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

the scheme's just had time to develop, it's the same scheme to vet the long term sick that james purnell (iirc) got rolling

James Purnell would have fitted comfortably into this government- in fact, I'm slightly surprised he has not joined it in some capacity.

Probably prefers to be earning real money.

Leaving all questions of morality or integrity aside this is just fucking dumb. Health is one the department people care deeply about above all others, why on earth give it to your resident Cabinet liability?

is there any sense in which this is putting someone in the job who's a lightning rod for public hate? They do the dirty work, and to a certain (not very great) extent Cameron is protected.

I don't see how it would really work like that, but it's the only thing I can think of.

i don't suppose that, if one is assessed as "fit to work" because you can raise your hand or whatever, you then get support finding a job that fits your disability AND your skillset. or are you just left to find whatever yourself

http://topnews.us/images/Andrew-Lansley111_0.jpg

Ladies, this man has your best interests at heart, anti-choice and pro pseudo-science:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/9/4/1346755838531/Jeremy-Hunt-arrives-at-Do-008.jpg

meanwhile, over at the heroic anti-imperialists

http://kate4manchester.org/?p=114

replacement grayling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hoban

the telegraph is on something ripe. Now reckons Hunt could succeed Cameron http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9520720/Jeremy-Hunt-promoted-despite-lingering-uncertainty-over-Leveson-verdict.html

agreed abt the fire/acid thing

― DG, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 11:58 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^

Ladies, this man has your best interests at heart, anti-choice and pro pseudo-science:

voted aye for twelve-week abortion limits, hey ladies

i know it's kind of a lolsome issue but is there any talk on the squatting-now-a-crime thing on ilx yet

i find myself getting very irritated at the statement "No longer will there be so-called 'squatters rights'", but i don't know if that's mainly a literalism issue on my part

Irritating Tory Moves are legion and I feel as though I am playing whack-a-mole with each in turn.

BE GRATEFUL

http://twitter.com/KirstieMAllsopp/status/243070064419549184

homeopathy is already available on the NHS, isn't it? obv hunt is awful and demonstrably corrupt and will do a terrible job, but of all the things you could complain about, his support for an nhs policy introduced by under labour, and that has survived god knows how many health secretaries seems weird.

indicative of him being a know-nothing IMO. Lansley was disastrous, but it's not as if he was uninformed about health policy.

MPs by definition are usually pretty uninformed, you could argue it's part of their function within the democracy

Hunt seems to fulfil that function particularly well, then.

Fuck this colossal gaping arsehole forever:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19569072

92%. NINETY TWO PERCENT WRONG. And still he won't admit he was talking bullshit.

Meanwhile, how good of Kate Middleton to bury bad news with her topless shots. The BBC consider it more important news than the stripping of British workers' rights.

Vince Cable can go walk off the end of Brighton Pier as far as I'm concerned.

"we've got some bad news needs burying, any chance of whapping them out for the tabloids?"

hmmmm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9547072/Support-for-benefit-system-at-lowest-level-for-three-decades.html

Torygraph yes but still most depressing read this morning

glad the olympics changed britain forever and made everyone nice

on bleak days i am in favour of totally scrapping the welfare state on the basis that i won't have to listen to morons whine about it any more

actually tbf on bleak days i am in favour of taking off and nuking the planet from orbit

EBacc? sounds like a fucking intestinal infection

RT @AZEALIABANKS Just met Samantha Cameron... She told me she loves 212...... *mind blown*

"Looks like that cunt went to Eton..."

haha!

A+

The UK Border Agency has disclosed that it is working on plans for fast-track passport lanes for rich travellers at Heathrow and other British airports so they can avoid any repeat of the two-hour queues seen this year.

Brian Moore, the departing head of the UK Border Force, told MPs that "high value" people who were considered valuable passengers by the airlines or valuable to the British economy would be given priority treatment at immigration control under the plans.

Keith Vaz, the committee chair, pressed Moore as to whether it meant the super-rich would have a fast track into Britain. Moore said it would cover people who were "valuable to the economy and were valued by the airlines". He said the move was intended to demonstrate that Britain was "open for business".

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family

AFAIK this already happens in some form with FastTrack unless they got rid of it.

Nick Clegg spoof 'I'm sorry' video song to be released

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100020160/is-mitt-romney-right-to-question-representation-without-taxation/

The post is right-wing fucknuttery enough, the comments (especially when sorted by rating) are actually depressing. Allowing the vote to people who don't pay income tax = literal slavery for taxpayers, apparently.

I'm not even going to read that. Considering I lived in the US for 18 years, paid tax the whole time and was never allowed to vote, they can STFU about that shit.

"I had better emphasise straightaway that I am not suggesting a return to property-based eligibility; although that system worked quite well when Parliament administered not just Britain but most of the world."

....

Frankly amazed that dude can operate electrical machinery.

Plenty of rich people don't pay any tax and they expect both votes and influence, just for breathing. And I pay UK tax in all manner of ways so where is my fucking ballot? Eh? Eh? Disenfranchisement trolling is *the* down-side of raising the annual personal allowance so that many of the working poor pay no income tax: after a while, some bright spark of a wingnut suggests they aren't contributing enough to merit the respect due Real Citizens.

IN OTHER NEWS apparently David Cameron appears on David Letterman tomorrow evening. BOAK.

Ian Cowie was named Consumer Affairs Journalist of the Year in the London Press Club Awards 2012. He has been head of personal finance at Telegraph Media Group since 2008, having been personal finance editor since 1989. He joined the paper in 1986. He is @iancowie on Twitter.

19 years for one promotion

It's infuriating that the LibDem conference still seems to regard Clegg taking the party into government as some sort of achievement rather than the result of both main parties being sufficiently unpopular. Literally any LibDem leader could have managed that.

Nick Clegg proposes to make it even harder for people from low income families to get on the housing ladder by making it easier for the middle classes to pay for their kids' deposits out of their pension funds, thereby continuing to prop up house prices.

There's quite a lot to unpack in that - apparently the reviled 'granny tax' in the last Budget was a LibDem creation as well. I suppose what Clegg is getting at is some kind of generational redistribution from the baby boomers downwards. But it's a political kryptonite regardless of the rights and wrongs.

Less bothered about low income or middle class families "getting on the housing ladder" as I am about them having decent and affordable rented accommodation, of which there's an acute shortage right now, especially at the cheaper end of the spectrum.

That's OK, they're planning on increasing rents to pay for cheaper rented housing...

perhaps if there were some kind of system where local authorities provided decent quality rent-controlled accommodation for people on low incomes oh hang on

The Queen lobbied the then home secretary to secure the arrest of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical Islamist cleric who faces imminent extradition to the US, the BBC's security correspondent has said.

Frank Gardner said the monarch personally told him she was aghast that Abu Hamza could not be arrested during the period when he regularly aired vehemently anti-British views as imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London.

gawd bless you ma'am for your unconstitutional intervention in the judicial process.

can't wait for the queen gawd bless er to sort out londonistan for good

lol xp

BBC apology to Queen over Abu Hamza disclosure
Breaking news

The BBC has apologised for revealing that the Queen raised concerns with ministers about the activities of the radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri.

The apology comes after security correspondent Frank Gardner told BBC Radio 4 details of a private conversation he had with the Queen.

'sorry for disclosing something of material importance to anybody vaguely interested in the constitutional process'