Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

I considered that but it's clutching at straws really. Don't think he'd be in long enough to do major damage to a Cameron election campaign.

I think BJ is a bit like W.

One person who said that 2004 result was good: Slavoj Zizek, in a long letter to the LRB, which for some reason they felt compelled to print.

I was looking for crumbs of potential comfort, not a game plan.

I remember the day after that 11.2004 election, the sense of desolation - talking to people like it was the end of the world. I suppose I later came to feel that it wasn't. But of course it was still a terrible result, and two terms is two more than W should ever have had.

Another 110 posts and we'll have beaten the US election thread for the week.

I've been feeling a long-drawn out sense of desolation since about 6 weeks after the 1997 general election.

I think it's been established in the public mind that there's a degree of separation between the Mayor and the national party, so a Boris cock-up may not necessarily harm Cameron.

Still, I don't think Cameron will allow Boris to make a balls-up of it, and Boris will be much more beholden to Cameron than Ken has been to Blair/Brown.

I wasn't necessarily thinking of out-and-out cock-ups so much as a nice reminder to the country at large that New Conservatives aren't quite as touchy-feely as Cameron would like to paint them.

Who could possibly think he would make a good mayor? I'm honestly befuddled. It seems like such a frivolous way to vote.

Yeah, Britain's never struck me as a country in thrall to celebrity.

people = shit

Tracer, I don't know if you were in London at the time but there was a fairly wide-held view in 2000, particularly in the media, that Ken would be an absolute disaster as Mayor, that he wouldn't be able to run a major City, that it would be all gaffes and empty gestures etc. It didn't stop him getting elected and proving people wrong - I'm still worried about a similar thing happening with Johnson though.

Lol the thought of the country in general caring about 'touchy feely' at this point in time. "At least they're not Labour" is going to become the new "at least they're not the Tories", especially among voters too young to remember a Tory government.

I wasn't necessarily thinking of out-and-out cock-ups so much as a nice reminder to the country at large that New Conservatives aren't quite as touchy-feely as Cameron would like to paint them.

I don't think touchy-feely is much of a vote winner in Middle England these days anyway

Tho it might persuade a few "Liberals" to vote Tory

Yeah that's all pretty much true. The majority of the population is probably small c conservative, and Labour's attempt to shift what conservatism means a couple of millimetres to the left has probably only been skin deep. This is a depressing train of thought tho, really depressing. It generally leads straight down to gin and cackling about people getting the government they deserve, as grimly rightly points out.

What attempt?

Seriously, millimetres.

In what direction tho?

Allegedly more important news issues according to the BBC at the moment: babysitter to get retrial re. killing a kid, Austrian Pedodad round the twist, Maddy Maddy Maddy.

This country really will get the government it fucking deserves.

I think there was an attempt to carry out some micro-redistribution of wealth which was unfortunately scuppered by their absolute terror of confronting big capital. The minimum wage is, cautiously, an improvement on how things were before. None of this is much use at all, but that's a slivver of clear blue water between them and the Tories.

Considering one of Brown's last actions as Chancellor was to cut income tax for everyone except low earners, as a vote-wining ambulance ball to his future self as Prime Minister, I'm not sure even the line that people now accept higher overall taxation in return for improved public services stands.

New Labour have slashed their own consensus, if indeed this consensus existed in the first place. If we're honest the reason they won in the first place was because the Tories ballsed up the economy and then spent the next five years fucking and bribing anything that moved.

Well maybe another 20 years of electoral kickings will sort the party out but I doubt it. lol democracy

Allegedly more important news issues according to the BBC at the moment: babysitter to get retrial re. killing a kid, Austrian Pedodad round the twist, Maddy Maddy Maddy.

Yes, forget all that rubbish and tell me more about Haifa Wehbe

Also, if we accept that post-Thatcher global capitalism is now so dominant in Britain that no government can really go against it (big assumption but run with me), then Blair's was the first 'new' government in this environment. We don't actually know how much further to the right the Tories will run, given the opportunity.

people upthread using toynbees microscope again

For Britain subsititute England of course

Yes, sorry, I forget about Scotland.

For Britain subsititute England of course

much as i love wee fat eck and his gang, he's hardly "going against global capitalism", is he? hello mr trump. hello what's left of the oil. etc.

Who said he was? Who is? Osama bin Laden? Stop Scottish independence or you will really be in the shitter, for now and eternity

"You" being the English, of course

I'm not sure the shitter can get much shitter, either way. I'm sure it'll be jolly watching the Tories try tho.

VOTE TORY FOR A COUNTRY FIT FOR RUSSIANS TO LIVE IN

I R Fatnick informs me he voted for winston mackenzie

Matt that's a good point but as many people have been pointing out in various venues (vainly so far), the ideology that markets will regulate themselves, self-correct, and serve the public good to boot is coming under severe strain. It would be ironic if it were Blair who started the first new government under the post-Thatcher free-market consensus, and Cameron who started the first new government under the breakdown of that consensus.

I'm not sure the shitter can get much shitter, either way. I'm sure it'll be jolly watching the Tories try tho.

-- Noodle Vague, Thursday, 1 May 2008 12:27 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Now you're just being silly. Seriously.

http://willesdenherald.blogspot.com/images/winstonmckenzie.jpg

What is large march going through Holborn now? DC?

Are they wearing jackboots?

"Some call it a stealth tax. I call it 'The Assassin'"

I R Fatnick informs me he voted for winston mackenzie

Oh he's actually standing then! Mrs Dr. C signed his nomination paper cos he was knocking on doors looking for people in each borough to propose him. He was wearing that hat too! But I noticed this morning that he wasn't in the booklet of candidates that they sent out. (Best quote in the booklet : "I'm voting for the BNP because I'm Irish")

In moving massively to the right, they have paradoxically shifted the centre ground marginally to the left - certainly the Tories STILL won't dare say they would cut taxes, as people know they would have to cut spending to do so. Labour accepted Thatcher's tax settlement, more or less, and the Tories will accept Labour's commitment to public spending. Lots of other things that we'd call "progressive" (whatever the fuck that means) that the Tories wouldn't undo. The country is much more socially liberal on homosexuality, for instance. Lots of shit too, but whatever.

On redistribution, they've actually done OK-ish. Using fiscal drag to tax medium-high income earners and redistributing the proceeds to the poor as tax credits. As far as I understand it, more than Atlee, Heath or Callaghan despite high top rates of tax. Because they've left the super-rich to get super-richer this gets forgotten.

Anyway, for the first time since 1997, I voted Labour (and Labour, Labour on the other two forms). Actually, I voted for Ken last time, but apart from that, I haven't.

http://www.mckenzie4mayor.co.uk/ - most of it still under construction :(

I suppose I'm quite happy to get my microscope out: slightly better than the other lot is good enough for me.

And jesus I hate the liberal democrats. My biggest voting regret is electing Lynne Featherstone in 2005.

DC, you may have thought Ken would be a disaster in 2000. I didn't, and nor did anyone I knew.

slightly better than the other lot is good enough for me

http://www.ultimate-brands.co.uk/images/tres_sombreros_tequila_small.jpg http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00404/gun_682_404868a.jpg

Allegedly more important news issues according to the BBC at the moment: babysitter to get retrial re. killing a kid, Austrian Pedodad round the twist, Maddy Maddy Maddy.

A friend at the Beeb told me that less money and resources have been allocated to the London elections this year than the Scottish and Welsh elections last year, to avoid accusations of London-centricness.

xpost

I like white Tequila better than gold!

It's good enough for me to vote for, if the Tories have a real chance of getting in. It's obviously not enough, and I campaign and protest and, er, stuff, sometimes.

But if you just pretend they're all the same you let the real bastards in. And there is SOME genuine good that they've done.

Obviously I vote and then I beat myself up about it in public forums.

My biggest voting regret is electing Lynne Featherstone in 2005.

tonybee's microscope was actually in reference (in this thread) to 'Labour's attempt to shift what conservatism means a couple of millimetres to the left has probably only been skin deep' not difference between ken and boris