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

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

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

If you'd told me five years ago that I'd be supporting a government with a conservative prime minister I wouldn't have believed you, but, you know what, I've been really positively impressed with what I've seen so far, it feels...it feels different to before...it feels like a new politics, it feels grown up..." OH FUCK OFF.

(he then continues to say I don't like VAT but "you know what?" tax rises were gonna happen anyway so ya boo sux poor people)

I saw him on that Andrew Neill thing last night but then I started headbutting the telly and I don't remember much after that

Come Blow a Sensitive Tory

LOL, I didn't think that creep from SfG could get any more hateful. 10/10, stalky lyric guy!

VAT rises won't affect Scouting for Girls as fucker buys their records.

*no fucker*, even.

Shock doctrine? (or just easing us into 30% cuts?) http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/03/treasury-orders-cabinet-plan-40-percent-cuts

I'll riot on the streets if they bring in 40% cuts. Thanks again to the ILXors who voted for this cuddly new kind of government.

They are asking for 40% scenarios to encourage realism about the 25% scenarios.

Well, duh - but the nerve of them, etc.

Its a def 'we're being nice with these 25% cuts' strategy.

Not even 'we're being nice' but 'don't try telling us that 25% isn't possible, by creating silly 25% scenarios that you can't realistically implement'.

So Sebastian James is going to oversee the gov's review of the school building programme. I'm sure there's a photo of him somewhere...

Oh yes, there he is, No.6...

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/02_1/CameronEton2_468x420.jpg

He's all grown up now though.
http://www.dsgiplc.com/Images/articles/%7B74f81a8c-f0b5-4b0a-a623-ddd5e0418e1f%7D/SebastianJamesforweb.jpg

If he can get the schools running with a fraction of the awesome customer care skills and after sales service that Currys has got, I'm sold!

Feel burning hatred for these priviledged motherfuckers. Wish they could all be rocketed into the centre of the sun.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/02_1/CameronEton2_468x420.jpg

why Lab didn't run w this in the general election I don't know. who could look at it and not go DIE DIE DIE DIE.

(the fact that I signed on today nothing to do w this increased ire of course)

(also, woman @ dole office told me that up till gen elec this year, they had been dealing w a declining number of ppl, since the election, numbers are rising, wut wtf, thats just the north isn't it they're used to it)

Feel burning hatred for these priviledged motherfuckers. Wish they could all be rocketed into the centre of the sun.

― dead flower :( (Pashmina), Monday, 5 July 2010 16:51 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

firing privileged motherfuckers into the centre of the sun now requires a vote of 66 per cent of all mps, sorry.

(the fact that I signed on today nothing to do w this increased ire of course)

sorry to hear that pash - hope things look up soon...

Changes could now be made to allotment legislation that might have saved the life of a Lincoln cockerel.

The bird's former owner Fred Hyde is urging everyone who maintains an allotment in Lincolnshire to lobby the new coalition Government to make amendments to allotment law.

In March of this year, the Echo reported how council enforcement of the Allotment Act of 1950 meant that Spike the cockerel had to be moved from his home in Lincoln's Boultham Park.

Members of the public are now being given the chance to nominate unpopular laws they want scrapped in the Your Freedom initiative, launched by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg this week.

Compared to most of the shitstorm that is Your Freedom he's being v. reasonable.

damn pash that sucks

xposts to yesterday

More New Politics

why Lab didn't run w this in the general election I don't know

think i asked this a few months back pash, apparently it's a tory owns the copyright or somesuch.

woman @ dole office told me that up till gen elec this year, they had been dealing w a declining number of ppl,

that seems so unlikely, though? the recession hadn't hit/was over in the north until a few weeks ago?

why Lab didn't run w this in the general election I don't know

Also going "hey look at these toffs" proved a disaster in by-elections.

I got the impression (purely unscientific based on relatives/colleagues experiences in retail/charity sector/education, etc) that everyone was kind of holding their breath waiting to see what happened before they spent any money. But then I don't know anyone in the motor trade - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10519629.stm.

Love to see Cameron getting behind our brave boys announcing an inquiry into torture just so Hague can give lots of interviews about how it's not the Tories' fault we're in Iraq,

They should totally accept full responsibility for Tony Blair's private war?

they should have opposed it when it was announced?

Oh come on, get some perspective, if there's anything that deserves an enquiry its the torture allegations, which aren't even Iraq related per se.

That said I think part of this is the desire to take some of the shine off David Miliband, but to be fair they could do that more cheaply with a a load of banana photos.

Perhaps opposed it having not spent the preceding months calling for tougher action on Iraq

If it's the right thing to do (and it is) then fuck a govt's (any govt) reasons.

Of course, and Cameron got all the credit for the Bloody Sunday inquiry, so he might as well get it for this too

Blair got all the credit for the Northern Ireland peace process so it evens out.

^ yep

Also Blair's apology for Bloody Sunday wouldn't have touched Cameron's, I imagine.