Pot calls kettle black. Or...

BillieTheBot

When John Major speaks, Andew Marr listens. And today is no exception. He appeared today on the Andrew Marr show, sadly lacking in Santa hats. Anyway, the Beeb reports;
"Former Prime Minister Sir John Major has accused Labour of presiding over 'systemic sleaze' during its 10 years in government. Sir John said the government had become 'institutionally careless', citing as examples the Bernie Ecclestone affair and the David Abrahams funding row. He said Tories had misbehaved when he was PM as individuals not members of government. Labour accused Sir John of 'backward-looking mud-slinging'." Click here for more.

With it currently being Christmas, I'm going to be nice, in the Christmas spirit and all that. So, I am inclined to agree that unfortunately, this government is sleazy. But I can't help but think that, with all due respect, John Major is hardly the best person to point this out. And I'm not entirely convinced by his defence that members of his government were behaving as individuals.

Mind you, Labour can't really complain too loudly about sex scandals in the Major years, given what the Mail on Sunday printed today. Lord West (the man who miraculously changed his mind on the 28-day detention limit within less than 90 minutes) seems to have been bonking some blonde or other, despite being married these last 34 years. Click here for more. "Person linked to politicians has affair" is hardly a ground-breaking headline, granted, but nonetheless...

Am I the only one who thinks they're as bad as each other?

Former Member

Never met an "honourable" politicians myself... but the difference betwen this sex scandal and the Major years is the lack of a "Back to Basics" campaign...

Former Member

I watched this (only because I turned over and saw Rory Bremner), and I agree that he did come across as a bit hypocritical. I'm not exactly familiar with the whole record of the Major regime, but he did seem to basically be saying that the sleaze in the Tory government was a few individual incidents, and the Labour sleaze was institutional, without really explaining how they were any different. Seemed like usual biased bollocks to me. One rule for one, and all that.

Former Member

I imagine Major has been rubbing his hands with glee these days. He's been waiting a decade for his revenge so you can't really blame him.

Mind you if the Labour Party are going to ape the actions of the Tories in so many other ways, they should expect the same criticisms they were happy to hand out in opposition.

Former Member

I'm With Stupid wrote: »

I'm not exactly familiar with the whole record of the Major regime, but he did seem to basically be saying that the sleaze in the Tory government was a few individual incidents, and the Labour sleaze was institutional, without really explaining how they were any different.

He was saying that while individual Tory MPs like Aitken, Hamilton etc behaved badly as INDIVIDUALS, the Labour government seems to have sleaze throughout its actual administration.

Labour promised "whiter than white, purer than pure" politics but they have fallen short of this miserably.

Major is more concerned with INSTITUTIONAL careless (e.g. the funding rows which go back to the Ecclestone affair) which is understandable because the government seems more interested in retaining power than actually governing.

Former Member

The added irony being his own sexual shenanigans during the "back to basic" campaign...