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Very neat pay-off, Nick! Respect!

On a much smaller scale, we have Labour councillors in my ward openly opposing Post Office closures (trying to hijack the LibDems' cause celebre), and then taking the credit for saving my local office.

You won't find them knocking on doors, though - they post the leaflet and run for it. Wise move.

Nick,

Considering the 'quality' of Ed Balls' advice about the election that wasn't perhaps he's not a canary but a dodo.

Nick

Good spot about Norwich

Do you think Delia will be cooking them " dishes best served cold " after May 1st, and will she be inviting Frank Field to serve the 10p starter rate ?

Whatever she chooses, we can rest assured that the knives are out

I am proud that in my January blog I predicted GB would be out by the end of the year. It might be a half year now.

Nick

The image of canaries is so much more decorous than ferrets fighting in a sack!

I have a gut feeling we're well into 'buggins turn'. Positive moves from New Labour [eg interventions into the banking system] are so easily counter-attacked [eg Peter Haines' cash-in-a-brown-envelope']. It's a touch ironic is the protest against Mr. Brown. I came to see him as truly 'Thatcher's son'. Have a nice day.

Nick, do you think that if a well known follower of Burnley was still on the payroll all this embarassing in-fighting wouldn't have go into the public domain?

I do enjoy political infighting. Do not be surprised if David Cameron starts putting forward a no-confidence motion, the much-beloved tactic of the Labour party when they were in opposition.

The truth is that Labour are back to their old selves of the late 1970s. The danger is that the nationalist parties will be the main beneficiaries, which will only make matters worse.

Would this rebellion be happening if Labour were still clear in the polls and the economy in good shape? I think not. The rebels knew about this last year and there was hardly any protest, probably because they wanted to keep in the PM in waiting. Now they're under pressure electorally and they're trying to save their skins.

Nick - why do you bother giving Ed Balls the airspace? He only ever gives some vacuous variation on his "Good news; tractor production is up!" mantra. It's uninspiring and transparent.

Afternoon Nick. If the low paid are given more cash, the Tories complain that they are being handed money for doing nothing. If the poor are given more child benefits, the Tories complain that they will be better off staying at home.
Why did the Tories not introduce 10% tax rate when they were in power? Why did we have 40% capital gains tax? Why did we have the highest Company tax in Europe? Why did they increase VAT from 8% to 17.5% Why did they not introduce the minimum wage? Why was it that we have the highest number of unemployed for 17 years?
The changes in tax had been introduced to bring in a modern way of taxing and the Government’s intention is to bring in 18% flat rate of tax across the board in the coming years. The same system works well in Switzerland.
Yesterday I heard the shadow chancellor trying to provide answers to Andrew Marr with regards to the other alternatives. The replies were as follows.
Yes, but, no but, you know, but, no but yes, but you know. These were the replies when asked if the Tories agenda is to reduce expenditure or reduce taxes, and at the same time spend as much as Labour! Smoke, was all we got!
Nick, listen to this interview again. Vicky Pollard would have given better answers. Nothing concrete from the Tories, nothing costed from the Tories.
My tax rate is going down from 22% to 20%. If the middle classes are squeezed then the poor will not only have to pay more tax, but out of a job. But then again the Tories are now the defenders of the poor. Yeah, pull the other one! Ex Tories are not easily fooled.

Nick

The labour MPS suddenly getting an attack of conscience over cutting out the 10p tax rate all voted for it a year ago, despite several newspapers pointing out that dropping it (for a headline!) would mean a tax increase for millions of core labour voters.

And none of them has made much of a protest about the Post Office monopoly shutting offices agains the wishes of local people (in constituencies other than their own). Nor against the PO threatening to stop communities keeping them open - a clear misuse of monopoly power. All this to save £150 million, less than the spending on consultants' fees for PFI schools.

So I have no sympathy for them or their canaries. The sooner they lose their seats the better.

Dead parrots rather than canaries? Though I do like the "ferrets fighting in a sack" analogy (post 4).

Nick

Neat spot on the Norwich connection.

Maybe Balls and his cronies have been getting hints from Delia - "How to cheat at cooking" - the books.

Onlywayup - Wasn't it the Tories who brought in the !0% band in the first place....

Seems to me that it is all starting to fall apart and there is nothing anybody is doing to save it. It does show how good Blair was compared to Brown as Blair would at least get some unity. There is open rebellion now and it is going to unravel further as they lose bill after bill with the terrorism act and the 10p finance bill readings.

Election now please!

does anybody care about these people anymore? They clearly don't care about us or they wouldn't be raising the basic rate of tax.

£7 a month might be nothing to Ed Balls and his cronies but it means a lot to me; especially when I see it squandered by this government on one review after another.

How does the policeman feel knowing that the government not only spent millions on a pay review but then ignored it and is now making him even worse off by raising the basic rate of tax? Waste on an unimaginable scale by a government that is completely out of control.

The canaries might be dropping one by one but Gordon Brown ploughs on into the mine regardless. We all know what happens next in this story.

Norwich Canaries?

Norfolk Turkeys more like. And some of them seem to be voting for Christmas.

Bootiful !!!

Some people have very short memories Nick. Eggles1861 is under the impression that the 10% tax band was introduced by the Tories. Now which Tory Prim Minister did we have in 1999/2000? That's when the 10% tax band was introduced and the basic rate of tax was 23%. Now the basic rate of tax is 20%, thank you very much Gordon!
Ex Tories like myself do not forget the miserable days when we lost, not only our jobs in the city, but also our homes! Remember the three recessions under the Tories, Eggles1861? Have a nice day Nick.

Onlywayup wrote:

> Ex Tories like myself do not forget the miserable days when we lost, not only our jobs in the city, but also our homes!

Don't count your chickens; the housing market is far from out of the woods yet - it's still grotesquely overvalued and prohibitive to enter, which is as unsustainable as it's ever been.

> Now which Tory Prim Minister did we have in 1999/2000?

That's a rhetorical question, right...?

Morning Nick, I do like your usage of the Canary in this article.

Look forward to you soon being able to make use of the phrase 'dead parrot'.

10. At 1:27 pm on 21 Apr 2008, Onlywayup wrote:
Afternoon Nick. If the low paid are given more cash, the Tories complain that they are being handed money for doing nothing. If the poor are given more child benefits, the Tories complain that they will be better off staying at home.
---------------------------------------
As a Tory voter (but not a card carrying devotee) I would never complain about low taxes for the low paid employees, nor child benefits for the less well off.

It is the unchecked free hand-outs to the permanently sick, lame and lazy that I complain about.

Talking of birds, I see that Gordon Brown has spent some time on the telephone with .

I wonder if she'll pen his next campaign tune
"Shakirin' all over"!

Like the credit crunch the Labour implosion has been in the works for a while now. In tough times Labour the Torys and Lib Dems all seem to turn on each other like a a pack of hyenas usually with the result of a swift change of leader.

However why has it taken Labour MP's a year to catch on to the effect that the scrapping on the 10p starting rate would have on those on low incomes? Did they suddenly realise it might not be a good idea to attack those who make up most of Labour votes so near election time?

given that Balls is aNaaridge man, and the other 2 are the city's MPs, I'l decline to join in the applause for Nick's insightful wit; it really was an empty net (even if all of NCFC's first XI would STILL miss).
I wasthere during the worst of the 80s and this squabbling is NOTHING compared to what happened then.
Brown has an awful lot of ground to make up though

hmmmm