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

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

― sean gramophone, Tuesday, 21 December 2010 16:44 (2 hours ago)

Somewhat connected with how a tabloid sunday newspaper can covertly intectept the telephone conversations of our elected representatives, and it's editor, rather than getting thrown in the slammer, gets to be press secretary for our unelected government!

lol. well, 'lol'.

I cannot actually get 'lol' about the NoTW phone hacking thing, it makes me fucking furious.

ok after a cursory examination of this, fuck the BBC - also fuck the Government for making a hoo-hah about stopping Murdoch but doing nothing of the sort

I can see why the BBC, well, Peston, reported it. Whichever way you look at it it's a huge and significant business news story. It's not actually in the BBC's long-term interests to report it (and therefore ease the way to a unified Sky-NewsCorp) - quite the opposite.

Ther merger is in the hands of Jeremy Cunt now so there'll be champagne corks popping in both Wapping and Isleworth tonight I'd imagine.

Cable's now there with Liam Fox in that distrusted circle who'll probably get demoted at the next reshuffle. The banks will be overjoyed with that as well.

Also, notice how Clegg has suddenly gone very quiet indeed?

Don't think the rest of the govt have any interest in even talking about stopping Murdoch, if anything the reverse is true.

Cable speaks for the Government. He's given a chink of light and simultaneously blown it out for good. Heil Murdoch.

And of course it isn't in the BBC's interest. Short-termist idiocy wins again. Peston himself is too fucking loaded to care, the cunt

louis, they can't not report this. they shouldn't gloat, but it's news. cable was foolish to speak candidly to people he didn't know.

possibly his self-loathing is leading him to take foolish risks

he definitely had the air of a man in the wildly terminal stages of regret when he defended the student fees increase on R5 a few weeks back

Remember that less than a year ago, Cable was Britain's most popular politican, the Sage of the Credit Crunch, darling of the liberal left etc etc. That shit obviously went to his head, because now he's the face of the coalition's most unpopular policy he's shooting his mouth off to pretty young "constituents" assuring them that he's some sort of entryist and is still fighting the good fight really. I don't think it's any secret he'd rather be in coalition with Labour, he was trying to talk Alistair Darling round before Clegg sided with the Tories.

dude should go out howard beale style with a thermonuclear takedown of media and state

then get employed by the bbc as robert peston's replacement as the latter retires to his dorset ranch

peston's alright imo

dude should go out howard beale style with a thermonuclear takedown of media and state

― smexy fishy hawt joey martin (acoleuthic), Tuesday, December 21, 2010 8:40 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

vince cable isn't that guy louis!

he really isn't

don't think it's actively malevolent, like geo. osborne, but he's not that guy

seems like a stitch-up on Cable - depends to what extent the Torygraph is divided on Murdoch-BSkyB issue

But the Torygraph suppressed that bit of the story, they don't want a more powerful Murdoch.

if Peston hadn't revealed what cable said surely the whistleblower would have just gone to The Times? & the BBC would have got in shit for sitting on the information (like the Telegraph). At least they had the integrity to release it (like with FIFA Panaroma programme).

...or the BBC have just gone to the right really fast. Complete lack of neutrality in covering the student protests (particularly with that Jody McIntyre interview), Mark Thompson calling for non-biased TV news programmes & now this all in a fortnight. If that's the case it's really worrying - they don't need to cosy up to the Tory's, they've got the liscense fee agreed for the next 5 years.

and there's no way Jeremy Hunt won't pass the deal now. He hates the BBC & has been championing Murdoch all year, saying this:

Rather than worry about Rupert Murdoch owning another TV channel, what we should recognise is that he has probably done more to create variety and choice in British TV than any other single person

http://www.jeremyhunt.org/newsshow.aspx?ref=452

So clearly not 'impartial'. The Tory's & Murdoch win again.

variety and choice!

come the revolution, great cross way will burn first

*west cross way, even

aahh, hadn't seen this part of the article:

We would be the poorer and wouldn't be saying that British TV is the envy of the world if it hadn't been for Murdoch being prepared to take that commercial risk. We need to encourage that kind of investment.

I've never heard anyone say that UK TV is the "envy of the world" because of Sky - is he deliberately trying to turn on its head that it's the BBC's broadcasting that has always been considered the envy of the world? All Sky do is buy up US imports.

That article has made as angry as is possible to be. Fuck Hunt and his clueless philistine ignorant cuntfaced Tory mates. Fuck them all.

Cheers.

oh man what would i have done without thousands of repeats of shitty american shows and the occasional bit of football that murdoch wasnt the first to pay for to put on television! starved until my eyeballs popped, thats what.

Rather than worry about Rupert Murdoch owning another TV channel, what we should recognise is that he has probably done more to create variety and choice in British TV than any other single person

http://www.jeremyhunt.org/newsshow.aspx?ref=452

So clearly not 'impartial'. The Tory's & Murdoch win again.

― prolego, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 9:07 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

fucking hell. well found.

Three more LibDem ministers' criticisms of the coalition to be outed tomorrow apparently.

Rather than worry about Rupert Murdoch owning another TV channel, what we should recognise is that he has probably done more to create variety and choice in British TV than any other single person
http://www.jeremyhunt.org/newsshow.aspx?ref=452

So clearly not 'impartial'. The Tory's & Murdoch win again.

― prolego, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 9:07 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

tbf the link makes clear he isn't talking about the newscorp purchase of bskyb there but a hypothetical "fox news uk". c/hunt's views on further concentrating media ownership might be different to his ones about increasing choice (probably they won't be, but that's why he'll get away with that.)

apparently if ofcom reports a case to answer hunt can either quash it, which i'd guess is less likely now because of the "optics", or refer it to the competition commission, so presumably this'll end up in their hands, and if there is undue pressure it'll only be of the depressingly routine kind, exactly as would have happened under vince. (i know someone who works for cc and is involved with a separate inquiry into sky, virgin etc and exclusive deals over movies and the atmosphere is apparently v. tense and heavily lawyered compared to other inquiries.)

reportedly news corp is prepared to give "undertakings" to address the concerns of regulators which supposedly heads off a verdict of "substantial lessensing of competition" anyway, so i'm not entirely clear that vince's war wasn't always headed for surrender. think he was just trying to impress a couple of young female "lib dem supporters" - he seems like quite a vain man, or (more charitably) he wants to be liked in an unlikeable job.

Three more LibDem ministers' criticisms of the coalition to be outed tomorrow apparently.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, December 22, 2010 12:12 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

yep. but no-one has heard of these cats.

fuck

Amazing how this slipped over the holiday when no one was paying attention: the Cabinet Office's Behavioural Insights Team wants to introduce musical stairs and rebrand vegetables as "sports candy" as part of efforts to combat obesity.

I want to be on the Behavioural Insights Team, that's an awesome job.

Not keen on taking Insights from anyone who doesn't realise that people used the VW piano stairs once, because they'd never seen them before, and installing them permanently is a great way of ensuring only tourists use the stairs

but I do realise the only Behaviour these guys are currently trying to induce is "column inches and idle chatter about hairbrained scheme", so

How do you get up from an all-time low?

lol

David Cameron is to embark on a regional “jobs” tour and will promise to give more support to business start-ups as he seeks to move the national debate beyond spending cuts and towards economic growth.

The prime minister will announce on Wednesday that he is extending the “new enterprise allowance” – a scheme that offers those unemployed for six months up to £2,000 in mentoring and funding to launch their own businesses. It is expected the government will spend about £50m in an effort to create up to 40,000 businesses by 2013, double its initial goal.

The first YouGov tracker poll of 2011 puts Nick Clegg's party on just 8 per cent, their joint lowest level of support since 1990. Labour is still ahead of the Conservatives on 42 per cent, although support for the Tories remains surprisingly robust at 40 per cent. If repeated at a general election on a uniform swing, the latest figures would reduce the Lib Dems to a rump of just nine MPs.

At what point does sheer blind panic kick in for them?

When Cameron calls a snap one.

Can he do that? Given they're on the way to introducing fixed term Parliaments it would look very bad indeed for him to throw it out the window at this stage.

Why would Cameron call a snap election when the Tories are on 38% and Labour on 40%? And when he's insisted that a 5-year fixed term is the only "stable" option the bond vultures will tolerate?

You're re-asking the question to which my responses isn't an answer.

Cam could call a snap election in 5 years. At which point, the libdems hit a blind panic.

So you mean there's a general election in 4.5 years, which the coalition wins again, then Cam calls another election in six months? I'm not really following you...

cameroon could put an exact date on the election today for five years time and the libdems would spend all that time in blind panic. cannot imagine any other emotion coming from them except 'how do i join tory party'

quite.

They're facacta no matter when the election is, IIRC.

(Mark I think you confused me with calling an election in 5 years' time a "snap" election)

(don't worry, I confused myself also. I think...)

Why would Cameron call a snap election when the Tories are on 38% and Labour on 40%?

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 5 January 2011 11:24 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark

Because the Labour Party war fund currently stands at £16.25 and an IOU note signed by Len McCluskey.

Also it would require Ed Miliband to actually come up with some policies way before he ever expected to, Labour would have to rush something out and they'd look useless in an election campaign.

But he can't call a snap election, so this is irrelevant.

If the last General Election results had been reversed between Nu-Nu-Lab and the Tories, and Clegg had took the Lib Dems into coalition with a Brown-led government, how much different would their poll ratings look today?

Probably a bit better I'm guessing, since 1) Labour would have been in a weaker negotiating position and 2) the LDs would have had to do fewer policy U-turns.

Why weren't they able to predict this situation before they entered into the deal? Nothing totally unforseeable has happened between then and now, has it?

Well quite. Every deal they've done, everything that's happened since they coalitioned up, shd've been obvious from the outset. And yet they took the decision. Which begs some questions.

Also I don't think they'd've got mad respect from the electorate for propping up any kind of Brown govmint. The big question here is: has their support slumped because

a) they're somehow taking the brunt of the blame for the Coalition's exciting new look no-welfare State
b) they're fundamentally a leftist/social democratic party with a significant but v. much minority slice of soft-Right/anti-Labour voters
c) they're fundamentally an angry protest vote party who've blown up their raison d'etre by being in power

and each of those answers begs its own set of questions which mostly boil down to they need to decide quickly-ish what a Lib Dems is for