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

KMT @u Blud.

The public library in my old town was a portakabin from when they tore the old one down in 1979 until the late 90s.

I wonder if that date range has anything in common with the new era of portakabin chic?

The internet tells me it was a portakabin until 2003. Had definitely been one for at least 20 years by then. Guess I'll take back my previous unfounded assertion.

I think Swindon public library is still a collection of several portakabins joined together (no longer very porta-, then) and has been since much the same time, but that's the kind of classy, literate place Swindon is, I suppose.

well i was in portakabins in 1996–7 (see above). returned in the autumn and we had buildings. for this tony i thank you.

It was initially expected that Mr Gove would write an apology to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

But Labour's Vernon Coaker has called for Mr Gove to make the apology in person.

Speaker John Bercow echoed this suggestion, saying it would be "more helpful in these circumstances and perhaps more apposite if the relevant minister were indeed to seek to come to the House to make this statement".

Bercow strikes again! :)

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.

― dead flower :( (Pashmina), Monday, July 5, 2010 4:53 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/06/daily-mirror-david-cameron-bullingdon-club

gillman and soame have an almost total monopoly on group/matriculation/graduation photos in oxford afaict.

The photo has about the same impact as the one PE used to print of Andrew Neil at every opportunity. i.e. none. Still makes me lol (even if it's a rather hollow lol nowadays) though.

what pe photo of andrew neil?

in the strong vest with the azn chick

they still print it at every opportunity, actually.

A strong vest?

typo

http://splinteredsunrise.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/brillo.jpg

just a 'vest' really

and baseball cap

How old must that photo be now? How old must Andrew Neil be now?

Not entirely sure why PE continue to print it as I'm sure most guys are thinking you jammy bastard rather than thinking Neil's a cockfarmer.

Hangover from the Pamella Bordes/ Asian babe era

Not to mention the dodgy connotations of going "lol ageing white man with attractive young Asian girl".

"lol ageing white man with attractive young Asian girl" = (John) Major era meme. Sven-Goran Eriksson (inevitably) was a late contributor.

Not entirely sure why PE continue to print it

It's just become a running joke. And let's face it, Andrew Neil is so eminently mockable.

http://www.bjr.org.uk/data/2005/no2_riddell

When it began in 1994, I found the public school racism fascinating. The woman is a black Afro-American. She was Barbara Walters's make-up artist; the top one in the U.S., and she worked on my show. Fox had to get the best one to do me. Ha ha. Our relationship broke up soon afterwards, and she's completely unaware that she's the most famous face in Private Eye. Then there was supposed to be this huge age difference. At the time, I was 44, and she was 35. That's not bad. And because this woman wasn't white, she had to be an Asian babe, just because they had seen Andrew out with Asian girls before.”

Michael Grovel

Cycled past Andrew Neil a while ago, he was slogging up the slight incline that is the cycle track by the side of the Serpentine, fighting the bars of his bike like a boxer on the ropes, in a suit, face red and sweating under a lopsided helmet. I nearly shouted out 'Knees up Brillo you old cunt' as I went past but refrained out of a no doubt misplaced sense of decency.

huh. that interview quote is pretty good. he is a cunt tho.

Michael Gove is so manifestly not up to a job of this size. It would be hilarious if, y'know, it weren't real kids' education he was fucking up.

But he's supposed to be one of the more intelligent Tories, isn't he? His original performance at the Dispatch Box, the one where he lied, made Osborne seem like a veritable charmer in comparison: arrogant, high-handed and full of himself.

A worthy successor to Ed Balls then!

Dunno, David Willets is the one who always gets mentioned as the brainy one. Admittedly in the way Labour MPs used to refer to David Miliband ie awkward and very geeky.

saw this described as a honeymoon period yesterday, and in a fucked-up way, i guess it is

the news is incredibly bad, but things seem to tick along. there isn't any meaningful opposition or an alternative proposal from labour. so far i don't know anyone who's lost their job as a direct result of the new budget. but at a certain point there has to be a break. even with a tiny amount of perspective the 2010 election has to be regarded as a bad joke, the most undemocratic shit ever pulled. they got away without saying what they would do. now they're doing it, surely people will... i dunno, *do something*.

i get the strong impression gove is one of those people who comes across as much brighter and more reasonable on tv than he does to his friends, colleagues, family, etc.

I think the lack of meaningful opposition thing is the key. But it's also good for Labour at the moment because they're not getting the William Hague/Michael Foot style hazing ritual from the press. The tabloids don't really care what Harriet Harman does because she isn't permanent and Labour aren't the news right now.

Heard the other day that every time Ed Balls appears on TV, George Osbourne is all "we NEED him to win".

Like I said upthread though all indicators are pointing towards another recession and the Tories are going to get hammered for that, especially if they are putting hundreds of people out of work at the same time.

just hundreds would be nice

even with a tiny amount of perspective the 2010 election has to be regarded as a bad joke, the most undemocratic shit ever pulled. they got away without saying what they would do. now they're doing it, surely people will... i dunno, *do something*.

This is striking to me as well. We in effect seem to have a hard ideological tory govt, acting as if they have a big majority, not a minority govt who did not win the election at all. It baffles me that no-one in the media seems to...care about this?

It's what the media want though, isn't it?

I know, "the media"

yep. the bbc is shit-scared. and the rest of it is tory anyway.

Beeb = Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil...

It was the ultimate "oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them" election.

All I can see happening is that the Tories are forcing through their agenda, letting the LibDems take the agenda on things they don't care about/agree in the first place, and simultaneously trying to undermine and/or fuck the LibDems in the hope that the coalition collapses and they get back in with a majority. Which is quite a risk.

the rest of it is tory anyway.

Not all, don't forget the twats who supported the Liberal Democrats!

That said it was pretty difficult to think of positive reasons to support Labour in the last election. "They won't be as shit as these other guys" doesn't really hold up until people have had a chance to see how shit.

Note to Andrew Neil - it's the vest and baseball cap, dude. I don't hear anyone mocking your girlfriend.

http://northernheckler.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/hague-cap.jpg

^^^ Is that Andrew Neil in the background?

Never knew that cap actually said "Hague" on it!

That said it was pretty difficult to think of positive reasons to support Labour in the last election. "They won't be as shit as these other guys" doesn't really hold up until people have had a chance to see how shit.

― Matt DC, Thursday, July 8, 2010 12:39 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

in the same way that i think lindsay lohan has a glittering future in the movies, i think labour will be able to pull in/pull back a lot of support if they can show that the what the tories are doing is far in excess of what would be needed to keep down interest rates etc, and is actually endangering the economy. brown said this during the election, but people hated him. it's not enough to be basically right (especially when you sort of helped cause the monumental fuck-up that we're all paying for).

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/music/Pix/pictures/2009/1/19/1232380816672/William-Hague-at-Notting--001.jpg

the 2010 election has to be regarded as a bad joke, the most undemocratic shit ever pulled. they got away without saying what they would do. now they're doing it, surely people will... i dunno, *do something*.

Undemocratic? Hardly. The formed the govt legitmately. Getting away without saying what you're gonna do is exactly as Matt says, good opposition practice and very much a judgement on the incumbent. People don't get to 'do something' until the next general election, imo. Best off hoping that LibDems opt out early.

I never realized before how insufferably smug Hague's voice is! He comes on the radio and he sounds like a cartoon villain. Like he's been so pampered, so entitled, so looked-after his entire life that he never needs to raise his voice above this bemused it's-all-in-hand drone.

Getting away without saying what you're gonna do is exactly as Matt says, good opposition practice

Except this isn't what I said, this was the least scrutinised opposition in history, at least among those that had a realistic chance of forming a government. And clearly they didn't get away with it, because if they had they wouldn't be subject to the indignity of having to ask the LibDems to prop them up in a coalition they clearly hate.

Getting away without saying what you're gonna do

How about getting away with doing the opposite of what you said you were gonna do? Like their coalition partners?