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

ok in all seriousness fuck that shit

there's nothing more entertaining than having a crack at a passing freight-train with your two-bore

No no no, don't take my high speed rail - is the number one piece of high expenditure I was hoping might survive

New Labour's famous war on the motorist like endlessly deferring rises in fuel duty.

I'm beginning to regret my crack that they might try and kill the opposition.
Labour MP Stephen Timms stabbed 'by woman' as he held constituency surgery

she obviously misunderstood the surgery aspect

jeezus these "don't take away my YSI" whiners are relentless aren't they?

jeez he's a strange looking man tho

dude he's just been stabbed 15 times in the face that's cold

12. An end to New Labour's war on the motorist - ie the railways are fucked.

Saw this in the Mail to-day (WTF am I still reading it?), such shit. Blames Labour for cowboy clampers. No mention of petrol going up when they raise VAT either.

I can't believe I have just read this article. After 13 years of living in hell I feel I have gone to heaven. Common sense prevails at long last, the lunatics are no longer running the asylum. Keep up the good work.

- LUCINDA, CAMBRIDGE, 13/5/2010 18:45

If only Labour had realised how fucking easy it is to satisfy DM readers this could have had a whole other outcome.

No, she lives in an actual asylum.

yeah. that was a big news story round here.

And that was a comment on the 'stabbing' news item?

No, she lives in an actual asylum.

How do you know all DM readers don't?

Whether or not this whole 55%/FTP thing is right or wrong, I just don't like the idea of a government messing around with the unwritten constitution at a whim for their own political benefit (I'm ignoring this whole "national interest" bs). If they want to do shit like that it should have a supermajority in the Commons to pass (like 66%) and/or have a referendum for the everyone to decide.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1276721/Gordon-Brown-resigns-Pound-plunges-dollar-markets-express-horror-Lib-Lab-coalition-talks.html

It started the day around $1.483, soared above $1.5 as the prospect of a deal with David Cameron grew - but plunged back below $1.5. Tonight, it was trading around $1.4850.
Harry Adams, a senior currency trader from the foreign exchange firm Schneider, said: 'The fall confirms that the market is looking for a Conservative government - and anything else won't do.

― mierda defensa ... no impedir ... espectador (onimo), Monday, 10 May 2010 22:06 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

£1 now = $1.4758 --- seems the market has changed its mind. Expect Daily Mail "POUND PLUNGES!" story any minute...

― this skit is ba-na-nas (onimo), Thursday, 13 May 2010 13:30

$1.4582 - the market is really taking to this new-found stability

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7127382.ece

Election 1974 re-run right now on BBC Parliament. Alastair Burnet anchoring for the BBC. It's pretty great. Jim Reid (Communist candidate for Dumbartonshire Central) just made a bitter concession speech. Might watch this instead of the Cup Final. It'll be closer.

ha i just saw a bit. uncannily familiar.

Argh the comments section of that times piece.

the only newspaper comments section I can bring myself to read is the Guardian's; and even that's starting to get invaded by tory trolls these days.

lol good spot: http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/05/clegg-says-cams-a-con-man.html

Philippa Stroud, co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice – along with Duncan-Smith – has been made a special adviser in DWP after missing out on winning a seat in parliament.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/16/coalition-expertise-centre-left-hutton-field

Demonic exorcism as part of Incapacity Benefit?

The YouGov poll of 2.076 people found that, when asked about the alternative vote system, 49% supported it

ah but what was their SECOND CHOICE LOL AMIRITE

1.04 ppl can't be wrong

Lord Ashdown said he had indirectly contacted David Miliband to ask him to come out and back a Lib-Lab deal. He added: "I think there was a failure of action by those who could have staked out very clearly this where they wanted to go. By this, I mean David Miliband.

"There was a point, and I will say to you that not directly but indirectly I know that this point was made to him: that he ought to come out clearly and say if he was leader of the Labour Party he would back this.

"But I fear greatly that he decided that for reasons of a leadership election, he wouldn't. I think that's true of others, too."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lord-ashdown-says-liblab-deal-frustrated-by-david-miliband-1974686.html

Politician screws over the entire country rather than risk damaging his career, film at 11...

it's an interesting story, but not that simple. there are obvious reasons why miliband doing that would have bad consequences all round -- for starters the legitimacy question, had it worked.

the only newspaper comments section I can bring myself to read is the Guardian's; and even that's starting to get invaded by tory trolls these days.

Well the paper's written by Tory trolls so it only seems fair,

yeah i don't read comments sections in general and the graun's appear to be packed with right-wing americans, lunatic trots, smug middle-class brits... oh i guess the last category makes sense.

In more "hilarious irony" news, Radio 3 is now the least Tory station on the Beeb.

why's that?

nah i can believe that. modern tories just do not like public funds for ne thing other than police, armed forces, etc. my recollection of gove on newsnight review was that he used the existence of bad art to argue that there shouldn't be public money spent on it.

xp

xpost

Only radio station that I'm not hearing crowing right-wing fuckbags on every half hour, plus as HM says Modernism is the enemy of pig thick reactionary scum. Which is ironic too, amirite?

they shd get rid of almost all the non-classical content and play more second viennese school tho and yeah the mendelssohn vln concerto is great but not ten times a week pls

I wd enjoy more hardcore Serialism tru but considering their audience I think they do a dece job of covering all bases, and it's the best station to cover e.g. Jazz so I don't think they should lose any more of the non-classical content also Late Junction is pretty dope when they get on a roll.

this reminds me of taylor parke's recent nostalgia-reverie

Hard to credit now, but there was once something paternalistic, almost philanthropic about the Beeb, spreading the cultural wealth of the educated classes through housing estates and comprehensive schools. This kind of evangelism rarely sits well with self-conscious champions of the lumpenproletariat, whose right to live in shit, they believe, outweighs their right to not live in shit - for some, being patronised is worse than being brutalised. But then people can be very naïve about the motivations of those who give the people what they want, relentlessly and remorselessly. And while the Corporation was sometimes guilty of gross assumptions and a very real stuffiness, I don't like to think how I might have grown up - stomping around in the middle of nowhere - had it not been for Life On Earth, or Carl Sagan's Cosmos, or James Burke's Connections, or the gentle guidance of the BBC Childrens' department. Years ago, I interviewed the men in charge of "youth programming" at Channel 4, goateed and bereted and utterly insistent that their race to the bottom was a noble crusade; they railed against the BBC's "eat-your-greens" approach, and spoke of gallons of liquid effluent, coursing through the pipes of British culture, in terms of freedom and some strange colour of egalitarianism.

Disagree with the way dude's saying it but pretty much agree with what he's saying tbh

true, it's a bit hysterical but more of less correct

mozart on radio 3 is about the least elitist thing in the world, amazing music at next to no cost and available to virtually everyone

*or less*

That Quietus link is giving me an error message that I've never seen before - is it working fine for the rest of you?

nah it's fucked for me too but lol Quietus

So I see Chaz Kennedy sobered up long enough to realise he was in a party of cunts

xp "Rails development that just works" lol
It's a problem with their webserver, everyone will see the same error message regardless of OS/browser.

always kinda liked charles kennedy and seem to remember being disappointed that being a drunk was a greater disqualification to high office than being a complete fucking cunt

as with so many other areas of life, wobbly dreamers lose out to dead-eyed technicians

They've left their bonnie Hieland hills,
Their wives and bairnies dear,
To draw the sword for Scotland's lord,
The young Chevalier.

Oh, Charlie is my darling,
My darling, my darling;
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
The young Chevalier.

as with so many other areas of life, wobbly dreamers lose out to dead-eyed technicians

and in the case of deco and lampard, dreamy technicians lose out to dead-eyed wobblers