Vince Cable likely to have to resign

robin_banks

StevieJ wrote: »

The worst part of this whole situation is that it plays right into the hands of Murdoch, well done Vince :T the Torygraph will be having a lovely Christmas.

I'm not sure they will be, AIUI they weren't going to publish the full details as understandably they are anti-Murdoch-ish

LizEstelle

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Shame really. I do like him.

But more stuff has been leaked from his conversation with the telegraph (when he thought they were lib dem supporters).

Basically, he's unleashed war on Rupert Murdoch, stating his whole empire is now under attack.

Bye bye Vince. Liked you a lot. At least you were usually said it how it was.

Yep, and when he felt he really had to make a point about 'how it was', he would actually put his signature on a pledge...

Wookster

The real problem for me is that we have a very high ranking politician saying he is going make a serious decision based on his privately held view rather than on the individual considerations of the situation.

Its extremely ill thought out and makes one wander just how sound his judgement actually is.

Just out of curiosity Tomterm8 - are the libdems still sell outs, given you reply about the coalition being the only sensible option.

de1amo

StevieJ wrote: »

I wouldn't have thought the BBC would organise a pro Murdoch phone in especially considering how 'biased' they are.

Jeremy Vine specifically asked for positive comment about him and then at the end pointedly said --there was a decidedly lack of phone calls in the positive and a lot of negative calls!

PhylPho

StevieJ wrote: »

The worst part of this whole situation is that it plays right into the hands of Murdoch, well done Vince :T the Torygraph will be having a lovely Christmas.

StevieJ: er actually, the reason why this is one of the funniest stories of the year is because the Daily Telegraph isn't having a lovely Christmas. Just to rewind a bit:

The Telegraph is owned by the Barclay brothers. They don't like Murdoch because he's a rival newspaper baron (and much else.) They so-oo-oo do not like him that a few weeks back, they caused written representation to be made to the Govt re Murdoch's BSkyB take-over bid. "This must be stopped, it's an outrage!" or words to that effect.

The individual upon whose desk this plaintive missive landed was, er, Vince Cable. The man who has "gone to war against Murdoch" and believes "he will win".

Vince Cable, the Barclay Brothers and -- by dint of their ownership -- the Daily Telegraph are all allies in the Grand Cause against Murdoch.

Unfortunately. . . no-one in the Telegraph's higher management seems to have communicated that to t'Editor and the editorial department.

So. . . Off trundles the Telegraph's reporters to run a fearless sting on Vince Cable, returning to the office with this absolute bloody dynamite showing a Government Minister to be so biased as to question his fitness for any involvement in the BSkyB issue. Fan-tast-ic!

Or, er, not.

The sh*t hit the fan big-time once the horror of what had happened finally sunk in: the Telegraph had just gone out and attacked the very person upon whom the Telegraph's owners were depending for sympathy and support.

Editorial !!!!-ups get no greater than this.

As the Barclay Brothers temporarily renamed themselves The Ballistic Brothers, chaos reigned at the Telegraph. It couldn't suppress the stitched-up Cable story because too many journos were talking about it in the pub. But it coulddn't print it, either, otherwise The Ballistic Brothers would institute the return of capital punishment in the newsroom.

So instead, it took the much weaker issue of Nuclear Vince and splashed with that.

Sadly, some of those privy to what's gone on -- they may or may not work at the Telegraph -- aren't enamored of the Barclay Brothers. So they made a copy of the Cable recordings (which everyone thought were safely locked up) and pass it on to -- who else? -- Robert Peston at the BBC.

'Ere, they say; have a listen to this -- not the stuff about nuclear Vince, but the stuff about waging war on Murdoch. 'S wunnerful!

And thus it is that the story which the Daily Telegraph's owners:

(a) never intended to get and:

(b) never intended to print

becomes top of the news agenda everywhere.

Evelyn "Scoop" Waugh himself couldn't have written it better: best media joke for years!

:rotfl:

Sapphire

chucky wrote: »

yeah course, anything to get a "story"?? -

here's the "story" - he said this to two giggly female "constituents" that he was trying to impress.

he's getting a bit of a habit of putting his foot in it poor old Vince.

So what - it was a faux pas, that's all. Live with it. Hopefully, he won't put his foot in it again.

Point is that the largely leftie press – and some others who would have preferred to see a Conservative-only government – will do anything to break the coalition. It's evident from the type of reporting one sees from the likes of Jon Snow and others. Anything for a 'breaking' story that might discredit the government. Fact is, the coalition was the only credible option available after the election. It's the result of the expression of the populace in the polls. If the governments of other countries can function perfectly well as coalitions, Britain should be mature enough to do so too.

I don't want to see the horror of another labour 'government' in office in my lifetime. :eek:

de1amo

i doubt the liberal voters wanted their votes used to bring in the Tories--i think this is one of many wounds that will slowly bleed this government to death---i think what the Tories are doing at this moment is worse than anything that Labour did in all its 'reign'--i expect its wonderful for bosses like Rup M because he can pilige pensions and cut wages!

tomterm8

Wookster wrote: »

Just out of curiosity Tomterm8 - are the libdems still sell outs, given you reply about the coalition being the only sensible option.

Did I ever say they were sell outs?

I did say they were liars, because, they knew they were going to negotiate from a position where they were going to break the pledge to vote against any rise in tuition fees before the election, and they lied to get votes.

I also said that I wouldn't vote for them again. Frankly, I think they are pointless, because there is no situation I can forsee where they would be in a better position than this, and, they have not really achieved anything.

The very worst policies of the Torys are still going ahead, exactly on schedule.

So, why vote for them?

A._Badger

tomterm8 wrote: »

So, why vote for them?

Surely no one was crazed enough to vote for them thinking they were going to win an election? A coalition was the best they could ever hope for.

tomterm8

A._Badger wrote: »

Surely no one was crazed enough to vote for them thinking they were going to win an election? A coalition was the best they could ever hope for.

No, I didn't think so, Badger, but I thought that if there was a coalition, they might influence things for the better. In a lot of ways, they have made things worse than if the Torys had got in on their own. Just in my opinion. A lot of the things I agree with the Torys on have been watered down (for example, the coalition is still giving lots of power to europe, and decent criminal justice reforms).

So, we seem to have a coalition that delivers the worst Liberal Democrat policies, and the worst Tory policies.

Not exactly what I was hoping for.