Reply to: Dave's Speech

[Doggy Styles]

He wasn't that bad was he? The word mangling was always funny and still is. I'm sure he had some successes as DPM. No idea what they were though.

Nor have I. But I remember these:

• John Prescott's regional fire control project was a calamitous failure (the guardian said that) - Abandoned (half a billion)
• He introduced bus lanes on the busy stretch of the M4 in London. - Abandoned
• He signed up to the Kyoto protocol, which hardly anybody adhered to.
• He was tasked in introduce regional assemblies in the UK. - Abandoned
• In 1997, he said: "I will have failed if in five years time there are not far fewer journeys by car. It's a tall order but I urge you to hold me to it." - Five years later car traffic was up by 7%
• His answer to the housing shortage was to approve the demolition of 200,000 homes that were judged to be in "failing areas", rather than the much cheaper option of renovating them
• He was finally relieved of almost all his policy responsibilities, but retained his full ministerial salary and pension entitlements, along with both his grace-and-favour homes.
• He always said that Labour were "always better fighting class", that is, until he accepted a seat in with the Lords.

He was/is funny, unless you are on the receiving end of his buffoonery, and until you realise that this man was somehow at the head of government.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

It's certainly more hypocritical - someone blaming the rich only wishing to become one and seeing the path through politics - take Bliar for example or his mate Mandelson who is allegedly buying £8 mln house, how many Tory MPs own such houses!?!?!

Plenty, but that's not the point really. If being a Tory is all about being a rich git who doesn't care about anyone else, and you can't be a wealthy Labourite, then you can't have poor Tories. In order to be a Tory, you'd have a cut-off point for wealth where if you fell below it, you have to be Labour.

We all know that is tosh because politics is about ideas - and although it really upsets some people because it doesn't chime with their world view, it is possible to hold a view that doesn't accord with your personal circumstances. I have already accepted that Prezza is a hypocrite - although not necessarily for the same reasons as you, but I don't accept your "logic" that he's a worse one than a Tory - it's just nonsense.

[TimCaprica]

I can understand that some rich toffs don't really give a tulip about workers, however it's total bollox when someone from trade unions becomes a Lord

Maybe he felt that after his "complete and far reaching" House of Lords reforms it was now fit for trade unionists.

[AtW]

So Trade Union gits are worse than Tory gits because everyone expects a Tory to be a git?

It's certainly more hypocritical - someone blaming the rich only wishing to become one and seeing the path through politics - take Bliar for example or his mate Mandelson who is allegedly buying £8 mln house, how many Tory MPs own such houses!?!?!

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I can understand that some rich toffs don't really give a tulip about workers, however it's total bollox when someone from trade unions becomes a Lord

So Trade Union gits are worse than Tory gits because everyone expects a Tory to be a git? Poor logic and very partisan for someone who claims he can see the value in democracy. If you think about it for a minute or two, you might have to accept that there are some decent geezers from all sides of the political spectrum - and some scum.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Hundreds of thousands of poor sods condemned to live and raise families in tiny overcrowded abysmally constructed shoe boxes might think differently if they knew it was Prescott who organised their building on the cheap.

Yeah - what measures have the current regime taken to avoid "tiny overcrowded abysmally constructed shoe boxes" I wonder - aside from rigging the planning system to allow even more to get built?

[AtW]

FFS - This news just in - Tories can be Hyporcites too.

I can understand that some rich toffs don't really give a tulip about workers, however it's total bollox when someone from trade unions becomes a Lord

[TimCaprica]

Hundreds of thousands of poor sods condemned to live and raise families in tiny overcrowded abysmally constructed shoe boxes might think differently if they knew it was Prescott who organised their building on the cheap.

I think that was a bit more due to homebuilders only being interested in shoeboxes and Prescott being happy to get as much building as he could. His house is a pretty horrific looking neo-georgian thing.

It was never in his power to compel companies to build nice cheap family semis. Or maybe he just needed to make the National Trust really angry.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

What a surprise

FFS - This news just in - Tories can be Hyporcites too. Don't you ever wonder if you might be just a little limted by your single party blindness?

[AtW]

Prezza let me down big time, because in the end he turned out to be a hypocrite

What a surprise

[Peoplesoft bloke]

He wasn't that bad was he? The word mangling was always funny and still is. I'm sure he had some successes as DPM. No idea what they were though.

These days he is nothing but good entertainment. He seems to have stopped caring about giving a good impression in interviews and just appears really grumpy, he appears on Question Time then ignores other panellists and goes on Twitter instead and apparently he is doing some fairly worthy stuff on climate change.

So I'm pro Prescott.

I used to stick up for Prezza when he was being ridiculed for his word mangling and in particular when people were peddling lies about his past career (I was repeatedly told he'd never been to sea which is not true but became a popular urban myth). I liked it when he was having a go at totally amoral Tories like Cecil Parkinson. Prezza let me down big time, because in the end he turned out to be a hypocrite - his infidelity wasn't as bad as Parkinsons in my book but his moralising was.

He's an entertaining buffoon these days, like many retired politicos.

[OwlHoot]

These days he is nothing but good entertainment. .. So I'm pro Prescott.

Hundreds of thousands of poor sods condemned to live and raise families in tiny overcrowded abysmally constructed shoe boxes might think differently if they knew it was Prescott who organised their building on the cheap.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I don't remember anyone making fun of Prescott for his regional accent.

It was more his mangling of words, his doltish character, and his utter uselessness in all of the jobs he was asked to do.

I don't remember anyone making fun of Hague for his, come to think of it, I was just taking Minestrone's undoubtedly reliable word for it.

I could Google a few examples, but according to Minestrone that proves I have no idea, so I won't bother.

[TimCaprica]

Prezza

He wasn't that bad was he? The word mangling was always funny and still is. I'm sure he had some successes as DPM. No idea what they were though.

These days he is nothing but good entertainment. He seems to have stopped caring about giving a good impression in interviews and just appears really grumpy, he appears on Question Time then ignores other panellists and goes on Twitter instead and apparently he is doing some fairly worthy stuff on climate change.

So I'm pro Prescott.

[Doggy Styles]

Prescott was nothing more than a jumped up working class thug with a massive chip on his shoulder who should never have held that position, a fat bully boy who was only there to keep a political party in line and who was never held in that office for any political contribution.

I don't remember anyone making fun of Prescott for his regional accent.

It was more his mangling of words, his doltish character, and his utter uselessness in all of the jobs he was asked to do.