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

lol @ iconoclastic, no bullshit private eye taking dictation from tory central office for its cover

Having trouble with the concept of "lol @ private eye" tbh

Extremely rare that one even gets as far as l, yes.

http://youtu.be/UziZYL_gtDc

Entire nation set to piss itself laughing

oops! wonder what the highest ranking politician to lose their seat before now was?

Thinking about the implications of that scenario, even if the LibDems somehow hold onto enough other seats, how do you form a coalition when your leader's just been kicked out? And presumably about to resign?

xp Portillo? He was Secretary of State for Defence

My daughter is in Clegg's constituency, his biggest problem is that he has two large student campuses in it and he hasn't exactly endeared himself to students since the last election.

i'm from hallam. i'm in the US now, but i just reregistered to vote from overseas in hallam. lol.

i don't think the students are particularly a problem. there have always been a lot of students there, but until 1997 this was a conservative constituency represented by this chamer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine_Patnick. they just don't vote in the numbers.

but the bourgeois lefty vibe in hallam is definitely a problem for him, in the same way it was a boost for his predecessor in 1997 (for whom i worked in westminster for one magical summer). hallam has a massive NHS, teacher and university professional class, one of the biggest afaict.

Students tend to vote in their home constituencies anyway, don't they? But I think Hallam was a special case last time round and will be again - there were people literally queuing up to vote in 2010. I'd guess on this occasion there'll be a lot of students deliberately registering there to ensure they're voting against Clegg specifically.

the queues at least as seen on tv were not in the student neighborhoods

but yeah, student turnout will probably be higher than usual

His local party will be moving heaven and earth to ensure he holds on to his seat, he probably will. George Brown had been Deputy Prime Minister when he lost his seat in 1970, he was only Deputy Leader of the Labour Party by then, and not even in the cabinet by then.

... two by thens

So, Farage dribbles a ton of racist crap, blames everything on ex-Communists, with a bonus swipe at foreigners coming over here and bleeding us dry with their HIV+ statuses, and still manages to convince 20% of those polled that he won that debate. FFS.

Nicola Sturgeon tonight: "If there are changes needing made in the European Union then surely the best thing to do is try to build alliances to make those changes, not act like a petulant schoolchild threatening to leave if you don't get your way, it's better to try to work together to get that change."

So in a way, you might say two groups could work... better, together?

like.. no way did The Sun have a pre-prepared front page or anything

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBnkPwmUgAAcyiU.jpg

the weediness of that tiny paragraph ("he lost his temper.. "), i'm astonished anyone falls for it. they've been kicking Miliband on every front page every chance they get for months. i can't recall anything like it before but maybe it's always been this way. they're obviously shitting it this time thinking they've backed the wrong horse.

Strange headline. He wasn't as accomplished as I might have hoped for but he wasn't awful. It's not as if Cameron shone - he seemed to be hiding (deliberately).

Yeah, he didn't drop any huge clangers or anything.

Britain-wide instant reaction poll (YouGov) :
Nicola Sturgeon 28%
Nigel Farage 20%
David Cameron 18%
Ed Miliband 15%
Nick Clegg 10%
Natalie Bennett 5%
Leanne Wood 4%

Which is pretty amazing since most people in Britain generally oppose the SNP and won't even have them on the ballot.

Or as the Daily Mail just published "Big TV debate of British election campaign yields no clear winner" LOL.

LOL UK (xp)

It's like anti-austerity rhetoric is popular or something insane like that.

Well, that's the closest to the truth so far (xp re DM)

Hard to see why Farage is not more of a target. It's doubtful he's a serious threat and of course the sheer narrowness of his vision and repeating the same talking points already work against him, but taking him down a few pegs would be cheap popularity for anyone here - especially Cameron and Milliband.

Leanne Wood >

Leader of fourth most popular party in Wales in slightly more impressive than Natalie "cough choke cough" Bennett shocker.

Is the debate worth watching? I was out last night.

Not really sure what the point of including the SNP and Plaid Cymru in last night's debate given that most people watching won't even have the chance to vote for them even if they wanted to. Surely it would have been better to have had Sturgeon up against Jim Murphy and whichever sacrificial lamb runs the Scottish Tories on a regional broadcast?

Possibly worth looking at highlights...Definitely worth avoiding reading any commentary from the main newspapers - the standard of reporting and analysis is mostly abysmal and depressing.

Surely it would have been better to have had Sturgeon up against Jim Murphy and whichever sacrificial lamb runs the Scottish Tories on a regional broadcast?

That's happening up here next week (her name's Ruth Davidson, btw). I assume including SNP and Plaid Cymru was to convince folk that they aren't scary nationalist flag-wavers intent on destroying the nation but viable parties to include in any potential coalition (even though both main parties have said it's not going to happen, with the SNP at any rate, have to confess I have no idea if they would let Plaid Cymru in, but they're nowhere near as popular in Wales as the SNP are up here).

No it wouldn't have been better leaving out Leanne Wood and Nicola Sturgeon because they were fantastic and showed the country wht sort of leader politicians we should have in our main parties: normal, down to earth, decent people.

lol hows that evil depraved snp going to eat every english first-born child strategy working out

It would help if they could get Salmond to shut up for the duration. Farage was worst by some distance.

I think Farage tried that "lol hows that evil depraved snp going to eat every english first-born child strategy working out" thing by including those greedy Scots in his list of EVIL FOREIGNERS, going on about lobbing money over Hadrian's Wall as if Scotland contributes fuck all to the UK and just takes from the English. It didn't work.

On This Week afterwards, David Lammy was on about it as well, wanting London's money not to subsidise others elsewhere, which I'm sure will win him mayoral votes but make him sound like a massive dick everywhere outside of the M25.

Um, meant to edit down BB's quote a bit.

If he actually said that then that's disappointing from Lammy given that he generally comes across as pretty decent by the standards of current Labour politicians (and I'm not sure he really believes it). I'm not convinced it's much of a vote-winner in London at all - but it does directly contradict what Miliband said last week and disagreeing with party leadership IS a vote-winner in mayoral elections.

Decent or not, he is a dimwit.

London is welcome to fuck off and become its own country imo

nice one

praise from caesar

u said that about me once but I fear there's not much hope for muggins there

Et tu?

the thing about all nihilist zingers is we get all protective about our own special areas of interest

http://wire.novaramedia.com/2015/04/11-quick-reflections-on-the-leaders-debate/

This has persuaded me to actually watch the thing.

can't do it, the whole premise of the debate is everything that's fucked and infantile about parliamentary politics in the UK

Cameron was under strict orders to appear Prime Ministerial and avoid any hand-to-hand with the serfs and underlings and he didn't look at all comfortable doing so. Mostly he just stood silently looking as if he was trying to remember where he'd left the car keys. The Bullingdon Bully PMQ persona only really surfaced once when he threw Stafford in Miliband's face during an exchange on the NHS, actually he didn't even throw it just lobbed over the net for Miliband to smash back reasonably convincingly.

Actually you heard quite a bit about anti-austerity from the minority parties (bar UKIP of course). Not as much of a car crash as you'd think going into this.

The most infantile moment was Farage re: HIV but that was confidently put down by Leanne Wood, to applause from the audience for the first time.

xp = Cameron just came across as tired/had enough. Doesn't look like he is hungry enough for a 2nd term of this.

I was most impressed with Sturgeon and liked Ed Miliband finally telling David Cameron to STFU about a) Stafford and b) the 2008 crash being Labour's fault, rather than that of global financial markets. I had to agree with Marina Hyde, who said sweaty Farage looked like he was having a whitey.

Later, it wasn't edifying watching This Week (is it ever?) since Lammy just sat there saying 'Nigel Farage made a good impression' less than two hours after everyone's favourite 19th Hole Nazi was banging on about darkie foreigners and their health-tourism HIV.

agree Cameron looked faded but most of his ilk don't like being held up to account so easily by so many like the debate showed.