Today's great statesmen/women

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  • GreatGodPanGreatGodPan Posts: 53,186
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    What's Michael Foot to do with it? Anyway the person who got the ox that was eighties Labour out of the ditch was Kinnock. It's strange that he somehow doesn't get any plaudits and isn't seen as an elder statesman whilst the old bloke with a pipe is seen as someone with 'principles'. I tend to think that the reason so many Tories go on about Benn and his principles but will still take the piss out of Kinnock says something about both of these individuals and what they achieved. Far better to praise the person who nearly broke Labour than the poor sod who had the tortuous slog of putting it back together again but ultimately succeeded.

    Kinnock didn't "put it back together again" - he began the change, continued by Smith and accelerated by Blair that turned it into another wing of the Conservative Party.
  • twogunthomtwogunthom Posts: 2,185
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    Norman Tebitts spitting image puppet was awesome.
  • DinkyDoobieDinkyDoobie Posts: 17,786
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    None of them really. Take last night on question time and the subject of immigration turned up you would have expected the ukip guy to tear into anyone who even mentioned that report from CReAM but the most blatant figure they could retort with never gets mentioned.

    They rely on other people to read this stuff and give them press releases with prepackaged soundbites and statistics.
  • northantsgirlnorthantsgirl Posts: 4,663
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    Kinnock didn't "put it back together again" - he began the change, continued by Smith and accelerated by Blair that turned it into another wing of the Conservative Party.

    He saw off the SDP, who ended up having to merge with the Liberals, and made Labour competitive again.
  • Thomas007Thomas007 Posts: 14,309
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    Considering he's going to go down as one of the greatest presidents of all time (top 5 probably) I'm surprised Obama hasn't been mentioned more. His speech making ability will surely put him there, he'll possibly even eclipse FDR.
  • GreatGodPanGreatGodPan Posts: 53,186
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    He saw off the SDP, who ended up having to merge with the Liberals, and made Labour competitive again.

    You're changing tack.

    You referred derogatively to Benn as the person who "nearly broke" Labour, with Kinnock putting it back together - now you're implying in reality meant the SDP.

    What do you mean?
  • northantsgirlnorthantsgirl Posts: 4,663
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    I'm not changing tack, unless to you you believe that the Bennites grip on the Labour Party and the success of the SDP are entirely unrelated.
    Kinnock and those who didn't cross into Bennite fantasy land saved the Labour Party. Its just a shame that a premature death in the early nineties then led to it effectively being lost again, this time from the opposite angle.
  • GreatGodPanGreatGodPan Posts: 53,186
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    I'm not changing tack, unless to you you believe that the Bennites grip on the Labour Party and the success of the SDP are entirely unrelated.
    Kinnock and those who didn't cross into Bennite fantasy land saved the Labour Party. Its just a shame that a premature death in the early nineties then led to it effectively being lost again, this time from the opposite angle.

    Ah, you're a conservative (with a small "c").

    Now I understand, thanks.
  • FMKKFMKK Posts: 32,074
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    On the statesman question, I find that almost all of our political parties are filled with passionless office manager types - they talk in bullshit jargon and crappy buzz phrases and there is no sense of an engaging personality or individual ideas and principals. Of course, where there is little to no ideological difference between our main political parties, it is hard to expect much else.

    Obama can portray himself well as a statesman. He can makes speeches with gravitas, engage with an audience and has an air of credibility internationally. Unfortunately, this cannot make up for the major crimes his nation continues to commit or the failed promise of his 2008 platform of change and reform.

    EDIT: Benn is a good shout as a man of principal. What other British politician would do this?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E21MdXe3BOQ
  • redtuxredtux Posts: 1,241
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    spiney2 wrote: »
    folks seem to be confusing wedgie benn with militant (formerly socialist workers party including vanessa redgrave).

    i nominate vlad putin. for sheer bravura and being a gay pinup in a country where that is illegal ......

    Perlease! - get your facts straight. Militant has noting to do with the SWP. What was militant is now the list Party of Endland and Wales. And neither was ever associated with Vannessa Redgrave that was the miniscule WRP
  • PrinceOfDenmarkPrinceOfDenmark Posts: 2,761
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    Baroness Warsi
  • johnny_boi_UKjohnny_boi_UK Posts: 3,761
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    Thomas007 wrote: »
    Considering he's going to go down as one of the greatest presidents of all time (top 5 probably) I'm surprised Obama hasn't been mentioned more. His speech making ability will surely put him there, he'll possibly even eclipse FDR.

    hes all fart and no shit. i do not think history will be to kind on him.

    Merkel is one of the few people i can actually think of.
  • TyrTyr Posts: 625
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    Thomas007 wrote: »
    Considering he's going to go down as one of the greatest presidents of all time (top 5 probably) I'm surprised Obama hasn't been mentioned more. His speech making ability will surely put him there, he'll possibly even eclipse FDR.

    Only in the warped little minds of Obama cultists. He is really nothing special at all.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,845
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    Those in power or retired?

    Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of Germany and uber-EMU enthusiast is still alive.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 22,736
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    There is quite a bit a space between the Blairites and the Bennites in which the Labour Party can sit yet provide a distinctive offer.

    I cannot and never will be able to fathom why Benn is held in such high esteem. If he had died about 1976 then he would have been talked about in reverential tones- as it was he didn't and bcame the Grade A shit he was in the eighties and one of those responsible for lumbering us with all this Blairite nonsense thereafter.

    I love Benn, aside from agreeing with a lot of his politics I find him a great statesmen because he bloody well careS.

    At nearly 90, he is still campaigning, going to do speeches, defending his principles. He was seemingly not in it for self fulfilment like most we see today but because he actually felt strongly about what he saw as injustices.

    I wonder if Mr. Cameron and Mr. Milliband and Mr. Farage will still be defending their beliefs and campaigning into their late 80's early 90's.
  • northantsgirlnorthantsgirl Posts: 4,663
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    Obama is distinctly average.

    Merkel is purely a transactional politician (and not in any way a transformational one) and that makes her ineligible to be considered a statesman in my book. She wants to save the euro from a German perspective not a european one and doesn't seem to care that she has, for example, broken Greece society in doing so.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 39
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    I am reminded of what Lord John Dalberg Acton, wrote at he end of the 19th Century.

    "All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority."

    The more you read about all these politicians and religious leaders the more his words seem accurate.
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