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

These ppl = small businessmen/ shopkeepers i.e. the very beating heart and raging soul of this once great nation, sir

Kind of unfair projection I reckon.

However, soup runs on the streets in Westminster actually encourage people to sleep rough in central London

wut

srsly liz jones had a better understanding of homelessness than this

till you've tried their soup you haven't lived (rough)

However, soup runs on the streets in Westminster actually encourage people to sleep rough in central London

Translation = "they're going to sleep rough anyway, we just don't want them doing it anywhere near us".

"It is wrong and undignified that people are being fed on the streets.

At least let them starve with dignity!

About 150 people sleep rough in Westminster on any given night and 98% of those people "have no connection to the borough", the council said.

this wd be hilarious if not so repugnant -- homeless people by definition have no connection to any particular place

Be interested to know what the two homeless charities' stance on this is - presumably they feel there should be more shelters etc?

nother story linked from that one about homeless (sixth form?) students

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12342627

one was sleeping on the streets

shit is totally fucked imo, how difficult would it be to provide overspill hostels etc

homeless people by definition have no connection to any particular place

Not so, really - this is more of a throwback to old-school parish laws which would bounce tramps/travellers back to their 'home' parish straight away in order not to have to expend resources on them.

ya well obv everyone has relation to a particular place, but it's kinda arbitrary where homeless ppl go to......various reasons why they congregate in city centres i guess

looking forward to london tory councils trying to outdo each other in the destruction of civil infrastructure stakes in the 2k10s

Oh yeah, don't think I'm defending the cocking Tories and their cleansing strategies or anything! They're obv despicable, just trying to position the argument historically, you know. I mean, those parish laws were terrible - a lot of people just moving to try to find work got 'bounced' out of town, never mind people who were actually much more vulnerable.

xpost

The Hare Krishnas also give out free food all over Westminster - can we send a big fat jingling bunch of them to surround Dolphin Square or something? Or they can offer to feed the unpaid interns working in Portcullis House.

Amazing performance by @dpastaire on London Tonight, tonight: http://www.itv.com/london/soup-runs-to-be-banned77332/

- gadaffi is in venezuela
- we're going to do a no-fly zone (using... um...)

fucking dynamite work lads

He's in Venezuela? Sterling work there Ken.

Reporters should start asking William Hague where various heads of state are, on a regular basis.

This is fucking hilarious in an "inevitable spiral of doom" way:

NHS reform could see GP surgeries on stock market

IHP is in talks with three GP consortiums to set up a company that would turn underspends in their annual budget – in effect, savings on patient spending – into profits. This company, which aims to list on the stock market in three to five years, would treat patients at 95% of the cost of the NHS. This putative saving, amounting to £40 per patient, would be booked as "profit".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/02/nhs-reform-surgeries-stock-market

Obviously it hasn't happened yet but I'm sure it sounds like a great idea to my local MP Mr Lansley.

What a wonderful set of incentives there.

I would buy shares in them and then get really really sick.

Think we missed this yesterday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/01/mervyn-king-blames-banks-cuts?CMP=twt_gu

When revolutionary socialists like Mervyn King agree the deficit is the banks' fault, I'm surprised that the opposition aren't going in harder.

Barnsley Central by-election results:
Dan Jarvis (Lab) 14724 60.8%
Jane Collins (UKIP) 2953 12.2%
James Hockney (Con) 1999 8.3%
Enis Dalton (BNP) 1463 6.0%
Tony Devoy (Ind) 1266 5.2%
Dominic Carman (LD) 1012 4.2%
Kevin Riddiough (Eng Dem) 544 2.2%
Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 198 0.8%
Michael Val Davies (Ind) 60 0.2%

Lib Dems doing well to hold off the English Democrats to grab that all important sixth place, but sadly would have needed a coalition with the Loony party to save their deposit.

Result doesn't mean a huge amount for anyone other than the LibDems, as its about as safe a Labour seat as exists. But wow @ LibDem slump. Short-sighted idiots.

Be very interested to see a southern marginal seat come up for by-election sometime soon - my guess would be increased Tory majority at the LibDems' expense but you never know.

you never, tru.

Should we have a new thread? I think the Cleggeron era is pretty much over. May Day getting abolished, minimum wage under attack, councils privatising "everything".

(also 4.7k messages seems quite a lot)

Naah, they'll be right back together again before you know it.

need a good title first

Way I'm feeling to-day it would just be a load of swear words with the words Cameron, Gove and Osbourne inserted at random points.

Result doesn't mean a huge amount for anyone other than the LibDems, as its about as safe a Labour seat as exists.

Maybe, but the Tory vote collapsed, tho not as spectacularly as the LOLDems (and seems to have gone to UKIP, so obv. it's going to go back come a general election). Also, it might be a safe Labour but they did pretty well considering the last MP ended up in prison!

Abolishing the May Day bank holiday is some dumb shit. You don't fuck with England's bank holidys. Any money says they row back from that one.

Nooh, they were grousing about it being "Labour Day" and preferring "glorious Saint George or Battle of Trafalgar Day plz" ever since it was 'granted'....

... I wondered about that but surely the LibDems can tell them all about Mayday, they all hang about folk clubs and drink real ale, don't they?

Getting rid of May Day? Is there anything more transparently ideological and useless? Don't they have actual things to be doing??

they're Tory cunts, this is what they do ffs

Fella on R4 this morning seemed to suggest that having an october bank holiday would improve tourism by giving en essentially longer summer. Not sure if this holds water tho.

Nah it holds a lot of water, that's the problem.

An October bank holiday would just ensure that people sit in the pub/in their house watching telly, it won't actually boost tourism at all, because it'll be shitting it down. April wouldn't be as bad.

not very conservative, these conservatives

Yes, and/or an April bank holiday would begin the holiday season with a rip-roaring hurrah for St George oops shh.

even apart from the politics, i don't want a bank holiday in october. i want 'em in the springtime.

the april idea faces the intractable easter issue.

... also it's St. George's Day, so I assume Scotland, Wales + Norniron would pass on that one. Unless they did the decent thing and called it Shakespeare Day.

5 bank holidays btwn now and first week in june, what've ye got?

Each of them, a Celtic vs Rangers match.

ah yeah they arrange it like that, not us

The more the, uh, merrier (xp)

Scotland and Ireland have a bunch more Bank Holidays than we do iirc

as well as the rest of the world apart from the US

well we get to celebrate independence from ye fuckers for a start

too much work to get done for us to have too many bank holidays.