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

Sure, but Cameron couldn't even win the last election. And anyway, it was never really part of the plan for the Tories to win next time - they just want a term to fulfil Norquist's dream and hope that whoever takes over can't pull the state out of the bath and revive it.

rot.

yeah that's not really true, is it? state will still account for pushing 40% of gdp after the cuts

Actually, I was struck upon reading Nixonland that the author criticised Reagan's economic policy of cutting 10% of every department, saying that it was like trying to lose 10% of your body fat by trimming 10% off each organ. Anyway, whatever Labour try to do next time will be impossible because every department will be starved and understaffed. It's hard to see what positives can be delivered by whoever inherits power.

the author criticised Reagan's economic policy of cutting 10% of every department, saying that it was like trying to lose 10% of your body fat by trimming 10% off each organ.

don't really understand this. how? it isn't a very good analogy, in any way.

spending in certain areas increased under labour after 1997. that could happen again. but this is a sterile way of looking at politics. labour has to offer something better than a return to the 'glory days' of the mid-2000s. how about full employment? how about slimming the wealth-poverty gap?

I guess the author meant that weight loss/spending cuts should be targetted. Anyway, didn't wprk for Reagan (this was when he was governor - he had to take out the biggest loan in California's history to fix his mess).

And you won't hear any argument from me about Labour's aimlessness. But people will feel worse off after this government, and that will be enough. I'd like to see it, but I think the re-emergence of a socialist Labour party is unlikely to happen at this point. I guess I just don't understand the Tories - these cuts seem to be ideological, not practical. Admittedly, most people I know are servicemen/ex-servicemen and their families, who has voted Conservative since Thatcher increased their wages, but their sense of betrayal is palpable.

hope that whoever takes over can't pull the state out of the bath and revive it

evocative image!

the reagan/fat analogy makes total sense to me. as someone who worked in the civil service for a few years (alongside my erstwhile companions stone monkey and not-godwin) it's clear that lopping off huge chunks of the workforce is going to lead to disaster - things were already tight even 5 years ago. as for the tories not winning the next election, it's reassuring to hear but it's far too early to say with any conviction. can sense cameron waiting for his falklands moment, or trying to manufacture one just in time for that handily fixed election date.

have labour made any noise about reversing any of these cuts or will it be a case of making do? another irritating thing about edmil's labour is they're not making clear what they will do, not making any concrete promises for the future, just muddling along not committing to anything just like cameron did pre-may 2010.

have any reputable economists predicted how the uk economy will look in 2015? is it likely that things will be back to full strength by then?

adam curtis's trap series made a big deal about the whole dehumanising stats & figures thing that new labour brought in. any sense of the tories doing anything to alter this?

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/11/conspiracy-theories.html did we discuss this anywhere? Although I'm not sure there's anything to say but 'wtf'.

(no idea what this site is or how legit it is, but it's really just quoting straight from Hansard.)

haven't really been paying enough attention to have a direct reason why to say this but i think i've gone a whole day without saying it so here we go-

FUCK YOU GEORGE OSBOURNE.

xpost, we had a brief lol about that upthread

actual footage here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_9146000/9146065.stm (2 hrs 34 mins)

best bit: the astonished lols in the background as this nutter brags about saving the IRA a billion pounds

Same guy a couple of weeks ago:

Last week Tory peer Lord James of Blackheath enthralled colleagues with a tale involving "Hermann Göring having sexual congress with a lady kangaroo, which ultimately proved fatal to him because it would not stop jumping".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/26/hugh-muir-diary

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1327385/Iain-Duncan-Smiths-blitz-workshy--1-hour-clear-rubbish.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

This is gonna be beautiful

But Labour MPs condemned the scheme. One said: ‘This sounds like slave labour.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1327385/Iain-Duncan-Smiths-blitz-workshy--1-hour-clear-rubbish.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz14d6A7U6C

i'd be somewhere between IDS and this unnamed MP on this one.

Oh man, even if you don't have any qualms about forcing people to work for £1 an hour this makes no economic sense whatsover. iirc when the 1834 Poor Law was introduced - including a slightly more generous "work for food or die" element than IDS's proposals - businessmen were almost universally against the idea of using "voluntary" slave labour to produce cheap goods that undermined the market.

If we're gonna march people into work at gunpoint why not march them into all these real jobs that really exist?

dear government, get fucked

pretty sure the business lobby over here wouldnt have much problem with slave labour to produce cheap goods tbh

Noodle Vague OTM

If we're gonna march people into work at gunpoint why not march them into all these real jobs that really exist?

from the way 'picking up litter' is being used as an example of work they'll be doing, i imagine they're going to be used to replace the streetcleaners etc who the councils will be laying off to cut costs.

i did not think i would live in times in which the government brought back corvée labour.

xp well, obviously- i mean no point paying two sets of schmucks for it is there now

mkaes me consider the fuckin possibility that i'll still be here next year, doing the same job, without a contract, for the dole.

fucking hell, that couldnt happen, right?

a glorious world in which we're neatly split between people on £65 a week and billionaire CEOs.

efficient sorting of the worthy and the rest tbf

OK, why the FUCK is Graham Shapps following me on Twitter?

Anyone else have this problem?

just got a letter from IDS, being sent down a uranium mine :(

e-mil has bred again, bunking off work

Danny Alexander on 5 Live just now: "David Cameron's video blogger, image consultant and photographer are delivering a useful service."

Depends what the definition of 'useful' is.

Have the LibDems noticed yet how they wheel out Danny Alexander to announce everything that will be ridiculed, massively unpopular (especially with liberals) and both?

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/11/07/article-1327385-05FA549B000005DC-906_468x303.jpg

Some typical unemployed people, yesterday.

This is honestly a more batshit policy than I would have expected of even this government. I don't see how it can even be legal.

glad we've got the labour party to shitcan this nonsense

oh wait

Mr Purnell has stressed that single parents would not be forced to seek work unless there was adequate childcare available to them.

If you can square that circle you'll have my vote. Rotsa ruck.

It isn't legal! This is 'let's scare the proles into meeting us at some mythical halfway point, using those least able to defend their rights for target practice' as usual.

Yeah it feels like some Overton-window shifting to me, as well as a good ruckus people can have for a few days while they quietly do some other nasty shit.

Though I am probably giving them too much credit.

I remember how much whingeing the Tories did when Blair suggested, for example, on-the-spot, perp-walk-to-cashpoint fines for drunk and disorderly behaviour. Do they?

Glad we got rid of Targets so we could replace them with Objectives

fuck these cunts.

Cool Britannia, working with, rather than against, the age of austerity:

Though the track, "2 minute silence", contains no music or speaking at all, the accompanying video features noiseless contributions from David Cameron, Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, Andy Murray, the tennis player, Martin Johnson, the England rugby coach as well as the British actors Bob Hoskins and David Tennant.

Yeah it feels like some Overton-window shifting to me, as well as a good ruckus people can have for a few days while they quietly do some other nasty shit.

exactly. they only want it to apply to some tiny fraction of cases, and in even those they understand it's unimplementable. but the reaction is exactly the one that want.

IDS showing his true colours now, once a right wing cunt always a right wing cunt

Liked James Lansdale's question to Danny "Quisling" Alexander, "Why are you treating unemployed people like criminals?"

both a cancer on society iirc, except the rich section of either obv

If there aren't jobs here for them then there are plenty in Australia, they just have to look for them.

Though the track, "2 minute silence", contains no music or speaking at all, the accompanying video features noiseless contributions from David Cameron, Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, Andy Murray, the tennis player, Martin Johnson, the England rugby coach as well as the British actors Bob Hoskins and David Tennant.

so radiohead have asked cameron to appear in one of their music videos and he agreed? the word 'contributions' suggests as much.

the track, "2 minute silence", contains no music or speaking at all,

I'm liking this new direction of Radiohead's

Isn't it organised by the Royal British Legion and just happens to have both Yorke and Cameron on it?

thought yorke was a white poppy guy

Radiohead have never been very poppy

that's the joke