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

Perhaps the PM knows something we don't and there's going to be a massive national disaster in 2016 that he doesn't want to be in power for.

I can't actually fathom this at all. Surely there's some boring Tory drone type they could have put in the role?

They were looking for someone to make Lansley look... ept (or whatever the opposite of inept is) so that people will be begging to have him back in another 6 months?

Andrew Lansley will now be free to join Wifey Lansley on the boards of however many private healthcare companies he can manage.

David Laws and Jeremy Hunt are basically criminals; guess crime DOES pay if you're a shiteing Tory arsehole.

(even if indirectly -- the way that with the current GCSE marking scandal it's understood that the exam boards changed their marking system mid-year in order to appease Gove's department of education and their demands for stricter gcse grades)

I think there was an underlying government policy of shifting away from coursework and towards "controlled assessment" which had a huge impact here but the grade boundaries were changed mid-year largely because the exam boards realised they were wrong when they had a larger cohort to analyse, rather than implicit pressure from Gove.

The point about ATOS increasing their level of cynicism in line with government attitudes is correct though, i think.

Leaving all questions of morality or integrity aside this is just fucking dumb. Health is one the department people care deeply about above all others, why on earth give it to your resident Cabinet liability?

Worth remembering too that the new Justice Secretary Chris Grayling doesn't believe in gay equality:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/dont-forget-graylings-comments-gay-couples

@TwopTwips FOLLOW the PM’s lead and have an effective family reshuffle by promoting your 3 year old to ‘Dad’ and letting him drive.

DG, it's JEREMY FUCKING HUNT.

the work assessments are an entirely dwp affair, grayling was smith's underling, hunt won't have anything to do with it bar closing all the hospitals etc

agreed abt the fire/acid thing

Hunt is also anti-choice and wants to limit the 'abortion window' if poss. CUNT.

The point about ATOS increasing their level of cynicism in line with government attitudes is correct though, i think.

no the cruelty and cynicism has been consistent, i don't think labour should be given any slack here

DWP's own stats say over a million people were assessed by ATOS in the period Oct 2008-Aug 2010 ( http://fullfact.org/factchecks/ATOS_ESA_assessments_overturned-3135 ) so either there's a fuckload more people now or it's just getting publicity and traction now.

For what it's worth, in my last job I had to use ATOS three times to ascertain fitness for work. (They're mandated pan-government to assess likelihood of long term sick employees ever returning for work, and what reasonable adjustments might need to be made in the workplace.) In the way they were used by my department - NB this may or may not use the DWP questionnaire as a basis, I don't know - I had to specify exactly what questions I wanted asked and they stuck pretty rigidly to what I wanted asked. In one of the cases their role was very useful; the employee worked with them to build a return to work plan, which coincided with (after 3 years and 4 GPs) a formal diagnosis for what was wrong with them. In the other two cases they didn't really help, but I can't go into those individuals for legal reasons.

I'm sure ATOS are as cunty as ever, but they have to be cunty in higher volume now.

the scheme's just had time to develop, it's the same scheme to vet the long term sick that james purnell (iirc) got rolling

James Purnell would have fitted comfortably into this government- in fact, I'm slightly surprised he has not joined it in some capacity.

Probably prefers to be earning real money.

Leaving all questions of morality or integrity aside this is just fucking dumb. Health is one the department people care deeply about above all others, why on earth give it to your resident Cabinet liability?

is there any sense in which this is putting someone in the job who's a lightning rod for public hate? They do the dirty work, and to a certain (not very great) extent Cameron is protected.

I don't see how it would really work like that, but it's the only thing I can think of.

i don't suppose that, if one is assessed as "fit to work" because you can raise your hand or whatever, you then get support finding a job that fits your disability AND your skillset. or are you just left to find whatever yourself

http://topnews.us/images/Andrew-Lansley111_0.jpg

Ladies, this man has your best interests at heart, anti-choice and pro pseudo-science:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/9/4/1346755838531/Jeremy-Hunt-arrives-at-Do-008.jpg

meanwhile, over at the heroic anti-imperialists

http://kate4manchester.org/?p=114

replacement grayling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hoban

the telegraph is on something ripe. Now reckons Hunt could succeed Cameron http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9520720/Jeremy-Hunt-promoted-despite-lingering-uncertainty-over-Leveson-verdict.html

agreed abt the fire/acid thing

― DG, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 11:58 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^

Ladies, this man has your best interests at heart, anti-choice and pro pseudo-science:

voted aye for twelve-week abortion limits, hey ladies

i know it's kind of a lolsome issue but is there any talk on the squatting-now-a-crime thing on ilx yet

i find myself getting very irritated at the statement "No longer will there be so-called 'squatters rights'", but i don't know if that's mainly a literalism issue on my part

Irritating Tory Moves are legion and I feel as though I am playing whack-a-mole with each in turn.

BE GRATEFUL

http://twitter.com/KirstieMAllsopp/status/243070064419549184

homeopathy is already available on the NHS, isn't it? obv hunt is awful and demonstrably corrupt and will do a terrible job, but of all the things you could complain about, his support for an nhs policy introduced by under labour, and that has survived god knows how many health secretaries seems weird.

indicative of him being a know-nothing IMO. Lansley was disastrous, but it's not as if he was uninformed about health policy.

MPs by definition are usually pretty uninformed, you could argue it's part of their function within the democracy

Hunt seems to fulfil that function particularly well, then.

Fuck this colossal gaping arsehole forever:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19569072

92%. NINETY TWO PERCENT WRONG. And still he won't admit he was talking bullshit.

Meanwhile, how good of Kate Middleton to bury bad news with her topless shots. The BBC consider it more important news than the stripping of British workers' rights.

Vince Cable can go walk off the end of Brighton Pier as far as I'm concerned.

"we've got some bad news needs burying, any chance of whapping them out for the tabloids?"

hmmmm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9547072/Support-for-benefit-system-at-lowest-level-for-three-decades.html

Torygraph yes but still most depressing read this morning

glad the olympics changed britain forever and made everyone nice

on bleak days i am in favour of totally scrapping the welfare state on the basis that i won't have to listen to morons whine about it any more

actually tbf on bleak days i am in favour of taking off and nuking the planet from orbit

EBacc? sounds like a fucking intestinal infection

RT @AZEALIABANKS Just met Samantha Cameron... She told me she loves 212...... *mind blown*

"Looks like that cunt went to Eton..."

haha!

A+

The UK Border Agency has disclosed that it is working on plans for fast-track passport lanes for rich travellers at Heathrow and other British airports so they can avoid any repeat of the two-hour queues seen this year.

Brian Moore, the departing head of the UK Border Force, told MPs that "high value" people who were considered valuable passengers by the airlines or valuable to the British economy would be given priority treatment at immigration control under the plans.

Keith Vaz, the committee chair, pressed Moore as to whether it meant the super-rich would have a fast track into Britain. Moore said it would cover people who were "valuable to the economy and were valued by the airlines". He said the move was intended to demonstrate that Britain was "open for business".

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family

AFAIK this already happens in some form with FastTrack unless they got rid of it.

Nick Clegg spoof 'I'm sorry' video song to be released

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100020160/is-mitt-romney-right-to-question-representation-without-taxation/

The post is right-wing fucknuttery enough, the comments (especially when sorted by rating) are actually depressing. Allowing the vote to people who don't pay income tax = literal slavery for taxpayers, apparently.

I'm not even going to read that. Considering I lived in the US for 18 years, paid tax the whole time and was never allowed to vote, they can STFU about that shit.

"I had better emphasise straightaway that I am not suggesting a return to property-based eligibility; although that system worked quite well when Parliament administered not just Britain but most of the world."

....

Frankly amazed that dude can operate electrical machinery.