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

nah, coz narrative isn't just facts, it's ideas too

It's often ideas asserted as facts without acknowledgment of their ideological contestedness?

As I say, I'm not anti-narrative - I enjoy reading narrative - but I think it disproportionately dominates History, especially popular History, and that domination distorts our sense of the past.

Cameron's judgement on the economy "it's even worse than we thought". So far, so predictable. And yet, "Let me be clear. Our debts are not as bad as Greece. Our underlying economic position is much stronger than Greece." Uhhhhhhh, that's not quite what you were saying before election. So prognosis: things are worse AND better than we said! Trebles all round!

Cameron is talking shit on the deficit, according to - get this - the Telegraph's Economics Editor.

You expected a former PR boy not to talk shit whenever his mouth happened to open?

I know we're not supposed to get all Class War in these shiny 21st Century coalition times, but when Cameron says the cuts will affect everybody, cd somebody in lol Opposition not ask him how much they'll be affecting wealthy families who use private education and healthcare?

it's hard to ask that question when they all are kind of weather families who use private education and healthcare?

Noodle, since we've been told to not get all Class War by people with millions of pounds, I kind of ignored the request.

xpost

imo you could use that shit but still be politically opposed to it, but the cut and thrust of parliamentary democracy is based on the ad hominem iirc.

xpost to Gravel - yes, I think it is hard to teach, but those who do would agree with Noodle that it's entirely feasible and worth the effort. The Schools History Project people have probably got a lot to say about this: http://www.schoolshistoryproject.org.uk/

I think my region is expected to lose 1200-1800 council jobs (Scotland, of course, and in an area where major industries have shut down and destroyed the workforce recently), so I doubt here is a level of class was I wouldn't support.

Amazing age of austerity stuff:

Local government minister, Grant Shapps, said it should be possible to quickly and easily check the food hygiene record of your favourite 'chippy' or pizza delivery service from your mobile phone without even leaving the sofa.

"This is data which is already collected, but by making it freely available the so called 'wisdom of crowds' could drive hygiene standards much higher," said Shapps.

^^^must be a Yelper already. God, what a tool.

How many times have you heard 'age of austerity' in the media to-day? Four times to-day so far and it's only lunchtime.

Err, the Scores On The Doors website has been going for at least a year, and already makes its data available to the public and has a "mobile" version. How is this a marvellous achievement for the new government again?

Has someone looked at twitter, found a cluster of beards saying the govt should share data in open formats, and gone "right, obviously we're not going to put any money into that, what do we already have that we can fob them off with?"

I'm now getting almost as irritated by people who claim we don't need to cut anything and it's all a right-wing conspiracy/bond market blackmail as I am with the "we must cut NOW otherwise the markets will grind us into dust" brigade. Some sensible debate would be appreciated.

Does anyone have any idea how much the UK Gov get from part-owning (what are now becoming) profitable banks and how much it will get from selling them off again? Don't they have something like £70b worth of banks to sell off at some point?

Won't that alone get the deficit down below its pre-omg-we-need-to-cut-the-deficit levels?

I don't know (ok cba looking up and hope someone here knows) the ins-and-outs of the rescue package but it's frequently described as costing £800bn, which is more than the deficit in total. How much of that £800bn rescue came from govt borrowing? What, if anything, is in place to recover the prop-up money from the banks?

iirc Alastair Darling claimed at the time that the deal would make a profit for govt in the longer term while protecting the banks and savings in the short term. (In other words "omg these bank shares are stupid cheap, let's have them!")

Surely none of those banks are paying a dividend yet? That would be mentalism.

Theoretically yes, selling off the bank stakes should make a huge dent in the deficit assuming that the banks are stable enough to be sold off, which is a big if. The govt *should* my all accounts make a profit on all that, but it depends on who's buying and when.

The deficit before the bank bailout wasn't any greater than it was in 1997, so this is being falsely framed as a debate on govt profligacy. That said, the debt itself is still much much bigger, and the recession + lower tax revenues + means the govt has to borrow more money to keep even the same amount of spending up, regardless of bailout money.

It's the interest on that debt that's the killer, especially if it continues to eat up a chunk of all tax revenues in the future that could be spent on, well, anything else. The problem is the way the Tories are going about it (ie welfare bills seem to be the first thing under the axe and that could be catastrophic for the people that rely on them, even if the cuts don't plunge the country back into recession).

Also for all the "lol 'the markets' all they do is fuck us over" they're also a big part of the reason the govt has been able to borrow so much money in the first place.

Coalition government defeated for first time!

OK, so it's just a technicality but still well done Your Lordships.

I'm pretty sure that the money spent on buying stakes in banks isn't counted in the deficit figures because the government assumes it will get that money back.

I expect it is counted, because there's no guarantee they'll get it back, and even if we assume they'll get it back we have no idea how much money they'll get for it.

Also for all the "lol 'the markets' all they do is fuck us over" they're also a big part of the reason the govt has been able to borrow so much money in the first place.

Yeah, see, there are people who might argue this isn't an entirely great thing.

Also: "we must cut" vs "hai guyz vote for your fave service in Britain's Got Cutz" plus I dunno some mad notion that maybe the lowest paid sector of society shouldn't maybe be the peeps to pay for fuck-ups inflicted by unaffected bankscum plus hey maybe the IMF is a tool of capitalolist hegemony and fuck them with a rusty barge pole or something

agreed that we're all post-history now tho

akshully recognise that I'm out of step with economic realism here now tho so Good Luck UK and i'm gonna give up on giving a fuck any more. pretty sure all's for the best and I will go live in russia

Also: "we must cut" vs "hai guyz vote for your fave service in Britain's Got Cutz" plus I dunno some mad notion that maybe the lowest paid sector of society shouldn't maybe be the peeps to pay for fuck-ups inflicted by unaffected bankscum

Yeah this is the core of it really. Unfortunately there's almost no one in mainstream politics that can articulate this effectively, given the dog of a position that Labour maneuvered itself into.

akshully recognise that I'm out of step with economic realism here now tho so Good Luck UK and i'm gonna give up on giving a fuck any more. pretty sure all's for the best and I will go live in russia

― every time i pull a j/k off the shelf (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 09:31

this probably explains why this thread has a fraction of the traffic of the us politics thread, even while this country's in a far busier phase of the political cycle

maybe not the bit about going to russia, but the sentiment

even while this country's in a far busier phase of the political cycle

It isn't though. They haven't started screwing the poor just yet.

While this "you get to choose which public services to cut" thing is so obviously a smokescreen to deflect the responsibility when the cuts bite and the public start to hate them, it probably isn't going to work.

Also I'd hazard a guess that the first thing many people would choose to cut would be the international development budget and I'm not sure the govt even have the power to cut that.

Saw an interview with a GBP member on this issue:

GBP: "Well, if they cut anything that affects me then I won't vote for them again."
Inteviewer: "But you're in favour of cuts for other people?"
GBP: "Yes."

A lot of creeps making appearances on rolling news that would make Maggie blush with the scale of cuts they are proposing. They also would not VAT to rise by a penny.

The ratio of cuts to tax rises will be a big battleground.

The ratio of cuts to tax rises will be a big battleground.

Who's battling who though?

Like I said upthread, the litmus test will be how they structure and present the banking levy they've been talking about.

Who's battling who though?

The creeps vs certain members of the coalition? Members of the coalition vs other members? We'll see...

Don't look to the Lib Dems to put up much of a fight over this one

Good timing of the Budget on Osborne's part. Wait until the last possible moment when England will definitely be in the World Cup.

They also would not VAT to rise by a penny

VAT is a tax against the poor so tbh I'm cool if they abolish that shit

VAT rise would suck.

VAT is a tax against the poor

They're bound to put it up then

I believe they're planning to. But it was invented by Tories so big shock.

They said they wouldn't *hollow laugh*

Don't you understand??!?!??! Labour lied about the finances man!!! All bets are off!!!! Patriotic nurses throw yrselves under nearest tram now!!!!!!

Look for increasingly overcrowded waiting rooms at local GPs as Liberal Democrat supporters turn up complaining of inability to sleep at night

Just reading a rather resonant section of Chesterton, writing of his childhood in the late 1800s -

Anyhow, there has been a change from a middle-class that trusted a business man to look after money because he was dull and careful, to one that trusts a business man to get more money because he is dashing and worldly. It has not always asked itself for whom he would get more money, or whose money he would get.

fa la.

Labour was always going to increase taxes too -- not that it makes it any less shit. xp

Prime Minister of England David Cameron is to fly the flag of St George above Downing Street for the duration of the World Cup.

That's wretched.

At least he is English

Hang on, I've just fallen for something there haven't I? There's no way he'd possibly do that.

ha ha, xpost - got your St George's cross flying already, Tom?