Reactions to story from Guardian

• 

  Gordon Brown falls behind John Major

  http://trevorcook.typepad.com/weblog/2008/05/gordon-brown-fa...
  197 days ago in Corporate Engagement · Authority: 89

  Labour's poll rating worst since Thatcher, Guardian/ICM poll shows Labour support is in freefall, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows that the party's position - 14 points behind the Conservatives - is worse than at any time since
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  Stats of the Week

  http://theappallingstrangeness.blogspot.com/2008/05/stats-of...
  192 days ago in The Appalling Strangeness · Authority: 33

  Looking at Gordon Brown's popularity, via The Guardian: Much of the blame for Labour's weakness seems to lie on the prime minister's shoulders. Asked to rank Brown as a party leader, he lags far behind his predecessor: 67% of voters think Blair did a better job. He also lags behind Conservative rivals: 51% of all voters, and even 35% of people who backed Labour in 2005, think Major was better. Brown beats only William Hague, by a narrow eight points, Iain Duncan Smith, by 30 points and Charles Kennedy, by 19 points.So Brown is now less popular than Major. That must be a little disheartening, particularly given Major's fate in the 1997 election. Still, at least he can take some comfort from the fact that he is beating Iain Duncan Smith. Then again, Iain Duncan Smith's party never let him fight a general election, and if the rumblings are to be believed, then Brown may not be allowed to fight a general election himself.
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  Brown is in serious trouble

  http://www.canadatodaynews.com/2008/05/brown-is-in-ser.html
  193 days ago in Canada Today News · Authority: 10

  As predicted, the Tories have won the by-election in Labour stronghold Crewe: Gordon Brown is facing the gravest crisis of his premiership after David Cameron led the Tories to their first byelection gain in a quarter of a century this morning, on a 17.6% swing that would sweep the party into Downing Street. In one of the most humiliating setbacks to Labour since the era of Michael Foot, it saw its majority of 7,078 at the 2005 general election wiped out as the Tories won a majority of 7,860. As it stands right now, the results are: Edward Timpson (Conservative) - 20,539 - 49.1% Tamsin Dunwoody (Labour) - 12,679 - 30.3% Elizabeth Shenton (Lib Dem) 6,040 - 14.4% Some have speculated that Brown may have to resign if Labour loses the Crewe by-election, with one former Labour minister predicting that Brown may not be around for the election in 2009: Gordon Brown faced fresh speculation about his leadership today after it emerged that Frank Field, the former welfare minister, thinks he will not survive as prime minister until the next general election. In view of recent opinion polls, which show the worst results for Labour since the days of Margaret Thatcher, Labour will have to map out a drastic change in course if it doesn't want to be defeated in the general elections.
• 

  Whoosh.

  http://caughtonthebound.blogspot.com/2008/05/whoosh.html
  193 days ago in Caught on the Bound · Authority: 5

  Not that Labour needs any more scares. Tony Blair's plane comes within minutes of being shot down by Israeli fighter jets. Scary stuff.
• 

  BROWN REACHES OUT TO LONELYGIRL15

  http://xowire.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/brown-opens-talks-wit...
  196 days ago in · No authority yet

  ‘DOWN WITH THE KIDS’ PM LAUNCHES YOUTUBE DIALOGUE Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister-cum-reality TV hopeful, wants people to engage politically with him on the social networking site YouTube. In an attempt to prop up his sagging poll ratings – still getting worse – Brown is trying to look like he’s carefully listening to the woes of the everyman. And perhaps realising that real-life is a bit of sinking ship, and whoring yourself online leaves less of a mark on your Presbyterian pride, Brown has turned to YouTube. “I intend to answer your questions,” he said. In case you were thinking of what you might ask, he has some suggestions… “Questions you have about how globalisation is working, what’s happening to climate change, how we can build the houses we need, how we can get the jobs we need for the future, how we can do better with the health services and how we can do better with all the different public services that government provide.” It’s look like you’re busy with a few already, Gord! It’s reassuring that with a list of problems that daunting to deal with, Brown still has the time to check his YouTube homepage for the latest lonelyPM15 videos. Perhaps the credit crunch is not as bad as we think. When Brown is sifting through the drivel he gets sent as a result of this appeal, perhaps he will find a video from one of his friends in the high towers of reality television.  Say, a crazed marketing woman with an expensive suit and a penchant for eating babies. ‘Gordy baby! When the hell is your show going to air? I absolutely loved you in the Titanic! Your policies are to die for!” Brown surely doesn’t hope that we’ve already forgotten that he’s being lined up to star in an Apprentice-style TV show called ‘Junior PM’, a show that will make him “more popular than Alan Sugar,” the gruff cockney geezer who captured the ruddy ‘eart of the nation in his show, The Apprentice. No flash, just Gordon - not a prescription for winning TV. Even with Tessa Jowell and Darling taking the place of Mary and Nick, the willing assistants. By-election or not, if Gordon Brown keeps up the so far disastrous PR offensive he launched after Labour lost the London mayoral seat, he is in trouble. A loss in Crewe and Nantwich - looking more and more likely every second - would bring an air of depressed inevitability to the Labour party – a solemn moment of mourning between public displays of unity, followed by the emergence of the vultures, and the collective destruction of Gordon Brown’s rotting carcass by power-hungry rivals. In contrast, if he wins Crewe and Nantwich (or, more accurately, holds it)  it will be interpreteted as only a temporary reprieve.  But win it he must.  
• 

  Crewed Campaigns

  http://trannyfattyacid.blogspot.com/2008/05/crewed-campaigns...
  196 days ago in Whatever · Authority: 17

  Tamsin Dunwoody, is by her own admission is a just a single, unemployed mother of five. Gosh! Oh yes and her house has 6 acres of land and she happens to be the daughter of the recently deseased MP and her grandparents were the General Secretary of the Labour Party and baroness somebody - plus she lives in Wales. In fact she is the least likely person to benefit from a political campaign that has focused on the class, and upbringing of her opponent Edward Timson. Plus she seems to be the perfect Labour candidate - hasn't got anything to do with the borough she seeks to represent and has used nepotism to be the candidate. And actually it says a great deal about New labour that they should choose this line of attack because Edward Timson might well be a toff, but the family money did not come from being a whore of some-old-king-or-other or from killing a lot of people and stealing their land on behalf of the crown - it came from starting a business from one shop, building that business into a succesful company and keeping it all running for 140 years. The message is pretty clear, if you have aspiration and you work hard then the party of the 'hard working family' doesn't want to know you. The fact is that leave aside the rights and wrongs of the Toff attack strategy, one thing is clear that Tamsin is going to be the one who gets the blame for it. Because on almost a daily basis one reads of cabinet ministers and senior party officials distancing themselves from the campaign - for instance Harriet Harman was supposed to trun up and canvas for Ms Dunwoody, but she was too busy trying to create Labour party candidates from cloned siblings and Labour voters from from a mixture of sheep and Polly Toynbee's pubic hair. But you do wonder what anyone expected to gain from this camapign. You have the toffs thing - which I personally think was the brainchild of Kevin MacGuire. MacGuire seems to be one of those in Gordon's bunker, and he is always banging on about toffs in his column, so it doesn't take a genius to work out where this line of attack came from. Unless of course one believes that Tamsin - who will take the blame - is going to claim that she dreamed it up. Then there is that poster which claims that the 'Tories are soft on yobs' - complete with the clunking fist - which personally I think was Bliar taking the piss out of Gordon, but Gordon being Gordon took it as a compliment. It's rather like Geoffrey Howe thinking Dennis Healy was bigging him up by calling him a dead sheep. But hold on here a minute. When you complain about crime, and anti social behaviour in your community - what is it that you want done? Is it the return of birching, the stocks, gangs of govenerment sanctioned vigilanttes beating up errant youths (al la Northern Ireland)? Or is it that you just want the existing law to be enforced and for the existing authorities to take their responsibility seriously? I would suggest that unless you are a yob yourself, you would want the latter. So quite who is going to see this poster, with a fist coming at them with the word 'SOFT' written across the knuckles, and think, 'I must vote Labour' - is anyone's guess. The entire Labour campaign has been negative. I keep reading Ms Dunwoody saying that she is running a serious campaign on serious local issues - but then I also keep hearing her avoid questions about whether she thinks Gordon Brown is a political asset. The fact is that this campaign has Gordon Brown's finger marks all over it - despite his staying away for fear that his jinxing presence will condemn Labour to third or even fourth place in a seat they held at the last election with a 7000 majority. Oh and while I'm on the subject of total losers, I did have a little giggle at this story - Lib Dems 'can still win in Crewe'. According to the Gdirauan, Labour's poll ratings are at their losest since 1987, and the problem is that the Lib Dems are not the benefiting. Which to me suggests that the declining sales of the Gadiraun has had made serious dent in the tectical voting phenomena that swept the Tories from power in 1997, and kept Bliar in power. Which is hardly surprising really - because when 'l'iberal Britain got hooked on tactical voting the the ethical foreign policy they were voting for wouldn't have included a war in Iraq, and no doubt many people concerned with the amount of rubbish going into land fills would have preffered the producers and distributors of the waste to be the one's dealt with - rather than bin taxes, and the rats associated with twice weekly rubbish collection. In fact it doesn't take a genius to notice that the decline in sales of the Gairudan has conincided with the introduction of their agenda in government by New Labour. What makes me laugh is that this agenda has been so awful, that people are prepared to swallow their hatred of the Tories and vote for them. So when a nonentity like Nick Clegg claims that the Lib Dems can still win in Crewe, you do have to laugh. I guess we shall have to wait and see what the result is. For the sake of the country I hope Labour get a sound beating - which in turn brings them to their senses - which in turn leads them to drop this negative, right wing style of campaining - though with an idiot like Gordon Power as the 'leader' I somehow doubt it. peace:)
• 

  Is Brown toast?

  http://torythoughts.blogs.com/ideas/images/2008/05/19/lisbon...
  196 days ago in Werner Patels - Ideas and Issues · Authority: 4

  Is Brown toast? The flames of the polls are lapping not only at Gordon Brown's feet anymore; they're about to engulf most of his body up to his eyeballs: Labour's support is in freefall, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll. It shows that the party's position - 14 points behind the Conservatives - is worse than at any time since May 1987, just before Margaret Thatcher won her third election by a landslide. This is the latest poll to arrive at the doorstep of 10 Downing Street just days ahead of the by-election in Crewe and Nantwich. I have said it before, but why shouldn't I repeat key facts? Brown's trouble started when he refused to hold a referendum on the EU Treaty. Up until then, his numbers had been holding up just fine.

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