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

You can repeat it as often as you want but I don't think it's got an enormous amount to do with this. They don't want full employment for the reasons above, they probably don't want three million or more unemployed either because it makes them look like total clowns who can't run an economy. They need to be seen to be doing something but they haven't got a fucking clue what to do.

There's also almost certainly some heavy influence from the Christian wing of the Tory party who feel a moralistic urge to "do something about the poor" as long as it doesn't involve forcing anyone to pay more money or anything else that might be inconvenient to their worldview. So the end result is this policy that appears to be written on the back of a napkin by someone who's seen My Fair Lady one too many times.

There's also the willful refusal to even acknowledge the question of what jobs these people are supposed to do in places with no industrial base any more and not enough work to go round even in the boom, let alone in the middle of a global economic crisis. And "go and work in a KFC 30 miles away" isn't going to be the solution to anyone's problems, work ethic or no work ethic. Because if they did acknowledge that question then this whole stupid edifice would unravel in seconds.

hey don't want full employment for the reasons above, they probably don't want three million or more unemployed either because it makes them look like total clowns who can't run an economy. They need to be seen to be doing something but they haven't got a fucking clue what to do.

yeah it is hard for me to get a handle on the impossibility-of-full-employment argument when the short-term problems raised by no employment are so much more pressing. like i don't think they're worry about a decrease in employment leading to an eventual utopian period of full employment; there isn't such a systematic 'long game' imo

emma harrison runs A4e, which is one of the companies forcing people to work in tesco's for nothing. nauseating. everyone otm about these cunts.

no that's not really my point. my point is that they don't feel any real urge to reduce unemployment - except maybe for not looking like clowns reasons as Matt mentioned, altho previous Tory govs have not seemed to worry unduly about that. so unemployment and social exclusion is this area they feel the need to talk about cos you know it's in the news and that but it has no central place in their political vision, and nor does "where are the jobs gonna come from" or any of that.

i'm not proposing a conspiracy, i'm saying that every time a Tory talks about employment it has about as much weight as the SWP's stance on Celebrity Big Brother. it's not on the radar. there are underlying reasons why it's not on the radar, which i was commenting on. basically a Tory wanting to end unemployment is as likely as a Catholic wanting to end sin.

xp

that is a good pots. i agree, sure - i think whenever i hear that one strand isolated it sounds conspiratorial, but as a matter of priorities then yeah. feeling compelled to address a thing they're not addressing, as exemplified by the tree-on-the-logo makeover, feels like a key tory transparency.

post. good post. no pots.

As well as her business interests, Emma is a mum of four, works tirelessly for charity and lives in a “posh commune” with 20 of her friends and family. Her story is one of creativity, determination and hard graft.

it's like the innocent smoothies aesthetic stamping on a human face forever.

If Tesco needs people to stack shelves, then they can pay minimum wage to each and every one of them with their £3.54 BILLION in profits last year. Hell, they could even pay them £7.45/hr - the London Living Wage according to the GLA. Part of the experience of work is the money you should be paid whenever you do some for an employer.

was considering a separate thread for thick bastards who patronisingly use their own (distorted) life story as a template for how everybody else should be able to "succeed"

That's so gross - particularly when the people who hold themselves up as paragons of this sort of thing do everything to pull the ladder up behind them so nobody like them has access to the same pathways out.

yeah and usually the story gets distorted so the hard times are worse and the support networks disappear and the lucky breaks they had are ignored

govt policy finally taking its cues from reality tv, i have been waiting for this for a while

Kirstie Allsopp and Mary 'Queen of Shops' Portas beat her to it by a few years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/21/david-cameron-new-holiday-cornwall

"After an early return due to riots, PM takes fifth holiday of the year to avoid being 'completely fried' by pressures of the job"

If I could afford five holidays in 7.5 months (financially and actually having the annual leave available) I'd be wary of telling my employer that it was to avoid being completely fried, cos their first thought would be whether they need to pull the capability procedure out of the bottom drawer.

Mind you, not sure the Queen is too bothered what DC does.

I wonder what the Brenda/Dave weekly meetings are like.

- Phone tapping, prime minister, what is that?
- It tastes wonderful in Majorca, ma'am, with aioli and quince on the side.

Get him out of Cornwall, they have to get the place disinfected after every time he goes through there. Ugh.

However there appeared to be some confusion in Whitehall over the plan with employment minister Chris Grayling - who was also named among the volunteers - saying that he was not involved.

"I was rather surprised when I read this one. It was news to me that I was going to be in there," he told Sky News.

"Tim is the children's minister and I know that he wants to lead from the front over this. I am sure he will do an excellent job."

if i could afford five holidays in 7.5 months i'd take them, and wouldn't really care too much about what t'internet thought. Did blair or brown never take hols?

Doubt Brown did tbh.

Brown's idea of a holiday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/03/gordon-brown-community-work-kirkcaldy

^^^LOL - great minds, N.

David Cameron has cut short his holiday to return to London to chair a meeting of the National Security Council's Libya committee, Downing Street says.

he goes on hols- lol tory prick
he cuts hols short- lol tory prick

David Cameron - lol tory prick

that's what i'm saying, tbf, but is it enough for uk ilx politics threads to use it as the only looking glass through which this govt/pm can be examined? I use this place for my uk politics updates and you're better than that.

I think that he came back within hours of the Libya "success" but took three days to return when his capital city was being torched by marauding youths is worthy of comment tbf.

yeah, just not endless self-congratulatory reiteration of the 'lol tory prick' comment, is all.

now go think about what you've done eh

Wait, he had another holiday already?

So, if he interrupts his hol then goes back, does that make it 2 hols?

(xpost) or indeed, "Wait, he had another holiday all ready?"

i think we can all assume "tory prick" is understood. the need to say it seems like a generational thing to me.

david 'two hols' cameron

It's like that double standard that says John Prescott cannot have two jaguars, and Tony Blair cannot make lucrative amountts on the lecture circuit, but if both situations were applied to Thatch, those people would fall down in praise at the offerings to the Magii...

'five hols' actuellement.

Prescott on Twitter yesterday explained that one of the two Jags was secondhand and cost £4K in Exchange and Mart.

same double standard that says blair can start a war as a nominal labour pm but still be less despised than a relatively inoffensive dim twat like dcam, i guess

think this is a good point darragh & we should shoot higher, but i think that 'tory prick' in this instance is shortform 'guy is going on holiday' -> 'guy does not give a shit' -> 'tory leadership is just utterly remote, detached & unconcerned from its people'. like i have no idea what he'd be doing that was useful if he wasn't on holiday - touring a building site or actively eviscerating some kind of useful food regulation standard or w/e, but it is 'lofty david cameron and his distance from being a useful public servant'

Prescott on Twitter yesterday explained that one of the two Jags was secondhand and cost £4K in Exchange and Mart.

That took him long enough, or was there a D-notice in tne media on this?

yeah fair point schlump, i do get the shorthand aspect of it too

same double standard that says blair can start a war as a nominal labour pm but still be less despised than a relatively inoffensive dim twat like dcam, i guess

― 10/11 of a dead jesus (darraghmac), Monday, 22 August 2011 09:35 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Less despised? You sure?

TBF darragh, most people here bitched about Blair's interventions - and still do. We don't despise either man for the exact same reasons.

xp: troo. the comment thread on his observer thing was not exactly sweetness and light.

Any PM going on holiday is always going to be subject to the "how can he, while they are felling trees in Nova Scotia at will!!!" comeback.

Still, though...

Cameron has taken five holidays over the course of a year, some of which have been spent in the company of disgraced News International execs. What bugs me is how he justifies it - basically if he doesn't have lots of hols he'll freak out/melt down.

Hope I'm not generalizing but I get the feeling most of ILX are still cross at Labour for abandoning Clause Four.

well at least i got ye complainin about blair for a bit, result imo

don't think the uk's problems would be solved by a prime minister working longer hours. seems like an odd thing to care about in that light. (modulo going on hols with NI people obviously)

Hope I'm not generalizing but I get the feeling most of ILX are still cross at Labour for abandoning Clause Four.

― robin hoodie (suzy), Monday, August 22, 2011 10:41 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm probably generalizing too, but that's the kind of generational thing i was talking about.

I read that as "but that's the kind of generalisation thing i was talking about."

Actually this is what fucks me off about left politics in both the US and the UK - after an interminable length in opposition, nominal party of the left *wins a landslide* and then sets about giving concessions that drag it to the centre/right, concessions that *none* of the voters charged it to make when voting against the cruelties of conservatism. I don't recall voting for anyone because I wanted them to renegotiate the social contract to disadvantage the general public.

modulo? is this an autocorrect thing, caek?

i just wiki'd it it's amazing