Michael Howard! what on earth can the Tories be thinking!?

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Can it get any worse?

simon Hoggart on the Howard press campaign

"I had doubts about this chap, but seeing all those strange people with bulging eyes laughing at his jokes, I've changed my mind" hehe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1074587,00.html

― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 31 October 2003 19:19 (twenty-two years ago)

it just makes me think of...

"did you threaten to overrule him"

"i didn't overrule him"

"i didn't ask you that - i askedif you threatened to overrule him"

"i didn't overrule him"

"did you THREATEN to overrule him"

TIMES 17!

― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 31 October 2003 19:24 (twenty-two years ago)

i wish congress was as fun as parliament is.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 31 October 2003 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I think this whole affair proves that the Tories want to go out with a bang rather than a whimper. Roll on a Lib Dem opposition.

The Guardian had a profile on him today stressing his jewishness, saying he was the first jewish party leader, (except for Disraeli). Which is kind of a big except for.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 31 October 2003 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)

heh - it is a big except for indeed! whats that all about?

― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 31 October 2003 19:54 (twenty-two years ago)

i think disraeli converted, maybe that's what it's about?

(has anyone in the history of newspaper history ever tht s.hoggart wz remotely funny or insightful?)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 31 October 2003 20:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I find him funny.

Just because you stop being a jew in the religious sense, doesn't mean you stop being jewish.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 31 October 2003 20:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was Disraeli's father who converted the family.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 31 October 2003 20:19 (twenty-two years ago)

i thought his column today was a hoot actually.

― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 31 October 2003 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

it's just a bunch of lame cliches invariably made up by other people

still at least when he's being "funny" he isn't foisting his opinions abt politics or culture on us

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 31 October 2003 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

i think thats probably his job.

― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 31 October 2003 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Paul Merton has just come out in favour of Boris Johnson, which sounds entertaining to me.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 31 October 2003 21:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Simon Hoggart's political column in the Guardian is NOWHERE near as bad as his TV review col in the Spectator! And his brother writes an equally shitty TV review col in the Times! Bah!

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Friday, 31 October 2003 22:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I shared the small House of Parliament office with him for a few weeks. He's something of a miserable-git-in-real-life-comic-genius-type. I think he's pretty funny, actually.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Friday, 31 October 2003 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Michael Howard or Simon Hoggart?

― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 31 October 2003 22:35 (twenty-two years ago)

is paul hoggart his brother or his son?

i like to imagine there is a solid family lineage of uselessness cascading down the generations!!

(this is a wee bit hard on richard "uses of literacy/invented coronation street by mistake" hoggart) (but for goodness sake get a grip you hoggarts)

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 1 November 2003 01:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark, unless Paul Hoggart has the same disease as Robin Williams in 'Jack', he and Simon are def. bruvvers.

Has anyone ever read anything by Richard Hoggart other than 'Uses of Literacy'?

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Saturday, 1 November 2003 07:19 (twenty-two years ago)

That 'did you threaten to overrule him' interview with Paxman in full:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/video/newsnight/howard.ram

― stevo (stevo), Saturday, 1 November 2003 09:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I have had the dubious pleasure of reading paul hoggart's TV column.

when my dad told me that Michael howard might become leader I laughed very hard.

''Roll on a Lib Dem opposition''

But the countryside will always give their votes to the tories won't they? besides, lib dems don't convince as effective opposition.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 1 November 2003 09:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, I have read more Dick Hoggart. He is well-meaning and venerable, and I don't knock him. Mark S is right to want not to be hard on him.

The other Hoggarts are a completely different matter.

Paul Hoggart in the Times is a waste of ink, space, abundant flesh, etc.

Simon Hoggart is a more... complex case. He is bad in different ways. His Sketches can be funny enough (Sketches ought to be), but his endlessly opinionated diary / week pieces are invariably abominable, and usually reactionary. Someone should have put a bomb under them years ago.

A big part of SH's crapness is re. his Desire To Offend Guardian Liberals: oooh. He thinks that all kinds of dullardry are outrageous in this particular context, rather than the dullardry they are.

His position on Ulster (= The People Want Victory, Not Peace) is the one interesting contribution I have heard from him. It is part of the same desire-to-shock problem, but has some conviction and point.

I think that Howard will scare many people, and reduce Labour's majority to, say, 70 or 80 at the next election.

― the pinefox, Saturday, 1 November 2003 11:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Same post diff thread:

'Howard is past it, Howard is just a stop-gap while they find the long-term man, Howard is an irrelevant old fart from a bygone era, Howard is too closely associated with too many past prize cock-ups, Howard hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of ever becoming PM.

'From Australia, beware: they were saying the same things about our Howard in 1995.'

(orig posted on the Pertillo thread)

― Fred Nerk (Fred Nerk), Saturday, 1 November 2003 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that Howard will scare many people, and reduce Labour's majority to, say, 70 or 80 at the next election.

If this happens, it will be down to Blair's actions and rather than those of any of his rivals.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 2 November 2003 19:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Incidentally, Howard has a tiny majority in his own constituency - Folkestone and Hythe - what are the chances of either the Labour or LibDem candidate stepping aside at the next election in order to remove him?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 2 November 2003 20:00 (twenty-two years ago)

We need to organise that, Matt.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 2 November 2003 20:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Mom and I were talking about this today. If Howard lost his seat does it mean his leadership is automatically nixed? (I think the answer is a very obvious yes, but I'm not sure this has happened before?)

― ChrissieH (chrissie1068), Sunday, 2 November 2003 20:05 (twenty-two years ago)

i seem to recall portillo couldn't run against hague cz he lost his seat to stephen twigg in 1997

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 2 November 2003 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

but i don't think anyone has ever been forced to step down as leader for losing their seat in the meanwhile

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 2 November 2003 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)

They'd do what happened with Patrick Gordon-Walker (I think) in 1964; he was shadow Foreign Secretary but lost in the election; they got an old-stager Labour MP in a sfae seat to resign and PGW fought the by-election (infamous Stepney by-election I think). I could be very wrong with all of this.

If Howard lost, they do that though - but he couldn't meet the Queen to accept an invite to form a Government, so there would be a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS which would mean Norman St-John Stevas and Vernon Bagdanor would be the telly a dead lot.

― Dave B (daveb), Sunday, 2 November 2003 20:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Now, now, it's Lord St John of Fawsley, as you well know. He gets very upset when you call him Norman.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Sunday, 2 November 2003 22:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Fawsley is one consonant* from being too OTM.

I'll have an n please, Carol

― Dave B (daveb), Sunday, 2 November 2003 22:59 (twenty-two years ago)

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