Tony Blair!

"Although Blair has advised a traditional leftwing campaign could end up with a traditional Labour defeat, his speech on Tuesday will focus on the threat to the UK of an EU referendum – a point of genuine convergence between Miliband and Blair, who are not naturally ideological bedfellows."

It is weird how ex-politicians cause so much adverse reaction. I remember how Thatcher caused the same sort of strong reaction.

White wave - not all ex politicians! But Blair and Thatcher do because they both changed the political landscape

It is coming across via the media though that Blair feels Ed needs his help - whether Ed wants it or not. It makes Ed look weak as a leader.

I am annoyed at the moment because he is getting more airtime than Miliband. Landale has just said that Labour are wheeling out one of their big guns. He wasn't there to do that.

whitewave, my son told me about a programme called Back in Time for dinner. Today it was about the 80s, and they had the miner's strike on.
The series is about the way food changes over the decades. The husband said that one of his relatives was a miner, but he hadn't really thought about it, even though he put money in buckets for the miners. The family had to eat a meal which would have been typical miner's strike fare; at the same time they went to Mossiman's restaurant to have the sort of food that those working in the City would have eaten.
That's why Thatcher causes the same strong reaction. It's the way I feel about the Bullingdon boys that run the government now.

David Milliband's political stance was – possibly still is – much more Blairite than Ed's. If he had won the Labour leadership election, there would have been even more disillusioned Labour voters than there are now.

Pleased about the non-dom pledge - what took them so long? Still, better late than never

Thank you GT and absent, although I'm not convinced. A lot of younger voters aren't bothered about conventional party politics and just want someone in charge who they think they can trust. Bringing Blair into the equation probably isn't helpful.

Same here, GrannyTwice. Here's an interesting link from Tax Research.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/04/07/100-doctors-say/

Somehow I cannot see 100 accountants saying that either.

Here's his article on the non-dom status, too.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/04/07/labour-will-abolish-the-non-dom-rule/

I was going to put a link to his article yesterday on the non-dom rule.
Now Nicola Sturgeon has said very clearly that she will help Ed get in to Downing Street, he can do it without Blair's help.

How many businessmen will be writing a letter to the Times tomorrow to complain about this and saying they will leave the UK?
Any advance on 100?

I think Blairs contribution will be all forgotten v soon. There's a lot of the campaign to go yet ( a lot!) . As it is , the non dom announcement is making some front pages

I wonder how many times that Tony Blair will speak before the election.

djen there is a thread on that programme about food through the decades (Back in time for Dinner).

The meal which you mentioned was a type of corned beef hash, which many people have said they ate and still eat nowadays - as DH does, he loves it.
Although we never had it when I was a child, I would prefer a plateful of that to the nouvelle cuisine shown in the same programme where people went to get a burger and chips on the way home afterwards because they were still hungry!

And of course the miners' strike was all Thatcher's fault - the Union had no part in it ! I love corned beef hash, with onions, and cheese topping.

I know, rosequartz. It's just that it seemed relevant here, particularly with the point whitewave made about Thatcher. I mentioned it here because of the husband's reaction about the miners strike.

Soon - I'd be willng to bet, not often if at all again .

He did look very embarrassed, didn't he, when he was asked why he was in Sedgefield and Miliband was in Bristol, although I thought his answer was a good deflection, the Labour Party can do two things at once.

I don't know about you, GrannyTwice, but I've been smiling ever since I heard the news about the non-dom tax.

DJ - I'm enjoying the coverage of the non dom proposal. Loud noise of bottom of many barrels being scraped ! FT coverage excellent. Sometimess something is just so plain wrong that the more you think about it, the more amazed you are that it exists.

Has done for about 200 years - can blame the Tories for introducing that

Hadn't thought of that whiteave - the blame game is great isn't it?