Bits Digital Politics – The Tom Watson Interview

This is very much why, as politics tends to make the Intel vs AMD / AMD vs nVidea arguments look as weak as they really are by comparison.

In terms of the economy, there is a world of difference between running a deficit in bad times and building up a structural deficit in the good. This is the key point of contention between the major parties, and it has nothing to do with the recent global economic downturn.

The Conservatives did not say they would match all of Labour's projected public spending pound for pound, (that would make them Labour themselves) they said, rightly or wrongly, that they would match the projected NHS spending pound for pound. Which apparently, rightly or wrongly, they have.

Gordon Brown was ridiculed for being called the 'Iron Chancellor' long before 2007 - not least for selling off the nations gold reserves at historically low prices. Ask any pensioners how they feel about him 'doing a Maxwell' on them.

Gordon Brown took over the Premiership unopposed simply because it was an internal party-political move and none of his colleagues contested him. "Soaring public opinion polls" had nothing to do with it, and he was removed from office at the first time the public were asked about it.

Irrespective of all that, I think bit-tech should be kept relatively political free, so I'm willing to say "let's agree to disagree" if you and the others are as well. There are plenty of other more appropriate forums for these types of discussions - and if people misunderstood my earlier comments and think I started this, then I apologise for that, as that was not my intention.

 

No you're right, listing some of the other things MP's are also supposed to be expert in, (and hence why they may not be expert in this one particular field) is patronising.

Calling people "feckless, moronic, over educated - under intelligent, vacuous, incestuous, private school twits" on the other hand is perfectly reasonable and rationale debate....

 

Tom Watson is good people. He's been getting properly stuck into the phone hacking at the NotW scandal, and has been since the story broke. That's not a small thing to be getting stuck into when you consider the power that Murdoch wields over the media.

I should just add that my local MP is Nadine Dorries. So relatively speaking even a potato taped to the side of a duck looks like a solid parliamentary advocate from where I'm sitting.

 

Well it's disputed :"By 2007–08, the public finances were in a stronger position than they had been when Labour came to power in 1997". source IFS

In 2007 the debt was lower than in 1996 .

FYI, I was never a supporter of Brown , but Brown's and Labour's poll ratings were sky high when he took over as leader in 07, so much so that the Tory press feared for the future of the Conservative party. Virtually every respected political commentator agrees that had Brown had the guts to call an election back then ,he'd have won. The 'Bottling it' moment , was pretty much when his problems began- political and economic.

 

having used some of the information from data.gov.uk i can agree it is a very useful service

 

gordon brown was in his own words gifted a fantastic economic opertunity to make changes, he gave away our gold for the cheapest price gold has ever been sold at and agreed to loans to give third world nations billions we couldnt afford, labours greatest economic mind proves why we should never, ever, ever trust labour ever again.

you might not be old enough to remember but labour did this last time, thatcher came into office after labour bancrupt the country, she had to sell everything to pay for the mess labour made, and again they where gifter a bouyant economy and left it ruined.

you might have a agenda here but it simply will not wash, we dont forget.

 

All I want to know is how much piano wire would it require to hang Tom Watson from a lamp post?

As the bodies pile up from his illegal wars, he uses parliamentary time to bitch about his voice mails being accessed because he was to thick to change the pin.

 

As much as watching you all debate politics in general is highly entertaining and how much I'd love to argue it from UKIP's side, we really should get back on topic. Here's a debate by Tom Watson, Jeremy Hunt and my MP Mel Stride amongst others on superfast broadband last month. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2011-06-16b.902.9&s=speaker:24914#g903.5

And here's something very long about mobile broadband in rural areas. www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2011-05-19b.557.0&s=speaker:24914#g589.0

 

I find myself in a bit of a pickle - on the one hand Jeremy Hunt doesn't exactly seem to have GB's technological future particularly high on his agenda.

On the other, he's my MP, and of all the constituencies I've lived in, he's been far and away the best MP I've ever had. If I see him doing one of his supermarket surgeries at some point soon, any questions anyone wants me to ask him?

 

Well he said a year ago that the DEA needed to be "massively improved" and that he "reluctantly" helped make it into law.

You could ask him why then, if he knew it was fundamentally flawed, did he vote for it in the first place? And did he not realise that by enacting (what he knew to be) a fundamentally flawed law, much of the public perception would be of politicians putting the rights of American companies before the rights of British companies and British consumers?

No-one (or not many) are suggesting piracy be legalised, but guilty until proven innocent (with limited means to refute the claims) doesn't seem an especially British brand of justice...

 

Actually, you could also ask him why more of his colleagues don't do supermarket surgeries as well!

 

Tom Watson, hes a nasty piece of work and the gaming industry needs less of this kind of representation.

this was the guy who was caught lying in 2004 local election campaign he was caught to be spreading smears campaign against the local lib dem MP as his only way of securing the seat.

Tom Watson is a good representation of what we need less of in government.