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

i do! amazon vouchers. and i got a cinema voucher for shooting that one guy in the face.

are you an escort?

The recession's been such a great opportunity for them – they've always wanted to do this stuff but now they get to pretend they have to do this stuff

― cardamon, 11. januar 2014 17:33 (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whenever someone told me about Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, I would think they were way too conspirational. But it's exactly what has happened.

Shock Doctrine should be required reading for just about everyone.

Thank you, The Guardian.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2014/1/16/1389904845298/Britains-Chancellor-of-th-009.jpg

nice one Labour!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25803006

Not even pretending to oppose Tories any more.

Tory spokesman zing otm:
"After 13 years of Labour running our education system, many young people looking for work do not have the English and Maths skills they need to get a job."

Problem is both parties then punish/blame the person with the no job and the poor education.

don't forget continuing to pursue the same fucked-up education policy that helped create the situation

They seem to have given up on the argument that one of the problems is that there are 100x candidates chasing after x jobs. Perhaps they should just have done and praise the Tories for creating all of these jobs that people are too thick and illiterate to do.

So what about this Costa Coffee thing. Wow.

'Why don't you get a job at Costa Coffee' is the sort of thing it might be reasonable for a middle-class parent to say to a teenage son or daughter who wanted a new iphone. 'You're just unemployed because you're lazy and expect too much' is the kind of thing it might be appropriate for close friends and relatives to say to each other.

In fact so much of what the Tories come out with sounds like they live in quite a closed, immediate, family-friends-work lifeworld, one sufficiently well-off such that there's no-one whose disability is compounded by poverty, and no-one who's going to struggle to network into a job after university, and no-one whose immigration status is in question.

Can they just not see beyond the petit mondes they each live in as individuals or is this all intentional

tbf that statement was made by a former GMTV presenter.

'Why don't you get a job at Costa Coffee' when not applied in the situations Cardamon describes are words that could only be used by someone who has no idea how little they pay in such coffee shops and no inclination to find out.

tbf that statement was made by a former GMTV presenter

I really don't see why that makes any difference either way. Please elaborate.

Because they would, I suspect, see things in a GMTV way.

cutting

What are you really annoyed about?

I'm annoyed about this shitty govt and I don't really see what GMTV has to do with it but if that's how you process stuff then get on with it

I'd argue that as an ex-GMTV presenter, one should not complain about the demographic that provided a great deal of one's viewers and thusly a sizeable slice of the ratings which kept one salaried and clothed in low-level designer fashions.

Really, what is it with Scousers who become rich and turn Tory? Is there some kind of extended self-denial going on, or is it some form of rebellion against their having to grow up in socialist Liverpool?

Low-level designer fashion oh the shame

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10591755/Iain-Duncan-Smith-welfare-reform-is-like-struggle-against-slavery.html

they just keep topping themselves

I'm sure that's the hoped for outcome.

Oh wait, you meant the tories topping their own rhetoric, yeah, that too.

Mr Duncan Smith said people should stop “disapproving” of people on benefits, whom he terms “our fellow citizens”, and instead blame politicians for creating a failing welfare system that traps people on benefits.
The current benefits system encourages people to turn to crime and the cash-in-hand economy because they are penalised for earning money legitimately, he said.
But he indicated the Government is preparing a crackdown on in-work tax credits, which cost £170bn a year between 2003 and 2010, saying some families spend the extra money on drink and drugs while their children go unfed.

well that lasted a whole paragraph

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2014/01/tory-councillor-matthew-palmer-checks-shares-in-cuts-meeting/

saying some families spend the extra money on drink and drugs while their children go unfed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18391663

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gTiYjxpSL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg

would facebook have been better/worse than shares?

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2014/01/labour-councillor-checks-guardian-food-blog-in-cuts-meeting/

I can't work out if IDS is a cretin or an evil cunt or both

...but Evil Cretin seems to fit tbh

... do not underestimate the determination of an evil cretin, to paraphrase an evil cretin

From a Nick Cohen article a while ago:

One told me that I and other opponents of the coalition did not understand the Conservative party's leading figures. Cameron had a human face. He may be tetchy and rude in private, but if he saw that a government policy was causing avoidable harm, there was a faint chance he would change it. Iain Duncan Smith had a Christian conscience and did not like seeing suffering. He was a "decent" man, despite everything. If you showed him he was hurting people, he was hurt in turn.

But George Osborne… well, Osborne was another matter. He was like a computer program. You couldn't appeal to his better nature, or to any notion of the public good.

Iain Duncan Smith had a Christian conscience and did not like seeing suffering. He was a "decent" man, despite everything. If you showed him he was hurting people, he was hurt in turn.

I mean clearly this is bollocks right?

Suspect this means hurt as in 'bays like wounded dog when challenged on Question Time'.

Feeling the hurt

http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article2942256.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Ian-Duncan-Smith-and-Esther-McVey-2942256.jpg

Suspect this means hurt as in 'bays like wounded dog when challenged on Question Time'.

What he does he shout and puts on a pathetic show of anger if anyone dare doubt his decency and Christian conscience

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SKCN8--wISc/T4AEwoViSRI/AAAAAAAAAZk/k5CA00HG0CM/s1600/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-1978.jpg

so the lobbying/gagging bill has gone through minus any amendment to exempt charities from electoral law, & leaving a super vague definition of campaigning for electoral purposes

I don't understand our complicated medieval political system, but can someone please explain to me how "the vote is a tie" means we have to have it anyway?

Tied votes

If the vote is tied - which is very unusual - in the Commons the Speaker has the casting vote. The Speaker casts his vote according to what was done in similar circumstances in the past. Where possible the issue should remain open for further discussion and no final decision should be made by a casting vote.

In the Lords, the Lord Speaker does not have a casting vote. Instead, the tied vote is resolved according to established rules (called the Standing Orders).

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/business/divisions/

http://www.election.demon.co.uk/ties.html

Thanks, Ken.

I guess it is this bit
"The final rule is that the Speaker, in any division upon a bill, should vote to leave a bill in its existing form. "

which I guess must have trumped this bit
"The Speaker should vote so as not to decide the question - in other words, to give the House the opportunity for further debate on an issue. Therefore, if there is a tie on a division such as a Second Reading vote, where failure would kill the Bill being debated, the Speaker will always vote to continue the Bill"

They're joking with this school 9-6, 45 weeks of the year stuff surely? Christ, I'd never have survived school if it was these hours. 8am-2.15pm was bad enough.

Dunno how Laurence Sterne managed with his 6 am-8 pm, seven days a week hours.

he died in his late 40s iirc

He was 54. That wasn't bad for the 18th century.

I wonder whether zero hours opt-out schooling will be an option.