There’s a significant possibility that there will be a hung parliament, especially if people vote tactically. I’ll give it 10%-15%, more if Labour fare badly over Iraq.
Anybody see the Lib Dem newspaper advert a few days ago, showing the potential result on the back of a survey question something along the lines of “If the Lib Dems were capable of winning in your constituency, how would you vote?”? It put them in first place, by a majority-winning margin. It had references to the polling organisation, but I can’t find it now, to go and see if it was really a fair survey.
On that note, could somebody provide us with a brief historical account of how the Long Parliament evolved into the Rump Parliament? 
after ‘Pride’s Purge’ in 1648 where soldiers physically barred certain members from entering the House and arrested some briefly, the remaining members became known as the Rump. It was forcibly disbanded by Cromwell in 1653.
link to site dealing with the English Civil War:-http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/glossary/long-parliament.htm
Oh, thank you!
[reaches for a cigarette]
Was it good for you, too? 
Blair isn’t helped by this one bit.
Surprised this info doesn’t have it’s own thread.
Question time should be good tonight. Blair, Howard and Kennedy are on it.
Yes it’s quite a big deal - all the British papaers (apart from the ones that specialise in bristols) have headlines along the lines of “Blair Lied”. (the bristols ones are banging on about the bloody Beckhams)
It also gives the Tories an angle of attack - they can’t argue against the war as they voted for it - but they can claim that they supported it on the basis of a lie.
I think it will also help the Libs hugely, and will encourage a greater “give Blair a bloody nose” vote.
Having said that it’s still not enough to get rid of him.
Interesting, owl. You suggest that the Tories only supported the war on the basis of a threat, and that if that threat was false then the war was wrong?
Tell you superiors to say this, and quickly, because the impression I and everyone else has is that the Tories didn’t give a fuck about the plausibility of the threat any more than Blair did, and supported the invasion anyway.
It’s hardly election-winning stuff: “Yes, we know we’ve said for years that you can’t trust Blair, but, ummmm, we did anyway, but he was lying to us, so we were tricked, and, errrrr, we’ll learn from the mistake.”
I think that if Bush and Blair had simply said “Saddam is a nasty fascist and we think he should be removed - and we’d like to do it with guns”, then the Tories would have supported it. (at least that’s what I feel would have happened).
For most tories the UN is a complete irrelevance, and whether the required resolutions had been passed or otherwise would have mattered not (we didn’t hang about waiting for them during the Falklands). The same goes for the “legality” or otherwise. Who’s “legality”? What are they going to do about it if they’re unhappy? (I don’t know about you but I haven’t noticed an embargo on Burgundy and smelly cheese so the French aren’t doing much about their unhappiness).
However in purely electoral terms the Iraq war has been a dead area for us as we supported it so can’t make capital on it. This gives us some daylight and allows us to put both the war and the issue of TB’s trustworthiness centre stage.
It is also manna from heaven for the libs.
Hmm, all that sounds like to me (and probably the majority of the electorate)is that had the Conservatives been in power they would have told us exactly the same lies.
And the legality of international conflict, as specified by the UN Charter to which the UK is a signatory, rests solely on aggression (or imminent threat thereof) which clearly was the case with the Falklands and Gulf War I. If the UN’s most important members ignore the Charter they signed (and practically wrote), the “irrelevance of the UN” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
From the legal advice
PDF of document is available in the BBC link I gave a few posts ago.
The Tories would be better positioned if they didn’t have a leader pre-discredited by his ignominious service during the Thatcher Terror. Not every voter is a goldfish. I remember those times and I remember him. MRSA got its hold in hospitals on their watch with the privatisation of NHS cleaning. I was an NHS Manager at the time so to hear him bang on about it now as if he is not collectively responsible makes me sick.
I’m probably going to have to hold my nose and vote Labour because I fear the tories have a significant chance of getting in and my constituency is a marginal. I want to give Blair a bloody nose but I am sensitive to the argument that this is a vote to over-turn the good things that have been done for those less well off than me.
I damn well hate the Labour Party for not chucking the lying bastard out.
I think we would have simply said “He’s gotta go”, or more accurately the yanks would have said “he’s gotta go and we’re shifting him. Wanna help?” and we would have saif “Yes”. Bear in mind we wouldn’t have a back bench crammmed with powder-puff trots who have all been in CND and also wouldn’t have half the problem selling the action to the party at large.
Blair’s problem is he had to lie to his own side to get the thing through and they are not in a forgiving mood.
And as to the relevance of the UN - that’s for another thread (and another poster - it’s my last day today).
How much more convincing that would be if Howard wasn’t responsible for propping him up in the first place.