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

...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)

caek do you vote lib dem each time because you only live in lib dem seats

yes, i've never lived in a seat that wasn't LD vs. conservative. i would vote labour if i was somewhere they had a chance.

i was a lib dem parliamentary researcher in 2003, but that was more because i knew my mp (clegg's predecessor in sheffield) and i didn't really want to work in government, rather than any particular pro lib dem feeling. i've never been a member.

No idea what happens in LD/Con marginals in four years time. I think if the LibDems are assuming they'll get an easy ride in those seats they are spectacularly deluded. At what point in this Parliament do those concerns start to seep in? It's all faux-mateyness at the moment but the moment the Tories sense a potential majority it's going to get rocky.

otm

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

Well, it is a good thing if it is coupled with a Labour share increasingly by more than the Tories' share, because it means Labour are more likely to win seats off the Tories.

well, yeah it might not hurt, but the party that wins the next election will not do it by winning more votes from the lib dems than the other party. there aren't enough lib dem swing votes to do that, and they won't break in one direction en masse unless cameron turns out to be a paedophile or something.

apart from weakening the tories via weakening the strength of the coalition, the lib dems are a total sideshow. it's really depressing to see labour supporters waste their energy on them via the schadenfreude of watching a minor party commit suicide when the conservative party have 300 mps and are, well, conservatives.

At what point in this Parliament do those concerns start to seep in?

When they see they are polling in single figures? I know there are >four years to go and few people care about polls outside election years, but politicians are among those few people.

"...would have saved *the party's* money...":

A source close to the PM said: “Their jobs were cross-governmental and would have saved money in the long run. But he thought about it long and hard and does accept that they sent the wrong signal to the public during difficult times.

“Andrew and Nicky will now return to Conservative Campaign HQ and they will not be replaced.”

xp, i think they're much more interested in the results of private focus groups and custom polling stuff this far from an election.

i think the breaking point for the coalition will be if (i.e. when) the lib dems lose the av referendum.

at which point, almost regardless of how the lib dems are polling, the prospect of a general election will look horrifying to them.

oh lol royal wedding. watch the conservatives get the av vote to happen around the same time.

nah lib dems would walk it in that case as all tory mps would be sleeping on the mall in anticipation

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11773574

programme of two-tierification continues

Nothing like creating a market where one is completely unnecessary.

"Hey, how can we fuck over the BBC a bit more?"

Minister for equality scraps equality law

FUCK THESE FUCKING CUNTS

FUCK THESE FUCKING CUTS

Language, please.

The government's emphasis would be on ensuring "equality of opportunity" rather than "equality of outcome", May said.

I'm cool with this. Are they gonna start by making sure all newborns belong to wealthy families or all of them belong to poor families?

Presumably they'll ensure that all children have equal access to equally good education, healthcare and recreation facilities too. This is more than any Labour government's ever promised.

The government's emphasis would be on ensuring "equality of opportunity" rather than "equality of outcome", May said.

This is pretty much exactly the same weasel trick the most right-wing of NuLab types used.

"Equality of opportunity" will be awesome tho! Presumably genetic engineering will take out most congenital disabilities and inequalities of temperament and intelligence, and alongside the new open access public schools and everybody living in cheery little garden villages we're gonna have us a new race of superpeeps.

May's speech set a very different tone for the government's approach to tackling inequalities, moving away from regulation and towards encouraging organisations to choose to improve their record.

Perhaps encouraging organisations to choose to improve their record might include, say, requiring them to

assess whether they were addressing inequalities caused by class factors, encouraging them to improve, for example, health and education outcomes in more deprived areas.

Ah I see the difference. The former government would have "required" these efforts. The current government will simply hope for them.

The government's emphasis would be on ensuring "equality of opportunity" rather than "equality of outcome", May said. "Even as we increase equality of opportunity, some people will always do better than others," the home secretary said. "I do not believe in a world where everybody gets the same out of life, regardless of what they put in. That is why no government should try to ensure equal outcomes for everyone."

No government has, you fucking nutter. The last government tried to do something concrete about reducing inequality in aggregate. And yes to do this effectively you have to look at outcomes! You have to measure things! Once you dispense with outcomes as a basis for policy then you have no way to measure what progress you're making. This is in such bad faith. She's binning the tools she needs to do her job and she knows it!

tbf, anybody who's had a job involving outcomes knows how hard they can be used to suck

"Some companies will always do better than others," said the new CEO of DynCorp. "That's why we won't be publishing our annual report. What we believe in is our opportunity to make money, and we think we have a great opportunity. Outcomes are so last year."

I don't wanna derail my excitement about Brave New World 2.0, but I have seen the drive to achieve outcomes trample all kinds of good and useful work in education and related sectors. Business ought to be a separate thing, obv.

This is kind of Tories 101 really, by "equality of opportunity" they mean "pie in the sky American Dream bullshit we can refer to if need be" and by "encouraging organisations to choose to improve their record" they mean "we don't really give a shit if they don't". It's one of the least surprising things they've done in office.

Well it wasn't a well-made point but with inequality in particular, there has been a huge tension - particularly in legal arguments - about outcomes vs other ways of determining inequality and IMO it was a hugely positive and progressive step the last government took to make outcomes so central to their strategy.

If I was being charitable towards the last government I'd say they were passionate about reducing inequality except when they weren't, and they weren't an increasing amount of the time - Blair openly not minding about people becoming very rich, banging on about the "choice" agenda, etc. The Tories just flat out don't care obviously.

One day somebody brighter and more patient than me will write a major examination that explodes the whole alternate-Panopticon-universe that is outcomes and evidence-based policy. Of course I agree that trying to measure inequality is a useful step on the road to reducing it, but a lot of NuLab's methods were straight technocrat garbage.

Part of it is that if there's a legal requirement to reduce inequality then you have to come up with a system of actually measuring it, and then of measuring what effect various initiatives have made. Which in itself is like, really important!

Theresa May is just a stupid, stupid cow who shouldn't be within shouting distance of a WI meeting, much less Cabinet.

she is mental

-looking

ed vaizey is an anus

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11773574

programme of two-tierification continues

FYI, Sky is the biggest ISP in the country after BT, TalkTalk and Virgin.

Must be a coincidence.

lol, what a fucking cunt:

Name of donor: British Sky Broadcasting Group plc
Address of donor: Grant Way, Isleworth, Middlesex TW7 5QD
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: networking event to enable the Conservative frontbench team (Ed Vaizey and Jeremy Hunt) to meet sector leaders from the arts and creative industries. Value: £3,800. I share this with another Conservative MP.
Date of receipt: 7 October 2009
Date of acceptance: 7 October 2009

Email me whenever Edward Vaizey speaks (no more than once per day)

if only

think it might have 1000000x more to do with the fact that the u.s. is doing the same thing.

weren't labour in favour of an end to net neutrality too?

in fact i think the lib dems are the only party that want to keep it.