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

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.

Nah, we'll be needing lots more bank holidays, so the people who work in banks have time to run the libraries.

i'd rather bankers volunteered to pick up the maccie-d detritus dropped out of idling cars once the scum inside have finished their meals.

how is one day going to make any difference?

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

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Friday, March 4, 2011 12:17 PM (7 hours ago)

totally

You do know that's not really how government/projects/any kind of business works, right?

Don't they have actual things to be doing = haven't the police got any real criminals to catch instead of annoying innocent speeding drivers

lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forget Two Jags, here comes David "new Jags" Cameron.

Less than a year after he came to power, the prime minister has been told by the police that he must not follow his advice to colleagues to tighten their belts and travel by Tube and train. Instead, he has to make use of two new gas-guzzling luxury Jaguars - at a cost of more than £400,000 to the taxpayer.

The pair of XJ X351 models were spotted for the first time outside Downing Street last week. They were bought recently by the Metropolitan police as part of a replacement programme of its small fleet for protecting VIPs.

Costing more than £200,000 each, the two XJs are said to have been specially modified to protect the prime minister at a time of heightened terrorist threat.

For comfort, the interior is lined with leather and standard models are equipped with surround soundspeakers, iPod docking and sat nav.

While Cameron cultivated a green image in opposition by bicycling to work, his new mode of transport is less environmentally friendly.

The top-of-the-range model does 23 miles to the gallon. Filing the tank will cost the taxpayer about £105 - for just 420 miles of driving.

During his first two months in office, Cameron had the use of a 15-year-old Jaguar, one which had come into service when John Major was prime minister in the mid-1990s. Cameron made play of eschewing the vehicle by walking around Whitehall and refusing his police motorcycle outriders. Downing Street said at the time that he viewed the outriders as "an unnecessary extravagance".

insurance premiums

Entrepreneurs our only hope, according to Cameron. It's like he's a 14 year old kid who just read Atlas Shrugged.

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/mar2011/8/4/map-of-coalition-cuts-674426863.jpg

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2011/03/07/save-our-services-david-cameron-s-cabinet-constituencies-escape-worst-of-the-cuts-while-poorest-are-hit-hardest-115875-22971531/

well, Andrew Mitchell and Nick Clegg's areas got some of the largest cuts.

Still though, Labour's lowest is -4.4%

Also Nick Clegg's surely inflated by that Forgemasters thing?

Entrepreneurs our only hope, according to Cameron

Our only hope, that's a bit desperate sounding isn't it?

Meanwhile Hague lurches from one cock-up to another

could have been worse, they could have been stalked by an alien that hunts humans for sport

Andrew Mitchell and Nick Clegg's areas got some of the largest cuts.

There are 11 MPs covering Brum. 9 of them are Labour, 1 LD and 1 Con, so I suppose it's a "Labour" area, but it's a Con/LD coalition council. But after May Labour will prob have the most councillors but the ConLD will still have a majority overall. Could be interesting.

Also Nick Clegg's surely inflated by that Forgemasters thing?

― anna sui generis (suzy), Monday, March 7, 2011 10:45 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

those are constituency boundaries (note two doncasters), and forgemasters is not in hallam.

tbf map is misleading

Mandelson now saying that Labour would've raised fees to £6k a year if they'd won. Don't all wet yourselves with surprise now.

Hague takes full responsibility for SAS mission but you can't blame him for it not going to plan.

a spokesman for the Libyan opposition [who] told the Times that he did not understand why the British team did not just make a normal appointment to see the revolutionary council.

What does the rest of the world think of Hague (or Cameron for that matter)? Does he even register?

Not in my back yard, and certainly not if it looks like an oik might be able to afford to live there:

Local people will be urged on Wednesday to use new powers to vote down housebuilding plans if architects continue to propose identikit "Legoland" estates.

In a signal of the coalition's aesthetic taste, the housing minister, Grant Shapps, will praise a range of developments that use local stone, reflect local architecture and recognise tradition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbcACpriZ9s

Not quite sure it's that simple, a lot of mid-market housing these days is pretty cheaply-built, high-margin stuff and I doubt a lot of it is durable over the long-term. Dunno how you get round that without interfering in the god-given right of the housing market to do whatever it wants though, and under the current rules developers will appeal and appeal over overturned decision until they win.

If I ever buy a house, you can bloody well bet it won't be built a la Brookside Close. Shapps in still a massive tool shocker.

xp LOL, The One Show is the epitome of soppy comfort telly for the hard of thinking. Wish the US media would bring the double-entendre snark on its own arseholes, watching that.

John Lydon beat Cameron to it as well

Oh yeah, that "how do you sleep" moment was uh... Wha?

Jokes

Party chairman Tim Farron also rallied the troops with a speech packed with jokes - some at the expense of the party's coalition partners the Conservatives.

Hitting back at jibes that the Lib Dems have become Conservatives since forming the coalition, he told activists: "I share a bed with my wife - it does not make me a woman."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12720315

zing

probably does mean he's getting fucked though

VG

Hague thinks running around like a headless chicken = being an effective Foreign Secretary

Interesting that Gove is mentioned as a possible successor. Clearly bored with the whole education thing already.

The Hague piece is weird. He's so chuffed about being busy yet he doesn't say what he's achieved by being so busy. He calls a journo a 'Lounge Lizard' for being lazy and then says we should be grateful because he's given up the piano to be a politician.

You should have heard him play piano.

There was also heavy criticicms at the conference of the U-turn on tuition fees.

Mr Clegg said in his 40-minute closing speech: "Being in coalition with another party is not always easy.

"Making compromises, settling differences and going out to explain decisions which aren't exactly the ones we would make on our own.

"But every single day I work flat out to make sure that what we are doing is true to our values."

He added the Lib Dems had always been the party of "fairness, freedom, progress and reform".

"We cherished those values in opposition. Now we are living by them in government," he said.

"So yes, we have had to toughen up. But we will never lose our soul."

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0aE9sakEsz4/SHF6nno4CMI/AAAAAAAAAEc/hv-f94GSJxs/s320/Emetic+front.jpg

Google has its claws in Cameron, say the critics. Rachel Whetstone, Google's European head of communications, is married to Steve Hilton, the prime minister's director of strategy.

And the prime minister's declaration that he wanted to see a US-style relaxation of IP laws, creating a "fair use" exemption – giving space for startups to copy and create innovative products, sourced from material which might be copyright-protected – was top of Google's legislative wishlist.

Got to say, respect to the LibDem conference for throwing out the NHS plan. Although it'll probably show up just how little influence they have in the coalition.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51771000/jpg/_51771194_010434726-1.jpg

tough times, big fees tough competitor
but that £4 a month will help...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12824055

already under the threshold son

#winning