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...a blog by Richard Flowers

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Day 3365: Daddy's Letter to Labour

Friday


I am sure that you can guess just how THRILLED Daddy Richard would be to receive a really POSITIVE and HEART-WARMING message from the General Secretary of the Hard Labour Party.

Unfortunately, that's NOT what arrived in the post this week. Instead, and before the General Election campaign has even started, Hard Labour are already so PANICKED about the Liberal Democrats that they are using NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING and DISTORTION to attack us!

So, once we'd peeled Daddy off the ceiling, we persuaded him to write a THANK YOU note, and maybe ask one or two little questions for clarification…
Daddy's House
E14

18 March 2010

Mr Ray Collins
General Secretary,
The Labour Party,
39 Victoria Street,
London
SW1H 0HA


Dear Mr Collins,

Thank you for the direct mail that I received from the Labour Party under your imprint on Wednesday 17th March with the headline "Lib Dem Leader: Thatcher Was Right".

Having read the full story, I now know that the correct quote was that Mrs Thatcher was right to take on vested interests. Mr Clegg continues that in her day this was in the form of the over-powerful Trades Unions who had caused so much disruption during the so-called "Winter of Discontent", and that today we should be taking on vested interests in the form of City bankers.

In 2007, Gordon Brown as Labour Leader and Prime Minister invited Lady Thatcher to Downing Street. He appeared on the doorstep with her and said that he admired her. He said:

"Whatever disagreements you have with her about certain policies […] we have got to understand that she saw the need for change."

I should therefore be grateful if you would answer me the following questions:

  1. Does the Labour Party not believe that we should take on the vested interests that cause inequality in Britain?
  2. Why has the Labour Party been in power for thirteen years and NOT tackled the vested interest of City bankers? Particularly given the recession that they have just caused?
  3. How can the Labour Party begin to oppose vested interests when it continues to remain heavily indebted to the Trades Unions? Is it not the case that the Party has received over £11 million from the Unite Union that is currently threatening so much disruption to people's holidays?
  4. Is it not fundamentally dishonest for the Labour Prime Minister to say Lady Thatcher was right about some things and for you then to distort the words of the Liberal Democrat Leader so that you can attack him for saying just the same? Why is the Labour Party already campaigning using deliberate distortions before a General Election has even been called?


I look forward to your reply, and shall be happy to forward it to the London Evening Standard and my local East London Advertiser, as I have with this letter.

Yours sincerely



Richard Flowers

PS: I assume that there will be no complaints from any member of the Labour Party about the use of bar-charts by any other Party since the one that you use on the reverse of your flyer so clearly distorts the relative percentages. I also see you have used the national average vote; were you perhaps afraid to use the ones for your formerly-safe seat in Tower Hamlets?


And here is the offensive… sorry offendING leaflet:


Lies...? Damned lies...?
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...or statistics?
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Incidentally, Chicken Yoghurt may have gotten there first with a very similar story.




Meanwhile, in COMPLETELY UNRELATED news, today Mr Balloon will – according to Conservatory Home – "invoke the spirit of Thatcher…" (this probably involves thirteen BLACK CANDLES and an unlucky GOAT – maybe Lord Pigby Jones or similar) "…in challenging the vested interests in the unions - and the big banks"

Hang on, that's practically a DIRECT QUOTE of Captain Clegg!

What does this involve?

"I can announce today that a Conservative government will introduce a new bank levy to pay back tax payers for the support they gave and to protect them in the future."

Hang on, that's practically a DIRECT QUOTE from Mr Dr Vince!

Look, it is perfectly simple: we welcome Mr Balloon's decision to campaign FOR Liberal Democrat Policies, and say this – it you WANT Liberal Democrat Policies, why not get them STRAIGHT from the people who THOUGHT THEM UP, rather than the people who have no ideas of their own.

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