Politics Thread!

[Harlequin]

Is it just me but isn't Mr. Miliband sailing preciously close to one of the most famous National Socialist slogans by saying: One man, one nation vs. the same from an another nationalistic and socialist movement: Ein Volk, ein reich, ein Fuhrer (one folk, one nation, one leader) ?

Did Miliband actually say, "One man"?

[merman]

And so another great policy decision has to be fine-tuned. The process of awarding the West Coast main line franchise to First Group was flawed, two enquiries/reviews will follow before a new bidding process can begin. And all at a low, low cost to the taxpayer of £40 million. Well done, we can clearly see how the private sector running public services is going so well for the Coalition...

[gravy]

Be very interested to see the eventual detail of this.

At his worse Branson's acted like a petulant child when business deals haven't gone his way and hasn't been above painting a picture of events that don't have a lot to do with reality.

[Jimaroid]

Spectacular.

I wonder what the mistakes were? Three people have been suspended pending investigation. This could get very juicy indeed.

[gravy]

Minister already blaming his dept for any mistakes in their entirety

[Dio]

A consultant was on Five Live this morning saying "There was a perfectly good process in place, and the new government ripped it up and replaced it with a shambles."

[Jimaroid]

Just heard Branson on R4, putting the blame squarely with both Labour and Conservative governments. Meanwhile, FirstGroup shares are down 20%. Oof.

This is a massive free lunch for Labour in the middle of their conference. Let's see what Ed does with it. In a first land grabbing attempt I've just heard the shadow transport secretary in an interview say that the west-coast franchise should be given to Directly Operated Railways (east-coast).

Branson's answer to that? "If they can’t run a process, they’re going to have even more difficulty running a railway.”

Excellent.

[zip accident]

Minister already blaming his dept for any mistakes in their entirety

However, he is new in the job.

[gravy]

Minister already blaming his dept for any mistakes in their entirety

However, he is new in the job.

He doesn't seem to be blaming his predecessor, the guilt's falling on the civil servants as far as I can see.

[zip accident]

Minister already blaming his dept for any mistakes in their entirety

However, he is new in the job.

He doesn't seem to be blaming his predecessor, the guilt's falling on the civil servants as far as I can see.

Well the details of the story aren't yet fully out in public, but I mainly meant taking the blame himself for something that was done before he arrived would be going a bit far in the modesty stakes.

[gravy]

Yeah I have no truck with that sort of bollocks. It's the government's responsibility ultimately and he's a member of the government.

I'm not saying he should shoulder the blame but the first order of business shouldn't be making it clear it's not his fault. There's probably some other thing he should be concentrating on right now

[adam]

i think they'd get more done if they dropped the blame thing altogether

[Jimaroid]

Not very detailed at all, but a teeny tiny little gem on what mistakes were actually made.

As well as forgetting to take inflation into account, officials were responsible for double-counting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19851926

No inflation in a multi billion, 15 year contract?

Amazing.

[gravy]

CALLING POGO! CALLING POGO!

Desperately trying to play devil's advocate with my brain and find anything in Cameron's speech that doesn't make him look like a complete fucking cunt but I'm not coming up with anything.

A little help?

[pogo]

I didn't watch or listen to it: I've caught only brief snippets of each conference so far. I don't know you can tell much from the speeches at such conferences, to the faithful, so far from an election. For the Tories it's better to look at what they're doing and the opposition are unlikely to have anything like a manifesto to pin them down on.