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

Gove was repellent on Today. I was begging for Sarah Montague to tell him to stfu about alleged BBC bias (apparently asking questions constitutes bias) and defend the subject at hand. It's a bit early in the term to be resorting to paranoia about bias.

Bad planning on Cameron's part really, if you're going to be cutting something as emotive as schools it's a bad idea to put someone like Gove in the firing line because he's someone that everyone would dearly love to give a good kicking to.

On the other hand, maybe he's the sort of minister that PMs love because he acts as a lightning conductor for bad news (Stephen Byers is still the all time gold standard for this).

Phil Redmond onstage to introduce Cameron launching the Big Society this morning - what is it with these Scouse gits?

Having looked at it a bit more, bits of the big society are terrific ideas - lending money to groups to buy community pubs, for instance, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't something about football clubs in there as well. This government seems to be more pro co-ops than the last Tory govt and that's positive.

But crucially the whole thing falls down when they start talking about public services. "Farm it out to volunteers and hope for the best" doesn't seem like a good way to deliver anything that doesn't really have a business case. It might work in smaller rural communities but what exactly happens if and when these start to fail? There's a world of difference between running a local business and a public service.

Buying pubs is always a good idea

publican service

Buy them from whom?

The pen pushers in Whitehall who are trying to micromanage your local pub

It might work in smaller rural communities but what exactly happens if and when these start to fail?

I'm guessing there are some private enterprises ready to step in and help out. Big Society may eventually = piecemeal privatisation of *everything*.

That's the idea

The community pubs/football clubs bit sounds like the nice sections designed to soften the nasty public serviec bits. xp

And let's say BIG every few seconds and get some famous Liverpool personality who wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near Liverpool these days to help launch it, alright, la'?

michael owen?

No, he's obviously a Tory, you'd need one who you didn't know was one before

Gove's probably hacked off at the BBC for having to miss out on the freebies from the Late Review show.

fucking hell, zac goldsmith on channel 4 news this evening

someone should do a moaty on this assclown

― I’ll put you in a f *ckin Weingarten you c*nt! (history mayne), Friday, 16 July 2010 20:19 (3 days ago) Bookmark

jon snow just dropped this not-very-well-disguised blind item on twitter: "Just been cleaning up after one of our guests on friday uttered a string of C words and F words at our female guest booker."

Prime Minister David Cameron has joked that TV bully Gripper Stebson was a role model during his school days.

Mr Cameron was promoting his "big society" initiative alongside Grange Hill creator Phil Redmond.

The PM said he had been a fan of the show, adding: "Indeed Gripper Stebson was one of my role models in life."

According to the Grange Hill Online website Gripper bullied fellow pupils from 1981 until being expelled in 1983 after turning to hardcore racism.

"According to the Grange Hill Online website..." is a strange way of putting it. I mean, Gripper *did* bully fellow pupils from 1981 to 1983 until getting expelled while a hardcore racist. That's what happened in Grange Hill, it's not disputed or a matter of opinion. They might as well have put "David Cameron, apparently Prime Minister of Britain according to my mate Trevor, has joked that TV (a machine which transmits sounds and pictures, it says in my dictionary)..."

I think "According to..." is a device whereby the writer demonstrates that s/he is too young or above it to know what a Grange Hill is.

Who is Gazza?

i think it's just meant to be distancing themselves from a racism allegation (against cameron, not gripper) more than anything else. i'm finding "hardcore racism" a bit of a weird phrase for newswriting too, like there's some sort of moderate, acceptable racism.

like there's some sort of moderate, acceptable racism

There isn't?

like there's some sort of moderate, acceptable racism.

not sure that it's a binary, tbh. there's definitely a step or two between my gf's granny and a skinhead gang.

well, suit yourselves. it's also the register of "hardcore" which is not very bbc news really.

ah yes, the bbc news website, home of a coherent authorial voice and careful sub-editing

^ sarcasm, imo

wld need to see more detail on this grubber or gripper's activites to be able to make the call on the 'hardcore' aspect.

I don't remember individual quotes or instances but Gripper's character was pretty much an overt outspoken and unsubtle racist thug. He wasn't organising racist rallies or anything, just making frequent monkey/banana gags and beating up black kids - does that = hardcore?

I remember they brought in a tough black guy with a West Indian accent who said "man" at the end of every sentence, man. He put Gripper in his place at one point.

For those too young to be familiar with Gripper Stebson, here is a lifelike drawing of him:

http://fuckyourhorse.com/assets/snooty.jpg

just making frequent monkey/banana gags and beating up black kids - does that = hardcore?

eh for grange hill, i guess it does.

Well briefed there, Dave

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/imagecache/embedded_img_full/image/image_file/cameron_greens_PS-0553.jpg

Obama zing:

We have just concluded some excellent discussions -- including whether the beers from our hometowns that we exchanged are best served warm or cold. My understanding is, is that the Prime Minister enjoyed our 312 beer and we may send him some more. I thought the beer we got was excellent -- but I did drink it cold. (Laughter.)

Who drinks warm beer?

Soccer hooligans with bad teeth.

There's a picture on the Guardian website where Cameron's fat head - and it is framed to look like a very fat head indeed - pokes over the shoulder of a US military honour guard.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2010/jul/20/david-cameron-barack-obama-washington#/?picture=365047107&index=2

I understand from someone who has met Cameron that you don't quite realise what a weird looking bloke he actually is - no hair on his face at all. Also he is going bald which is a source of complete terror to some in the Tory party because if it goes quickly he really will look like a weird alien.

Wait is Nick Clegg currently doing PMQs for the first time?

Not his first time

Clegg has clearly been working hard on learning smug asshole-isms from Cameron.

Yeah, well, at the feet of the Master, etc.

His Master

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/21/nick-clegg-prime-ministers-questions

lol what a dick

He also cited the coalition's plans to introduce a marriage allowance – a key Tory commitment which Clegg had dismissed as "patronising" prior to the general election – suggesting voters now saw the Lib Dems as "people who are giving power to the Conservatives without any influence over policies they used to oppose".

More likely "giving power to the Conservatives over policies you pretended to oppose but didn't really give a shit about".

The Iraq stuff is classic. Surely it would have occurred to him not to do that beforehand? Also liked him setting in stone a date for leaving Afghanistan, which presumably he isn't authorised to do?

There's been a lot of noises from Cameron that they're out of there by 2015, too, so I'm not sure about that one.

God knows where we begin with the unholy mess in Afghanistan, but it's nice to see it being dealt with purely on a basis of electoral advantage.

A Tory donor lobbied the Government to cancel the £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, it has been claimed.

Andrew Cook, chairman of engineering firm William Cook Holdings wrote to Conservative Business Minister Mark Prisk calling for the funding to be withdrawn.

The loan to build nuclear power station components was agreed under Labour, but cancelled as part of the coalition's efforts to rebalance the nation's finances.

In a short Commons debate Labour's Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) produced the letter from Mr Cook which she had obtained following a Freedom of Information (FoI) Act application.

She said: "I have here correspondence released as the result of an FoI request which indicates that Andrew Cook, of William Cook Holdings, wrote to the Government urging the cancellation of the loan.

"This approach, from a major donor of the Tory party, seems to provide the only basis for the Government's decision to cancel the loan."

Don't they teach history at Eton or what?. Don't know if anyone saw it, but it was the most creepy, cringe-inducing display of crawling I've seen in a long while. Blair might have been able to get away with that sort of thing but not this douchebag.

Blair got away with it?!

Might have. He could conceivably pull it off, is what I meant. Cameron tries so hard to be Blair but he is nowhere near as "good".

someone post his annual income and his clean criminal record pls

then we can start a thread about what it means to have gotten away with something and if t blair qualifies