Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

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

I know - that's what my reply was referring to.

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

-- Noodle Vague, Thursday, 1 May 2008 13:47 (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

This is the dictionary definition of "liberalism", right?

Laxalt - I don't understand the point of the microscope comment when NV had admitted as much in his own post.

Pinefox - I voted Ken in 2000, and whether or not I or your friends thought he would be a disaster is beside the point. There were a lot of people saying "he will be a disaster as Mayor" - a lot of this was right wing press and Labour propaganda and it didn't work. So simply saying "look at lol Boris he is a buffoon and will fuck everything up" isn't a very effective detterrant.

What is large march going through Holborn now? DC?

i saw them carrying Stalin banners and making an almighty noise.

No idea what it was, I could only see them from a distance, big red flags though.

Mayday, gah.

Of course, I'd totally forgotten about it now the press has moved on and stopped going "THESE EVIL ANARCHISTS WILL DESTROY LONDON!"

also the evil anarchists are having more fun breaking into heathrow, parliament etc.

News 24 BBC News last night, inbetween rolling repeat clips of

1) Austrian psychopath
2) falling house prices
3) the weather

aired only one (repeated) segment about the election, an extended set of voxpops with shop owners and parents at playgrounds.

I don't understand the point of the microscope comment when NV had admitted as much in his own post.

It wasn't a disagreement with NV!

It's true that the right-wing media and the Labour party said Ken would be bad for London in 2000. But as I said, I didn't think that, and nor did anyone I knew - and our view seems to have been quite popular, not crankily marginal as he won the election, far more comfortably than anyone is likely to win it today.

What kind of statement will be rhetorically useful to persuade someone to believe or do something (eg to vote in a certain way) is always very hard to say. If someone wants to vote for BJ, then I don't think anything I could say could stop them. I don't have any suggestion as to what anyone should say to stop BJ, because I wouldn't expect to be able to persuade anyone who could already contemplate doing so.

I don't so much think BJ is a buffoon - I think he is a nasty, cynical person - something of a fraud, kind of a user; maybe I feel that he is laughing at us. I also think he is hideous - utterly hideous to look at and listen to, and that his persona in this campaign has been aggressive and nasty to a deeply unpleasant degree.

btw, people in discussions like this often say internet-hardman things like 'Basically the Tories fucked up the economy' and 'So basically under Brown the economy's going tits-up and we're all going to be fucked'.

It's not an idiom I like, in its easy, unearned crudity. But I'm also dubious of the vagueness of it. It points to the fact of economic downturn, as registered in (eg) higher unemployment or people being unable to pay their mortgages. But can the people who talk in this way say what the relevant governments should do / have done to stop things being, as they say, fucked up?

Seems to me that ups and downs, boom and bust if you like, is pretty endemic to the kind of economy we have. Talking (vaguely, and even in hard-nut style) about governments' agency in these matters may occlude that.

This is a digression from London Votes, anyway.

Seems to me that ups and downs, boom and bust if you like, is pretty endemic to the kind of economy we have. Talking (vaguely, and even in hard-nut style) about governments' agency in these matters may occlude that.

Even if said government explicitly promised "no more boom and bust" repeatedly?

Do you not think that ups and downs might be endemic to the kind of economy we have?

Perhaps I am mistaken and they are not. I guess that could be good!

Like I said, this is a digression.

But like I said: part of what irritates me is that it's not clear that the internet hard men really know what they would do differently, or just what the fucking-up actually meant in terms of policy detail.

You are quite right, Onimo, to say that Brown used to talk no return to boom and bust, and maybe this was misleading of him. Maybe that is just not possible. My point above was both Tory and Labour governments.

1000th post ha!

I don't claim, btw, that governments have no agency in economic policy. On the contrary, they have had a lot. Whether their agency has been lessened in the last 20 years or so is another question, I suppose.

pinefox: your theory of boris is very close to my own.

i'm sure my friend and erstwhile collegue peter ross won't mind me posting this link to his interview with him in 2004, in which he reveals himself not just to be a boorish arsehole but a fucking stupid one, too. or maybe he doesn't care what some scottish hack/the scottish public thinks.

either way, he's a loathsome character, and the whole lolboris thing really does bring me back to that simple equation i posted this morning.

I hope the early polling pointing to Boris win motivates people to get down to the polling stations and so not gonna happen that shit. Can't vote myself, so PLEEEEASE go if you can.