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

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

Thassa cracker, so it is

Harriet Harman has said it is "not part of Labour's politics for somebody to be telling lies to get themselves elected". Which must surely be news to anyone who's observed them over the last 10 years.

LOL Tony Bliar notnimynameamirite?

I'm thinking more at local government and constituency level, but outright lying in campaign literature appears to be part of all three parties' DNA, Woolas just did so more obviously than most. If Miliband and Harman are serious about cleaning up the party I fear they'll have a lot of work to do.

Also defending a racist liar is really NAGL for Labour MPs right now...

I'm thinking more at local government and constituency level, but outright lying in campaign literature appears to be part of all three parties' DNA

Lib Dems are renowned for, if not outright lying, fighting dirty shall we say

Do you think this makes it acceptable for the Labour Party to do likewise?

No, just amusing to see them perched precariously up on their high horse. This is generally true whenever any political party gets all snooty about the conduct of another party.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was the start of a rash of stories like this actually, expenses scandal style.

it'll be a fascinating precedent, if it sticks

wonder if the losing mp was supported by lib dem high command: they ought to feel worried

obviously what woolas was saying was more in the line of defamation (though has he been sued for this?), but if, say, a political party says, vote for us or the country will TURN INTO GREECE, is that a lie?

if all three parties conspire not to talk about economic policy, it's a sin of omission, but not a lie as such.

Um, this might be a ridiculous question but, erm, WTF is going on at Millbank Tower?

My tweetstream is full of conflicting reports.

student invasion, fires set, tory hq evacuated

"Nick Clegg, we know you, you're a fucking Tory too."

A few smashed windows and a couple of injured police, but on the whole it seems like a huge and largely peaceful demo that the media are trying to turn into a riot. Lot's of funny anti-Clegg placards too!

"lot's" lol ffs

I was wondering if it was just diversionary press tactics to discredit the protesters but ILX's Favourite Socialist New Statesman Columnist (tm) is on site describing some pretty scary scenes.

Not sure how scary it is relative to, say, anti-capitalist protests of a decade ago, not to mention the poll tax riots, but it looks pretty fucking angry. I approve.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11726822

police literally making a space for the protestors so they can get a good run up at the windows o_O

Krishan Guru-Murthy tweeted that someone just threw a fire extinguisher off the roof of Millbank. Okay that's pretty scary.

Stuff like this inevitably makes me think of this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gpRqmuW7Ak

Now you can smash all the windows that you want
All you really need are some friends and a rock
Throwing a brick never felt so damn good
Smash more glass
Scream with a laugh
And wallow with the crowds
Watch them kicking peoples' ass

But you get to the place
Where the real slavedrivers live
It's walled off by the riot squad
Aiming guns right at your head
So you turn right around
And play right into their hands
And set your own neighbourhood
Burning to the ground instead