Monday, August 20, 2007

More Labour dishonesty

The BBC is quoting Public health minister Dawn Primarolo as saying "It's misleading or dishonest to, on Friday, for the Tory party to support £21bn worth of cuts from public services in supporting the Redwood commission proposals and then come back and say suddenly not only are they not going to do that...."

Nearly as misleading and dishonest as trying to suggest a policy proposal is the same thing as a defined party policy. Not that Labour would ever be guilty of such deceit and spin of course.

Incidentally, perhaps the £21 bn of cuts could come from cutting some of the quangos that have expanded under the current government.

5 comments:

deiseach said...

Thomas: "Nearly as misleading and dishonest as trying to suggest a policy proposal is the same thing as a defined party polic"

Is that like the difference between being a little bit pregnant and fully pregnant? :-)

Thomas said...

No, it's the difference between thinking about having a baby, and announcing to the world he weighed 7lbs 4 oz and what his name is.

deiseach said...

If people are thinking about having a baby, they don't announce it to the world. If they do, then they can't complain if people ask what the timetable is, whether they hope it's going to be a boy or a girl, what will they call it, do they prefer gift vouchers for Mothercare or M&S . . . unless, of course, the Tories think no one is entitled to comment on their proposals?

Thomas said...

So the analogy breaks down when you stretch it a little. That's hardly a surprise though :)

The entire point of a proposal is that people should comment on it and debate whether or not it should be adopted as party policy.

That doesn't change the fact it's "misleading and dishonest" to suggest that the proposal was party policy one day and a u turn performed the next.

deiseach said...

Okay, I see where you are coming from with your last point, it IS dishonest on NuLabour's part. But that's politics, innit? The Tories will regret wheeling out the Wokingham Weasel. Pure ballot box poison