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

Thatcher government took years to get into its programme

A minister said this a couple of days ago. Basically saying we're not making Thatcher's mistake, we'll do as much as we can, as fast as possible because who knows what's going to happen next year. Gotta admire Cameron's determination to get a new bit of policy out there every day no matter what.

It must be getting to a point now where some LDs are going to break ranks. Surely?

They're going faster because a) some of them do view it as economic necessity, b) its now a commonly accepted viewpoint that Blair did too little in office and Cameron wants to go down as a "radical" and c) they're not long how long being in power will last and are going crazy.

All the shit banks we propped up during the bailout are now reporting profits. BONUS TIME!

The comments below http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/03/lifetime-council-tenancies-contracts-cameron are filled with cheap shots against poor people and a false consciousness around the mechanics of council and housing association tenancy. The most disgusting I saw was the man who claimed to be retiring to Spain to die there and avoid inheritance tax while discussing scroungers.

one interesting side effect of this is it would presumably kill right to buy.

I can see this kind of thing reversed in a few years tho', and this goes specifically in regards to sustaining the 25% decrease in departmental spending beyond this parliament, especially as more people get poorer...a lot of this is August talk.

Of course I am assuming Labour would want to reverse, which might be an assumption too far. xp

Labour will talk about reversing a lot of things and then conveniently forget about it after the next election.

I'm trying to think of positive aspects to this - it might help housing resources to be allocated more fairly (ie fewer big families in small houses while single people have bigger ones). Wouldn't be an issue if they built more council houses. It might make it easier for people to move to take jobs elsewhere.

Mostly this comes down to the threshold of "genuine need" - and I bet it'll be pretty low - and the lack of affordable private rented accommodation. It's likely to prevent people for going for modest increases in income for fear of losing their council house.

Also, lol.

Matt, councils are RUTHLESS about under-occupying and constantly shuffle older people to new, smaller homes after the kids take off - in many cases they go to a sheltered scheme. If not, there are incentives to get people to move, not threat of loss of their homes. Single Londoners who are homeless are not even allocated 1BR flats - they can only bid on studios and bedsits. I've seen the system and it is already calibrated to favour people born in a particular borough over new arrivals, so Mail bigots can take a flyer. BTW how is August talk more shite than Tory talk the rest of the year? I would prefer that those at the bottom of the heap were not made to feel insecure with every day's newspaper.

I am perfectly capable of seeing things from the perspective of someone who isn't me. Hence: of course assured shorthold tenancies are wonderful for the property-owning classes who rent out their spare flats! Rents for rooms are four times their level 20 years ago and it's great to take the state's money to house benefits claimants or waiting list people and then complain that they're the scroungers and council rents are too reasonable - petit-bourgeois assholes will go along with what we want, because in acting as their betters, we give them permission to hate on the poor as much as we hate on the lower middle classless. With the bonus requirement that the schmucks that move into your place pay local taxes based on its value to the state, so you don't have to! #1988 #letsdothetimewarpagain

Okay the Guardian article was misleading re: your first para.

I've seen the system and it is already calibrated to favour people born in a particular borough over new arrivals, so Mail bigots can take a flyer.

Am I right that the Mail-type "Somali family in £2m home" stories are from councils with basically no British poor people, but that still get asylum-seekers and thus have no council flats to put them in? That was what I assumed.

Not saying August talk is more or less shite than rest of the year, but my remark was more related to a sustainable decrease in departmental spending. You can only cut so much for so long before things start going wrong and there is a counter-reaction (as this is a reaction to years of sustainable spending in certain areas like the NHS), and again, talk of "governing for the long term" like this when you have a coalition and pushing through cuts when Scotland and Wales have their own assemblies seems fanciful, so it sounds like the easiest time of the year to be just saying things/shooting ideas in newspapers, when part of their function is to make a section of the population fearful and insecure for their futures anyway. xp

You get a load of stuff out there in August to look like a government of action before it gets torn apart in Parliament/in the media/in the Lords when everyone's back.

The dark side of the silly season! I get it BTW.

Purpose-built council flats tend to top out at 4BR and there are larger properties that have been in council ownership since they were compulsorily purchased from slumlords in the post-war years, for peanuts. Social housing is not meant to make capitalist-style profts, merely to pay for itself, and most properties have been paid for by their tenants many times over, never mind by the historic taxpayer. It is only because waiting lists in most London boroughs run from 15-20,000 people that large refugee families have to be placed in megamegahousingbenefit single family homes in boroughs like Ealing where housing prices for same have jumped exponentially since the days of negative equity. And the same rich fuckers/Mail readers don't say a word when *their* BTL mortgages are being subsidiszed in this manner by taxpayers, many of whom live in council flats or partial-ownership schemes and hate the idea of £2K a week going to a private landlord for completely different and much sounder reasons.

And the same rich fuckers/Mail readers don't say a word when *their* BTL mortgages are being subsidiszed in this manner by taxpayers, many of whom live in council flats or partial-ownership schemes and hate the idea of £2K a week going to a private landlord for completely different and much sounder reasons.

this really grinds my gears. build some more social housing vs keep paying inflated rents to private landlords [via housing benefit] -- seems kind of an easy choice to me.

have labour made any noise about reversing all/any of these recent revolting policies? they seem almost silent so far. the sheer speed and *glee* of these tory bastards in rushing all this through is horrifying and incredibly depressing

It really fucks me off when the overpriced flats full of overcrowded families paying market rents for their stay on the council waiting list happen to be ex-council properties owned by RTB tenants who've either sold to developers or retired to Spain to be Riviera racists.

Suzy I think your point would probably still stand without the strawman building.

Labour can't actually commit to anything without a leader though. The contender who seems to be doing the best at raking the Tories is Ed Balls, but then again Michael Gove has been giving him a lot of ammunition.

Interesting that Mays letter. I wonder if she leaked it herself.

this govt is probably more right-wing than thatcher's

The amazing thing being that so many people seemed to think Cameron wasn't a "right-winger", I've felt like shaking people and saying "Are you blind, deaf, stupid?!?!?"

Matt, I don't think the side-scold was necessary: I was merely building hypocrites, not scarecrows.

Speaking of hypocrites, it's my old nemesis Tessa May. *eyeball roll*

I can kinda see where a rolling check to make sure council housing stock is allocated according to need on an ongoing makes sense, tbh?

Working in a council rental scheme fwiw.

on an ongoing *basis*

First in a long time that there isn't/doesn't feel like a 'silly season'.

We had a psychic octopus in the news a matter of weeks ago!

We needed something from the back pages to cheer us all up.

Ooooh cracks emerging

Grant Shapps is a tool, BTW.

Known that for years.

In other news, Tory donor gets the personal touch:

Prime Minister and Witney MP David Cameron will write to the family of Alexander Codrington after the aristocrat’s son was found dead in woodland, it emerged last night.

The 16-year-old, whose father is baronet Sir Christopher Codrington, is thought to have killed himself shortly before dawn on Friday near the West Oxfordshire village of Fordwells after an hour-long conversation with police on a mobile phone.

It was reported that the teenager and Stowe School pupil had just split up from his girlfriend.

Mr Cameron lives just six miles from the Codringtons’ family home in Fordwells.

A spokesman for 10 Downing Street said: “The Prime Minister is very saddened to hear this tragic news and will be writing to the family.”

A lesson in how not to look electable by Oona King:

People keep asking “who is going to win?” and “who is the favourite?” or “do you think there could be a last minute upset?” And I have to be honest and tell them that I haven’t been following Big Brother.

I love reality television as much as the next person but when you’re standing for election you spend every evening rushing to meetings and hustings.

I was once offered the chance to appear on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here. It was a tempting offer, a nice big cheque for three weeks work. And, who knows, it might have been fun eating maggots. But, the jungle I prefer is politics.

And I hear you cry, “How can politics ever be better than show business?” Good question. I am not a sad character who doesn’t want fun in her life. In fact, put on some good music and I’ll be on my feet faster than Louie Spence. But I know life isn’t easy for a lot of people and I would so much like to change that. When we think of knife crime, bad housing or no housing, and kids who get left behind we need to get serious.

There’s no doubt Boris Johnson does good show business. But is he seriously dealing with London’s problems? We know the answer and it’s no joke.

And I don’t think Ken Livingstone is the way to go. He may qualify for Britain’s Got Talent but only on UK Gold.

I don’t mean to Glee but it’s important for Labour and London that we Don’t Stop Believing.

CRINGE.

Right, that's her ruled out...

I don't believe a single person has asked her who she thought was going to win Big Brother. Might as well ask her who her favourite Spice Girl is.

I love reality television as much as the next person but when you’re standing for election you spend every evening rushing to meetings and hustings.

That's how she managed to be beat reality television star, George Galloway, oh hold on...

Actually, Big Brother is something a person who's worked at Channel 4 as a diversity head probably gets asked about a lot.

I'm fine with her words in the main (Boris point is deft) but the last two sentences ARE written using Tin Ear technology.

And I don’t think Ken Livingstone is the way to go. He may qualify for Britain’s Got Talent but only on UK Gold.

is the joke here 'lol u old'?

i mean i think its a joke, it doesn't look or smell or sound like one or stimulate the typical reaction ie laughter but i think its a joke

it's the kind of prepared line a guest on have i got news for you tries to shoehorn in just anywhere and results in dead silence.

"I don't mean to Glee"?

what?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/04/time-to-organise-resistance-now

is tony benn really the best the british left can do?

at least there's heavyweight support from um john pilger, ken loach, and haha lindsey german

gawd

Gruesome

We reject this malicious vandalism and resolve to campaign for a radical alternative, with the level of determination shown by trade unionists and social movements in Greece and other European countries.

fuck sake

Not as LOLsome as that pre-election "Why we're voting Liberal Democrat" list of twats (xp0

Yeah the only way to overturn this is to put together a credible set of reasons why higher public spending would be a way out of the deficit rather than just going "wah racists and millionaires".

Never mind higher public spending, fingers crossed for some public spending!

i think there's a place for a mainstream left-wing [more left wing than new labour, if you can imagine such a thing] movement agains the cuts. but not one led by (basically) the swp and its famous mates.

Won't need to be particularly left-wing once people start feeling the pinch.

yeah, i just mean kind of social-democratic, kind of willing to make the case for equality of access to education/health/______, etc.

not saying renationalize the car industry or anything

Won't need to be particularly left-wing once people start feeling the pinch.

Not so sure about that. I fear the Tories have won the (largely uncontested) argument that the cuts are "necessary" and "unavoidable", it just seems to have been accepted.

OTM #1 (xp)
OTM #2 (xxp)

I fear the Tories have won the (largely uncontested) argument that the cuts are "necessary" and "unavoidable", it just seems to have been accepted.

People are happy to "accept" things as long as they aren't actually affecting them.