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

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

The LibDems have studiously avoided the question of what they're for for so long, but I'd say what you're getting at is a combination of a) and c).

They'd be in a worse position had they propped up a Labour government. The Tories are at least willing to pay lip-service to the idea of actually working with them, the ignominy of Labour big beasts who are used to having their own way in government then having to work with Clegg would have led to some disastrous rows, would be my guess.

And Labour would still have rammed home any authoritarian legislation they wanted to, even if it sat badly with the LibDems' soft left vote. There'd be little chance of those people switching to the Tories, but the right-leaning LibDem vote evaporating would possibly outweigh that.

It all comes down to hung parliament = not proper coalition government, because next time it'll be business as usual and the electoral interests of the coalition parties will still be diametrically opposed.

Not as big a story as Samantha Womack leaving Eastenders, but nearly.

ehhh doesn't this happen pretty often? A lot of council departments have the same 'if you don't spend your whole budget you won't get the same amount next year' system iirc.

A lot of departments, full stop.

indeed i saw an episode of star trek:voyager last week wherein this very phenomenon occurred.

It's a universal problem

Latest net government approval: minus 20 (33% approve, 53% disapprove)

Lib Dems 7%

VAT 20%

Bankers salaries up 40%

rock and roller cola wars, i can't take it any more!!

Hate to say I told you so, but it looks like that racist cunt Jack Straw is back in the game.

The Government was urged today to introduce a £2.50 an hour training wage for internships lasting for three months or longer.

The idea was part of a number of measures suggested by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) aimed at boosting the UK's economic recovery.

Also, surprise surprise, the Tories are moving to "create jobs" by making it easier to sack people.

Straight doublespeak from the Mail on this:

David Cameron plans to get Britain back to work by making it easier to sack staff in the first two years of their employment.

uh....

you sack someone, you hire someone else, bingo, two jobs for price of one.

Bad news for Nick Clegg that.

Love the idea that employers are too scared to employ people in case they suddenly stop doing any work after 366 days.

Hilarious commenters on the Telegraph site worried about how this affects white middle-aged males.

You could say that about any story on any newspaper website, I know, but still.

An amazing piece of mad brainstorming disguised as a policy proposal from yesterday: killing two birds with one stone by making parents pay for the administrative costs of arranging child support, in order to cut costs and encourage couples to stay together for the kids!

"The aim would be to be act as a deterrent and help convince parents that splitting up should be an option of last resort when all other avenues had been taken. The whole system needs to be made more family friendly."

In fact, there should be a tax break for marriages to involve three people. One to work (main job), one to also work and raise kids, and one to act as spare child care, and sexual substitute for when the other two are too busy for it.

the easy-to-sack-within-first-two-years* is a lot like the french rule that a bunch of cars got flipped over, and was then repealed/not enacted, no?

* also i have never had a job for two years, feel like i'm not alone in this.