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

"In recent months we've heard some dangerous rhetoric creep into our national debate that grinding the faces of the poor is somehow anti-social"

nah seriously tho Dave good on ya. just think where we'd be without all these new private sector careers you've created.

"Put a young person into college for a month's learning, unpaid, and it's hailed a good thing.

"Put a young person into a supermarket for a month's learning, unpaid, and it's slammed as slave labour. Put a child into a great school run by a local authority – cause for celebration. Put them into a great school backed by a bank – and that is a cause for suspicion. Frankly I am sick of this anti-business snobbery."

Put a young person into college for a month's learning, unpaid, and it's hailed a good thing.

yeah we run a lot of dead useful month-long courses you nob

"Put a young person into college for a month's learning, unpaid, and it's hailed a good thing.

"Put a young person into a supermarket for a month's learning, unpaid, and it's slammed as slave labour.

did he actually say that?? i thought i'd used up my reserves of disgust already this month, but...

Its weird how I talk about D-Camz the same way my father talks about M-Thatchz, in so much as every other sentence is 'Would like to piss on their grave'. I think this NHS thing is when I really started to up my true anti-tory rhetoric and hate.

Warms the cockles that the young 'uns are learning the old ways vis a vis Tories being lower than vermin. I hate Clegg more though.

ch✧✧✧.grayl✧✧✧@d✧✧.g✧✧.u✧

shit guys I just the government's emails!!!!1

You've lost me

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9699000/9699350.stm

He is useless. First Gove with the Trots opposing his academies plasns and now Grayling with the SWP, reds under the beds or what?

look the SWP are a very real threat to democracy in this country

heard that live thursday night and still thought you meant ac grayling

Invited to respond to these issues, a Gove spokesman declined to comment.

This is going to be huge in the long term. I can see Murdoch moving away from news and media and towards education.

He's not really going to be around for the long-term, but I think there's a difference between providing online education materials and actually running a school. That article is about the former but heavily implying the latter. I wouldn't want Murdoch anywhere near a school but the article's being a tad dishonest.

Would love to see him try and make that tablet education model work in a Kennington comp though.

John Bird, writing in The Times:

Much of the controversy about work placements has been absurd and naive. Tesco was started by Jack Cohen. He worked off a barrow in the East End nearly a century ago. He started his business to make money and Tesco has never erred from that concern ever since. So, of course, there should be no surprise that when Tesco entered the scheme - before getting cold feet and withdrawing - it wanted to maximise the benefits that free labour brings them.

I assume that's not John Bird the satirist, but John Bird the Tory class traitor?

it's not my grandad

You know what really helps young people into work? Offering them jobs.

Works for all ages!

Amazing austerity news:

Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt said: “This is great news. It shows what can be achieved when determination, goodwill and a tremendous amount of generosity come together. I am very pleased that we have been able to play our part by freeing up the National Gallery’s reserves, diverting more money to arts and heritage from the National Lottery and taking practical steps to encourage greater philanthropy. Diana and Callisto is a breathtakingly beautiful work of art and I am immensely grateful to everyone who has helped to keep it and its companion painting Diana and Actaeon in the UK in perpetuity.”

If you can afford it, you can't afford to be without it

Riiiiiight....

Dunno how much if any Treasury money was involved in that Titian deal but I don't really have a problem with an undisputed masterpiece being saved for one of London's big tourist attractions in an environment where it can be viewed by anyone for free.

Yeah, worse things are happening... at sea and elsewhere

Indeed, it seems like pretty terrible things are happening at sea at the moment.

I actually love the painting. Just think that website is vile.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/02/police-privatisation-security-firms-crime?CMP=twt_gu

SHITSTORM INCOMING.

That is fucking insane

If I submit the winning bid, how many free police horses do I get?

as long as somebody builds Robocop i am cool with this

This is the UK, so it'll look like this...
http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/alansugar415.jpg
"Dead or alive, you're fired!"

no wait, like this...
http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/alan-sugar.jpg

a Robocop with a Jeremy Kyle face wd be fucking awesome

Mr Johnson said [Livingstone] presided over "a bunch of Trotskyist, car-hating, Hugo Chavez idolising, newt-fancying hypocrites and bendy bus fetishists".

wtf is 'newt-fancying'?

Everyone's favourite fact about Ken when he ran the GLC was that he kept newts.

the monster.

Lib Dems tentatively reaching out to see what remains of their student support

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9125909/Students-should-face-paying-council-tax-Lib-Dems-say.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17275884

Blatantly leaked it himself.

Think this is the thread for this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17260020

pathetic wannabe stand-up comedian with zero political credibility told to stand down by Lembit Opik

Funny that, wonder where they get the impression this is an acceptable way to behave?

It is despicable that in the 21st century so many medieval practices and attitudes remain. And it is appalling that time and again, this is shoved under the carpet. People turn a blind eye and a culture of shame and secrecy is perpetuated.

calm down dear

huff post bloggers getting worse and worse

From next month, 25 million people will have more money in their pocket and over a million low-paid workers will have stopped paying income tax altogether. Just think about that for a moment: a million more workers with no tax bill because of us, because of you.

Becomes even more impressive when you take into account all the people they've helped make unemployed who aren't paying tax now either.

hang on why wasn't i told about this will i be able to afford a new pair of shoes next month?

Paul Staines dressed as a massive cock. And a guy in a chicken suit.

hope he beetborts soon

"This autumn we're not looking at the 50p tax rate. The priority this autumn is to get the housing market going. The priority this autumn is to get infrastructure underway. And of course we're absolutely committed to increasing the personal allowance for many millions of people in this country who have a tough time at the moment. When you look around the world you can see that the tough decisions we've taken on the budget have protected Britain from the worst of the European debt storms. We're not in the position Italy is in, for example. But that doesn't mean we can let up. We've got to be vigilant."

-- George Osbourne, 11 Nov 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financevideo/8884261/George-Osborne-confirms-no-50p-tax-rate-cut.html

"I do not believe that the priority at a time like that is to give a tax cut to a tiny, tiny number of people who are much, much better off than anybody else. Our priority will always remain providing tax cuts and providing support to many millions of people on low and middle incomes and that isn't going to change regardless of what people say in letters to newspapers"

-- Nick Clegg, 11 Nov 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg/8883966/Nick-Clegg-We-will-not-cut-the-50p-tax-rate.html

George Osborne is to defy calls for the removal of the 50p upper rate on income tax and will instead instigate a clampdown on wealthy homeowners in an attempt to demonstrate that the rich cannot avoid Britain’s austerity programme.

...

“The 50p rate isn’t going anywhere any time soon,” said one coalition aide. The Tories and Liberal Democrats both realise that giving a tax break to the richest layer of society – at a time of widespread “austerity” – would be politically toxic.

David Cameron, prime minister, last year insisted that it was “fair” and that the UK’s “broadest backs [should] bear the biggest burden”.

-- Financial Times, 1 March 2012
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ffc0bfe4-63bd-11e1-8762-00144feabdc0.html

http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/51/orly_owl.jpg

George Osborne poised to slash top tax rate from 50p to 40p

Government sources say that from the outset the chancellor has seen a cut in the 50p rate as the headline-grabbing measure of the budget, and views it as the simplest single step he can take to show his commitment to an enterprise economy.

-- The Guardian, 15 March 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/15/george-osborne-top-tax-rate