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

It's like, in 2015, why even bother with policies or manifestos? Why not just line the leaders up on a catwalk with signs around their neck and people can vote for them on the basis of how "fit" they are?

She should have told him of for his stupid made-up accent

i keep wondering what his accent IS/is meant to be, some kind of strangulated transatlantic-with-hint-of-scottish thing?

I think it's a "right wing tosser and therefore ashamed to come from the only something for nothing country in the world" accent

Michael Gove Syndrome, then. I apologise for not having done something about Mr Gove when I had the chance.

.. and, by the way, if anyone would know about getting something for nothing it would be the Scottish Labout Party, they've been getting votes for years and doing sweet FA in return

(xp) Then there's Norman Lamont who's too ashamed to even pronounce his own name properly!

"In Politics" by Norman Lamont; sexy book (if your idea of "sexy" is endless balance sheets and minutes of meetings).

I note they've taken this moment to pander to the Daily Mail and say its now basically okay to shoot whoever you want on your land.

tory guy on r4 this morning used the phrase "grossly disproportionate" about 12 billion times, discussing this nonsensical plank, and saying the law should ensure the courts don't get involved (um?).

So basically it's the Magnum Force argument of shooting your neighbour because his dog peed on your lawn. Given that was dialogue spoken by Clint "Like Chair, Like Brain" Eastwood, that shows how far this nuttiness has gone.

they do seem to be cadging from the republican playbook at the moment - can only imagine this limit-abortions-to-12-weeks garbage is an attempt to shore up some kind of religious fundamentalist support/a chance to engage in some "morality"-fuelled slut-shaming and general misogyny.

Eerily prophetic Guardian thinkpiece from 2010 about the Tories and the fundamentalist Right: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/may/10/evangelical-religion-tory-conservatives

"If I'm a mop then you are a broom, a broom that is cleaning up the mess left by the Labour government and a fantastic job you are doing.

"And I thank you and I congratulate you and your colleagues George Osborne the dustpan, Michael Gove the J-cloth, William Hague the sponge."

^Boris, obv.

Fucking twat, obv.

What's the phrase again? Oh yeah, "My God, it's full of shit".

Work hard. Family comes first. But put back in to the community too. There is nothing complicated about me. I believe in working hard, caring for my family and serving my country. And there is nothing complicated about what we need today.
This is still the greatest country on earth. We showed that again this summer. 22nd in world population. 3rd in the medals table.
But it’s tough. These are difficult times. We’re being tested.

I believe in working hard, caring for my family and serving my country.

whatever he's for, i'm against it

I believe in looking like I'm a and c in order to b.

"There is only one real route out of poverty and it is work."

needs a little shortening, but has real potential to work as a slogan on the iron gates of jobcentres imo.

22nd in world population. 3rd in the medals table.

He stopped short of "One world cup, two world wars" then

the olympics in a nutshell, we spent a fucking bajillion quid on this sporting village fair so we could use it to get re-elected.

"Britain may not be in the future what it has been in the past”

Here's hoping!

Full quote:

"Unless we act, unless we take difficult, painful decisions, unless we show determination and imagination, Britain may not be in the future what it has been in the past”

"There is only one real route out of poverty and it is work."

just ask one of the millions of playboy pensioners currently sunning themselves in the Caribbean after 50 years of employment

'We're being tested'! Fuck me. That and the 'rules' stuff he always goes on about - 'we're after people who don't play by the rules'. I'm sure it's a deliberate part of the rhetoric to emphasise the concept of debt/pain/hard work/misery is ok, but it's weirdly millennial. If we go through enough suffering we'll be rewarded by the ultimate authority. There's a bullshit extraordinarily trite moral narrative that goes like that, but it bears no resemblance to history or more importantly to how a country looks after the people who live in it: suffering and misery are suffering and misery, not pathways to glory, other than for the entitled cunts who have an interest in preserving things that way. I know everyone knows this, but even so, FUCK.

particular highlights of tory conference:

- andrew lilico calling 75% of govt spending merely "nice-to-have" luxuries; his examples were opera, the olympics and helping the poor
- kwasi kwarteng declaring that the last 50 years have been a disaster for britain and we need to return to, basically, the 19th century
- hatchet-faced businesswoman delegate who ferociously interrogated a fringe panel with the question on everyone's lips: "in INDIA they NEVER talk about work-life balance. IS IT A MYTH????" (even this particular panel of MPs drew back a bit)
- dominic raab blethering on about the decline of the western work ethic, made me want to do nothing for the rest of my life but slob around in a dressing gown staring vacantly out of the window
- overhearing two guys behind me comparing notes on how the gates in their respective gated developments worked

not that labour conference was particularly inspiring, it was just less actively hateful

lib dem conference seemed even more irrelevant than ever if that was even possible

perfect representation of UK politics in 2012 then

oh yeah and a friend of mine was at a fringe where a tory mp welcomed localism because it would mean housebuilders wouldn't need to build more affordable housing

Who do you cover this for, lex?

Jesus Christ, this article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/10/conservative-conference-return-nasty-party

Afterwards, I speak to a very tall, incredibly gentle elderly man from London, and ask why he thinks Cameron is so determined to force this unpopular policy on his party. "I really don't know," he ponders softly, bemused. "But the Tory party is obsessed with trying to be modern. It goes in a sort of sequence: to start off, you mustn't be prejudiced against BME [black and minority ethnic] people. Then women. Then it leads to the homosexuals. But you can't help being BME or a woman. Whether or not you can help being born with a homosexual orientation I don't know, but it is possible to refrain from practising. To be honest, I'm more or less bisexual myself. I find women attractive but men easier to get on with. I've never married. But I abstain. It is possible, you know."

Stay strong, lex!

maybe thanks to lex and other twitterers i'm more aware of this tory conference than i have been in the past, but it seems, amazingly, magnitudes more repulsive than it usually is. am i wrong in seeing it like that?

It's p much always been staring into the abyss as I recall.

‘When I used to push my son Ivan around in his wheelchair, I always thought that some people saw the wheelchair, not the boy.’
‘I think today more people would see the boy and not the wheelchair – and that’s because we have decided to cut the wheelchair budget!" (applause)

maybe thanks to lex and other twitterers i'm more aware of this tory conference than i have been in the past, but it seems, amazingly, magnitudes more repulsive than it usually is. am i wrong in seeing it like that?

no, i got that impression too, and a few people i talked to at the conference felt the same way. definitely less...holding back. stuff that would've have been vague dogwhistles in the past, people just came right out and said. i think i was at a couple of the same events as aitkenhead - the adam smith institute one was endlessly hellish not least cuz it was so packed and overheated, plus daniel hannan remains possibly the most viscerally loathsome tory mp of them all - but the britannia unchained stuff was kinda more terrifying because it's clearly being pushed by the rising stars of the party (kwasi kwarteng was easily the most basically stupid mp i encountered over all three conferences (there's a lot of competition)). i would say that the tories are becoming more racially diverse every year i go though, their efforts to reach out to the asian community in particular seem to be paying off.

(i covered it for a company i used to work full-time for, for private clients, so not really with my journalist hat on)

I read the Aitkenhead piece - interesting that the conference is ostensibly viewing Boris as their sort of Tony Benn mascot figure, i.e. God bless him but we don't want him leading. At least, that's what they say now but I've no idea whether that's what they're inwardly thinking.

Indian Tories in particular have been a big thing since forever.

Pretty sure the lack of holding back is symptomatic of Cameron's waning authority over his party.

the impatience of being almost but not quite in power. give them a workable 50-plus majority in parliament and these fringe nutters will be allowed out to play on big telly

dominic raab blethering on about the decline of the western work ethic, made me want to do nothing for the rest of my life but slob around in a dressing gown staring vacantly out of the window

Indeed, fuck "working hard", Cameron's never done it so why should the rest of us.

The very idea of Cameron imploring anyone else to work hard is hilarious

the impatience of being almost but not quite in power. give them a workable 50-plus majority in parliament and these fringe nutters will be allowed out to play on big telly

Basically they think that if Cameron had just let them off the leash and allowed them to be as vocally right-wing as they wanted then they'd have won the election outright and there'd be no need to fanny around with the LibDems. I mean it's idiotic but there you go.

I get the idea that with tory conferences i've paid attention to they weren't in power or weren't sure of their power, so they held back a bit on their obnoxious toryness knowing that people will hate them for their actual bullshit. now moreso than ever tho they have their time in the sun, they've had bigger cockups than some noname mp saying stupid shit to the side of a boris speech and they can just blurt out what they've wanted to say for the past 15 years

yeah, what's the point of winning if you can't take off your mask and cackle madly?

They also know they're preaching to the converted, in this instance.

yes, I guess I'm basically comparing this to the last time they were in power. The Thatcher conferences had some serious headslappers.

Opposition conferences are generally a bit more reined in, unless the party's imploding a la 80s Labour

kinda wish we'd import clint eastwood moments tho

what, cameron talking to an empty chair?

Or, as we call him, Boris.

More like an overstuffed recliner.

Despite the change of government following the May 2010 General Election. it was reported in August 2010 that Milburn had been offered a role in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition as 'social mobility tsar'.[10]

social mobility tsar

haha