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

all my life ive had this belief that progress of time = progress. that as time passes things like public services get better, more efficient, better for everyone. this 'big society' thing has completely destroyed that idea, it feels like a real turning point where we once had it good and now this is it, good times are over. demolishing the library system is one of the most genuinely upsetting things, they meant *so* much to me growing up. heartbreaking that it would come to this

I'm guessing this may be common for people born in the 1980s (no idea whether this actually applies to you). While we were growing up, things went from grim to getting better to boom economy in rapid succession and this is the first time that sliding back down to the beginning looks like a serious probability.

yeah man those halcyon days of Nu Labour's socialist utopia are gonna be a fading ember to cling onto

The dream is over.

Rolling cuts thread:
http://www.maritimejournal.com/news101/uk-coastguard-stations-under-threat-of-closure
The ones left are pretty far apart, what are the chances of being rescued in time if you're halfway between two of them?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-11985929
Privatised? "I'm sorry sir, but if you can't pay, you'll have to drown. By the way, last month everyone we rescued opted to drown and so this month we've had to double our fees, so remember, it's in everyone's best interests for you to pay."

Front page of City AM today puts the City of London's tax contribution as £53bn or just over a tenth of the govt's total tax receipts. Regardless of whether you think that number should be higher or lower, 1/10th of all tax is just o_0 - it hardly reflects a well-balanced economy.

Rolling cuts thread:
http://www.maritimejournal.com/news101/uk-coastguard-stations-under-threat-of-closure
The ones left are pretty far apart, what are the chances of being rescued in time if you're halfway between two of them?

Big society at work RNLI will fill in the gaps although they don't do anything against smugglers, polluters and the like.

Front page of City AM today puts the City of London's tax contribution as £53bn or just over a tenth of the govt's total tax receipts. Regardless of whether you think that number should be higher or lower, 1/10th of all tax is just o_0 - it hardly reflects a well-balanced economy.

― Matt DC, Thursday, December 16, 2010 4:06 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

christ. that's bad news. it's gambling, for the most part.

hmm!

In the coming days, The Daily Telegraph will expose further concerns among Lib Dem ministers about Coalition policy and senior Conservative figures.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/liberaldemocrats/8215462/Vince-Cable-I-could-bring-down-the-Government.html

Either Cable's got an inflated sense of self-esteem or he's got hard numbers as to how many Lib Dem MPs wd follow him.

Yes, and he's quite prepared to tell the ladies all about the powers at his disposal...

i guess it happened to that tory guy, but this seems like very unusual reporting practice. lobby hacks must hear things like this and worse every day, and from both sides, but the code of honour means they say nowt. not sure whose axe is being ground here.

Torygraph wants to undermine the LibDems in government basically. If it's running a series of Inside The Coalition type reports then it's got more, and possibly bigger, revelations to come.

Odds on a general election plummeted from 20/1 to 4/1 recently - might the Tories be trying to engineer one with a Coalition implosion?

Also the rest of the media have cottoned onto the fact that every time the Tories want to announce a really unpopular policy they send a LibDem out to do it.

Any sentient being has cottoned onto that fact by now; well done, media!

They'll be sending the LibDems out with the redundancy notices next.

Odds on a general election plummeted from 20/1 to 4/1 recently

4/1 is crazy. It's not really in any LibDem interests to break the coalition at this point, they'll want to hang onto those seats as long as possible and they won't at this point. So the Tories will have to break it themselves in the hope of securing a majority - can see why they'd want to do this as it'd involve stealing a march on a Labour party that is clearly not ready to fight another election. But I seriously doubt the Tories are sure they're in a strong enough position either.

stealing a march on a Labour party that is clearly not ready to fight another election

Yeah, but it'd take them ten minutes to get tooled up...

also the nation is p angry atm. why not wait till like the week of the wedding or something?

Because the voting populace would feel manipulated, and vote anti bigtime.

(Same goes for all those "Govt is way ahead in poll, let's call a snap election" situations, like when Gord was well ahead after taking over from TBlair. If he'd called it, you watch how that lead would have evaporated)

Brown would have won that election I think, albeit narrowly.

^^^ exactly, not least because the Tories wd have had to commit more fully to a positive manifesto without having had Brown's glorious tenure as PM to beat him with.

there's plenty of sense in the Tories going for a full majority in the next 6 months, not least because a Nu Old Labour manifesto wd have to be cobbled together before the policy review had taken place, making it that much easier for bitter Blair/Brownites to knock the shit out of each other thru-out the campaign.

NB don't think it'll happen, but it does make strategic sense for the non-Cameronista sections of the Party.

Yeah the thing that'll be putting off Cameron (and probably put off Brown) is that if you call a snap election after only a few months in government and then lose then you'll go down in history as one of the biggest numpties ever to have inhabited Number 10.

Quite. While tory support has held up pretty well so far, Labour's actually quite impressive Brown's-fucked-off Bounce means the polls don't look anywhere near good enough for the Cameron brains trust to risk a new election. I wouldn't have thought. Think this is largely wishful thinking for the hard right at present.

(xp) ^ That's right, and while there's more chance Brown would have won than lost, there was still a significant chance he would have lost outright or ended up with a hung parliament. Even if he'd won, it might well have been with a majority reduced from its already low position, which wouldn't have made him look that great.

The ideal thing would be for this government to collapse late next year. This should give Labour enough time to get its act together, and hopefully allow just enough of the Tory cuts to have gone through to *really* piss people off, but not enough to have irreversibly fucked things up.

Thing is, I really don't think the coalition will collapse unless the Tories (by which I mean the ones that matter) actively want it to, and they're not going to do so under your ideal scenario.

Gay Labour MP Chris Bryant has accused Chancellor George Osborne of homophobia for calling him a “pantomime dame”.

The pair clashed over cuts today during an exchange in the House of Commons.

According to PoliticsHome editor Paul Waugh, Mr Bryant said that the chancellor should play “Prince Charming” over the spending cuts.

Mr Osborne is said to have retorted: “At least I’m not a pantomime dame.”

Mr Bryant then demanded that the remark was withdrawn and said that “homophobia” should not be allowed in the chamber but was apparently ignored by the chancellor.

The Labour MP tweeted: “So George Osborne clearly doesn’t know how to be charming with his jibe at me as ‘pantomime dame’. Homophobic or just nasty?”

Honestly can't believe Osborne started a retort with "at least I'm not..."

Bryant should have just responded with "your mum".

looking forward to his shop getting trashed in the near future

Gonna be photoshopped onto a turnip before the end of the year

under what circumstances could they call a snap election? (considering they immediately crowbarred in that 5 yr minimum term rule)

oh look at this, the bad guys are fighting each otherrrrr

So the Telegraph presumably witheld that last bit because they wanted Cable to go ahead and block the Newscorp-Sky deal, which it will now be difficult for him to do. Does that put the paper in dodgy territory legally?

Nice of the Beeb to get so worked up on Murdoch's behalf, I'm sure if Cable had said something similar about them then Sky News wd be howling with outrage.

Can anyone clarify for me how a newspaper can "covertly" record conversations? Isn't that unethical?

OMG! Kay Burley apparently just reported Vince Cable's "resignation" on Sky News, based on the fake Daily Mail Twitter account.

lol she shd resign

she has!

If the next series of the Thick of It doesn't have a) LibDems and b) an enormous misunderstanding stemming from a fake Twitter account then I will be enormously disappointed.

loooooool

fake Daily Mail Twitter account should def report Burley's resignation

is it supposed to be a fucking problem that Cable said this? wtf do people expect

I think if you have the final say on a very large corporate merger then saying "I have declared war" on one or both of the relevant parties might call your impartiality into question.

There's something really quite sad about the speed at which the Labour Party shot back up Murdoch's arse this afternoon. It's like they don't remember the last election.

I don't get it - ordinary people mistrust and loathe Rupert Murdoch - politicians could win in the poll of public opinion if they echoed it. Obviously not Cable in his present position, but the rest of them don't have to worry about impartiality in the face of a report.

I wd say if we were taking straw polls then the ordinary people who mistrust and loathe the BBC wd balance out the scales.

then saying "I have declared war" on one or both of the relevant parties might call your impartiality into question

of course of course its just the ommmggggg politician not impartial tone of the story with the focus on his choice of words

Most ppl in this country don't care about Murdoch. The rise in public support from such an action would be more than offset by having The Sun hammer into you at any given opportunity.

Hope all realise Vince is fucked because he'll be on the front page of The Times and in The Sun and on Sky News every day until he resigns.

A News Corporation spokesman said: "News Corporation is shocked and dismayed by reports of Mr Cable's comments. They raise serious questions about fairness and due process."

Sky's political editor Adam Boulton said the latest development could mean Mr Cable was not seen as impartial enough to rule on the bid.

Can I declare war on this cock?

5.06pm: The Tory MP Douglas Carswell has put a post on his blog saying that he is cheering for Murdoch in his "war" with Vince Cable:

'We must not get angry with Vince. Instead we must laugh at his absurdity.

'Murdoch's "empire", however, is the product of millions of free citizens willingly paying for products and services that Murdoch provides them. And doing so not through coercion - the way the BBC is funded - but freely from what remains of their own salaries and wages after Vince and co have helped themselves to it through taxation.

'Politicians like Mr Cable and I are only able to do all the things we claim to be able to do because of the wealth creators like Murdoch. We should not forget it.'

aaaaaaaaaaaa