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

i have a little bit of sympathy for the 'being unable to control your best mate who is being a self-promoting dick' aspect of the Fox story - but maybe that's because everything to do with the MoD and the defence industry fills me with so much ethical horror i can't remember how morals are supposed to work any more.

idk. i went into my friend's studios a couple of days ago & was aware that if some studio-person found me there and i was all, oh no!, it's cool!, i'm here with my friend!, it would still probably not be okay because they'd have no reason to trade on my friend's say so. i think if you are like ... the defence secretary you should be able to tell your friend "you can't come to work with me today!"

also, it would be nice to have politicians who did not so blatantly think themselves above the rules.

The allegations are hugely damaging at face value. There does seem to have been an unnecessary undercurrent of innuendo to some of the reporting, though.

I've heard "I have done nothing wrong" a million times, and "I have done nothing illegal" precisely never.

Top Telegraph reader comments on Boris's article saying how hard it is to fly into London:

Well that's one way of looking at it...if you want to stay in denial.

Reality is Chinese, the Japanese and the remaining few yanks who can afford holidays have expressed their reluctance to continue visiting England as tourists, if they have to land in one of the London airports, not because of inadequate slots, but because they don't like the 'multicultural' hellhole that is now London experience.

When they come to England, they come to see ENGLAND, its ENGLISH heritage and culture and hear ENGLISH. Fact. This is on record as you well know.

Cut taxes. Stop immigration. Get out of the EU.

We won't need an extra airport anymore.

Here's a clue Boris. Stop letting people into the country.

You know those people that suddenly now need to be housed and use up all available ground space. The developers struggling to build to meet demand and concreting over as much of this lovely country as they can.

There are plenty of unused airport runways in this country that could be adapted and used. But they aren't. Why not? because they aren't near enough to London!

Oh shit yeah what this country needs right now less of is demand for work, re that last comment.

glad i can come to ilx for my newspaper website comment needs.

http://georgeosbornelookingevil.tumblr.com/

s/b "lokingstupid" tho, since he does and is

Dunno about the other 850,000 thousand. Fuck them, I guess:

Ministers are preparing for youth unemployment to go over 1 million today and will defend themselves by launching sector-based work academies across the UK designed to give people better access to work experience.

[...]

The Department for Work and Pensions claims that there are currently over 90,000 vacancies in retail, over 44,000 in hospitality and 11,000 vacancies in construction

lol 90k vacancies in retail coming up to christmas? wonder if they will be sustainable careers for the masses?

.. to say nothing of the Corporate Lunch Scene...(xposT)

The defence secretary has also denied claims that Conservative officials lied about a break-in at his London home last year, following claims in the Sun that they had said Mr Fox was alone at the time - when in fact another man stayed in the flat overnight.

Haha this "break-in" chimes with the story I've heard about the time Fox hired a [CONTROVERSIAL MODERATOR EDIT] who found out who he was and proceeded to steal his wallet and some of his stuff, knowing he couldn't tell the full story.

would really love it if the media could drop the "ooh it seems he might be a gay" innuendo and focus instead on the actual stupidity/illegality/corruption of fox's behaviour.

Something a bit off about a 48 yesr-old hiring a 16 year-old [CONTROVERSIAL MODERATOR EDIT].

would really love it if the media could drop the "ooh it seems he might be a gay" innuendo and focus instead on the actual stupidity/illegality/corruption of fox's behaviour.

The media is much more interested in a possible gay sex scandal than ministerial responsibility. One sells and the other is ho-hum-those-politicians-at-it-again.

The defence secretary added that the friend in question was not Werritty, his former flatmate who met him on overseas trips 18 times in 16 months. Jesme Baird, his wife, had been stranded in Hong Kong due to the Icelandic volcano ash cloud, he said.

Yeah, everybody's haired about the baird...

everybody's heared about the the beard you mean

Everybody's hard about the http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/27542_146842675344485_8260_q.jpg

um, doing this shit in a wink-nudge ~ironic~ way doesn't make you any better than anyone else who's more interested in innuendo and gossip than, you know, whether he's been openly letting his friend make money off the government

I wasn't being ironic

Why can't people be interested in innuendo and gossip? It's been the stuff of political scandal for decades?

xpost nor me, was just commenting on the UrbanDictionary link.

Admittedly I should have put "Yeah, everybody's scared about the baird..."

But, heck: Mugs/product with the "Urban Dictionary" definition on? Todays "word" is Gate Rape...

nice.

I was making a complex on-topic joke about the fact that Mark G used to or still does think that heard is spelled heared

!

Why can't people be interested in innuendo and gossip? It's been the stuff of political scandal for decades?

because there's nothing wrong with being gay, and its kind of unhealthy to get all sniggery about this? am i being captain obvious here?

In fairness, the innuendo over his professional integrity seems to have predated the innunendo regarding his sexuality by several days.

because there's nothing wrong with being gay, and its kind of unhealthy to get all sniggery about this? am i being captain obvious here?

Maybe, but there's nothing stopping us from being sniggery about:

- A politican having an alleged extramarital affair
- Allegedly getting his party to cover it up by lying about a break-in
- Being A TORY MP that as a member of the Shadow Cabinet repeatedly voted against abolishing section 28 and god know's what else

xp

1) he's married

2) While studying medicine at Glasgow University in the early 1980s, Fox resigned his position on the university's Students Representative Council (SRC) in protest at the council passing a motion condemning the decision of the university's Glasgow University Union (GUU) not to allow a gay students society to join the union. The SRC motion called both the union's decision and the explanations given for it "bigoted". The GUU maintained its stance regardless and the controversy was reported in the national media while leading to many other university student unions up and down the country, including Edinburgh, cutting ties with their Glasgow counterparts. Explaining his decision to resign from the SRC and support the GUU's position, Fox was quoted as saying "I'm actually quite liberal when it comes to sexual matters. I just don't want the gays flaunting it in front of me, which is what they would do."

I'm generally anti-laughing at benefit claimants as well but I would sure as hell piss myself laughing if one of these cunts lost their seat and their job and was forced to rely on the welfare state for a bit.

"I'm actually quite liberal when it comes to sexual matters. I just don't want the gays flaunting it in front of me, which is what they would do."

feel like the guy can theoretically claim continuity in policy here if he has gone to such lengths to not flaunt

I'm actually quite liberal when it comes to political matters. I just don't want the tories blah blah blah

Mr Miliband moved on to a question about businesses taking part in a National Insurance holiday for startups. Mr Miliband noted the Prime Minister had said it would help 400,000 businesses. Mr Cameron was asked how many it actually helped. The answer? 7,000.

The House of Lords votes to give the NHS bill a second reading: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8822276/NHS-reforms-clear-first-hurdle-in-House-of-Lords.html

didn't realise Fox's history, so apols on that front. still, its not the hypocrisy the media's going to focus on, is it?

in defence of the media (lol) i think there would be (and maybe has been) less prurience with similar stories about labour/lib dem people.

Fuck this NHS thing makes me angry. There's something profoundly undemocratic about the way it was softpedalled before the election and then forced through.

Pretty sure the government actually makes policy on the basis/hope that no one will understand the ramifications until it's too late.

If Labour had any balls they would offer to repeal this immediately upon election and then lead calls for a General Election. Or at least a referendum on something that's a lot more important than a fucking voting system.

tbf the fucking voting system we've got now let this lot in

Pretty sure the government actually makes policy on the basis/hope that no one will understand the ramifications until it's too late.

And/Or distracts them with bullshit policies that they can understand like BINS and 80MPH and OPT-IN PORN.

The Lords will expect the government to fill in the gaps in policy in the coming weeks before giving their assent.

Noodle Vague AKA the notorious no2AV

AV is bollocks. prior to the last election tho i have been on record as saying "PR will prevent a maniacal Tory wrecking-cru government from ever seizing the reins of government again." problem is AV isn't PR and all the gags about the lib dems being tories in disguise turned out to be not gags

and in all honesty a voting system designed to make sure we only ever get the second worst of all possible governments isn't exackly something to get one manning the barricades

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/5/12/1273701582662/Theresa-May-at-10-Downing-006.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2008/06/27/GraysonPerry460.jpg

Just saying.

Boris Johnson has been accused of a cover up after it emerged that he obtained an access all areas City Hall pass for his re-election campaign manager.

Freedom of Information requests by this blog reveal that the Mayor personally requested a security pass for Lynton Crosby in February that gave him unfettered access to the building.

Under GLA rules, staff passes should only be given to City Hall employees and tenants.

eating out last night we were sat near some braying city types, who were discussing boris pro and con: at one point one of them revealed his deep knowledge of twitter, and said that a great thing about boris is that, on twitter, you can "actually touch him"

ken's twitter-fu was then discussed: another of the types laughed and said, "surely twitter is a bit beyond ken's voting base"

we were quite glad when they finished their drinks and left

they make a fine point tho, there are no proles on the internet

need people with this level of media savvy to be running BJ's campaign tbh

The Queen is also very picky about who she lets onto her Twitter feed...