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Talk about Newsnight

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Friday, 16 March, 2007

  • Newsnight
  • 16 Mar 07, 06:17 PM

Party leadersUS pollster Frank Luntz looks the popularity of the party leaders. Other polls suggest David Cameron is out in front - does Luntz draw the same conclusion?

Plus the inquest into the death of Lance Corporal Matty Hull killed in Iraq in 2003 when two American A-10 tank buster planes attacked his tank convoy twice near Basra, records a verdict of " unlawful killing". We'll examine the case. And a prison break in Basra.

Kirsty presents - your thoughts are welcome below.

Comments  Post your comment

  • 1.
  • At 08:05 PM on 16 Mar 2007,
  • Bob Goodall wrote:

Dear Newsnight

So the voters have got to the point of utter laziness and unreality, and want to dump all responsibility for moving things forwards onto political parties and honestly believe it is the role of the party leaders to magically transform their lives for them, and the leader most able or willing, to go along with this nonsense, and kid the voters most convincingly that they will do everything for them, gets the biggest vote?

huh?

  • 2.
  • At 08:15 PM on 16 Mar 2007,
  • Bob Goodall wrote:

Dear Newsnight

sorry for a second post but unless you are going to do this I feel very strongly the Matty inquest story should be your lead story tonight

best wishes
Bob Goodall

  • 3.
  • At 10:59 PM on 16 Mar 2007,
  • Ape in space wrote:

Obfuscation of institutional inadequacy is not true friendship.

We don't kill 25% of our own, they need to listen.

Perhaps Ms Beckett could paraphrase herself directly to the Pentagon, 'I hold the pilots personally responsible for' ... the unlawful killing of a UK citizen.

  • 4.
  • At 11:12 PM on 16 Mar 2007,
  • James Baring wrote:

I found Kirsty and Harriet's comments on the friendly fire accident absurdly naive, and the Coroner's verdict rubbish. It was an accident, caused by inadequate training and overstretch of of the US capabilities. The MOD was given all the info it needed. It was unfortunate that the family was not, at the time. I feel very sorry for them. The US forces have killed many of their own troops, very few of ours.

  • 5.
  • At 04:43 AM on 17 Mar 2007,
  • Gordon wrote:

Could it be that US pollster Frank Luntz has bucked the recent opinion poll trend and come out with Gordon Brown in front in his west midlands floating voters panel just because Brown does not seem to favour imposing radical green taxes. It would appear that Cameron's air tax idea has gone down like a lead balloon, perhaps especially that any tax reductions are going to be given to business, particularly cutting stamp duty for the stock market parasites to pocket. The Lib-Dem's appear to have no chance, only one member of the 20 strong panel thought that the environment was the key issue. Most people in the country are fed up with politicians wasting money, perhaps particularly on projects like the Olympics which appears to be overtaken by the worst type of cowboy builders usually taken to court for fraud by trading standards. Perhaps this is more likely to happen when the minister in charge will sign anything put in front of her in her personal " ten bob fat cat " life.

People are fed up with all this taxpayers money being spent and not improving their standard of life, its all going into false economic growth. All people see is the stock market parasites getting increasingly wealthier while ordinary workers get charged extra for everything they need in life. There is far too much false money floating around in the economy, the only time ordinary people get a sniff of it is when someone dies and they need pay 40% inheritance tax. Inheritance tax actually does the economy a good job by mopping up at least 40% of this false money, ( no income or any other tax paid on house price inflation ) but perhaps the penny has dropped and people now realise that a house is worth a house, not some theoretical sum of money. I believe that people around London have stopped moving around trying to gain the false money of the property boom. Here in north east Lancashire there are plenty of the type of houses bought by incomers from the city on the market which are not selling, although there are plenty of houses to rent, perhaps because they won't sell at anywhere near the top market price. A US style property market crash is on the horizon, the old saying is still true, " rolling stones gather no moss " in the real economy. Once house prices do fall to a level where most people can actually afford to buy one, perhaps it would be a good idea to introduce capital gains tax on property transactions to try to stop the rampant inflation ever happening again. In a real economy houses would actually depreciate between renovations.

By not openly coming out against road pricing and other dubious New Labour policies it is obvious that the Tories don't want to win the next election if Blair's false money economy we have goes pear shaped. Politicians and the civil service are going to have to stop finding the most expensive and inefficient way to do everything. Perhaps the main problem are the ideas which keep being spewed out of the universities and political think tanks both left and right. Like mandatory road pricing which claims to generate a potential £22 bn of false economic growth and has been festering in the universities for at least the past 20 years with the in car technology for 10. The public simply can't afford to pay for such schemes as most of them are already scratching a bare living unless they are in on planet Ö÷²¥´óÐã. Justin Rowlatt should have been sat there with icicles on his beard when he was demonstrating what it would have been like after a 60% cut in CO2. Fortunately I should be dead by 2050, but I would rather keep smoking and have a heart attack if the alternative was freezing to death in a cold home.

  • 6.
  • At 09:34 AM on 17 Mar 2007,
  • Gordon wrote:

It would appear that the site is broke yet again, latest page keeps sending you to September 2006.

  • 7.
  • At 10:15 AM on 17 Mar 2007,
  • Brian Kelly wrote:

I repeat......

Gordon Brown ( without mandate) as a probable UK Prime Minister?. constituency in Scotland & the existing electoral bribe for Scotland to support Labour credentials at England's expense!!........enough is too much!

MPs representing Scottish constituencies voting on English only matters known as the "West Lothian Question" needs urgent attention... it is undemocratic & obviously does not sit well with the English(savvy) electorate who are also very aware of these inequalities with the enhanced payments per capita .
& alongside sits Menzies Campbell another Scot...its certainly an aspirational take over / coalition at the next General Election.
We have been warned.!!!

  • 8.
  • At 10:17 AM on 17 Mar 2007,
  • Roland Baker wrote:

The Oxford Coroner's verdict that Lance Corporal Hull died from unlawful killing may not result in criminal charges. But he is not a rubber stamp jurisdiction that sweeps deaths in war under the carpet to spare blushes at the MoD. His widow's dignified public appearances in the face of her tragedy rank her with Samantha Roberts who fought to establish that her husband, Sgt Roberts, died for want of body armour.

What is so shocking is that, in the Hull case, our allies treated the UK with such contempt. Harriet Harman was unable to disguise her concerns in the interview and made no defence of the Americans. So we have another opportunity for Tony Blair to eat dirt in front of the British People.

Let us hear him say that he was warned about the nature of the 'special relationship' and Matty Hull's case shows what it is truly worth. So Blair is sorry he went in with the Yanks when nobody else would. He is sorry he put our troops at risk, not just in the line of fire, but from our own allies, based on false information given to the House of Commons. Given the contempt the USA has shown for the death of one of our soldiers at their hands, we are bringing all our troops home now.

Eat dirt Tony. Eat all the dirt it takes. Your legacy could depend on it.

  • 9.
  • At 11:16 AM on 17 Mar 2007,
  • Gordon wrote:

I come from England and it doesn't bother me about Gordon Brown being Scottish, I spent some good times delivering chemicals and dog food around Scotland in the 1980s. The only problem is that they are either brilliant at doing their job or totally useless. Gordon Brown is generally a good chancellor as long as he keeps off the green taxes, but Douglas Alexander with his empty-headed English side-kick Ladyman is totally useless at transport. The British Rail depots were the best places to deliver to, as soon as you arrived they would drop everything they were doing and get you on your way again ASAP. I only ever met one really tight Scotsman and he was the exception which proved the rule. He and his van driver went from Glasgow to London and back via Peterborough and he only paid him a tenner for 20 hrs non stop work. ( totally illegal of course )

  • 10.
  • At 04:19 PM on 17 Mar 2007,
  • Bob Goodall wrote:

Dear Newsnight

Hey this Scottish thing!

Its doesn’t matter where you come from, what colour you are, or religion, or what you look like, or how smart you are, what counts is how you treat other people, nothing else

We are all equal, there is no such thing as nationality or race, only the values we hold

so if loads of politicians are Scots, so what, If they are good they should be there, perhaps we could import or export a few around the globe as well

and back to the Scots thing. My Grandfather was a Scottish Surgeon, I cant imagine someone saying oi, I want an English one, likewise does it matter if lots of politicians are scots, or what is behind it is not a dislike of Scots but of politicians and an unsaid feeling that it doesn’t require any sort of skill so that it is some sort of privilege rather than a job that should be handed around to ‘your own kind first.? Is this were the problem lies? With a job there is no quibbling that they should be given out on merit on race, so doesn’t this suggest we don’t see being an MP as a real job? Just a thought, and whose fault is that, if this is the root cause of the issue when people say there are ‘too many Scots’ in parliament?

best wishes
MacBob

  • 11.
  • At 09:46 PM on 18 Mar 2007,
  • Bob Goodall wrote:

typo sorry

'With a job there is no quibbling that they should be given out on merit on race, so doesn’t this suggest we don’t see being an MP as a real job?'

should read

'With a job there is no quibbling that they should be given out on merit, not on race, so doesn’t this suggest we don’t see being an MP as a real job?'

but you probably guessed this from the rest of the blog

best wishes,
looking forward to a week of Newsnights, does that make me a wee bit sad!

  • 12.
  • At 01:52 PM on 19 Mar 2007,
  • Hugh Waldock wrote:

To all our politcal leaders:

I´d just like to say one thing about the politics of aspiration which every leader seems to want to adhere to. As a lower middle class man I´d I don´t have any aspirations to go any higher, it´s far too much work and far to dangerous. Also I think that the government is trapping intelligent people into a life of stress, misery, financial richness and poverty of the soul. I think all Chief Executives in London should go and live in Venesuala where you can all live like Kaisers and where a ranch in the Andes costs 6000 pounds. I am a new labourite of course so all those who aspire to and want to keep their million pound jobs in London:

You go away and make me a fortune and I´ll sit on my behind and wait for it all to trickle down!!

  • 13.
  • At 03:05 PM on 19 Mar 2007,
  • JPseudonym wrote:

Where on earth did Newsnight find that panel of floating voters?

Not one of them seemed to be concerned with immigration, a topic which according to many is the number one concern amongst a great section of the population, especially in a place like Birmingham.

  • 14.
  • At 11:31 PM on 19 Mar 2007,
  • Frank Hudson wrote:

re #13 above

From B & Q in a buy-one-get-one-free deal! They were on special offer as an end of line item in the panel department...

The freebies are still in their flatpacks, but Luntz should just about have them 'assembled' in time for his next DIY Opinion Poll.

  • 15.
  • At 11:46 PM on 20 Mar 2007,
  • Ed Frank wrote:

Gordon Brown wants BROWNie points for giving millions to the needy around the world and being very ethical about everything global - but he must also accept responsibility at home for a failing NHS and after 10 years still no NHS dentists, underfunded Prisons, undermanned and ill-equipped military, unreduced class sizes (remember that promise?), soaring local taxes utilities bills, neglected roads, jobs going abroad, and an out of control Olympics bid (why was he not 'chancelloring' when they were bidding for that?). Immigrants are supposed to be a great boon for the economy. So despite 3.2 million young people without a 'proper job' I have to wonder if it is not just the thousands of cheap workers that have given us this illusion of a 'thriving economy'. If he is so cute why did he agree to fund a war we would not be able to afford? Perhaps he would like to come round to my place and explain to me and the wife, eye-ball to eye-ball so to speak, how lucky we are to have had ten of his remarkable years.

  • 16.
  • At 05:16 AM on 25 Mar 2007,
  • wrote:

The only thing i have to say is this. If you trully want to know what this government has done or is capable of doing in the future then you need to read greg palast's books.Watch his newsnight reports.
Read his documents.He will show who this government and Mr brown in particular are really interested in helping.I'll give you a clue. This week brown cut corporation tax, whilst upping tax on small businesses! Now if my comment gets through the bbc censors you can go check those books...armed mad house and the best democracy money can buy.

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