DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

Vote for him obviously.

Major looks kinda reasonable and likeable stood alongside Blair and COOL BRITANNIA DO YOU SEE WE ARE COOL NOT LIKE GREY OLD MAJOR HAHAHA HE IS GREY

And Ed Miliband?

We're all, "LOL Ed Miliband, what a dork, who's would vote for that geek?"

http://www.retromodo.com/images/flumps/logo.jpg

the milliband family, yesterday

I must admit when I heard someone say the other day that EMil could solve the Rubik's Cube in 5 seconds (or however long it was) when he was a teenager, he shot up in my estimation!

I just think people are too keen to reduce psephology to "it's the economy, stupid". If the Tories had won in 1997 people would have said it was because they'd successfully put Black Wednesday behind them and the feelgood factor was back. Major wins in 1992 in midst of recession; Major loses in 1997 in good economic times, yet still the explanation is that he was undone by a rocky economy? Of course BW knocked confidence, but these things are surely multiple-factorial. Perhaps it's fair to say that it was a catalyst for an "OK, enough of this lot now" mood that New Labour could exploit

But what I actually said was "once the economy got rocky, Major was destroyed". So yes they turned things round, or things were turned round, between 1992 and 1997 but by then the political damage had been done. Also immediately after Black Wednesday a lot of the traditionally right-wing press and most notably The Sun turned on Major with a lot of force. Had they been interested in doing so, they could have soft-pedalled some of the sleaze that came after, but they went in hard on it, and made him a figure of fun. Major and Clarke's pro-European leanings probably didn't help in all that.

Black Wednesday destroyed the perception that the Conservatives could be trusted not to balls things up in a spectacular manner. That's arguably distinct from the state of the economy as it stood in 1997. I think you had a lot of people who didn't naturally identify with Tory politics voting for them in 1992 who did so because, whatever else they represented, they were a safe pair of hands. When that was taken away, people were much more willing to take other issues into account.

This too. A significant proportion of the electorate may not like the incumbent at any time, but if they trust them more than the other guys not to wreck their interests then the incumbent will probably be re-elected. The house price crash in 92 was before the election, I think, but it eroded a lot of Tory-leaning voters with minimal tribal affiliation, and that slid even further after Black Wednesday. And when Blair got in he was adept at exploiting that.

None of this helps Labour now, obviously, especially if they can't move swing seat perception past "the Tories are doing a bad job of clearing up Labour's mess".

One Osborne ally says that Margaret Thatcher's 1983 campaign, in the face of a recession and rising unemployment, is now more of a model than Reagan's 1984 one. The emerging strategy is to emphasise the Cameron-Miliband contrast, hence the conference slogan 'Leadership for a better future". Those familiar with the latest draft of the Prime Minister's speech say that "there's a huge amount about leadership in there'. This sets the tone for the presidential-style campaign the Tories would like to fight at the next election. They'll try to portray Cameron as a tried and tested national leader while depicting Ed Miliband. in the words of one influential Tory, as 'the next Michael Foot'.

I must admit when I heard someone say the other day that EMil could solve the Rubik's Cube in 5 seconds (or however long it was) when he was a teenager, he shot up in my estimation!

― Juice Should Be Sterliized (Tom D.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRCF4vVUlrI

Political interview:

I want to talk politics
Here is a rubiks cube
Ummm... what about saving the NHS?

HE CANT DO A RUBIKS CUBE THE LIER.

Ed Fauxnerd

Political interview:

I want to talk politics
Here is a rubiks cube
Ummm... what about saving the NHS?

HE CANT DO A RUBIKS CUBE THE LIER.

Dunno tbh if I was EdMil I'd have taken it off him and finished the interview while completing the cube, because I can, unlike Ed Miliarband.

dunno how we can vote for the guy now tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrELt5f9kI

Paxo: "I hear you do a good reverse Pterodactyl?"

(PS: I at first thought it was a reverse aardvaark, it is not. I googled. And, oh Urban Dictionary, no-one does that. No-one.)

(I mean, what's wrong with just leaving it there?)

dunno how we can vote for the guy now tbh

I hear he's the next Michael Foot. Personally, I think we need leadership for a better future.

I had been thinking that, boundary changes aside, they'd probably lost as many seats as they were going to at the last election, but then I remembered about Scotland.

I can't remember if this is the right thread for this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/29/alessio-rastani-no-prank

One Osborne ally says that Margaret Thatcher's 1983 campaign, in the face of a recession and rising unemployment, is now more of a model than Reagan's 1984 one.

Are they forgetting the part the SDP played in splitting the vote in 83?

Everyone forgets that. And the SDP in general.

think there might've been some kind of REJOICE jingoism going on as well iirc

On Wednesday afternoons he would typically seek inspiration by visiting his Westminster staff in the annexe room, where he would play a game to find the best idea. On occasion this would descend into a competition to suggest the theme most likely to produce catastrophic consequences for his career. One of Boris’s favourites was: ‘Why David Cameron is a complete c**t’ – indeed, he was so enthused, he even started to compose an introduction beginning: ‘One thing that has become apparent to me in my years of Parliamentary service is that David Cameron is a complete c**t’.

http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/36423/boris_cam_and_the_c_word.html

So. Seventeen-headed Jedward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxPFZra8MuM

"Mr. Idiot in Brussels, would you like to respond?"

Yes, I saw that, that was painful viewing.

Too bad it obscured some really good packages about Greece and Europe

Indeed, but hearing this Daily Telegraph columnist call the man idiot a hundred times made me cringe

There was a bit when Richard Lambert just sat there and stared at Oborne and then ruefully just shook his head, like "This guy's a nutcase"

Oborne bigging up Miliband in the Telegraph this week.

Anyway weekly bin collections! 80 mph on the motorway! Next election in the bag!

Is Oborne on some reverse Mel Phillips shit or something?

I think he just likes watching his readers having strokes.

HostileLogic
Today 07:03 AM
Progressives are hairy-livered parasites; leeches that have attached themselves to the hide off humanity.

If Progressives were music, they would be a 100 mile long marching band of heavy-metal bagpiping, inbred, mutant blood-sucking vampires

We will need to do much much brtter than this.

i dunno, you couldn't do much brtter than that!

Where can I get me some heavy-metal bagpiping is what I want to know.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/8/1310117598325/Prime-minster-David-Camer-007.jpg
FUCKING WELL TURN DOWN THAT BAGPIPE YOU BLOOD SUCKING VAMPIRE!

That Oborne article is pretty good in terms of background but he's massively overrating Miliband's speech itself.

Miliband's main weakness is that he keeps trying to dress up bandwagon jumping as boldly leading from the front.

He was praising him on QT last night too, but then Oborne is either nuts or drunk, isn't he?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/01/george-osborne-bullingdon-club-chancellor

this is such disappointing bullshit - i'd be more satisfied by an article that said

"The all-male dining club, which the prime minister, David Cameron, also belonged to as an undergraduate, is open only to sons of aristocratic families or the super-rich"

and ended there.

Yeah the sanctimonious "Osborne got drunk at university and had friends who got in fights" tone of that article is utterly pointless.

keeping my fingers crossed the Graun doesn't start digging into Hull's notorious Marlborough Acid Posse.

Also today: the Louise Mensch interview careens into more judgemental editorialising than I'd expect - I'm basically sympathetic to ridiculing Mensch's "I've been poor too" nonsense but obsessing about her (alleged) plastic surgery is weird and over-the-top:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/30/louise-mensch-phone-hacking-politics

tim farron on question time the other night wearing a jesus fish on his lapel

'jesus fish' should be a way trippier lapel ornament than the thing you mean

Philip Hammond believes that the 70mph limit is outdated, because cars are far safer now than they were when the limit was introduced in 1965. "The economic benefits will outweigh the very, very small impact in casualty numbers," he said, adding that the move will "put Britain back in the fast lane of global economies."

time is money, speed means time, speed needs fuel, fuel gets tax, tax funds NHS, NHS treats road accident victims but any additional road accident victims that result from faster driving are more likely to just die and thus not increase the burden upon it - we all win

it could even decrease the NHS burden as if everyone is driving faster then the fatalities:mere serious injuries ratio in crashes that would have happened anyway would be higher. o glorious day.

Vote Liberal Democrat

Tory doublespeak never more tortuous and beautiful than when they're explaining away employment rights.

How are the Liberal Democrats explaining it?

they seem to be oddly reticent.