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

UKIP membership: 19,000.

We need to give these people a massive platform because?

because newspaper editors/publishers agree with them.

i don't think membership of a political party has much correlation with the number of people who share views with that party.

people who seriously believe the EU is an important institution ought to start by accepting that a lot of people in the UK, presumably elsewhere, don't share that opinion. behind every comedy UKIP stooge on TV are a bunch of non swivel-eyed-inbreds who are suspicious of the EU partly from xenophobia, partly from instinctive distrust of mega-bureaucracies. perhaps politicians who believe that democracy is a big deal ought to try to confront some of these prejudices rationally occasionally?

i dunno, just thinking out loud.

how do you rationally confont xenophobia? i don't think callin the ~ great british public ~ a load of slow-witted reactionary swine is on the table

i cd care less, the EU draws its legitimacy from a bunch of governments i don't think of as particularly legitimate, just an ueber-sham parliament afaic

but the contempt that naysayers are treated with by pro politicians on both sides of the argument is a revealing little insight into what pro politicians think about democracy

and i think i'm saying that to dismiss all objections to the EU as xenophobic is cynical and defeatist at the same time

and xenophobia - prejudice anyway - can be rationally countered, if you've the will and the energy. one of the reasons that voters move towards far right parties imo is not mainstream parties failing to recognise their concerns but mainstream parties consistently, cravenly refusing to unambiguously oppose racism

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/britains-economy-is-a-disaster-and-nobody-is-entirely-sure-why/272556/

I can think of a few pretty obvious Bullingdon-membershipped reasons why

will ye fuck off?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v2vPsxwKXE

maybe the economy's a disaster because the supply of low-skilled low paid jobs is finite and the gov has slashed everything else

As someone who may have to rely on it I'm pretty fucking furious about the Lewisham A&E announcement.

(For anyone not paying attention this is Jeremy Hunt's decision to downgrade ahem partially close a solvent well-performing A&E department to 'support' two indebted fuckups several miles away)

yeah, it's hard to imagine Hunt's estimate of two extra minutes of ambulance travel being correct if your options are QE and KCH

King's and Guy's are both shitting it about the likely extra patient numbers. Working at KCH A&E on a Saturday night probably sucks enough as it is without +xx% seriously ill people from Lewisham being brought in from too far down the road

Apparently the mayor of Lewisham says they're going to do a legal challenge?

Jeremy Hunt really ought to be in prison, so obviously this government decided it would be a great idea to put him in charge of the NHS.

Yes, well done again Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrats, the opposition party that likes to say "Yes"

Yes Yes Yes, michael gove finally receives some comeuppance: unanimous criticism from cross-party education select committee.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/english-baccalaureate-plans-from-michael-gove-threaten-to-wreck-stability-of-entire-examination-system-8473586.html

The sad thing though is none of this will deter him from his boneheadedness.

nah it's about time Gove was held to account for the boneheaded uselessness of the entire history of the English eductational scare quote system unscare quote

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/31/adam-afriyie-profile-tory-plot-rumours

so afriyie owns a 'content farm'. another tory deep in the SEO game (cf. chairman shapps' HowToCorp)

love how despite the 'do no evil' motto google are indirectly responsible for this shady underworld of new age grifters and conservative politicians

Jeremy Hunt also part of dodgy underpaid information economy, as reported in a rather good Quietus article last summer.

Apparently the mayor of Lewisham says they're going to do a legal challenge?

Apparently so, the challenge rests on whether the government actually has the authority to downgrade Lewisham to prop up the South London Healthcare Trust because it was never part of the trust in the first place. Which is why it's solvent rather than hamstrung by a shitty Blair-era PFI.

Local party aside, Labour have been worse than useless in their alleged 'opposition', possibly because they're responsible for the SLHT mess in the first place. Given they could feasibly win the election on the issue of the NHS it's stupid as well.

Sorry, shitty Brown-era PFI, need to get my dates right.

Haha also the Afriyie thing explains the really unflattering photo of Gordon Brown on the Adfero website.

Another example, this time from my neck of the woods, of the NHS being safe in Cameron's hands

Murmurings about Gove

So, Chris Huhne then. What would have happened if he had just taken the points?

He'd be leading the Lib Dems into the next election

Then the confirmation of the discovery of Richard III's body would be at the top of the BBC News webpage.

Indeed, that's a good story!

That dude certainly had a curved spine, but that's better than having no spine... like today's politicians... because they're spineless... er, bah dum pish?

Missed this last week:

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/31/david-the-awesome-power-of-the-moon-tredinnick-joins-the-commons-science-committee/

Bet Richard III must love "Get Up (Rattle)" by Bingo Players Featuring Far East Movement.

'Richard III, what's on your iPod (apart from mud from Bosworth Field)?'

He went on: "You might come to the conclusion that these telephone calls are two manipulative people trying unsuccessfully to manipulate each other."

Thank fuck people like this aren't running the country oh wait...

"Rosa Parks did not give up her seat on that bus for me, a traditional christian conservative, to go to the back of the bus" - Tory MP Stewart Jackson

Ok I'm done.

This is probably going to turn out to be the best thing Cameron does in office, with the added bonus that it gives the Tories an even greater likelihood of turning on each other.

Dorrieswatch:

"This bill in no way makes a requirement of faithfulness from same-sex couples. In fact, it does the opposite. In a heterosexual marriage a couple can divorce for adultery, and adultery is if you have sex with a member of the opposite sex. In a heterosexual marriage a couple vow to forsake all others ... A gay couple have no obligation to make that vow [to faithfulness] because they do not have to forsake all others because they cannot divorce for adultery. There is no requirement of faithfulness. And if there is no requirement of faithfulness, what is a marriage?"

"Rosa Parks did not give up her seat on that bus for me, a traditional christian conservative, to go to the back of the bus" - Tory MP Stewart Jackson

so this is what boggling actually feels like. boggle.

Enviable talent pool Conservative party has to draw on

did someone actually pull out the "Adam and Steve" line in Parliament today? o_O

.. And after all that money spent on their own education...

Twitter currently searching wide for a couple called Adam and Steve planning to marry once this passes.

that would be a first, no record of adam and steve in hansard

kind of what to search hansard for all the jon gauntish cant phrases

what/want

We celebrate new years eve, not new years steve

Keats wrote eve of st agnes, not steve of st fagness fyi

When Adam delved and Steve span
Who was the the gentleman?

Wow at Dorries and Jackson. Do they have no awareness of how idiotic they sound?

As a Christian I just don't besteve in gay marraige