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

what if it's a guest house?

You could buy 17 Viggers' duck houses for £28,000.

What if it's a really big duck?

you'd still have to maintain the duck houses, those bastards don't care where they shit

* insert joke about "sending them the bill", somethinglikethat *

I know, LOL economists but UK may have to slow pace of cuts, says top economist

He's hedging his bets as much as possible there, but given that Osbourne has already basically said "we're not changing course no matter what" I doubt it means much.

Don't think the top economist maybe gets why the ConDems are cutting as quickly and deeply as they are.

there's no U in ge0rge osb0rne

that's weird cos i'm sure there's a C-U-N-T in there

Ugh:

#567
Eric Pickles
Conservative
Brentwood and Ongar
Score: 1165
Won: 140
Lost: 337

Thanks to a ranking website set up by one of the stars of the E4 reality television show Made in Chelsea, voters need no longer be unsure of who is the most attractive MP in the land.

Sexymp.co.uk was established by Francis Boulle, a 22-year-old diamond mining heir and apparent Chelsea resident

http://www.tvthrong.co.uk/files/u1717/550w_made_in_chelsea_boys.jpg

I haven't not seen Made In Chelsea, but uggh, this photo

Francis Boulle is the besuited one fyi

You haven't not seen it?

Haha oops, I think that picture did something bad to my eyes

god, fucking e4, is there no cunty trend they can't bandwagon on to

Title is plain taunting now.

Tough quotas on student numbers may have to be introduced to avoid the creation of a spending black hole under plans to raise tuition fees at English universities to a maximum of £9,000, a powerful committee of MPs has warned.

....

Figures compiled by the Guardian reveal that as of Monday, 105 universities had declared the fee they will charge, with an average of £8,765. The government modelled its plans on an average fee of £7,500. The Office for Fair Access is vetting universities' fee plans. They will announce on 11 July which have been agreed.

A Whitehall source said uncertainty over the costs was inevitable given the number of variables but insisted that they were confident that the figures they had used were the best projection.

can't we just start rounding teenagers up into Soylent Green plants and get the inevitable over with?

Oxford dons will vote on a resolution that says: "Congregation instructs council to communicate to government that the University of Oxford has no confidence in the policies of the minister for higher education."

Cambridge, Goldsmiths and Warwick are to embark on similar exercises. There is fury in parts of the academic community about the hikes in fees – but also about funding cuts, particularly to the arts.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, called on every university to hold a vote of no confidence claiming that the plans were in "disarray".

Oooooh.

283 ayes, 5 noes:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13681202

Let's Prevent terrorism:

The new strategy will see:

a greater effort to tackle extremist ideologies, including work with mainstream individuals to make sure moderate voices are heard

tough action to exclude foreign hate preachers

work to tackle terrorist use of the internet for radicalisation, including the filtering of unlawful content by public bodies such as schools and libraries; and work with industry and international partners to crack down on unlawful content hosted in the UK and overseas

can't believe they're trying to exclude foreign hate preachers and remove extremist (i.e. anti-semitic) literature from libraries

If you're gonna borrow a copy of Eliot's Collected Poems you'd better get in quick folks.

there it is

nah it's hard to see what there is to object in the proposals, but as per uzh with the Tories the presentation was a bit Rambo. looking forward to the crackdown on homophobic and racist hate speech in the press tho.

not sure big tom was proposing mass slaughter, death to apostates, etc., to be fair: http://www.channel4.com/news/thinktanks-demand-inquiry-into-libraries-islamist-hatebooks

xp

also was wondering if Theresa May's core values of our society were the same as mine

and if they were gonna publish those core values, maybe in the form of a constitution or something

think TSE's version of anti-Semitism was basically that the Jews wouldn't be allowed to sit at the high table in heaven

Most of it is not new and it's rather irritating that where I live, which has had pretty much thirty years of everyone getting along pretty much OK thanks, is now a "priority area". Give the EDL something to point at I suppose.

and if they were gonna publish those core values, maybe in the form of a constitution or something

I wonder if they overlap in any way with those 'rules' Cameron seemed so keen on in the run-up to the election.

Looks like they're abandoning prison reform now. Quelle fucking surprise.

This is starting to get comical.

Head in hands @ Labour Party.

didn't bother reading that but "socially conservative" is code for "racist" presumably. some sort of combination of SWP + BNP sounds like the worst of all possible worlds, well done labour.

Ed Miliband has been told by his policy advisers that the British electorate want him to implement a tough responsibilities agenda, similar to that of New Labour, focused on cutting crime, reforming welfare and reducing immigration.

Voters also want to see an international policy that puts "helping our own people first particularly in a time of economic difficulty". The majority of views on Europe expressed to the party have been euro-sceptic. The police service is the main front line service that the public want protected.

The emerging shape of the themes coming from the Labour policy review process is likely to be deeply uncomfortable to many in the party.

The findings were detailed in private to members of the Labour front bench on Tuesday by the party's policy co-ordinator Liam Byrne.

Many will see the mood of the electorate detailed in the report as sharply right wing, representing a serious policy challenge to a leader that is seen on the left of his own party and who has pronounced Blairite New Labour as dead.

In his presentation to the front bench, the Byrne report states "submissions have expressed a sense that people have responsibilities as well as rights".

"In addition they want to cut crime and anti-social behaviour, reform welfare, reduce immigration – this is tied to a sense of fairness at work and protecting wages as well as to the issue of benefits."

The public also expressed a concern about cuts to frontline services, particularly the police. They are also "anti-politician – closely related to the issue of MPs expenses".

The report also found a "significant proportion of people respond to being asked about international policy by expressing the view that 'we should be helping our own people first particularly in time of economic difficulty'".

The report says that Europe is by no means an issue that comes up in most submissions but "where it is mentioned the majority of views are expressed with a euro-sceptic tone".

In perhaps the only traditional left agenda there was strong support for reform of the banking system "with a vast majority mentioning the unfairness of the bankers' bonuses".

There is concern for the future of young people expressed by opposition to increases in tuition fees, support for apprenticeships and funding for youth services.

It will be difficult for Miliband to ignore the stark findings since Labour has itself touted the review process as the "largest ever listening exercise conducted by the party, designed to reconnect Labour and the public".

It is based on 20,000 submissions from the public and led to 70 listening events all over Britain with 6,000 people directly attending.

Byrne has said "what we have heard becomes the starting point for the formal start of the policy making process at the Autumn conference".

Byrne insists that the party will have to take on board these findings, telling the front bench in a note "Ultimately we want a strong majority to support our agenda; remember this was something that eluded David Cameron. We won't achieve that with a minor re-spray. It does demand a major rethink – and this takes time."

"The first priority for Labour this year is to get back in touch with voters – whose trust we lost at the last election; it was practically a 1983 result. 60% of voters say that Labour was seriously out of touch".

There has been growing internal criticism about what many regard as the sprawling policy review process with as many as 17 different policy groups.

Byrne has insisted in his note: "There is only one policy review [which Ed Miliband leads, and Liam Byrne coordinates] – but every member of the shadow cabinet is feeding into it, bringing together advisers and experts on a range of questions, to make sure we're drawing from the best ideas in the world.

"But crucially, it's anchored in a conversation with the public – the people whose trust we're seeking. We're not making the mistake of launching into writing our next manifesto now.

"That's why this year we're starting our policy review, with the No1 focus on getting back in touch with voters – and changing our party to make sure we don't lose that connection again."

Miliband is also determined to give the policy process time, arguing that rushing solutions would be unwise since the next election is unlikely to be until May 2015.

Some shadow cabinet members argue there is little point producing policy at this stage since no one is listening to the party.

In other words, "follow the Daily Mail's agenda in its entirety".

The first priority for Labour this year is to get back in touch with voters – whose trust we lost at the last election;

"trust", fucking hate this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who trusts politicians??!??!?!?

Depends on your definition of "trust". If you mean "believe everything they say", then no one, if you mean "having faith in them to run the economy/NHS/school system" then, erm, it's kinda important.

Of course, just makes me squirm to hear any politician/ policy wonk/ prick blabbering about trust I suppose

i'm off to start a revival of the Rote Armee Fraktion, have fun guys

I feel like everyone on the left EXCEPT Labour policy advisors ought to be listened to by Ed Miliband. Or just "listen" to the Labour policy advisors and then save yourself the hassle by binning any produced report.

So basically Cameron's running the NHS and the Prison Service himself now, what's next? Universities?

I dunno, it should've been screamingly obvious to them which way most of the country thinks (ie, basically like this) and in the 70s and 80s a significant proportion of yr traditional Labour vote would've leant left on economic issues and right on social issues. These are the people that Blunkett/Straw/Clarke were pandering to all along. It's also a part of the electorate that can be quite easily distracted by Cameron talking tough in the right places.

The challenge should be to communicate to these people WHY certain things are in their interests, but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for that.

next thing you'll be telling us political parties shd be activist and attempt to lead public thinking rather than just doing a bunch of market research

Can't find a dedicated phone hacking thread...all sorts of fun details in this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/08/phone-hacking-kate-middleton-tony-blair

According to journalists and investigators who worked with him, Rees exploited his position as a freemason to make links with masonic police officers who illegally sold him information on targets chosen by the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror and the Daily Mirror.

Some police contacts are said to have been blackmailed into providing confidential information. One of Rees's former associates claims that Rees had compromising photographs of serving officers, including one who was caught in a drunken coma with a couple of prostitutes and with a toilet seat around his neck.

ah we've all been there