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

They're really starting to hang of this now.

In Full: The projects axed or suspended by government

Cameron Cameron Free Swimming Snatcher

Sheffield getting hammered in that list, I guess Clegg isn't into delivering Pork or maybe he doesn't care east of eccleshall road Waitrose

Meanwhile in the fucking la-la land that the LibDems are living in...

Nick Clegg has outlined plans to make the UK a better place for children, saying for too many childhood is a time of "stress, anxiety and insecurity".

I thought I wouldn't be able to listen to Cameron for five years but I think it's Clegg's hectoring tone I won't be able to cope with. It's like listening to Thatcher.

Increasing stress, anxiety and insecurity for the sons and daughters of forgemasters workers IMO

Odds on Mr Clegg not keeping his seat in 5 years?

(ugh 5 years)

no chance whatsoever. the distant second party in that part of sheffield is the conservatives, who i can't see winning a seat in sheffield again in my lifetime, and, as long as this coalition persists, will presumably not actively campaign against its deputy leader.

Stonehenge Visitor Centre: £25m - fair enough, not like it's going to cause a massive drop in visitors or anything.

Local Authority Leader Boards £16m - know nothing about these, doesn't seem a big loss.

Sheffield Forgemasters International Limited: £80m - how to lose a load of votes in your own constituency in one easy stuff, excellent work Clegg you twat.

Rollout of the Future Jobs Fund: £290m - this is presumably being axed as part of "streamlining" the welfare system (ie "if you don't take this job we're stopping your benefits")

Six month offer recruitment subsidies: £30m - axing stuff like this seems insane

Extension of Young Person's Guarantee to 2011/12: £450m - see above, young unemployed people you are fucked.

Two year Jobseeker's Guarantee: £515m - surely this is one of those New Labour mechanisms that seems like a great idea on paper but doesn't actually work?

Active Challenge Routes - Walk England: £2m - who cares, really?

County Sports Partnerships: £6m - this is the sort of shit Tories love cutting.

North Tees and Hartlepool hospital: £450m - this is a cut borne out of cynicism and naked spite if ever I saw one.

I had to stop here, it was getting too depressing. Either Clegg is actively trying to alienate his own constituency or it's a Tory attempt to undermine him behind the scenes and he is privately fuming. I suspect the latter.

sorry, but not surprised, to hear abt the cut in funding for the bfi's national film centre - doubt if this will ever happen, now

Sheffield Forgemasters International Limited: £80m - how to lose a load of votes in your own constituency in one easy stuff, excellent work Clegg you twat.

not really. hallam does not work that way. it's the other side of a big city, it's the constituency with the most homes with 60k+ income outside of kensington and chelsea, and it was conservative until 1997.

not defending the decision, but it's not going to cost him any votes in his constituency is my point.

yeah the bfi cuts are mad gay

p much all i have to say on that

sorry, but not surprised, to hear abt the cut in funding for the bfi's national film centre - doubt if this will ever happen, now

Surprised there haven't been plans to axe the ICA. Yet anyway..xp

the ica is in a different kind of clusterpickle innit

basically it's been run by a complete fucking cock

Well how much money has ot lost in the last year? And given that there are v similar-ish arts centres round London (Riverside, for exmaple) I would think its a target, of sorts..

w. the ica the problem really reflects the future rather than the past. it got into deep shit by relying on corporate sponsors, not a notable source of stability. so idk if it's costing the state more than usual...

but yeah i wouldn't want to be riverside etc

http://www.metamute.org/en/content/crisis_at_the_ica_ekow_eshun_s_experiment_in_deinstitutionalisation

I'm not really sure what the point of the ICA is in this day and age.

last time i went it had a room of people playing fuckin video games. sponsored by sega/amstrad/_______ no doubt

but the cinema shows stuff other cinemas don't at any rate

they have talks, rubbish 'art rock' indie bands, etc

It just feels like the rest of London has outstripped the ICA, I can't remember the last time it felt like there was a must-see exhibition on there, literally like 4-5 years.

When even *my* boss is inclined to describe an organization as a total clusterfuck, it has to be. And more on this I cannot possibly say.

yeah. they need to improve, basically! im kinda divided on these questions since i go to see obscure movies in cinemas far less than i did ten years ago [via rapidshare]

but it should exist, and be better

i thought ICA is that place where people have a membership for in order to feel cultured?

i dunno ken, some people like art n shit you know?

Do they even do the Talks anymore?

That piece is pretty great. You don't get that kind of institutional critique anywhere in the "MSM" unless Private Eye counts.

ICA membership is great for culture, also drinking in Central London until 1am sans arsholes.

I'm diffident on the current director, prefer Other Brother, knaamean? Exhibitions guy deserved much better, but will run a larger gallery before he's 50 anyway so he's probably best out of there. Yentob ought to know not to fuck with an A-Gay. Honestly, baaaaad move in the contemporary art world.

BTW can you tell I'm on a two-feature deadline?

they do talks, though looking at the site, a lot of them are probably hires?

http://www.ica.org.uk/7945/Talks/Talks-listings.html

i like the place, im attached to it, like that it's in central london, that it isn't gargantuan, and think there's all kinds of cool things u could do with it.

From that article:

In minutes of that meeting seen by the Guardian and by Mute, staff were told about the need to slash the £2.5 million salary budget by £1m, and drastically reduce the ICA's programming, particularly the cinema's programme.

Would be crazy to reduce the cinema programming. It is pretty good. Although I do often go to 'obscure' cinemas...but their programme is quite varied...

Although I guess you could transfer much of what they show to other centres, if they are not slashed, that is.

im not convinced by the cinema programming tbh. there's so much stuff that is literally NEVER shown in the uk but that gets mad coverage elsewhere (lol well, you know). like, lav diaz -- hear a tonne about this guy but im almost sure he's never been shown here. that'd exactly what the ica should be doing, introducing new shit. not showing "pierrot le fou" and "rebel w/o a cause" for the grillionth time (as they are this month).

For some ungodly reason I read the Ant0n1a Qu1rke memoir/novel which includes a chapter or two on her time as director of talks at the ICA, and from the sound of it the organisation is/was as much of a basket case as she is/was.

I do worry that Ekow confuses running an arts venue with running a market research observation suite.

Talks has been run by at least two cool people in my experience, but I thought hiring AQ was a downmarket move. Knowing that film guy at Tate Modern is BFFs with departing exh guy doesn't clarify what will happen here, but underscores my point above.

that'd exactly what the ica should be doing, introducing new shit. not showing "pierrot le fou" and "rebel w/o a cause" for the grillionth time (as they are this month).

yeah this shit is just.... o_O

http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/28631/arts-world-escapes-with-05-in-year-cuts

like, lav diaz -- hear a tonne about this guy but im almost sure he's never been shown here. that'd exactly what the ica should be doing, introducing new shit. not showing "pierrot le fou" and "rebel w/o a cause" for the grillionth time (as they are this month).

Depends. If its random you have a point otherwise I've no problems if its attached to a themed season...but looking at the films page now there's lots I'd like to see, that seems current and probably won't get a showing in other places.

At one point the upcoming films list seemed to up to here with Japanese horror films. Not much of it now, from a glance.

ICA membership is great for culture, also drinking in Central London until 1am sans arsholes

The ICA bar is a fucking horrendous crush, especially at weekends.

Oh, agreed - if it's too crushed, there's always Trafalgar Hotel bar. Which seems to be where my friends wind up when there are ICA crowds.

ILx taking the >£1bn cuts to job programmes p hard.

slow clap

well if it means fewer oiks cluttering bars in knightsbridge i for one am all for it

:)

Stonehenge Visitor Centre: £25m - fair enough, not like it's going to cause a massive drop in visitors or anything.

Unsurprisingly - with my skewed sense of priorities - I was pretty pissed off about this (not least because I've donated to a campaign to get it). It's a relatively small amount for something that has been needed for about 30 years and looked like it was finally about to happen. Stonehenge has been treated shabbily by various authorities for as long as I can remember (probably longer) and deserves better. Matt is right - it's not going to lead to a drop in visitors, it's a 'must see' on every coach tour ever, but I don't think that's the issue. It's one of Britain's (as opposed to London's) few internationally recognised landmarks and at the moment it's being overshadowed by a couple of roads and a car park.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/96/208030408_3b523caa94.jpg

Yeah, drove past it recently and I do remember that going along that road has always been a bit "oh - there's Stonehenge. huh" but now it is "oh - there's Stonehenge, look, behind the thing that looks like a small industrial estate" - does seem that there should be something a bit better to do with it, but whether a £25m visitor centre is that thing I do not know

(wondering if the Giant's Causeway visitor centre will be scrapped or if that is down to Stormont? they only just got funding to have more than an empty grey atrium and a tea shop 5+ minutes' walk away from the thing itself recently)

Disturbing number of people arguing that "we can't spend £25m on stones/films/art while I'm on the waiting list for a new hip". That way lays madness.

those people

um

those people otmfm.

i mean for all-time otmfm.

Well, it's good to have some flexibility on an issue.

Socialism is the language of priorities.

Also, you Londoners don't know hoe good you've got it.

Well, it's good to have some flexibility on an issue.

Not if you're waiting for a new hip, obv