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

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?

hey folks! just checkin in to say i'm thinking of you...

no really -- funny to see ppl wondering about what the US midterms mean for the UK (no idea btw) because i've been thinking about the UK example in terms of what the new crop of hard-right legislators have said they want to do: cut everything now. and the cameron plan, in general, looks like a good test case. gee, what happens when you dump another few hundred thousand public employees into the labor market in the middle of a recession? i don't think any american pundit has made this connection, but i'll be curious to see how the two economies and political systems handle the next two years.

thanks for your time!

what happens when you dump another few hundred thousand public employees into the labor market in the middle of a recession?

see: ireland, republic

we're not really like ireland (labour try to make this comparison). or like greece (the tories try to make this comparison). but yes it is going to be shit.

I dunno about consequences of US politics for the UK, but looking at any US pol thread is sure to make me terrified of a(n even more) 2-party system

thanks Lib Dems for so eagerly making yourselves Tory fall guys; thanks everyone who never voted for them being so gleeful at being able to say "I told you so"

my pleasure

things can only get better guys

This pundit suggests the UK horrorshow will dissuade the US from austerity measures, but I doubt it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/25/economics-economy

Republicans get elected by promising "smaller government"; in office they tend to spend more than Democrats. They cut benefits and gut regulatory regimes so it FEELS smaller but it's more than made up for by corporate giveaways.

For the past 20 weeks I have been engaged in a very strange dialogue with the two noble Lords, in the course of which I have been trying to bring to their attention the willing availability of a strange organisation which wishes to make a great deal of money available to assist the recovery of the economy in this country. For want of a better name, I shall call it foundation X. That is not its real name, but it will do for the moment. Foundation X was introduced to me 20 weeks ago last week by an eminent City firm, which is FSA controlled. Its chairman came to me and said, "We have this extraordinary request to assist in a major financial reconstruction. It is megabucks, but we need your help to assist us in understanding whether this business is legitimate".

...

I found myself between a rock and a hard place that were totally paranoid about each other, because the foundation X people have an amazing obsession with their own security. They expect to be contacted only by someone equal to head of state status or someone with an international security rating equal to the top six people in the world. This is a strange situation.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2010-11-01a.1463.8#g1536.0

wtf? he's just got one of those nigerian emails, right?

Fell asleep reading a Dan Brown book, more like.

haha what the fuck

is he just an old nutter? biggest lol comes after this guy has bumbled on for 30 minutes, ranting about "finding out the truth!" and some lib dem lord interrupts with "My Lords, back to the spending review..."

if someone is losing their marbles in a big way, why are they still ok to sit in the house of lords and waste everyone's time like this?

hundreds of years of tradition.

Something very lolworthy about this:

"Our ambition is to bring together the creativity and energy of Shoreditch and the incredible possibilities of the Olympic Park to help make east London one of the world's great technology centres."

East London is already full of Nathan Barley-looking cunts and I'm sure the Olympic Park has already got plenty of companies signed up for the tax breaks, so in my many ways this plan can't fail.

*in many ways*, even.

It's not an inherently terrible idea, but the notion that they all have to be in East London is presumably just bandwagon jumping after Cameron read that Silicon Roundabout story in the Standard the other week. Seems to overlook the fact that the UK tech industry isn't really clustered around Shoreditch.

for a sharp advertising mind such as Cameron Technology = Media = Facebook. Clever jonnies up in Cambridge curing cancer doesn't come into it.

gonna put plaistow on the map, then confuse everyone over how it's pronounced

Looking forward to buying a Ginsters at the "Facebook Garage".

better than the relentless garage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11695416

a good thing, no?

depends how much poison comes with the sugar

Cameron's obviously got a few hooky tracks on his ipod.

So we'll get our version of the DMCA? With extending the recording copyright lifetime thrown in as well, I imagine…

Blimey, this doesn't happen very often. Woolas is such a cunt... I had no idea that Miliband had appointed him as a Shadow Minister with this hanging over his head, doesn't look like great judgement there.

Two High Court judges have ordered a re-run of this year's General Election

Only read that far and got excited for a sec.

Just me or has Ed Miliband so far failed to make any impression whatsoever?

Biding his time until the leadership election's over.

i know it shouldn't matter but watching ed in PMQs the other day all i could think about was his lisp and how childlike and callow it made him seem.

Unlike the elder statesmanlike gravitas that Cameron brings to leaning on a podium.
PMQs just makes me angry. Both of them need to get down to business.

They're both so so bad, I imagine them going over their lines beforehand and deludely going "lolol, this will kill him".

Seems to me EdM needs to definitely step up a gear or three and stop playing silly buggers. And, yes, fuck knows what making Woollas anything (let alone the fucking Home Office) was about. But, also, lols at LD's taking the high ground when it comes to campaigning.

i haven't been following the uk papers/radio since the leadership election, but my impression is that emills has been a bit of a damp squib. is that fair?

(not just at pmqs, more generally)