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

Kinnock started out on the Left but so did half of the PLP in the 80s. I was only a teenager when the Falklands War was on but there was plenty of implication in leftish circles that the Falklanders were oddballs for choosing to live there and they were all probably Tories so fuck 'em.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10442823.stm

This is the sort of shit that starts backlashes in unexpected places.

Home Secretary Theresa May told chiefs .... minimum standards and targets would be scrapped immediately.

Nice

Some horrible little thinktank accountancy spod was on Breakfast TV this morning crunching thru those numbers like there wasn't a human being attached to the jobs. He seemed very excited at the prospect of cuts.

It's OK, they're going "more with less" by sharing helicopters, apparently.

xp

yeah, but that's his job, tbf. that's why you have actual people in charge of accountants to blame for their actions.

i mean, kirk had to front for spock for instance

yeah, but that's his job, tbf. that's why you have actual people in charge of accountants to blame for their actions.

I think you're missing the point, he's a thinktank accountant, not one who actually lives + works in the real world with real people

oh yeah, i know some real accountants, they're not the worst.

Yeah I was gonna exclude the A word, but tbh whatever you do if your job is sacking people and you enjoy it then f you imo

there's a professional necessary remove from getting 'the figures' down to efficient perfection and people actually suffering/losing out. once you can fake that, etc etc

Yeah it's the glee with which phrases like "take an axe to public spending" are being thrown around that really galls.

This 'thinktank' fellow wasn't someone from the Taxpayer's Alliance was it, those fuckers are everywhere.

http://www.westburypeople.co.uk/council/Westbury-Councillor-Russell-Hawker-Causes-Uproar/story-5334685-detail/story.html

tbf some cunt inadvertently slurring hilsborough victims isn't rly that important a thing right now

decimated northern (public) economy to be replaced by cotton mills and foundries once wages drop low enough and top-hatted squirearchy reasserts itself

What do you mean, 'once'?

tbf some cunt inadvertently slurring hilsborough victims isn't rly that important a thing right now

Every little helps, but yes, more interesting stuff going on - K Clarke (for the Left) vs. J Straw (for the Right) on prisons.

To which my initial reaction is "Ken Clarke motherfucking otm", although Straw does have a point re: falling crime figures.

Christ, being torn between clarke and straw, what a world!

Think it's more that the Tories have decided that prisons (and police forces) are quite expensive things to be running rather than a significant liberal shift.

I mean, it's welcome after however many years of authoritarianism under both Tories and New Labour, but it's also a very dangerous game for them to be playing having spent several years whipping up Broken Britain hysteria. This way, backlashes lie.

Think it's more that the Tories have decided that prisons (and police forces) are quite expensive things to be running rather than a significant liberal shift.

Yeah- less 'we are dimantling the victorian era machinery of authority', more 'ooh lower public spending, let's have some of that'

A Price Worth Paying. Let's see how the Coalition are as fond of leakers and moles now they're in government.

Should be on the front page of every newspaper in the country but I bet it won't be.

I like how the always impartial Laura Kuenssberg reported it on the BBC News this morning, "We always knew they're would be job losses in the public sector"... uh, this document says there will be more losses in the private sector than the public sector

1.3m lost jobs --- THAT'S how to get the economy moving again! well done everybody

Well, as far as they're concerned, it worked for Thatcher in the 80s

That article doesn't talk about the causes of job losses in the private sector. Is it purely because of more people with less spending money => job losses in the private sector?

They = Vince Cable, Simon Hughes, Shirley Williams etc 9xp)

Is it purely because of more people with less spending money => job losses in the private sector?

Hella lot of private sector jobs directly dependent on the public sector

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2778/4469610650_ba92acfcd9.jpg

xps - if we finally get some decent debate about the merits or otherwise of prison (and sentencing) then I don't care if it's really about costcutting but I'm not hopeful.

The Jamie Oliver-approach will not work in tackling public health problems like obesity and smoking, the health secretary says.

Andrew Lansley told the British Medical Association conference in Brighton there must be an evidence-based approach to dealing with public health.

Mr Lansley said people needed to take responsibility for their own health.

that's what we did at my school. and i'm a fat fuck.

Kid in a candy store, innit... sort of

Okay, now I'm starting to see why people are getting pissed off with the 'evidence-based' trend. Because from a statement like that, IT DOESN'T EVEN MEAN ANYTHING. Fair enough, if you have *actual evidence* that a laissez-faire attitude will curb obesity, present it to us. Otherwise, don't conjoin two completely unrelated ideas. Thank you.

Cameron seemed well pissed off at PMQs - getting rattled by Harman of all people, not a good look.

He's the typical (public school) bully who can't handle some of his own medicine

Yes children of Britain, take responsibility for your own health and one day you too could wind up looking like Eric Pickles.

Gov launches "Your Freedom" - crashes under weight of HYS posters flocking over there "to make a difference".

http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/repealing-unnecessary-laws/all_ideas

(link might work - might not)

"repealing unnecessary laws" - harsh but fair on poor david there

Meanwhile re: Hillsborough - Hunt isn't finished with it yet (maybe).
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/07/01/fears-over-probe-into-hillsboro-115875-22373730/

For fuck's sake!

A referendum on a new electoral system is expected to be held next year, the BBC has been told.

Sources suggest that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is due to announce that a vote on the alternative voting (AV) system will be held on 5 May 2011.

"The Liberals wanted proportional representation. Labour would offer only the alternative vote - a device for distributing the Liberal vote between the other two parties, and the Liberals reluctantly acquiesced."

A.J.P. Taylor writing about 1929.

Why are the LibDems so keen on AV exactly? It seems like the one system guaranteed to enforce a two-party squeeze and make the electoral system even less proportional than it already is. Is it just reform for the sake of reform?

Maybe they're hoping that an indication of public desire to change the electoral system will eventually end up with an acceptance of PR. Maybe they've gone thru the numbers and the 2 Party squeeze will favour them in enough constituencies to make AV an improvement. Maybe the Parliamentary Lib Dems don't expect AV to make it thru a referendum so this is the scantiest of bones being thrown out to all those Party true believers who still think they're getting something out of this coalition.

I think the answer's C btw

Commentary on world tonight laid it out like this; cameron comes out against it and the disappears from the debate, they try and find a tory cabinet minister who is willing to come out for it. The no campaign is left to some well funded conservative groups not controlled by the cabinet or central office. They go balls out to win campaigning on that that the coalition agreement gutted the tory manifesto. Figurehead of the campaign is LOLBoris because he won on AV and can campaign from a position of "experience". Clegg has to share a yes platform with MillibandBallsAbbotBurhnam and looks silly.

Referendum would coincide with local elections in which Tories and especially LibDems are likely to lose council seats, can't see Labour being that arsed about a Yes vote given that, if the country votes No, they can point at the LibDems and go "lol coalition".

No need to worry, the guy from Scouting For Girls says we should get behind the New Politics

Labour can do sweet FA and go LOL coalition whichever way it goes.

That Beeb article says AV is being "linked to" the Tories' boundary changes - if "linked to" means "they are both parts of the single question on a Yes/No referendum" then Noodle Vague's option C otm, though I dunno what that does to the question of how ardently the Tories will campaign against it