An Email from Tony, and the Labour Conference

[Sulkdodds]

So, the labour party is in town. The police in Churchill Square are brandishing assault rifles. It's the labour conference, and tomorrow me and some of my classmates will be bravely ignoring the threat of terrorism and going along. We have special passes. :bounce:

If you had a chance to ask Tony anything, what would you say?

I will post the goings-on and my impression of the Great Man (TM) tomorrow evening.

Thank you for all the questions you sent me online earlier this week (note, he doesn't mean ME personally). I couldn't, I'm afraid, answer them all. But I did reply to some of the hundreds submitted by you, Labour supporters and members, during a Q&A session at conference on Sunday. The full transcript is here.

http://labour.org.uk/qanda

There is another chance to ask me a question later today when Tessa Jowell and I will be online for a live web-chat and between us we will be taking your questions and comments from 6.00pm until 7.20pm.

If there is one issue you would like to raise with me, this is your opportunity by logging onto:

http://labour.org.uk/redirect.phtml

I hope you do.

Many of the comments and questions I have already received were about the future - the future of the health service, of our schools and of the battle against poverty at home and abroad. It doesn't surprise me. It's a deep concern about the future of our country and our world, and the determination to make life better, which draws people like you to our party.

http://labour.org.uk

And in my speech to conference yesterday, which you can also read on the party's website, I outlined how our party in government was going to secure Britain's future - a future based on our shared values. But I stressed that we must continue to have the courage and commitment to adapt these values to the new challenges and opportunities thrown up by rapidly changing world. Only this way will we meet your and my ambitions for a better, fairer country and world. So I hope you find time to read the speech.

http://labour.org.uk/ac05tb

I also want to ask you to consider getting more involved in helping us deliver these improvements. Our party political broadcast tonight will be inviting viewers to join our new Labour Supporters' Network.

http://labour.org.uk

If you have a few minutes, I hope you will watch. It's on, today BBC2 at 5.55pm and on ITV and BBC 1 at 6.55pm.

Thanks again

http://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&disp=attd&attid=0.3&th=1069bd87aa8b5039

Tony Blair
Prime Minister

 

[Beerdude26]

If you had a chance to ask Tony anything, what would you say?

"Why do you hurt people D:?"

 

[No Limit]

I love British government. Though I don't agree with Blair on a lot of issues the fact that your politicians actually talk to people and to media is admirable. I don't know if you ever saw an American 'press' conference, they are just a show put on by the white house.

 

[Llama]

ya, our politics rule. Especially when party leaders go onto LIVE shows and get a bollocking :E

 

[gick]

ya, our politics rule. Especially when party leaders go onto LIVE shows and get a bollocking :E

By Paxman!!

Yaaaaaaay Paxman!!

 

[Kangy]

I'd ask him something about the massive gaps in some industries that could be filled (lifeguarding etc.) or something relating to the threat that the UK faces of being a surveillance society. Sounds pretty aweshens that you get to go!

 

[Sulkdodds]

Right. I'm off. If you hear the labour party conference has been attacked by terrorists, I'm probably dead. In which case avenge me by invading Iran please.

 

[Raziaar]

Ask him the best way to counter the constant roman incursions into british territory








Damn Total War.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Well that was quite interesting.

Got our passes, told to put anything remotely dangerous in the care of our teacher. For some reason there was a nailclipper in my bag. Flipping out the nail file and holding the sharp end out like the blade a knife, I asked "does this count as dangerous?"

"Not really," said the black-clad officer, cradling his G36.

Inside and more free gifts than you can possibly imagine. A fold-out frisbee too, which my friend pulls out of its tiny packet and is somewhat surprised when it explodes outwards with a sharp 'whap'. Entertaining five minutes playing frisbee until we hit a politician and security tells us to stop.

I'm told that a friend found Blair, standing in a quiet corner, stroking his chin and staring into space with a strange, slack grin. At this point I was elsewhere, lost.

Once the conference began, I swear you could actually smell the bullshit; the only person who seemed sincere was the lesbian campaigning for gay marriage (who got a huge clap). Lots of talk of helping people, how the tories had ruined everything with privatisation. Bownstairs the corporations give away free gifts from stands, big pictures and diagrams showing their government-sponsored plans for making the country better. Nestle encourages me to take as many fruit pastilles as I want because they have like fifty boxes. I fill a plastic carrier bag for the entire class and get odd looks from bystanders.

At the end of the conference, the assembly votes unanimously for every motion passeed and a scary fat lady sings the Labour anthem. I wave my free flag in an ironic fashion and get on TV. After the song has ended it's all over and the speakers boom trance music. I tell you, you have not lived until you've seen politicians dancing badly. :E

I also got to shake the hand of John Reid. He's one slimy bastard.

 

[gick]

That sounds like fun.

If it were me, I would have taken all of those Nestle bastard's sweets, and then kicked up a serious fuss about this

As far as i'm concerned New Labour are a bunch of traitorous gits. They're just corporate whores nowadays

 

[Sulkdodds]

I was quite disgusted to be honest. The nestle guy actually said, "If we're not careful, you won't be able to get this kind of stuff in schools anymore." It's like they want an obesity crisis.

 

[Raziaar]

I was quite disgusted to be honest. The nestle guy actually said, "If we're not careful, you won't be able to get this kind of stuff in schools anymore." It's like they want and obesity crisis.

Bah. Nestle candy ROCKS. I love their chocolate.

Seriously, its stupid to try to ban everything that tastes great just because its not the healthiest thing in the world. Its up to people to eat responsibly.

If some people had their way, we'd have no soda, no chocolate, no candies of any kind, no pastries, no nothing. All because they want to force people to eat healthy, 100% of the time.

 

[jondy]

Bah. Nestle candy ROCKS. I love their chocolate.

Seriously, its stupid to try to ban everything that tastes great just because its not the healthiest thing in the world. Its up to people to eat responsibly.

If some people had their way, we'd have no soda, no chocolate, no candies of any kind, no pastries, no nothing. All because they want to force people to eat healthy, 100% of the time.

Do you honestly think a child has the judgement to 'eat responsibly'?

No-one's trying to steal your donuts, Raziaar, but a balanced diet is something that has to be learned.

 

[Raziaar]

Do you honestly think a child has the judgement to 'eat responsibly'?

No-one's trying to steal your donuts, Raziaar, but a balanced diet is something that has to be learned.

I agree, but where does banning chocolate from school have to do with that? As far as I know, there aren't any vending machines in grade schools, at least there never were in mine. THey're more of a thing reserved for high schools. And honestly, if somebody spends all day at the snack machine eating all the candy and gets fat, you cant seriously believe that they didn't have problems before that machine was there which caused them to do that.

The truely unhealthy things at schools are most of the school lunches.

 

[Kangy]

Bah. Nestle candy ROCKS. I love their chocolate.

Seriously, its stupid to try to ban everything that tastes great just because its not the healthiest thing in the world. Its up to people to eat responsibly.

If some people had their way, we'd have no soda, no chocolate, no candies of any kind, no pastries, no nothing. All because they want to force people to eat healthy, 100% of the time.

I don't think it's entirely responsible to be selling it in schools though. Kids are idiots, and will buy it regardless of what they know if good/bad for them. Also, my beef with Nestle is their treatment of Africa. The story of them giving free breast milk to mothers, and then making them pay once the mothers stop lactating is disgusting.

 

[jondy]

I agree, but where does banning chocolate from school have to do with that? As far as I know, there aren't any vending machines in grade schools, at least there never were in mine. THey're more of a thing reserved for high schools. And honestly, if somebody spends all day at the snack machine eating all the candy and gets fat, you cant seriously believe that they didn't have problems before that machine was there which caused them to do that.

I'm not denying they don't bear some responsibility, but surely you can see that it's better highschool kids don't eat shit in schools, and the benefits aren't just dietary, either; aspartame and saccharin as well as caffiene are known to affect concentration, disregarding the usual problems with the simple (sometimes isotonic) sugars available inschool. As a teacher, I'd know what I'd want.

The truely unhealthy things at schools are most of the school lunches.

Thanks to Jamie O. and his stupid haircut, we've got legislation coming up that will force healthier options to be used, as well as opening up bigger budgets for school meals in general The problem now is lunchboxes, but that call falls squarely into the parent's hands

 

[Sulkdodds]

They can go out and buy sweets on their lunchbreak. Damn kids.

On another note, you know that guy who shouted "nonsense!" They publicly apologised to him. And I just thought "Hang on a sec. It's too late for that, really. You've already manhandled a frail man of eighty out of your auditorium when he shouted 'rubbish' or whatever - and with anything you say about the Iraq war he's entirely justified in doing so. Then you turned, like a playground bully, on the person who tried to defend him. Yeah, apologise, that makes it so much less reprehensible."

 

[gick]

They can go out and buy sweets on their lunchbreak. Damn kids.

On another note, you know that guy who shouted "nonsense!" They publicly apologised to him. And I just thought "Hang on a sec. It's too late for that, really. You've already manhandled a frail man of eighty out of your auditorium when he shouted 'rubbish' or whatever - and with anything you say about the Iraq war he's entirely justified in doing so. Then you turned, like a playground bully, on the person who tried to defend him. Yeah, apologise, that makes it so much less reprehensible."

That whole incident really really pissed me off. Its almost Orwellian.

 

[Laivasse]

That whole incident really really pissed me off. Its almost Orwellian.

Especially when you consider he was taken into custody under the new anti-terror legislation upon trying to reenter the venue :|

Cheers for the account of events, sulks, the bit about Blair standing in a corner grinning was a laugh.

John Reid really is a slimy bastard.

 

[kirovman]

Bah, terrorist is the label people seem to apply when they want to discredit everything about a person. "His opinion cannot be valid! He's a terrorist/communist/witch!"

It's depressing that we haven't progressed all that much from witchhunt mentality. Especially when that old man blatently was incapable and undesiring of terrorism. An advocate of democracy more than anything I would say.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Oh yes. The weirdest thing was how they all said 'comrade' all the time.

 

[kirovman]

Oh yes. The weirdest thing was how they all said 'comrade' all the time.

How come?

Like: "Comrades! We will pave the way for 21st century of Labour domination! Purge any opposition! Scorched Earth!"