Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Interview: Jim Murphy laments Labour complacency


PETER ROSS
00:00Saturday 02 May 2015
85
HAVE YOUR SAY
IN the latest of our series of encounters in the run-up to the general election, Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy talks popularity, polls and why he keeps on smiling.

There are many emotions one might experience on encountering the leader of the Scottish Labour Party. Anger is popular at the moment, at least among those who shout abuse at him in the street. Curiousity is more appropriate for a journalist. But the trouble is that when I do meet Jim Murphy – in a cafe in his East Renfrewshire constituency – a sense of pity keeps breaking through.


He wouldn’t welcome it. Murphy seems a proud man, a man’s man, not the sort to feel sorry for himself, or to be comfortable at the thought of others feeling so. But, God, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes (size 13) or, more to the point, inside his head right now. Labour are facing a wipe-out, or close enough, in Scotland, on his watch. “He will be feeling crushed,” a party colleague who knows him well told me. “But he will not show it.”

That last point, at least, is true. Focus group comments, published this week, saw Murphy described as a “merchant of doom” and “a bag of nerves”. Yet the man I meet could not appear more serene. Sustained by tea and an empire biscuit, he speaks quietly and calmly, and makes small jokes whenever possible. He remains unbruised by the campaign, he insists, holding out his arms for inspection.

“Is this the hardest thing I’ve ever done?” he says. “Of course not. Growing up in a housing scheme a couple of miles from here was harder than this. Living in a caravan with my mum and dad, that’s harder. Moving to South Africa during apartheid and trying to dodge [national service in] the South African army, and living in a house full of ANC supporters, that’s harder. Moving back home by myself and being out of work, and knocking on people’s doors, and asking for permission to wash people’s cars for 50 pence a time – all of that is harder. This isn’t even in my top ten.”

Our interview had been rescheduled repeatedly, and every day a new poll showed Labour losing further seats until, eventually, just before we met, Ipsos-Mori predicted the SNP winning every Scottish constituency. A yellow map. Forget “Labour Isn’t Working”, here was the new Scottish reality: Labour isn’t existing. That same day, a caller rang up a Radio Scotland phone-in to ask Murphy: “Do you think you’ll be remembered as the man who killed Labour in ­Scotland?”

The Labour Party got over the finishing line in the referendum and thought, ‘Right, we’re going to have a rest now.’



The question is premature. We do not yet have a body, and Murphy is determined that there won’t be one. “We’re behind in the polls but I’m not going to change my approach. I’m going to keep campaigning with a smile on my face.”

When he says things like this, it’s tempting to believe that he is masochistic, or delusional, or both. On the other hand, what would be the point of public despair? After all, one could argue that none of this is strictly his fault. The SNP surge feels like Blair’s 1997 landslide – a cultural and historic force against which any opposing strategy is useless.




Murphy benefited from that landslide, becoming an MP at the age of 29 in 1997, much to his and everyone else’s surprise. The young man who shouldn’t win, won. Now, with poetic symmetry, the middle-aged man faces the possibility of defeat in his own constituency by an inexperienced SNP candidate who, on paper, should not be able to overcome his huge majority.

In fact, Murphy says he is confident of holding East Renfrewshire, and shrugs off the idea that it might be embarrassing to rely on tactical voting by Conservative supporters who want to stop the SNP from taking the seat. A vote is a vote, even if the voter holds their nose while casting it.

One thing I find interesting, I tell Murphy, is how much some people hate him. I don’t think there’s been a politician since Margaret Thatcher who has inspired such loathing amongst certain people…

“You’re being melodramatic,” he interrupts. “You’re genuinely being melodramatic.”


No. Clearly the dislike isn’t as widespread as with Thatcher, but among a certain section of the public, there is an intense loathing that I haven’t seen directed towards any other politician.

“Every Labour politician gets that at the moment. Gordon Brown gets it. Alistair Darling gets it. I get it. Douglas Alexander gets it.”

Not in the same way as Murphy gets it. The thrown eggs. The shouting and swearing during stump speeches. The poison online. I tell him about a woman I met, recently, in Barrhead, part of his constituency. I had approached her, randomly, on the main street. She was 39, a former Labour member who is planning to vote SNP because she feels that party are now the true socialists. Par for the course for this election, but at the mention of Murphy’s name, a darkness came into her voice. “I pass him every day,” she said. “I park my car outside his house. He’s always so cheerful, saying, ‘Hello,’ and I just want to kick him in the kneecaps.”

Murphy, hearing this story, doesn’t miss a beat. “So, I should wear shinguards. Is that what you’re saying?”

No. But what is it like to be hated like that?


“Keep smiling…”

MURPHY is extremely disciplined, with a surfeit of energy. The evening before our morning meeting, he had been interviewed on Scotland Tonight. Afterwards, he had gone out for a run, as he does most nights, completing a 16 kilometre circuit of Glasgow’s south side and returning home at 2am. He used to listen to Johnny Cash while he ran, but now he prefers silence. “It’s a good way of clearing your head.”

This tirelessness seems an important part of his character. It’s apparent in his analysis of where Labour has gone wrong of late. “I think the biggest mistake we made was going to sleep. The Labour Party got over the finishing line in the referendum and thought, ‘Right, we’re going to have a rest now.’ Whereas the SNP and the Tories saw it as the start of something, Labour behaved as if it was the end. That was the mistake. I take my share of the blame. That isn’t a kick at any individual. We all thought, ‘Job done’. The people of Scotland wanted an answer, and the Labour Party wasn’t offering one.”

As a result, he says, “At the most passionate and febrile moment in Scottish politics, the Labour Party left politics to a wounded but confident Scottish Nationalism and the beginning of David Cameron’s assertive English nationalism. We should have been there, trying to bring the country together.”

Can he bring it together in future? Murphy is 47 and has been Scottish Labour leader for just five months. He has worked hard, thought hard, and fought hard to take back the left wing from the SNP. None of it has worked, and already there are Scottish Labour politicians calling openly, if anonymously, for his resignation in the aftermath of this election. The Glasgow South West Labour MP Ian Davidson, meanwhile, has suggested that the party should “be playing down Jim because he is not a particularly stimulating leadership figure”.

MURPHY also has a perception problem when it comes to sincerity. He has a strong personal story to tell about himself – growing up poor in Glasgow, sleeping in a drawer as a baby, and all of that – but there are many who simply sneer at this as Monty Python mawkishness. Nicola Sturgeon’s “working class girl made good” narrative plays well with the public, but Murphy’s, for whatever reason, seems to inspire cynicism.

Whether he has plans to step down following the election, or whether, indeed, he will be forced to do so, is not something Murphy would ever admit at this stage. But given that he seems almost pathologically incapable of admitting vulnerability or defeat, it would be surprising if his thoughts were not already racing ahead to ­Holyrood 2016.

“I know it’s tough times at the minute…” he says, “but it’s a really important time to be leading the party I love.”

comments
Here is the school that Dim Murphy went to.

https://www.google.co.za/search?q=Milnerton+High+Model+C+school&rlz=1C1CAFB_enZA611ZA614&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=pDZFVbSYE4eM7Ab5n4HoCQ&ved=0CDYQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=667

In South African terms, It was a model "C" school which meant that although it was a Government school it still charged fees which were just high enough to keep out the less affluent black families from sending their kids ensuring that the majority were white kids.


An interesting part of the article reads:-

"Moving to South Africa during apartheid and trying to dodge [national service in] the South African army, and living in a house full of ANC supporters, that's harder."

Dim Murphy went to school in the affluent area of Milnerton and went to Milnerton High.

Have a look at Milnerton High:-

http://www.milnertonhigh.co.za/
______________________________________________________________________________

Have look at the accommodation for holidaymakers in Milnerton.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.za/SmartDeals-g312665-Milnerton_Western_Cape-Hotel-Deals.html
______________________________________________________________________________

Doesn't look like the kind of place that would harbour ANC supporters.

In fact it isn't the kind of place that would harbour ANC supporters.
______________________________________________________________________________

If Murphy's family left South Africa because of anti apartheid sentiments, why did his brother stay here.

I had a beer with him in Milnerton only last year.


More fantasy stuff Jim Murphy. The hard life in the wealthiest part of Cape Town getting the best education at the best Schools then running away like a coward when payback time came then making up stories of how he stayed in South Africa during Apartheid but decided to leave when it was being dismantled (end of the good times) in the Tri Cameral Parliament with the first stages of Mandela's release. Then he comes to Scotland not having paid a cent into the system and spends 9 years at Stathclyde University without passing a single exam. He then support tuition fees of 9000 a year for Students implying his own stay would have meant his leaving an equivalent debt of 150 000 in grants and fees (no charge) without a qualification at the end. A lazy useless bag of sh#t. Then he imposes the same fees and no grant support on people who do the work and get their degrees yet are left with 50 000 + in loans which many will be burdened with fro the rest of there life because of this million p0und a year expenses claimant shyster.
Smell the coffee Jim, you're a two faced self serving lying bag of sh#t just like the rest of your party and that's why you're on the way out.. and not before time too.


Well I've just read your masterpiece Murph.
Complacency is not unique to the Scottish electorate, the problem has been decades of complacency of the Labour Party, who took the Scottish vote for granted.
Don't look to blame the Scots....look to your self first!!!!!!
The New Labour strategy....the Scottish Blame Game ....." We never did anything.....how could you do this to us "


She wants to kick him in the kneecaps and Jim Doom's answer is to wear shin pads ... no wonder they are laughed at.

Exposed: Ed Balls the cheque bouncer! He wants to run Britain's finances but just six months ago he couldn't even write a £150 cheque to his glazier - twice
by Glen Owen, Political Correspondent For The Mail On Sunday May 2, 2015

Ed Balls wrote £150 cheque to glazier for doing work on his £1million home
But his bank refused to honour it, sending cheque back to the tradesman
Mr Balls sent an apology and a second cheque but that was also refused
Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps warned ‘the man who wants to be in charge of the nation’s finances can’t even look after his own’
Accounting error: Ed Balls wrote two cheques against a defunct account he shared with his wife Yvette Cooper
Accounting error: Ed Balls wrote two cheques against a defunct account he shared with his wife Yvette Cooper

Ed Balls faced ridicule last night after two cheques he sent to a tradesman bounced – at a time when he is campaigning to be put in charge of the country’s finances.

The Shadow Chancellor sent the cheques to a glazier who had carried out work at the £1million London home he shares with his wife, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Incredibly, the bank refused to honour the £150 cheques and sent them back to the outraged tradesman, Brian Ford, stamped with the words ‘NO ACCOUNT’.

After the first cheque was refused, Mr Balls sent Mr Ford a hurriedly scribbled six-word apology on House of Commons notepaper with a second cheque. His note read: ‘Here it is – sorry about that’.

But the second cheque was also turned down by the bank. Both cheques, sent within 15 days of each other, were from a joint account, marked ‘Mr Edward M Balls and Ms Yvette Cooper’.

Last night, Mr Ford dubbed the Shadow Chancellor ‘bouncing Balls’ and said he had been ‘incredibly stupid’, while Mr Balls’ political opponents leapt on the revelation.

Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps warned that ‘the man who wants to be in charge of the nation’s finances can’t even look after his own’.

Mr Balls defended his actions by saying the chequebook was linked to a bank account which had been closed in 2012 after being hacked.

The fiasco started last October, when Mr Balls tried to settle Mr Ford’s £150 glazing bill with a cheque drawn on the NatWest joint account.

The cheque was rejected by the local manager of Mr Ford’s bank, who stamped ‘No Account’ on the cheque and sent Mr Ford a letter saying the Balls/Cooper cheque had been ‘returned unpaid’.

After Mr Ford contacted Mr Balls to say his first cheque had bounced, the Labour frontbencher sent him a second cheque, accompanied by the note on Commons paper. But exactly the same thing happened again.

The serial number on the second cheque indicates that two other cheques had been written in the meantime on an account without any funds.

Mr Balls finally succeeded in settling the invoice in November with a cheque which was drawn against another account.

Glazing job: The £1million home in Stoke Newington, North London, shared by Mr Balls and Ms Cooper
Glazing job: The £1million home in Stoke Newington, North London, shared by Mr Balls and Ms Cooper

Shop: Brian Ford's business A&B Glass in Stoke Newington, north London, which completed the work on Mr Balls' home
Shop: Brian Ford's business A&B Glass in Stoke Newington, north London, which completed the work on Mr Balls' home

WHAT DID 'BOUNCING BALLS' DO WHEN CHEQUE FAILED? WROTE 2ND DUD!
1) Ed Balls sends a cheque to glazier Brian Ford for £150, drawn on an account he shares with wife Yvette Cooper

2) Mr Ford’s bank sends him a letter saying Mr Balls’ cheque has bounced. He informs the Shadow Chancellor

3) Mr Balls tries again – writing another cheque from the same chequebook, 15 days after writing the initial cheque. And sends it along with a brief note of apology

4) But despite his patience, Mr Ford’s bank sends him another letter, this time informing him that Mr Balls’ second cheque has also bounced

Mr Balls’s six-word ‘sorry’ note to Mr Ford, written on House of Commons notepaper, has striking similarities to Labour Treasury Minister Liam Byrne’s now-infamous parting shot to the Conservatives in 2010: ‘I’m afraid there is no money.’

Ed Balls: 'We will cut the budget deficit every year'


Mr Ford, 69, whose business A&B Glass is close to Mr Balls’ home in Stoke Newington, North London, said the Shadow Chancellor was now a laughing stock in his social circle.

‘I was showing everyone and people did not believe it,’ said Mr Ford. ‘Everyone laughs. Everyone says “Bouncing Balls”.

‘If the first cheque was going to bounce so was the second. You and I would not do that,’ he said.

‘I contacted him about it and he apologised and he signed a second cheque which seemed incredibly stupid to me. The second did not make sense and I told him that. I told him “If the first one’s come back, the second one’s going to come back”.

THE MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT
Politicians often reveal the deepest truths about themselves by accident. Ed Balls trying to settle a domestic bill with not one but two bounced cheques falls into that category.

This is the man who stood at Gordon Brown’s shoulder while the last Labour Government ran up a terrifying national overdraft, one which we are struggling to clear.

This is also a man who dismisses as a ‘joke’ the departing letter by that administration’s Liam Byrne, which read: ‘I’m afraid there is no money. With kind regards – and good luck!’

His casual attitude enrages those of us who will be saddled with his bills for decades – as became clear on Thursday when a furious member of the Question Time audience called on Mr Miliband to sack Mr Balls.

That same cavalier tone could be detected in the note Mr Balls wrote to Brian Ford on his second attempt to settle his bill: ‘Here it is – sorry about that’.

We are all sorry, Ed. But if the voters let you back into the Treasury, it won’t just be your personal finances which are left in a mess.

‘The second cheque was written out of the same chequebook just a couple of numbers later.

‘The third cheque came from his office. Someone else must have sorted that one out. He probably told an assistant “Get another cheque out of another chequebook”.’

The glazier, who lives in Enfield, North London, added that he would be voting Conservative on Thursday.

‘A cheque bouncing is the last thing you would want if you are a politician,’ he said. ‘I would not trust any Labour politician with the country’s money. I have been through many generations of Labour spending too much.’

The disclosure comes days after Ed Miliband was urged to sack Mr Balls by a member of the BBC Question Time audience after Mr Balls described as a ‘joke’ the note left by Labour Treasury Minister Liam Byrne in 2010, saying: ‘I’m afraid there is no money.’

Mr Balls’ written apology to Mr Ford will bring back unfortunate memories of Mr Byrne’s note.

Mr Miliband, facing accusations that Labour overspent while in Government, tried to defend his Shadow Chancellor, saying: ‘Ed Balls takes incredibly seriously the need to get the deficit down.’

The incident comes just two months after Mr Balls was accused of ‘total hypocrisy’ after saying families had a duty to collect receipts from all workmen – only for his window cleaner to reveal that he had never asked for a receipt in 17 years.

Mr Shapps said: ‘You couldn’t make it up. The man who wants to be in charge of the nation’s finances can’t even look after his own. If Miliband and Balls get into power, it won’t just be the odd cheque that bounces, it will be your job, your livelihood and your security put at risk.’

A spokeman for Ed Balls said: ‘This was a chequebook for an old account, which had been closed following a hacking attempt, and was used in error.

‘The cheque didn’t bounce – it was returned as “account unknown”.

‘When Ed and the bank realised what had happened, Ed sent a cheque from the proper account.’

I think new babe should be called Nigella after Nige , be a nice touch that .

Lily Savage star Paul O'Grady to leave Britain if Conservatives win election

Paul O’Grady, best known for playing the stand up comedienne Lilly Savage, said he would move to Venice if the Conservatives win the general election.




Paul O'Grady's Working Class Britain. Photo: BBC



Christopher Hope
By Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent

6:25PM BST 02 May 2015



One of Britain’s leading comedians will quit Britain if David Cameron wins Thursday’s election.


Paul O’Grady, best known for playing the stand up comedienne Lily Savage, said he would move to Venice if the Conservatives win the general election.


O’Grady made the claim at a Ed Miliband’s final election rally in central London, which was also attended by other celebrities including snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan.




More lefty nancy boy drivel here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11579451/Lily-Savage-star-Paul-OGrady-to-leave-Britain-if-Conservatives-wins-election.html

Thanks for that ExecLine, nothing new though, Labour Chancellors' have always written cheques they have no intention of, or idea of how to pay, unfortunately it's the rest of the population that suffers.
2517

I can see Chris posting words to the tune, 'Like A Rubber Ball'
2517

Vote labour for a more equal society!



Senior Labour figures face backlash after segregating women from men at rally

FIVE senior Labour Party figures faced a furious backlash last night after giving a talk at a meeting where women appeared to be banned from sitting with men.



By Paul Daniel

PUBLISHED: 08:34, Sun, May 3, 2015 | UPDATED: 08:46, Sun, May 3, 2015



Men and women were segregated at the Labour rally in Birmingham



Parliamentary candidates Tom Watson, Liam Byrne, Khalid Mahmood and Jack Dromey, along with MEP Sion Simon, attended the political rally in Birmingham.

Pictures posted on Twitter showed Muslim women sitting in a small cluster on one side of what looked like an Islamic community centre with the men seated opposite.

The meeting took place yesterday morning in Hodge Hill, an inner city district with a large Muslim population.

When challenged by the Sunday Express Mr Mahmood, candidate for Perry Bar, admitted he attended but said: "And?"

When asked whether he thought it appropriate to address a segregated audience, he appeared flustered and said: "I didn't organise it. You'll have to speak to the organisers".

He made no further comment.

Mr Watson, Mr Dromey and Mr Byrne were unavailable for comment last night.




More: http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/574616/Labour-Left-speakers-segregated-rally

Jack Dromey??? Surely not, I recall his dear wife Hypocrite Harman banging on about more women for MP's, that was until her dear hubby needed a constituency.

She was also going to 'bash the bookies' but she had a change of heart bless, I don't suppose her son getting a job with one had anything to do with it.
2517

The Daily Politics was interesting. All the commentators in the studio agreed that Cameron would be PM after the election.

or

Today's Guardian

Ed Miliband's carved pledges could sink like a stone

In several thousand years’ time, an archaeologist will uncover a 2.6 metre (8ft 6in) piece of stone that had been lying buried for hundreds of years. Scholars will spend just as long thereafter trying to interpret its meaning. Was it the epicentre of a hitherto unknown civilisation based around the Sun-God Ed? Will future transport ministers pledge billions of pounds of public money to build an underpass to protect this national monument?

Of all the stunts, in all the towns … In one of the tightest elections in 50 years that looks set to be won by the party leader whom the public mistrust the least, Ed Miliband has just raised the stupidity bar still higher. What possessed him to imagine that carving a series of election pledges into an enormous slab of limestone that would be placed in the Downing Street garden were he to become prime minister on 8 May was a good idea? There isn’t a single sentient being with connecting synapses anywhere in any planet in any universe who could think that was a good idea.

Even the title is a hostage to fortune. A Better Plan. A Better Future. This stone Ed, I’m sorry to say, is symbolic of a totally Crap Plan. Or worse, No Plan. Then there are the pledges. 1. A Strong Economic Foundation. When some future Arthur Evans sees this battered, broken foundation stone, his first thought will be: “Look on my works ye mighty and despair.”Shelley will last far longer than this. As for the rest … they read more like focus group findings than serious electoral promises. A country where the next generation do better than the last. Archaeologists will be snigger at that. How sweet! They all say that, don’t they?

There’s not a single part of this stone that doesn’t say brain-dead. If Miliband does become prime minister then it will stand unseen by anyone in the Rose Garden until the next prime minister knocks it down. And if he doesn’t, it’s history by Friday morning. The best hope is that he might be able to flog it off cheap to the Lib Dems to be recycled as a gravestone for their party.

Labour imploding and coming up with even more stupid ideas.

what has fred to say about the latest ashcroft poll giving the tories a 6 point lead?