What a good example to set, as prime Minister (conservative)

[michel]

This story may be nearly a year old, but it is as pertinent today, if not more so. The properties for which the Blairs have mortgages have all decreased in value; he is, in effrect, in negative equity............................................

1.30pm


Your mortgage is at risk, warns Blair

Tom Happold
Tuesday May 3, 2005



Tony Blair in Gloucester this morning. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/AP
Tony Blair today attacked Tory threats to mortgages and "soft" Liberal Democrat drugs policies, as a new poll showed Labour to be vulnerable in crucial marginals.
The prime minister went into the last 48 hours of the campaign with the latest Guardian/ICM opinion poll showing the Tories breathing down Labour's neck in 108 of the key marginal seats. Accompanied by the chancellor, Gordon Brown, the prime minister unveiled a "mortgage wheel" in Gloucester, to illustrate how mortgage rates have almost halved since Labour came to power. Labour's Parmjit Dhanda is defending a majority of 3,880 in the constituency.
"What is at stake and at risk in this election?" Mr Blair asked. "Your mortgage is at risk. Your job is at risk. The stable economy is at risk. The investment in schools and hospitals, they are at risk if the Conservatives are returned to government."

Mr Blair then outlined Labour's plans to help a million people onto the property ladder by establishing shared equity schemes, so that people can part-buy properties, and by freeing up public land for home building.
Later today, the prime minister will renew his assault on the Liberal Democrats' drugs policy, which he believes would "signal to criminal gangs that Britain was soft on drugs and weak on crime," if they were ever implemented.
Writing in the Sun newspaper, he says the Liberal Democrats are committed to handing down non-custodial sentences to people caught in possession of heroin or crack cocaine.
"I have spent eight years fighting the war against drugs in our country," he said. "Charles Kennedy has called on voters to send a message to me and the government. I believe a vote for the Lib Dems would send a message that Britain is going soft on drugs."
Mr Blair's twin assault comes as the latest Guardian/ICM poll shows Labour facing stronger than expected challenges from the Tories in key marginal constituencies, estimating its lead in those areas down from 47% in 2001 to 41% now.
The poll, of three marginal constituencies, suggests there is some validity to the prime minister's repeated warning that abstentions or protest votes by Labour supporters could cost the party the election.
Mr Blair will be particularly worried by ICM's findings in Finchley and Golders Green, where Rudi Vis is defending a 3,716 Labour majority. The poll puts the Tories only three points behind Labour in the constituency.
Things appear even tighter when voters are asked a standard pollsters' "prompt" question telling them Finchley is a marginal seat with the Tories in second place. Then the figure comes out at 39% each: worryingly close for Labour in a constituency only 42nd in the Tories' list of target Labour seats.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, dismissed Mr Blair's suggestion that a vote for anything other than Labour would inevitably result in a Tory government.
"If it was me in Tony Blair's shoes with 48 hours to go before polling day, if I had been prime minister of the country for eight years, had a three-figure parliamentary majority behind me for that period, I think I would like to say something a bit more positive and persuasive," he said.
Mr Kennedy was campaigning in the constituency held by the Conservative leader, Michael Howard (5,907 majority over the Liberal Democrats). He said: "It is all there to play for, we can win in this constituency and we can win big across the country as a whole." Mr Howard, meanwhile, also dismissed Mr Blair's comments as he delivered a stump speech to shoppers in Tamworth (Labour majority over the Tories of 4,598). "All Mr Blair can say is vote for me, don't let the Tories in, he doesn't have anything positive to say at all," he said.

[c0da]

I can not stand the man!
I never really liked Charles Kennedy either, but who is Tony Blair to go attacking other parties drugs policies after downgrading cannabis to a class C drug!

fighting the war against drugs in our country

Did he steal that one from his owner, Walker?