Seven Days Show with Iain Dale now online

The latest Seven Days Show podcast (episode 14) is now online.

In this weeks show we discussed further Brown bullying allegations; equality in the Labour party, and in particular how All Women Shortlists don’t apply to everyone; Spring Conference; Likely Election Dates; and finally Nigel Farage and his supposed insults to the Belgians.

To listen to the podcast click the play button above.

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Can Brown call an early election?

With all the rumours as to when the election may be, it’s been put about that Tory bloggers have made up this myth of Brown and dithering. Hmmmm 10p tax rate introduced then removed. Election to be called during 2007 Tory Conference and then not called. No examples of dithering.

It was put to me by one journalist that Brown can’t call the election because he is front of the Chilcot inquiry next week. Someone may want to correct me – but surely an inquiry cannot remove the power of the PM to be able to call the election at a time of their choosing? It was then put to me that why would Brown want to annoy Chilcot? Well he seems to have annoyed everyone else would have been my initial response…. BUT, maybe he is thinking an early election avoids new quarterly growth figures which could show a return to recession, avoids tax rises hitting people’s pay packets before an election, and gives him the best chance at victory.

So if its a choice of delaying Chilcot and annoying him, or tax rises and back into recession and annoying the country you can see why talk of an early election is credible.

General Election called

Sorry – just wishful thinking.

Perhaps someone gets some perverse pleasure allowing rumours that they are going to call an election to gain credibility only to bottle taking the decision at the last minute. I can’t think who it was during the Tory party conference in 2007 let everyone think they were about to go to the country (and looking back would probably have won the vote) only to choose not to fire the starting gun.

Labour is totally out of ideas and is swiftly running out of time – so come on Gordon…. call the election.

Should you be discriminatory in the name of equality?

I listened to BBC Question Time and had to double take when they suggested they would have an all women audience. How very very bizarre. Surely it would be more interesting to have an all women panel but no – apparently there will be men on the panel.

Is it legal to have an audience which excludes 50 percent of the population? I mean there has been a fuss about male only clubs (though god knows why anyone would want to join) yet the BBC want to use taxpayers money on a show that men can’t be in the audience for.

You see for me, no matter what has happened in the past you do not achieve equality by discriminating against a group that perhaps had the “upper hand”. We know for years men were the favoured sex. For salaries for voting – my god for everything. But do you achieve equality by being discriminative against them – even if it for just one night? There is no such thing as positive discrimination. Its just discrimination.

For me it is a principle. That’s why I do not support all women shortlists. I joined the party in 1990 as a kid because I believed in meritocracy. You can achieve whatever you want, no matter what you look like, what sex you are or indeed where you came from. I still believe that – which is why I find any move that is supposedly done in the name of equality that is clearly discriminatory, is just plain wrong.

The pounds is now so weak….

That on one car manufacturers website it states,

“Due to the current weakness of the Pound against the Japanese Yen it has not been possible to order cars from our factory. As a result, some models are now in very short supply.”

How embarassing! Though I suppose it will help the balance of trade. Though does that matter when you are £850 billion in debt?

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Latest PMQs podcast now online

Did Brown and Darling kiss and make up. Did David Cameron stick the proverbial boot in? If you missed the latest Prime Ministers Questions click the play button above to listen to all the action from the Commons!

Is this election a battle between the Conservatives and the Unions?

For all their moaning about Lord Ashcroft – Labour happily gloss over who their paymasters are, namely the Union. And just how much money has Unite coughed up for the cause?

Last year Unite gave the Labour party £3.6 million. How very nice of them.

And now we learn that an event due to be held in Parliament has been cancelled due to a complaint made by Eric Pickles about a Parliamentary Room being used for party campaigning purposed.

Apparently invitations to Unite members made clear that the purpose of the event was to campaign for Labour in the General Election:

‘Unite is campaigning for a Labour win in the parliamentary and local government elections later this year.  Our members are convinced this is the right thing to do and are inviting you to play a part in our campaign… To get things moving on the campaign, we are inviting you to a reception at the House of Commons.’

‘Your MPs and Counsellors [sic] will be there, as well as senior union representatives.  More importantly, other members will be there from Unite and the unions we are campaigning with.’

With all that money sloshing around you really would think Unite could afford a room, even if the Labour party, given the state of their finances, can’t.

Latest from the political betting market from Ladbrokes

Matthew Shaddick from Ladbrokes has recorded an exclusive podcast on the latest from the political betting market.

Will they be more accurate than the pollsters?

They have individual odds for each of the the 632 GB seats. So far, from that market they have come up with an expected seat total for each party which, at time of writing gets is:

Cons 333
Lab 219
LD 62
Others 36

Tory majority 16.

To listen to the full podcast click the play button above.

Gordon Brown 'unleashed forces of hell on me'…Who said that???

No it isn’t a former employee. No it isn’t a Conservative politician, but apparently its the current Chancellor of the Exchequer.

So to recap. When Brown has Chancellor relations with the Treasury and Number 10 were awful. When Brown is PM relations with the Treasury and the Chancellor are awful.

Remind me what the common denominator in all this is. Sorry I forgot.. he is just an impatient man keen to get things done. Yeah, more like something rotten at the heart of Government I think!