Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

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.

Is there any kind of economy that does not have ups and downs, boom or bust? Serious question.

Indeed.

Peter Ross interview:

"Well," he says, humming and hawing, "we are all self-invented to some extent. Frankly, honestly, it's now too late to try to invent anybody else. It's exhausting. In so far as I'm an invention, this is the best I can do."

That is the most worryingly plausible thing I have ever seen / heard BJ saying. It's almost Wildean, though without the elegance.

Also in that interview he repeats the utter BS canard we saw in that recent Mamet piece: 'socialists believe in the perfectibility of man ... we conservatives are realists who accept the world as it is'. BS.

hopefully a load of people with actual jobs will vote in the evening, outweighing the initial rush of Boris votes from legend-loving student twats who deserve to die

Also, in my case, Pinefox, I was using deliberately crude language as a taxi driver redux of what a big swathe of the British public thought about the Tories circa 1997.

In terms of electoral attitudes, it doesn't really matter the extent to which it was Norman Lamont's fault or whether George Soros or overall global economic trends were to blame, because once you get stuck with a label for economic incompetence there's next to nothing you can do to stop the electorate hurling you out. Especially if economic incompetence is coupled with multiple scandals involving high-profile party members. The economy turned round significantly under Kenneth Clarke and it still didn't help them.

I wonder how long it will be before Brown puts Alistair Darling to the sword, and whether it will make any difference to the electorate when he does.

hopefully a load of people with actual jobs will vote in the evening, outweighing the initial rush of Boris votes from legend-loving student twats who deserve to die

Lol at the concept of students getting up early for anything, especially voting.

early could be 2pm to be fair

real talk ^

DC, I hope you won't mind my suggesting that I'm not sure that there is much difference between the way your imaginary taxi driver talks, and the way you write on ilx - as distinct, no doubt, from the thoughtful and creative way you think, write and talk in other contexts.

Where is this exit polling 'data' you speak of coming from?

I think DC got it from a taxi driver.

Matt DC, yesterday

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3336735.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=4DAA13B573E1BD2F289632D5FD6017DCA55A1E4F32AD3138

"won't go south of the noize board this time of night"

internet hardman I like that. Like a tabloid description of [insert poster of choice].

Off-topic, I know, but:

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

Well we haven't had a boom, and we haven't had a bust yet - and almost certainly won't, even in the most negative forecasts - so fine.

Does the housing market not qualify as a boom then?

That'll be £20 to you, guvnor.

You've just vomited in my back seat.

There have been 3 booms and 3 busts during the current labour administration. Or rathe 3x hubris followed by 3x reality and correction.

not as catchy :(

Overall economic boom - there has obviously been a housing one, and could be a crash, although I doubt it - but I had a long and boring fight with laxalt on another thread about that.

Meanwhile, why can't I get a live feed of the betting balloons?

http://betting.betfair.com/mayor/heads-up-boris-leads-the-way-london-marathon-300408.html "> http://betting.betfair.com/mayor/heads-up-boris-leads-the-way-london-marathon-300408.html

There's a nice graph here (if I can do the effing link right).

http://www.economics.strath.ac.uk/julia/teaching/mf/L1_JD.pdf "> http://www.economics.strath.ac.uk/julia/teaching/mf/L1_JD.pdf

Then add four more year's real growth to the right.

Gah