cherie) were right in trying to protect him from us all along.

From Stalin to Mr Bean in a matter of months - class line

...I don't blame the Tories (or even the Liberals) for making whoopee while the sun shines ..it's what Politician's do...
But really what disasters has Brown actually been responsible for? ....apart from deciding to delay an election he was thinking of calling (which political party in the free world would have done different in those particular circumstances?)

The usual bunch of brain dead reactionary right wing tabloid editors were upset because Brown didn't play their game and risk the election defeat that they have been absolutely longing for since 1997.

As for his other failings ...well obviously he was PERSONALLY responsible for sending out all those those personal details on 2 cd's from that Tyne and Wear Benefit office ..didn't you know he often works overtime at those benefit offices's and personally supervises the mail section?

He is obviously also personally responsible for the Bush Administration cocking up the American economy so badly that there was such negative repercussions for UK companies such as Northern Rock. OF course! ...didn't you know Brown was visiting Bush and personally advised him to mess up the USA's mortgage rates? ....

and OK mebbe's he knew ALL about the idiot Abrahams and his decidely dodgy finances and will deserve all he gets if that's proved ...but I doubt it somehow ...whatever else anyone else in the rabid tabloids may think I simply don't believe he is in anyway corrupt ...boring and taciturn mebbes but not corrupt...(I was never so convinced about Blair) ..Let Murdoch and his ilk sweat I say Brown doesn't have to call any election any time soon and when he eventually does mebbe's we'll have REALLY found out how perfect this modern bunch of Tories really are!