Friday, April 29, 2005
I've been watching the Question Time Special - The Leaders from last night. Only got as far as Kennedy and Michael Howard so far, but here's what I thought.
I'm not too sure on Charles Kennedy, there were a couple of times he seemed to be avoiding answering the questions so as to bash the Government. Saying he would pull British troops out of Iraq even if the Iraqi Council asked them to stay seemed rather heartless, but maybe he was thinking that they'd only asked if the US told them to ask the UK. There was a young Asian guy who was allowed to veil an insult against Kennedy's 'lack of charisma' under the pretense of a question about the Lib Dems poor position in opinion polls, which I think Kennedy dealt with with charm and wit. It was good to see him being challenged in the Lib Dems tax plans as in the past, unless you actually read the whole manifesto (and who really does that?), the public never get to hear anything other than 'increased taxes'. David Dimbleby has this annoying habit of asking him a question, then as he starts to speak interrupts with another question, then as he starts to reply asks ANOTHER question and several times Kennedy does get annoyed at that.
The first question for Michael Howard challenges him on his anti-immigration policy as it would have stopped his own Mum and Dad coming to the country way back when. Unsurprisingly he doesn't answer the question straight away, instead pretending that he was asked 'please talk at length about how immigration is a danger to the wellbeing of this country'. When he decides to answer he talks about how the Tories would in fact welcome economic migrants who come to do a job, so we have another Tory myth, whereas when they were in power they were going on about cutting benefits because people were dole scroungers we now have the myth that people come to this country to grab benefits, when in fact the current system stops skilled people from getting jobs and having to sit around all day getting inadequate benefits that they can't live on. Beyond the fatuous 'cutting red tape' messages that seems to be how Howard wants to pay for everything he doesn't offer any guarantee that those skilled people in immigration centres will be able to come and work in our society. He gets challenged by an asylum seeker who insists that Howard see's him "as dirt", unfortunately he does then get a bit carried away and compares Howard to Hitler, not the smartest debating strategy after the whole flying pigs/Fagin episode earlier this year.
Moreso than Kennedy Howard takes a lot of time to bash Blair rather than talk about his own policies, a woman asks him about the Tories negative campaigning, he starts going on about Blair's lies on Iraq, she asks him whether it's good for democracy to talk about Blair being a liar, he talks about Blair's lies on Iraq, Dimbleby reminds him he's supposed to be here to talk about Tory policies to make the country better... He talks about Blair's lies on Iraq. He gets the first big jeer when he says "I tell it like it is. I tell it how I see it I'm afraid". The problem is that a few minutes later he says he would have still gone to war and trying to say he would have done it differently to Blair which doesn't really convince, when the reality of the situation is that it's an American show and we're just helping out saying you'd have gone to war commits you to pretty much everything that happened after we invaded Iraq as well.
Someone asks Michael Howard a leading question on whether the Labour Government is putting students under too much pressure, he sounds almost as though he's a placed Tory supporter. He claims that in the last seven years he "must have taken at least sixty, seventy written exams" which would have to work out at ten written exams a year. Surely this isn't accurate, surely this guy is either in some unusual educational circumstances or is using a very wide definition of 'written exam'. What looks like an equally planted Labour supporter asks Howard how he feels coming a distant second in the polls to someone he calls a liar.
On a side issue, another instance of re-emerging Tory homophobia. And then there's Michael Gove who, as editor of the Times said, in 2003, You can no more ?promote? the idea of becoming gay to a testosterone-fuelled, Key Stage 4-taking, FHM-reading, Jordan-ogling male teenager than you could have persuaded the young Graham Norton to make an honest woman of Ann Widdecombe but in 2004, as prospective Tory candidate for Surrey Heath, said [to] the Conservative Way Forward group that he supported a county-by-county introduction of the [Clause 28]."Those of us who want a more traditional sex education for our children should be able to choose schools that reflect our values," he said earlier this week... "You could drive up the M1 and you could enter Northamptonshire and it could say 'Welcome to Northamptonshire: This is Clause 28 country'." It's not homophobic to talk about values, it just implies that those who do not share yours do not have any.
I'm not too sure on Charles Kennedy, there were a couple of times he seemed to be avoiding answering the questions so as to bash the Government. Saying he would pull British troops out of Iraq even if the Iraqi Council asked them to stay seemed rather heartless, but maybe he was thinking that they'd only asked if the US told them to ask the UK. There was a young Asian guy who was allowed to veil an insult against Kennedy's 'lack of charisma' under the pretense of a question about the Lib Dems poor position in opinion polls, which I think Kennedy dealt with with charm and wit. It was good to see him being challenged in the Lib Dems tax plans as in the past, unless you actually read the whole manifesto (and who really does that?), the public never get to hear anything other than 'increased taxes'. David Dimbleby has this annoying habit of asking him a question, then as he starts to speak interrupts with another question, then as he starts to reply asks ANOTHER question and several times Kennedy does get annoyed at that.
The first question for Michael Howard challenges him on his anti-immigration policy as it would have stopped his own Mum and Dad coming to the country way back when. Unsurprisingly he doesn't answer the question straight away, instead pretending that he was asked 'please talk at length about how immigration is a danger to the wellbeing of this country'. When he decides to answer he talks about how the Tories would in fact welcome economic migrants who come to do a job, so we have another Tory myth, whereas when they were in power they were going on about cutting benefits because people were dole scroungers we now have the myth that people come to this country to grab benefits, when in fact the current system stops skilled people from getting jobs and having to sit around all day getting inadequate benefits that they can't live on. Beyond the fatuous 'cutting red tape' messages that seems to be how Howard wants to pay for everything he doesn't offer any guarantee that those skilled people in immigration centres will be able to come and work in our society. He gets challenged by an asylum seeker who insists that Howard see's him "as dirt", unfortunately he does then get a bit carried away and compares Howard to Hitler, not the smartest debating strategy after the whole flying pigs/Fagin episode earlier this year.
Moreso than Kennedy Howard takes a lot of time to bash Blair rather than talk about his own policies, a woman asks him about the Tories negative campaigning, he starts going on about Blair's lies on Iraq, she asks him whether it's good for democracy to talk about Blair being a liar, he talks about Blair's lies on Iraq, Dimbleby reminds him he's supposed to be here to talk about Tory policies to make the country better... He talks about Blair's lies on Iraq. He gets the first big jeer when he says "I tell it like it is. I tell it how I see it I'm afraid". The problem is that a few minutes later he says he would have still gone to war and trying to say he would have done it differently to Blair which doesn't really convince, when the reality of the situation is that it's an American show and we're just helping out saying you'd have gone to war commits you to pretty much everything that happened after we invaded Iraq as well.
Someone asks Michael Howard a leading question on whether the Labour Government is putting students under too much pressure, he sounds almost as though he's a placed Tory supporter. He claims that in the last seven years he "must have taken at least sixty, seventy written exams" which would have to work out at ten written exams a year. Surely this isn't accurate, surely this guy is either in some unusual educational circumstances or is using a very wide definition of 'written exam'. What looks like an equally planted Labour supporter asks Howard how he feels coming a distant second in the polls to someone he calls a liar.
On a side issue, another instance of re-emerging Tory homophobia. And then there's Michael Gove who, as editor of the Times said, in 2003, You can no more ?promote? the idea of becoming gay to a testosterone-fuelled, Key Stage 4-taking, FHM-reading, Jordan-ogling male teenager than you could have persuaded the young Graham Norton to make an honest woman of Ann Widdecombe but in 2004, as prospective Tory candidate for Surrey Heath, said [to] the Conservative Way Forward group that he supported a county-by-county introduction of the [Clause 28]."Those of us who want a more traditional sex education for our children should be able to choose schools that reflect our values," he said earlier this week... "You could drive up the M1 and you could enter Northamptonshire and it could say 'Welcome to Northamptonshire: This is Clause 28 country'." It's not homophobic to talk about values, it just implies that those who do not share yours do not have any.
