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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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29 July 2005 |
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The triumph of Tony rolls on. And on. The troops have all been sent on extended leave singing his praises as we go. His poll ratings are back to pre-election levels. The other party leaders dance attendance and endorse terror legislation - which will I hope apply to Irish terrorism just as much as Al-Qaeda.. So Tony`s in his heaven when all’s wrong with the world. I can`t resist the cynical thought that one more bomb attempt and the entire Labour Party will be queuing up to ask him to stay on as president for life. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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11 April 2005 |
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The amount of bile and accumulated bitterness that has poured over Rover in its demise astonishes me. It`s as if the columnists, economists and commentators hated manufacturing and wanted to see it dead as soon as possible on the grounds that the British can`t hack it. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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04 April 2005 |
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Ave Atque Vale, as they say in Harrogate. To this purposeless Parliament. It grinds to a halt in a welter of confusion as bills are dumped, hopefully ID Cards and Gambling. Members disappear into retirement homes, the Priory or constituencies. The Tories stagger round like a flightless bird, Labour panics, and Charles Kennedy can`t keep the smirk off his face. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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30 March 2005 |
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NOT THE YORKSHIRE POST.
Jim Callaghan was a Labour leader of a type we’ll never see again. Brought up in the party, steeped in the trade union movement, and programmed to its instincts. That production line is now closed down. Also he was a leader. Not charting his own course like Tony Blair and changing it every day, but leading the party and holding it together by listening to it. That was a great gift. I remember him listening to us as students in Nuffield College urging him to devalue, to us as MPs in the dining and tea rooms which he used to visit regularly, and later to me talking about the state of the party. He told me I`d become too cynical. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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21 March 2005 |
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I read Piers Morgan’s diaries feeling like one of the great excluded: Faces pressed against the glass of the wondrous celeb world our leaders now inhabit. While he was editor of the Mirror Piers had 22 lunches 6 dinners 6 interviews 24 one-on-one meetings and innumerable phone calls with Tony Blair. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 March 2005 |
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I missed out on last week`s battles, boozing and bickering. All night sittings are a bonding experience. Some make the bonding more physical than others. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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07 March 2005 |
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The briefings from the Brownies that Gordon is to be brought back to running Labour’s election campaign and Alan Milburn demoted may be just a touch of tat for tittery for keeping out the People’s Gordon in the first place. Yet they indicate a problem... |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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28 February 2005 |
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Welcome back Alistair. Your Prime Minister needs you to be coherent. So does your party. You should never have gone into show biz. Sadly in those months off you’ve lost the old sureness of touch if not your mastery of the ffffing language. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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22 February 2005 |
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Fit for Bloggers. Not fit for the Yorkshire Post... |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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17 February 2005 |
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NOT THE YORKSHIRE POST. AGAIN l5 Feb
“Vote for us. We’re not the Tories”. “Vote for Tony. He’s not Michael Howard” will be the themes of our election campaign. Indeed, the most exciting part if the six bland pledges are the policy. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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07 February 2005 |
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BLAIR V BROWN: ROUND 18
Growing speculation (which must come from Downing Street because no-one else would be that daft) says that after the election Tony will take Treasury away from Gordon and make him Foreign Secretary. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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31 January 2005 |
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Not the Yorkshire Post Free Bludgers Blog Tuesday l Feb.
UNLOVED LEADERS. Every time I nominate Charles Kennedy for awards his Liberal colleagues don`t support him. His MPs resent him. As a party of individuals they all think they’d be better Leaders. Only voters like him. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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24 January 2005 |
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The nice lady editor of the Yorkshire Post asked David Currie and I to write regular columns at 20p a word. This was ruinous for a cash strapped YP. After four months they fired the editor for Un-Yorkshire activity (a.k.a. spending brass) and brought in the editor of the Sheffield Star to cut costs by firing me, though not David. So here`s the YP in exile published for free from a secret location in Grimsby: Iskratyke. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 January 2005 |
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Thursday, 13 January
Unable to get into Monday`s Great Party Meeting. I arrived late. It was packed. “Where were you when history was made, daddy?” “Locked out. With a lot of press people”. Blair gives the feel of a weary man on his last lap, trotting out the inevitable answers and tricky deceits, but in mechanical fashion with no feeling his heart is in it. He wants a third victory on a meritocratic, not an egalitarian platform. After that it`s in the lap of the gods. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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07 January 2005 |
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Blog of the Season and a Happy New Blog. 2005. A promising year. (I`m still promising after all these years). A year in which we dedicate ourselves to your delight and promise anything you want, “as resources allow”, and of course without Yob Behaviour, booze, salt or sugar. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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02 August 2004 |
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FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT, WITH ALL OUR MIGHT
President Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier in bomber jacket to declare the Iraq War over. Tony goes to City banquets in his stuffed shirt to declare the class war over.
Premature ejaculators both. In the class war Labour has gone AWOL. The masses are still oppressed by the classes, their organisations have been weakened, their voices stilled, and their communities broken up. They need our help more than ever. Yet without the conditioning of class Labour no longer has fire in the belly. Only food from the most expensive restaurants. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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30 July 2004 |
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1st August, from not so August Austin.
Yippee! Bloggy Days are here again. At last the summer recess of the most exciting session we’ve had since, at least, 2003. Too much blah to blog. Until Tony sent us away to sit on the beech at Cleethorpes in the hope that we’ll forget about Iraq, WMD, Britain as Robin to America’s Batman, University fees, Foundation hospitals, City Academies and other assorted Tony tactics. “Look I have Come Through”, thinks the Great Helmsman. “Now I can get on with devising the meteoritic mish mash I want to foist on the party for the upcoming election. Divide and rule in education and health, Yobbo-bashing as a social strategy, squeezing social security while subsidising fat cats, giving more boozing time but ask people to drink less and holding the unions in check so they don’t frighten the incoming investment we’re hooked on. It looks so awful Austin will have to ask to be excused on grounds of taste. Or perhaps religion. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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29 April 2004 |
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Normal politics have returned. Normal blogging will follow. I’ve been to Santa Monica to register as an elector in the US so I can have a vote on British foreign policy.
You can only find out what Blair has been doing in the US thanks to their freedom or information, their instant history from Bob Woodward and their general openness. The truth tends to blurt out whereas here it’s buried. So I’m now better informed than the fifty diplomats. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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11 March 2004 |
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Apologies for the Blog break. Too much happening in this Fin de Blair frenzy. Main events; |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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10 December 2003 |
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On, on, into the valley of death ride the four hundred. To have our faces in rubbed in miasma. The Tories are on a high. The Queens speech was a rag bag demonstrating that Blairism has run out of ideas. Bush was brought over to strut his stuff. I don’t mind that but Tony was so nervous about it that he never came near Parliament. Thought he did devote a day to Tony’s constituency at a cost of a million quid for a pub lunch. I’d have provided better fish and chips at Leon’s in Grimsby for a tenner. |
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