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

Working in East London at present, and was just idly looking in the window of an estate agents, rents are ridiculous, basically you would have to be on housing benefit to afford them

Notable difference is that hardly any estate agents in North London will accept DSS tenants while here 99% of all the properties I accepted DSS

This is it, no political party has seems prepared to say, "Fuck these thieving, grasping landlords where they breathe". There should be a rent cap, not a housing benefit cap.

Because capping rent would kill or at least subdue the buy-to-let market and thus stop recovery in the housing market whose sustained boom brought economic growth for so long and prosperity to so many.

Has anyone read this, by the way? Looks like a good summation of the problem at any rate. Housing really was New Labour's biggest failure, wasn't it?

oh god that book makes me so angry and upset - i got it a year ago and am still halfway through it because i keep having to stop as i am on the verge of tears/murderous rage.

Well, there was the doomed national health care database, off-the-books PFIs.... but yeah when you look at all the consequences of not having enough affordable housing to go around, probably.

Because capping rent would kill or at least subdue the buy-to-let market and thus stop recovery in the housing market whose sustained boom brought economic growth for so long and prosperity to so many.

Indeed, as yer man mayne says, the housing market is a feckin' dog's dinner

Cameron: BBC cuts "delicious"

“At the same time, I will say, we’re all in it together, including, deliciously, the BBC, who in another negotiation agreed a licence fee freeze for six years. So what is good for the EU, is good for the BBC, is good for everyone.”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/02/gov_may_restrict_unfait_dismissal_claim_rights/

genius. the problem with the job market at the moment is obviously that it's too difficult to get rid of people.

Grindingly inevitable, that one.

Yeah, thanks for that one, Lib Dems... also well done, Nick, Vince and the boys

Conservative MP Michael Fallon described the figures as "nonsense".

He criticised the CIPD's record on forecasting job losses, saying the institute had been "spectacularly wrong before" when it predicted that unemployment would reach three million before the recovery got under way.

"It didn't," Mr Fallon said. It has recently hovered around 2.5 million.

During the heated and, at times, bad-tempered exchange, the MP said: "You are less reliable than a dead octopus."

Mr Philpott replied, saying, "Actually the octopus was pretty accurate while he was still alive."

He also defended the CIPD's record and asked Mr Fallon to withdraw his accusation that its work was "nonsense".

This is amazing.

LOL failed attempt at populism from Sir Bufton Tufton there

"You are more rubbish than a ginger haired octopus oh hang on..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/02/mark-saunders-song-titles

The Oxford-educated barrister sent his best friend and the best man at his wedding, Alex Booth a text message saying: ‘This is the end my only friend. The end. X’- a lyric by the The Doors from their song ‘The End, which featured in the movie, Apocalypse Now.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/blhblahblah

i.e. he started it.

what a heroic final sentiment

ha

policeman who inserted song titles into his testimony at the inquest for a drunk lawyer whom he shot, what's on your ipod?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11671164

if prisoners do get the vote is this likely to have much impact on future election results? 70k doesnt sound like a massively influential number when spread across all the constituencies.

Just the thought of Cameron/Clegg/Milliband going to jail to Canvass....

Mass movement of prisoners based on their voting intentions on the way then?

Cameron vs Bronson

Portsmouth MP Mike Hancock grabbed a screwdriver and repaired a door at the House of Commons after it was damaged by a colleague following a row with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

The Portsmouth South MP and his friend Bob Russell, the MP for Colchester, had attended a meeting for Lib Dem MPs to question Mr Clegg, their party leader.

A discussion about changes to housing benefits became heated - and on the way out, Mr Russell slammed the door, causing it to come off its hinges.

Mr Hancock returned early the next morning with a screwdriver to re-hang the door and spare Mr Russell's blushes.

The two MPs had taken Mr Clegg to task about government plans to cap housing benefit at £400 a week, and to make new social housing applicants pay 80 per cent of the average private market rent for council houses.

Mr Hancock said: 'It was a strong debate. It took place behind closed doors, so I don't want to say exactly what was said. 'But feelings were high, and when Bob left the room, having had enough of what we heard, it's fair to say he shut the door harder than would normally have been expected.' He added: 'I came back because I wanted to save everyone's embarrassment. The door was off its hinges. It was pretty big, like most of the doors in the House, and it was pretty heavy.

Man charged with task of preventing David Cameron looking like a fat-faced cunt given job paid by taxpayers

Protection of frontline public services in action there.

i know this isn't strictly relevant to this thread but what's the general take on the US mid-term results and how does it impact on the UK, if at all? did the obamacrats do better/worse than expected?

really hoping palin & co do/have done to the republicans what benn & the gang did to early 80s labour

It will enbolden the right, any perceived failure on Obama's part will undermine the case for any continued fiscal stimuli. Cameron and Obama's relationship has been non-existant for now and I think the PM would be much more comfortable standing alongside a Republican on the international stage.

for the general take, see the us politics thread. they went pretty much exactly as expected based on recent predictions.

don't really affect the uk. the current uk government is almost totally focussed on domestic policy. gridlock in the U.S. really only affects their own domestic agenda too. there is still no credible republican leader for cameron to stand alongside, so that's not changed. as you were.

xp i don't think that's true: cameron-supporting tories love obama and were all over twitter last night celebrating eg christine o'donnell's failure. they're fighting against their own socially-conservative right wing after all (assuming that the tea party isn't really about fiscal prudence).

cameron-supporting tories

all ten of them

I think the number of "Cameron-supporting Tories" is overstated, especially in relation to the number of Tories who tolerate Cameron because they want to win elections.

sure, these are young party activists mainly that i'm talking about. but victories for a hard-line right in the usa make cameron's position weaker with his pragmatic tolerators, especially given cameron didn't manage to win an election himself.

Don't get the sense that there are any real Cameronistas. The idea of young Tory activists being on the left of the party is straight lulz tho.

Essentially, they like Obama because he is photogenic and American and not too left wing and they don't ever have to think about the bits of his politics they may disagree with.

and it makes them look like they're not racist.

it's apples and oranges to a great extent, much more than uk-based "lol democrats = uk right wing" commentary implies. but yes, cameron is more ideologically aligned with the democrats than the republicans. this is probably even true of the wider tory party agenda. the number of tories or reliable tory voters who are comfortable with this idea, believe it to be true and rejoice in democrat victories is absolutely tiny though.

so yes, to a degree i agree with "victories for a hard-line right in the usa make cameron's position weaker with his pragmatic tolerators, especially given cameron didn't manage to win an election himself."

it's very far from clear yet that this is a victory for the hard-line right in the u.s. though. the estabilishment republican party has done well overall, but there were quite a few cases of palin-endorsed tea party people failing. and more importantly for the uk: it wasn't a presidential election, which is the only thing 99.9% of the uk electorate are aware of. if obama loses in 2012 (to who though?) then that's something that would probably give a feeling of momentum in the UK. but that might end up just being anti-incumbent momentum, rather than momentum that strengthens the uk right.

basically, this election has consequences for the uk that are either totally insignificant or, for now at least, ambiguous.

dunno, the deadlock and poor economy are not good signs for anyone in the capitalist west

yeah, that's what i mean by anti-incumbent (rather than rightwards) momentum in a few years.

basically, this election has consequences for the uk that are either totally insignificant or, for now at least, ambiguous.

I'm confused as to what the consequences are for the USA, let alone the UK.

Man charged with task of preventing David Cameron looking like a fat-faced cunt given job paid by taxpayers

Protection of frontline public services in action there.

― Tom A. (Tom B.) (Tom C.) (Tom D.), Wednesday, November 3, 2010 11:19 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Being grumpy about this on PMQs to-day, quite amusing.

Seriously though - fuck all this crappy banter the pair of you...

12.14pm: Miliband says Cameron claims to be making a hard choice about tuition fees. But who has Cameron put on the civil service payroll this week? His own personal photographer. (See 10.47am.) Mililband imagines what the photographer would say: "We're all in this together - just a little bit to the right, Nick."
Cameron asks if this is what Miliband's opposition has been reduced to. The last Labour government spent £500m on communications. The coalition will cut that by two thirds. Cameron suggests Miliband should engage with the serious issues.
Miliband says this is a government of broken promises. "That is what they meant by broken Britain." Cameron is destroying trust in politics.
Cameron says Miliband can have a succession of "lame soundbites", or he can decide to engage in a debate about the government of the country. People know what Miliband is against. But they don't know what he stands for.

Communications Budget slashed to "lots of nice pictures of me"

That was shit on Miliband's part. Beyond shit actually.

As many as three people could go to university for the cost of that photographer.

Or one for a whole degree.

ed miliband is so rubbish

£9k a year tuition fees! Clearly when the coalition talks about not wanting to make the next generation pay for this generation's mistakes, they're full of shit.

yeah. fucking incredible. i felt hard-done-by when they were a grand a year. im still like eight thou down, but £27k and rising on graduation? fuk dat.

It's outrageous that Cameron's photographer can still claim child benefits.

Whatever happened to Punch and Judy politics?