Poll shows Blair losing voters' trust

[T_i_B]

More proof of the obvious really.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1021548,00.html

The scale of the task facing Tony Blair in trying to rebuild public trust in his administration is dramatically underlined by new figures showing only 6% of voters trust the government more than the BBC to tell the truth.

Half the electorate also believes that the government deliberately embellished its dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in an attempt to make its case for war stronger, according to the August Guardian/ICM survey.

And the vast majority - 68% - believes the government was unfair in its treatment of David Kelly, the biological weapons expert who apparently killed himself after being named by the Ministry of Defence as the source of a BBC story. Just 8% believe the government's treatment of the MoD scientist was fair.

Only 24% of those polled believed the government's claim that the Iraq dossier was not "sexed up", and a quarter refused to commit themselves. Men are more sceptical than women - 55% compared with 47% believing the dossier to be embellished - and skilled manual workers are the social group who are most wary, with 57% believing the BBC's allegations.

[dudeness]

1. TiB

this just shows how much damage thatcher/major did to the british people..had you had sucessive labour governments people would be hitting the streets as a response to this gross betrayal..but where do you go ..back to conservatism..although its a split hair between the two..blair will survive unless the party believe they can produce an alternate leader in time to sell to the public..thanks for the link

[opihimoimoi]

2. Soon it will be ABB. anybody but blair

Oh well, come, we go Tillbury

[T_i_B]

3. Well I can show you the best alternative

Try the Liberal Democrats for size!

http://www.libdems.org.uk/

[ozymandius]

4. I've read that their policy stances have changed

in order to make them more appealing to "old" Labour. Is this true, and how so?

[T_i_B]

5. Is this true?

I do not like to have to say this as I wish this was the case but not to my knowledge. Blair's main policies besides lying to the British public in order to appease Bush at the moment are Enoch-style immigration controls, which real labour types such as myself strongly oppose and foundation hospitals, an extremely bad idea which is in no way Old Labour. Allow former health secretary Frank Dobson to explain

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,913914,00.html

The prime minister is at odds with Labour party members and supporters over Iraq. Now, with the health and social care bill, he seems set to open up a second front against party members and affiliated trade unions by introducing health policies that undermine the practical idealism on which both the Labour party and the NHS were founded. He wants a mixed economy in healthcare, the substitution of competition for cooperation and the introduction of charges, or "copayments" as the thinktanks call them.

Why are so many people in the NHS, so many Labour party members and so many Labour MPs opposed to foundation hospitals? Why are the Tories drooling at the prospect? The answer to both these questions is the same. Foundation hospitals will reintroduce competition into the NHS, making it easier to break up and privatise. They are one of a flurry of government proposals that will undermine NHS integrity.

These proposals include planning for long-term dependency on private hospitals, paying them more per operation than the NHS gets and franchising out the management of "failing" hospitals and the ownership and management of new diagnosis and treatment centres. In his launch speech for Peter Mandelson's Progressive Governance conference, Tony Blair has called for a mixed economy in healthcare and, worse still, for "new forms of copayment" (which, in plain English, means new charges). Alan Milburn has decreed that NHS hospitals must compete with one another and the private sector. No wonder Labour people are glum.

Advocates of these ideas claim they are pragmatic - "away with ideology", they say, "what works is what counts". There are two problems with this. First, a few basic beliefs wouldn't go amiss. Second, there is no evidence that these competitive approaches work, and lots of evidence that they don't.

Now at this point I should mention the main lefty policy that Blair has been pursueing, namely trying to ban fox hunting. This has been stepped up recently in order to appease the left but this really is a token gesture. Although fox hunting is an emotive issue, it is not an important one by any stretch.

I should also mention the odd rumbling heard from time to time that "new" labour will attempt to re-launch itself at the party conference, although the chances are that they will simply be trying to repackage the same old tory policies yet again. I'm very sceptical on that front.