Geoff Hoon Resigned as transport secetary

[F Great Eastern]

Just on SKy news.

 

[221_108]

Lord Adonis is to replace Geoff Hoon according to the BBC.

 

[First ScotRail]

Confirmed on Sky News.

 

[anthony263]

Ow no. I wonder who is going to take over?

maybe mr adonis should be promoted lol

i am glad alistar darling decided to stay as the chacellor

 

[Mintona]

This government has well and truly had it now.

 

[anthony263]

Bets on that a general election is around the corner.

i hope that if the conservatives get into government that they keep mr adonis since he seems to be doing a good job

 

[221_108]

Hoon, Hutton, McNualty, Beckett, Purnell, Smith, Blears and Huges all gone I'm suprised he managed to put a cabinet together!

So will Lord Adonis continue to a good job?

Or will we be going back to the poor management and lack of progress we had under Ruth Kelly?

 

[me123]

We need an election now. The Conservatives have to be better than the current lot even if I theoretically don't agree with their views. Even Scotland are going to vote against Labour! (although naturally it'll be SNP not the Tories!).

This could well be another Margaret Thatcher style exit (although probably without the tears). Undoubtedly another government that went on for too long and will have repercussions for decades to come.

 

[mathmo]

I agree with the people saying a general election will have to happen soon(ish). But I think Lord Adonis might actually do a decent job as Transport Secretary - his trip around the country showed he cares. Maybe he'll make DfT less daft ... maybe I'm being too optimistic!

 

[veoliaboy]

Just heard this on the news now that i have come out of the shower. I had a feeling hoon would step down because of the expensis row.

Just hope Gorden Brown has enough sense to call a general election

 

[djw1981]

Define soonish, there has to be an election within 12 months. |Anything else requires a majority vote in Parliament, or the PM accepting he is not perfect. Both are unlikely.

Interesting how it seems that Gordon Brown turns out to be a bit of a woman hater.

 

[me123]

Interesting how it seems that Gordon Brown turns out to be a bit of a woman hater.

That does seem to be what the media are portraying. I naturally distrust the media.

I wholly expect Conservative control (although possibly a minority government?) at the next election. And that could well be enough to trigger Scottish Independence. Indeed, SNP are expected to thrash Labour in Scotland if an election was held tomorrow and are already in power in Scotland (albeit in a minority government). The recent council by-election in my ward saw Labour beat SNP by a tiny 55 vote majority after all transfers; considering I'm in the one of the biggest Labour towns in the UK, that's astonishing.

 

[merlodlliw]

Has for the Welsh bit, now Brown as bought Haine back, who was removed
previous due to allegations of fingers in the till when he stood for deputy
to Brown, putting Haine back is the best the tories could have hoped for.

I recall this South African when he was a Liberal,the scandel of
Thorpe made him jump the liberal ship, of course they will cling
on to power for another year for their pensions and pay, what a shambles.
At least Murphy the out going Sec Of State for Wales had the balls to
get out.

 

[SouthEastern-465]

in the end there will be no-one left even gordon brown will loose or resign in the end,so lets begin the countdown till he looses his job or resigns,starting from now!

and the labour party,torys party, BNP party,etc... they say they'll do stuff for us when were voting but when there party wins they never do it so most of them are liers or either take money from the taxpayer cleaning there toilet or somthing.
i personally dont trust none of them there all full of crap,lie,take our money,resign costing more money to hire someone else,etc... just shoot them all!

 

[scandal]

We need an election now. The Conservatives have to be better than the current lot even if I theoretically don't agree with their views. Even Scotland are going to vote against Labour! (although naturally it'll be SNP not the Tories!).

We've just had an election in which there was a very low turnout as the majority of people are so disgusted by MP's expenses.

Do you honestly believe that we actually need an election now? People seem to say "yea because gordon brown wasnt elected", do people not remember 1990? Magaret Thatcher was voted in during 1987 and was kicked out in 1990 to be replaced by John Major. Despite a NEW leader of the party we were not given an election until the Conservatives had to to go to the polls at the end of a 5 year term in 1992.

The only reason the Conservatives particularly want an election (and subsequently are on every TV station asking for it) is because they are ahead in the polls, I'm certain during 1996 Tony Blair was doing the same after poor local election results for John Majors government too. I think presenty it would be an unfair election at the moment, we would get a low turnout as many (particularly core labour voters) are wanting to stay at home as they are disappointed in the current scandal. What is needed is party consesus amongst them all to reform politics and the way it works for us. This needs to be clearly defind as well as party policies before we can even consider a general election.

 

[djw1981]

You have to remember that even if the Scottish Parliament has an independence referendum in 2010 it carries no weight unless the UK Parliament endorse it.

The interesting one will be in a hung parliament at westminster - will LibDems support either party? Minority administration at Westminster is hard going, and full of deals (look at 1974, 1978-9, 1996-7 etc. Do people want a 'deal making' consensus government or do we really quite like the us v them politics?

 

[me123]

We need a General Election; one of the few things I'll support David Cameron on. Gordon Brown is hopeless at the moment. The country's in a shambles. We're struggling to get a cabinet. There should be a better turnout for a General Election when people can theoretically elect a whole new House of Commons, and by the time an election were to be held that should improve the turnout anyway. I'm not saying this, as you suggest, simply because Brown wasn't elected. It's because he's one of the worst PMs to ever serve.

Of course, a Conservative Government in Westminster will push most Scots over the edge and there would be an independence result in the polls I would imagine. Last time I heard, Scottish Labour (not Gordon Brown's side, though) actually supported the referendum (although they were convinced it would fail; I bet they've changed their mind). Getting it through Westminster would be tough, but most Scottish MPs will be replaced by SNP politicians (in all probability), Plaid Cymru would naturally support it as would a lot of Irish politicians (it could support their cause). Any Green MPs would also favour it (they like the idea of Scotland's Renewable Energy potential). The pressure would I imagine be there from Scotland, England want rid of us apparently (again, a majority consensus not held by all!).

With a positive referendum result, a strong Nationalist support in Wesminster (likely by 2010), I can see a deal being struck. Bearing in mind that the Tories would benefit from the loss of Scotland (although they officially oppose it).

 

[Mojo]

Indeed, any Conservative government might want to get shot of Scotland purely as a way of removing troublesome Labour & Lib Dem MPs.

 

[Metroland]

I doubt it, their full name is the 'Conservative and unionist party'.

 

[Mojo]

Who could say? There are many elements in the Conservative party that disagree with the current situation. You should come to some of our meetings!

 

[me123]

Unionist would be a good representation of Annabelle Goldie's aims for certain. But the Tories do hate Scotland. Thatcher hit us worst (Glasgow's shipyards still haunt us to this day) so we'll never vote Tories in Westminster anyway, and Conservative lead would push a lot of people over the edge RE: independence.

Cameron also said once that he wanted the devolved status to be abolished, saying that he wanted to rule the whole of the UK (Or words to that extent). Howveer, he later said he would support devolution but not allow it to go any further.

That said, if he were in a minority government (very possible) and getting rid of the predicted 57 SNP MPs and 2 Labour MPs would give him majority, it would get rid of that little pest up North and ensure he gets all his policies through without opposition.

Bear in mind that there will be a huge SNP presence in Westminster come 2010 and probably a lot of PC as well.

 

[glynn80]

Who could say? There are many elements in the Conservative party that disagree with the current situation. You should come to some of our meetings!

Very much doubt that the Conservative Party would willingly relinquish more sovereignty from Parliament.

 

[djw1981]

Unionist would be a good representation of Annabelle Goldie's aims for certain. But the Tories do hate Scotland. Thatcher hit us worst (Glasgow's shipyards still haunt us to this day) so we'll never vote Tories in Westminster anyway, and Conservative lead would push a lot of people over the edge RE: independence.

Cameron also said once that he wanted the devolved status to be abolished, saying that he wanted to rule the whole of the UK (Or words to that extent). Howveer, he later said he would support devolution but not allow it to go any further.

That said, if he were in a minority government (very possible) and getting rid of the predicted 57 SNP MPs and 2 Labour MPs would give him majority, it would get rid of that little pest up North and ensure he gets all his policies through without opposition.

Bear in mind that there will be a huge SNP presence in Westminster come 2010 and probably a lot of PC as well.

Well indocrinated aren't you. I think technically union activity in the 1970's ruined Scottish manufacturing industry. The one nation tories actually ruled Scotland until recently.

The Poll TAx experiment argument has been blown out the water. The rate system in Scotland was due to review a year earlier than in England, so instead on 2 changes in successive years, in Scotland the decision to adopt it as the systems came up for review anyway was made.

Your 57 SNP to 2 Lab MP's is missing a few vital facts.
a) What about the LibDems? Their heartlands across the Inverness area and the Northern Isles are likely to remain.They also stand a c=good chance in bits of central belt where only a small swing is needed.
b) The Tories have real chances again at a couple of the Edinburgh seats, and holding the seat they have in SW Scotland , as well as a challenge to the SNP in Perthshire where the SNP were used as the 'non Labour vote' but where there is a rump that don't want independence either. 4 Scottish seats require less than 5% swing from Labour to Conservative to go Tory. They have a very big pull as being (in their words) the only credible way to get Scotland heard in Government at Westminster (with the obvious assumption of victory).

There are also a lot of people who will vote SNP for Holyrood, but wouldn't for westminister based on the ability to have a government of your political liking, and the ability to influence decisions. I suspect that there could be 3 similar sized groupings in Scotland after the next election - SNP, Lib Dem and Labour, with Tories coming in 4th. Alternatively we could have a 4 way tie. Then it gets interesting.

 

[me123]

Well indocrinated aren't you.

Yes Even before I read this again, I realised I'd pushed this too far in a rather odd direction, so I'll back off

I'm not going into a poll tax debate; I don't remember it (I wasn't born!), I know there's disproportionate hatred up here because of the likes of Tommy Sherridan and it's not a big issue for me.

The 57:2 was a prediction in a newspaper I saw, admittedly these aren't accurate and will be heavily biased by anger at the moment. I'm pretty sure that there won't be a Conservative MP in Westminster, although I know very well that Scottish Conservatives will always fare better in Holyrood.

Anyway, Geoff Hoon I do think Adonis would do a good job. Following the positive notes from his ALR trip, he seems to be in touch with what is needed and would work to get things done. Sadly, due to the state things are in, he probably won't get a good chance to go ahead.

 

[djw1981]

Yes Even before I read this again, I realised I'd pushed this too far in a rather odd direction, so I'll back off

I'm not going into a poll tax debate; I don't remember it (I wasn't born!), I know there's disproportionate hatred up here because of the likes of Tommy Sherridan and it's not a big issue for me.

The 57:2 was a prediction in a newspaper I saw, admittedly these aren't accurate and will be heavily biased by anger at the moment. I'm pretty sure that there won't be a Conservative MP in Westminster, although I know very well that Scottish Conservatives will always fare better in Holyrood.

Anyway, Geoff Hoon I do think Adonis would do a good job. Following the positive notes from his ALR trip, he seems to be in touch with what is needed and would work to get things done. Sadly, due to the state things are in, he probably won't get a good chance to go ahead.

The BBC Scotland stats at 1am did show that were this to be a general election with this distribution of votes (which it wasn't, but if it were) Tories would have 4 seats - the current Clydesdale, and in addition Dumfrieshire, East Renfrewshire (pipping LD and Lab in the 3way marginal) and I think Perth.

Interesting appointment of Lord Adonis - sadly he will not be kept to account so easy by virtue of being a Lord, but there are those, inclusing RailfreightGroup's Lord Berkley who will I am sure be looking forward to transport questions. The matter of the junior minister is an interesting one since they will be doing most of the commons questions and such like, so they need to know their stuff as well as be a good commons performer. And who do we get? Sadiq Khan, a lawyer interested in justice, liberty, and towing his partyy line ofn ID cards, terrorism and not investigating the Iraq war. He tweets a lot so could be a good read.

He supports Liverpool FC but lives in London, so we can hope he goes to games by Virgin West Coast, but other than that not much interest shown in transport or rail before. His press release makes mention of his father being a bus driver for 25 years, so me thinks that he is scraping the barrel to justify his transport knowledge.

http://www.sadiqkhan.org.uk/Today he claimed transport was “in the blood” because of the decades his father, Amanullah Khan, spent driving the number 44 bus from Wandsworth garage until he died in 2003.
Local priorities include the introduction of the Oyster system on overground trains, lifts at Earlsfield and Tooting Broadway stations and a bus from Tooting to Fulham.