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

Welcome to Toryville!

xp otmfm. today programme this morning was all "benefit fraud is only 1.6b, what about the 3.7b overpaid due to error?" WHAT ABOUT THE 70 BILLION IN TAX EVASION?

Love the fact that all the articles about this in this morning's papers touted some article Cameron wrote for the Manchester Evening News - on the Number 10 website here - and then the MEN went and used six sentences of it.

"...and then I got rid of speed cameras and some child got run over and died...oh lord, such a palaver...but you've got to try these things you know..."

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/08/10/article-1301910-0AC08C68000005DC-366_468x286.jpg

What's to-day's policy incidentally?

Who needs playgrounds?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10912723

I hear these unelected officials are going to use decommissioned speed cameras on post boxes to fine whoever dares use a county name when addressing a letter:

Protecting county names

SIR – I share the public’s concern (Letters, August 9) at the recommendation of the Postcode Address File Advisory Board to delete counties from the Royal Mail’s address database by 2016. It speaks volumes that unelected officials regard our counties – and over 1,000 years of English history – as a “vanity attachment”.

But the new Government is taking steps to defend our counties. We have scrapped Labour’s gerrymandering which sought to break up the counties of Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk for electoral advantage and we are dismantling the tiers of regional assemblies and development agencies.

Eric Pickles MP (Con)
Secretary of State for Local Government
London SW1

You could be in England.

You could be in Wales.

you'd never know it from your POSTCODE!

Cheshire in England = CH1
Holywell in Wales = CH8

Counties be blowed!

I live in a village attached to a military base (I grew up on such bases, so the fact that most of my social contacts are military doesn't seem strange ti me). I would say that a higher than average proportion of people here vote Tory (my parents always did). This is because of Thatcher's raising of the wage for servicemen. The Tories are the party of the military, I grew up hearing.

But what the hell are they up to? They don't have any intention of withdrawing from the stupid fucking wars they supported (and many of my friends have served in, and think are fucking stupid), yet they seem determined to slash the budget the military has to fight with. The clash between Fox and Osborne has resolved itself with the MOD Paying for Trident, essentially slashing the military budget further.

Where are the 'support our boys' tabloids during this process? Could it be that they couldn't give a shit about servicemen getting blown up (to be paraded through the nearest town so a grotesque carnival can cheer them on - an event I have never found a serviceman meet with anything other than nausea)

Blech, too drunk. But a friend of mine just got given yet another posting to Afghanistan, while the Tory cabinet bent over backwards to cut costs so they don't have to raise taxes for their rich friends.

Liberal Democrat MPs should have a veto on policies put forward by the coalition government, the party's deputy leader Simon Hughes has said.

Good luck with that one.

Wondering why this thread ha been quiet - I ha killed it. Sorry. Don't remember that post at all. That friday had been a 12hr+ pub day (at behest of posted friend), so drunk was an understatement. Back to the politics...

Happy 100 Days, you Liberal Democrat cunts

... Tories are doing well though. Most interesting part of that poll was that 40% of Liberal Democrat voters are saying they will never vote Liberal Democrat again.

Ugh, just had to listen to a speech being made by Nick Clegg about how important social mobility was. Enraging.

The Treasury is reviewing what it spends on welfare for the middle classes,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11009535

Hope the wankers who voted Tory/LD enjoy the next 1725 days.

Oh, they'll be fine, no doubt

qn 4 britishers:

how big a thing was this, really?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/world/europe/18britain.html

Mr. Zafaryab, 27, defied a tow-truck team by sitting in his car for 30 hours, eventually running up more than $6,000 in parking fines, as towing company officials, supporters of Mr. Zafaryab and police officers gathered in the delivery area behind a shopping plaza where he had started it all by parking for two hours in a restricted zone.

On Tuesday, the British government announced that it would introduce legislation in the fall banning private companies from clamping — the British term for what Americans know as “booting” — or towing any vehicle parked on private land, and limiting the companies to a regulated system of parking tickets.

Wasn't at all really. Hits a few 'outrage' buttons (well, the cowboy clampers one), but rly, nothing to see here.

first i've heard of it

never heard of it

heard something about private clamping being made illegal but not about this man

Not heard about this specific incident, but there have been rumblings to outlaw cowboy clampers pratically since the clamp was introduced.

s/pratically/practically

There was a segment on Sky News or BBC News 24 about it, that kept repeating. Had an interview with the guy etc. Didn't really pay much attention - I think clamping has been banned in Scotland for ages...

Yeah, Sky. Like I say, outrage buttons, non story. I think it's just private clamping, but yes, brings it into line with Scottish legislation apparently.

so the next qn is why the times ran this as if it were real? was John F. Burns just sitting in his hotel room watching TV? it's not an answerable qn, mind.

It's all part of the WAR ON MOTORISTS that this brave coalition is determined to end.

James Cleverly wrote: "We may be coalition partners but it doesn't stop me thinking Simon Hughes is a dick."

lol cleverly is actually his name

DATELINE: WIMBLEDON

great detail from the guardian's piece on the first 100 days, about steve hilton, the tories' blue skies thinker:

There are many inevitable tensions from trying to force some notably varied policy ideas into the coalition's one-size-fits-all narrative. Hilton sits in meetings and asks of all suggestions put forward: "But is it transformative?", while his hand indicates thought-bubbles ascending from his head.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/18/coalition-life-conservatives-liberal-democrats

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/01/08/article-1241503-07BB5F17000005DC-267_224x423.jpg

meddle management

Blue Scum Thinking

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/20/labour-hints-charles-kennedy-defect-liberal-democrats

Wee Charlie to go rogue? He should get in quick and take on all the Eds and Milibands.

The problem with that article is that it implies that the outcome of the Labour leadership contest will determine the future of the LDs. The LDs are doomed simply by allying themselves with the Tories. Kennedy is going to be interesting though - he's always been on the left of the party, and opposed the coalition, so how long he can swallow the bile of the coalition is anyone's guess.

I mean, my MP is Menzies Campbell, who has often got by on his military credentials (like Ashdown did), but the Tory cuts are threatening the base here - will he have the balls to oppose any such closure? Will enough LDs be sickened by the Tory's ideological hatchet jobs to bring down the government?

Seriously doubt enough LD MPs will jump ship to break the coalition. A more likely scenario is that the Tories get confident enough to backstab them and call an election to get a full majority.

Yeah, plenty enough LD tories, as I said to anyone who would listen to my rambling before the election. It's like nobody, except me and Cameron, read the Orange Book. None of those people will leave the coalition (including Cable).

Patrick Mercer, ex-chairman of the Commons subcommittee on counter-terrorism, said former senior police and army intelligence officers had informed him that dissident splinter groups had discussed targeting David Cameron's first conference as prime minister.

Sources for West Midlands police said they had no intelligence of a specific threat against the Tory party conference.

Fuck me is it 1985? What a strange dream I've had.

liam fox has too much time on his hands it seems

Too much air on his lungs amirite?

http://twitter.com/YouGov

Latest net government approval rating -2 (39% approve, 41% disapprove)

Had the Today programme on this morning and heard Financial Secretary to the Treasury Mark Hoban describe specific cases where the poorer were worse off under the coalition budget, with particular regard to housing benefit, as 'details'. He didn't want to get bogged down in 'details' you see, he wanted to look at the general need for austerity. I don't know whether I was feeling unduly sensitive that early in the morning, because I know it's par for the course, but it seemed disgustingly hand-wavingy even for a policy-defending politician.

Also nauseating, the bit where he wouldn't say whether or not they'd done the legally required equalities impact assessment

(from Graun)
Osborne's budget is also facing a legal challenge over claims it may break equalities laws.

The Guardian has learned that the government has so far failed to answer whether it carried out an assessment as required by law, showing it had considered whether women, ethnic minorities, the disabled and the elderly would be disproportionately affected by the cuts.

The Fawcett Society has filed a legal challenge and the government was supposed to reply by Monday. It has asked for more time before lawyers acting on its behalf send a reply.

Sources say the equalities impact assessment, as required by the Equalities Act of 2010, has not yet been carried out.

sounds like the equalities act 2010's days are numbered.

So much of this shit is total psy-ops - 'ooh, I KNOW - let's make the people who didn't vote for us feel totally insecure about their homes and jobs! That's it! Pass the champagne, George - due to 'austerity measures' it's Veuve instead of Cristal...'

the dude on the today programme this morning refusing to answer whether they'd done the testing required by the equality law was disgusting. these are bad dudes.

That man was a total cunt-chancre.

isn't this the sort of garbage a govt is supposed to get caught on in their second term or at least fourth year?

This is the part of the thread where I shake my fist at Selfridges HR department for rejecting George Osborne all those years ago, thus prompting him to try politics.