Reply #6: Walking a tight-trope, not an anaemic posture.

[Joe Chi Minh]

"Every chance of succeeding? That is hardly the language of blood, sweat and tears. Can you imagine Winston Churchill saying we'll fight them on the beaches and then we'll have every chance of achieving a success over Nazi Germany?"

I think Wintour and Watt have got this wrong. B Liar is doing what Brown is doing: eschewing a bumptious triumphalism in favour of deterring complacency among the Labour voters. Personally, I think Brown overdoes it; he should show the braggadoccio he's entitled to, with his command of the economy and 'ring-fencing' of the funding of the bedrocks of the welfare state: employment, education, the NHS, and benefit supplements for the poorly-paid. Though he did emphasise it and repeat those, imo, invincibly winning assets.

I've been wrong in the past, but I think Labour will walk it. There might be a lot of posturing in front of the microphone, but inside the voting booth, I don't think people are daft enough to prefer 'a pig in a poke' to solemn, explicitly-expressed undertakings/guarantees. We'll see.

I think the Lib Dems may best be described as 'champagne Socialists', though I normally abhor the expression. But more 'champagne' than 'Socialist', generally, though Clegg, himself, has expressed some admirable ideas, including in the area of economic justice. However, as in the US, this is no time for watered-down Socialism. The party though seem like muppets, in the sense of a gallimaufrey of disparate, (yes, and desperate, too, with the finishing line in view) political desiderata. I mean, it's true to some extent of all parties, but strikingly so, the Lib-Dems, at least in the past, or so it seems to me. It was perhaps more true of the Liberals than of their alliance with Social Democrats.

I suppose, with virtually the full panoply of our perjurious media against them, a Labour government in coalition with the Lib-Dems, rather than a full majority, is possible, but if so, Labour could be forced to institute proportional representation (an not the watered-down version, they favour); and that would be a blessing almost beyond belief. Keeping them all honest.

As a Guardian writer pointed out, they don't have hung parliaments in Europe, just governments. It's normal. As power-people, the Tories and their Big Business pals are waxing hysterical at the thought of PR: they quite like the untrammeled corporatism that has brought us to this pretty pass.