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

all this mopping up makes cuts an expensive business.

Why is the NUS bothering with this "right to recall" thing with the LibDems? Surely they realise it's not going to legally stand up? There are better lines of attack... still, students I suppose.

also if they take down clegg then they will give the conservatives an extra mp (via hallam)

It's more that making a pre-election promise and then breaking it after the election doesn't actually break any rules even if the government ahs an outright majority. In a coalition it's virtually impossible. Right to recall will surely only work if an MP has either been breaking actual rules, Woolas style, or done something illegal?

Better off targeting the LibDem MPs who are never going to get into the government and hoping they get enough No votes to take the proposals down. There have to be enough of them - one reason so many Labour MPs voted for Iraq was that they had one eye on their future careers. There has to be a greater proportion of LibDem MPs without a hope in hell of making the Cabinet who might just think "fuck it".

But actually, they'll probably just keep going "wheee we're in government!" and do what they're told.

well yes, what the nus are suggesting it probably impossible from a legal pov.

Deluded of Tunbridge Wells:

Greg Clark, the decentralisation minister, has said that community groups need to have more power to stop assets disappearing. "For too long, people have been powerless as they watch community assets disappear," he said. Clark made his comments to coincide with the launch of a report from the thinktank ResPublica saying that community groups should have the right to take over public sector assets such as libraries, schools, hospitals and even prisons and police stations. "Public assets can and, wherever desirable, should become community assets, owned mutually or by individual shareholders or stakeholders in association with communities," ResPublica says. "These public goods can, if properly directed and organised, capitalise both civil society and the bottom 10% of society, which currently has negative net wealth."

He added that the upcoming Localism Bill would put flesh on the bones of the Report's recommendations by enshrining communities' 'right to know' about monies currently being disbursed by local authorities on managing community assets. This expansion of consumer rights in the private sector to community groups would, he went on to say, help the latter bid successfully to run these assets themselves, dismantling in the process entrenched local authority monopolies.

Prisons? Seriously?

Yes, we can!

Good way to cut the deficit by selling off everything to the bottom 25% of the population with their 1% of the liquid capital.

another day, another reason to emigrate basically

gonna move to italy -- governance-wise, they 'get it', i think

but the TV is terrible

I'm actually reading that Philip Blond PDF and they keep repeating the word "community" over and over again. But there doesn't seem to be any joined up thinking across government, how are you meant to foster these communities and also "capitalise the poor" when the government is simultaneously breaking communities down through massive changes to housing benefit and social housing? It doesn't make sense.

No, communities are "fragmented" currently - soon they will be consolidated: the poor in the outskirts of northern towns and the rich in city centres in the south. It'll do wonders for class solidarity.

all kind of make sense.

Lolololololol

What has caused this Irish miracle, and how can we in Britain emulate it?

in Ireland they have doubled spending on public services in the past decade while reducing taxes and shrinking the State’s share of national income.

What a neat trick! Oh wait.

Haha! Classic.

Meanwhile in the craaazzzzy world of polling.
YouGov/Sun results 15th Nov CON 40%, LAB 42%, LD 10%
http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/govt-trackers-update-15th-nov

Not expecting that to be front page news in The Sun tomorrow.

well, it's four years until the next general election and none of those numbers have changed by a statistically significant amount in the last 3 months so fair enough

Well, except for the Lib Dem total.

no

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/550pxVotInt151110.jpg

Well, that seems like a clear Labour lead for the first time tho.

"clear"

Private industry stepping in to create jobs, just like the government said.
That's ASDA price.

Related stories
Asda to close its pension scheme

See, for years the Pension Scheme was looked on as an 'emergency' fund should the need arise. The Maxwell scandal showed that. So, legislation was passed preventing company boards from using this.

Now, of course, company boards don't care about it so much. Also, why their own pensions are largely kept in separate schemes to their employees.

was expecting a bit more 'controversy' tbqh

Well, that seems like a clear Labour lead for the first time tho.

no. the polling error is 3%. even if the polling error was 0%, the change is within the fluctuations over the last few months. the latest result is not a trend or even an outlier.

I meant clear as in "in the lead for longer than 10 mins". But, hokay.

That poll doesn't mean anything, it's not front page news by any stretch of the imagination.

it's not even news.

Lib Dems going from 23% of the vote in the election to bubble around 14% for a couple of months then consistently sit between 10% and 12% looks significant to me, regardless of the error margin.

Labour going from 29% at the election to polling consistently close to 40% is significant. As is the solidifying of the Tory numbers - despite poor govt approval ratings they are still as a party polling higher than they did at the election.

Unless you mean all polls are worthless?

Unless you mean all polls are worthless?

they have more of a purpose prior to an election though, right? a poll's value now is diminished by having to attach 'if things stay JUST like this for the next four years' to their conclusions.

Two-party squeeze innit, why would anyone vote LibDem when they could vote Labour or Tory, and they have no idea which party the Liberals would end up propping up in the event of a hung parliament. So the support has fled to the other two parties.

But it's not that different to other recent polls, and it's too far ahead of the election to be front-page news, any number of things could affect that poll in the next four years. The only reason Ned is drawing attention to it and going "bet the Sun won't put this on the front page" is because Labour are two points ahead.

Also Labour enjoying poll leads over unpopular Tory governments is not exactly unknown. Most of that time the Tories have gone on to win. The problem is the old one, Labour now has no economic credibility, and in lieu of that they have to hope that the Tories wreck theirs again.

ffs I didn't actually think it was front page news. But you know way to miss the point. Which, it seems to me, is if this (Labour now has no economic credibility) is true then 42% is a pretty good showing. Also they've got a leader who hasn't really done anything except have a baby and the cuts still haven't actually happened yet.

I agree it's a good showing, but it's only two percentage points above the Tories. Massive two-party squeeze going down.

I'd argue, however, that "the leader hasn't done anything except have a baby" isn't a great thing. Firstly because he hasn't done anything, secondly because it means that Labour is a 'protest' type poll response that may not translate into votes once they put themselves in the light of increased scrutiny. That's one of the things that stopped the Tories winning an outright majority. As things stand in the polls, it's still a hung parliament with the LibDems holding the balance of power, and would either they or Labour ever agree to form a coalition?

But yeah, it's years away, there are other things to worry about.

...mmm, like, will we get a day off for Wills and Kate's wedding?

xp
Like pigs being banned for instance (the actual Sun front page to-day).

The actual banning of pigs would be a pretty big deal.

Massive two-party squeeze going down

While not denying that's true, the ex-Lib Dem votes are flowing far more in Labour's direction that to the Tories. Another way of looking at it, if you combine the two coalition parties, is that at the election Labour was 30% behind (ConDem 59%, Labour 29%) and is now only 8% behind (ConDem 50%, Labour 42%).

all these numbers are meaningless with four years to go. the vast majority of people pay no attention to politics until elections.

Party pooper.

and at the risk of repeating myself, there are relatively few lib dem seats that labour could ever win, so a declining lib dem share isn't necessarily a good thing for them.

(unless AV happens)

I still think it's a good strategy to hammer the Lib Dems in the hopes of causing dissension in the ranks. But yeah, Labour basically needs to focus on winning back working class votes.

absolutely. if you weaken the lib dems you make the other half of the coalition seem weaker too. but it's all for nothing unless the conservative share of the vote is much smaller in four years time (especially if AV doesn't happen and they redraw the boundaries)