The three stooges enter talent show tonight!

Tonight is the start of the auditions in reality TV show, it's tragic enough; to see the three of them standing there in their stupid red, blue and yellow ties!! We will feel like we're at a traffic light for the 90 minutes of this talent show and might end up wearing sunglasses.

The tie thing is a sartorial acknowledgement that, to most people, Brown, Cameron and Clegg are merely The Three Stooges, nothing left to chance and at least the stooges were very different men

Today sees this first public debate by indistinguishable suits and if it weren't for the differently coloured ties we will hardly know who pinched which manifesto.

Prepare for some boring stuff and if yoiu get bored simply try playing spot the most honest statement from the debate podium.

Yes we do all the Americans do and in this case we have waited 50 years for U.S style Presidential politics that arrive in Britain tonight as the three main party leaders put their personalities on the line for a television debate watched by millions of voters.

Do I really need to see this talent competition as this live debate takes place after hours of dress rehearsals that will continue up to the kick-off today, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will take audition for a role of P.M. as we get into General Election spin and into the same realms as X-Factor or even The Apprentice

Hours of preparation with body language for all as a concern and Cameron has hired Anita Dunn, Barack Obama's ex-body language coach and I do hope she trains Mr Cameron not to waive his hands in that false Blair sincerity

Perhaps we should ask for a panel of judges including Simon Cowell and Sir Alan Sugar

“

"If your lifeguard duties were as good as your ............., a lot of people would be drowning."
Simon Cowell British Entertainer

"You're Fired"
Sir Alan Sugar The pantomime villain from the Apprentice TV show

Amazing our most closely fought campaign for a generation goes into uncharted waters and looks more like Andrew Lloyd Webber's talent search for Dorothy and Toto in The Wizard Of Oz.

Aides spent last night, and will continue much of today, preparing and trying to relax their candidates for the primetime showdown in Manchester in which a slip or a smart soundbite could prove decisive.

Polls suggest that 20 million voters will tune in to ITV, putting the debate on a par with an England football international or an X Factor final. David Cameron will take the centre podium, Gordon Brown will stand to his left — at the Prime Minister’s request because of his impaired eyesight — and Nick Clegg to his right.

Perhaps we need some new judges or even very old panel members to make sense of all this

"Most political leaders acquire their position by causing large numbers of people to believe that these leaders are actuated by altruistic desires"
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS , was a philosopher , historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, and pacifist

What about the contestants?

Gordon Brown seems to struggle giving answers and will be no doubt seen wandering off into a maze of statistics. Brown of course is fighting to avoid getting his P45 and being told to clear his desk. I wonder how he will deal with being interrupted or cut short?

David Cameron is prone to being riled so has backed out of an interview (Gordon also keeping his distance from Paxo) with Jeremy Paxman for Panorama next Monday and although many will criticise this I see is it making him an unusually normal human being for a politician! How will he deal with being provoked after being described as a a posh person pretending not to be posh or is really that 'diamond geezer'?


Nick Clegg speaks withdouble fantasy involved - first of all that he will become our Prime Minister later this year under the first Liberal Government since Lloyd George around 90 years ago. And secondly that today's deabte means that a Clegg Government would have any credible basis for balancing the budget.

We could call the THE C FACTOR or The Chutzpah Factor

Maybe everyone will call Clegg "Vince Cable". Maybe someone will call Brown "Blair". Maybe someone will call Cameron "Blair". Maybe Brown will call Cameron "posh toff". Maybe he'll just punch him and perhaps Cameron will punch him back!.

Will any of them will answer a question

Can they tell the truth

How will they stop us borrowing over £400 million a day and start paying off the debt instead.

What do they actually trully believe.

If they simply went through the above it would be well worth listening to.

I'll end up watching the debate is so that I can go online and post sarcy cynical postings here afterwards.

Jokers to the right?

Conservatives:

Philosophy:

"This is a Conservative vision for our future, and it is based on Conservative values. We believe that it is our responsibility to create a clean and healthy environment to pass on to our children. That is why we have put green issues back at the heart of our politics and that is why they will be at the heart of our government.

"Instead of using rules and regulations to impose a centralised worldview, we will go with the grain of human nature, creating new incentives and market signals which reward people for doing the right thing. Instead of pulling bureaucratic levers from above telling people what they can't do, we will provide people with the information they need to make more responsible choices. Instead of holding businesses back by imposing unfair retrospective stealth taxes, we will unleash the power of green enterprise and promote resource efficiency to generate thousands of green jobs. This is how we will live up to our responsibility to be the greenest government in our history."

Politics:

The Conservative manifesto returns Labour's criticism that it is only focused on green rhetoric, accusing the previous government of "stark" failures in its attempts to tackle climate change.

It highlights the UK's poor performance in Europe's renewable energy league table and the fact that it has taken a recession to deliver deep cuts in carbon emissions.

It also argues that "a succession of eleven energy Ministers and eight Secretaries of State with responsibility for energy has left our policy muddled and put our energy security at risk".

Finally, the Conservatives attempt to draw some dividing lines of their own by committing to blocking the proposed expansion of Heathrow and making a pledge to raise green taxes as a proportion of overall Treasury revenue.

Despite the ideological commitment to incentives and individual responsibility there are also a sizable number of policy proposals that would require government intervention to drive low co2

Policies:

• Support existing targets for renewable energy and emission reduction, and sign central government up to 10:10 campaign.
• Increase the proportion of tax revenue accounted for by environmental taxes, while ensuring that any additional revenue from new green taxes are used to reduce the burden of tax elsewhere.
• Introduce an Emissions Performance Standard to limit the levels of greenhouse gases from power stations, potentially banning unabated coal plants.
• Support roll out of new nuclear plants – provided they receive no public
  subsidy.
• Create four carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.
• Deliver an offshore electricity grid to support offshore wind farms and create at least two dedicated Marine Energy Parks.
• Launch a green infrastructure bank and green saving scheme
• Give local authorities the power to establish new district heating networks which use biogas and other low carbon fuels;
• Allow communities that host renewable energy projects like wind farms to keep the additional business rates they generate for six years.
• Block proposed third runway at Heathrow and build new high speed rail link from the airport to London and the Midlands.
• Reform Air Passenger Duty to better incentivise operators to run fuller planes.
• Launch "Green Deal" scheme, offering every home up to £6,500 worth of energy efficiency measures that will be paid back through energy bills with savings
• Improve energy efficiency of appliances by adopting scheme similar to Japan's "top runner" initiative, which bans the least efficient devices.
• Retain Energy Performance Certificates to help people improve the environmental rating of their property.
• Ensure labelling of GM foods and block any commercial planting of GM crops until and unless it has been assessed as safe for people and the environment.
• Support reform of Common Agricultural Policy
• Introduce a voluntary Responsibility Deal with producers of waste urging them to cut back on waste levels, and roll out incentive schemes to encourage this to happen.
• Ditch pay as you throw proposals, but put a floor under the standard rate of
  landfill tax until 2020 to encourage alternative forms of waste disposal.
• Work internationally for strong and binding climate change agreement.

Are Cadbury staff whingers?

Once upon a time Great Britain was a truly industrial nation. Producing British brands to sell around the world.

But a new focus on cutting-edge technology and services that all went east like our manufacturing, means traditional, solid and profitable companies have been exposed to foreign takeovers.

Cadbury is another in a long line. Remember Pilkington, ICI, Corus, Rover? All have flown the nest in the last decade and a half.

This selling off seems to be one-way traffic; you rarely hear of a British giant devouring a poor helpless firm founded in the US.

Bill Wiggin MP, who farms near Leominster (home to a Cadbury depot) and Old Etonian along with pal David Cameron, said staff "should stop moaning about the Kraft takeover" which could lead to huge redundancies.

The ex-banker, who also has a Cadbury's factory in his constituency, said they should just knuckle down and get on with it if they wanted to stay employed.

The MP said he had heard workers complaining about the US firm's takeover. Wiggin said "I worry that by sending out such negative signals it puts people's jobs more at risk.

Had Mr Wiggin worked for Cadbury and put forward the same forged £11,500 expense claim he would probably be more concerned as his position would be at the most risk.... if he wasn't saked already!!

Cameron: I want Britain to be the place for business & entrepreneurship

David Cameron has announced that a Conservative government, should his party win the forthcoming election later this year, will be pro-business and pro-entrepreneurs.
Speaking, this morning on the Andrew Marr show on BBC1, he outlined a number of plans to ensure that British business overcomes the current global recession and ensures that it becomes one of the best places to start, run and grow, a business in the world.

He also said that while he thought the government's planned 0.5% National Insurance rise from 2011 was the wrong approach - he could not say he would "get rid" of it "until we can find a way of paying for it", however he did reconfirm that this party would announce an emergency budget within 5o days of taking over power.