Bolitics The New Condem Government

[snowychap]

Just as a general bolitical point: Kofi on This Week?

Have the beeb blown their budget for the year? Amusing that Portillo (and Campbell) shoved a tie and jacket on.

[peterms]

Cameron's speech postponed.

According to the Guardian, it was to contain this astonishing sentence:

People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity

I suspect this Algerian thing is an excuse. He's really being held in a lockup somewhere by George, and tortured until he recants. He may be released once he reaffirms the One True Faith.

[Risso]

This?

Indeed, sorry if it was a bit tenuous. And no, I don't watch it!

[snowychap]

True, what about Dennis MacShane's Euro jollies on expenses

Seems rather concerning that the criminal inquiry was dropped.

Red bar thingy on the Grauniad website says that investigation is to be reopened.

[tonyh29]

no mention on Ed ruling out a referendum on Europe and his part contradicting him ...

 

interesting move from Cameron , generally speaking Europe hasn't really been a big issue for voters , yet in 2015 it appears it could well be  ... maybe if nothing else we will get a proper debate on Europe , though I suspect it will more likely end up being scaremongering and Little Englander insults as always ....

[chrisp65]

I was just contemplating making a new thread for it.....  (five dots)

[bickster]

I was just contemplating making a new thread for it.....  (five dots)

Do it!

[peterms]

Is it actually about Europe at all?  Is it any more than a cynical attempt to draw the teeth of the rising Ukip vote, without repeating the civil war that Europe has previously caused in the Nasty Party?

 

Cameron should remember that for most Ukip voters, their voting intention is not mainly driven by Europe at all.  He has achieved a one-day feelgood factor, a 30-second approving soundbite from the corrupt and odious Liam Fox, and tomorrow he'll be back staring defeat in the face.  Arse.

[blandy]

Is it actually about Europe at all?  Is it any more than a cynical attempt to draw the teeth of the rising Ukip vote, without repeating the civil war that Europe has previously caused in the Nasty Party?

 

Cameron should remember that for most Ukip voters, their voting intention is not mainly driven by Europe at all.  He has achieved a one-day feelgood factor, a 30-second approving soundbite from the corrupt and odious Liam Fox, and tomorrow he'll be back staring defeat in the face.  Arse.

More about drawing the teeth of his own mouth frothing right wingers, I think, plus UKIP.

From a party viewpoint it's all he could do. From a national viewpoint, it was a bad move. From a EU viewpoint, it could go either way - maybe it will harden attitudues towards the UK from the Continent, and they'll do less for or with us, or maybe they will decide that they don't want to "lose" us and it might stimulate changes.

[peterms]

Boris makes a move.

 

Not brave enough to go for the kill, he tests the feeling by beating the drowning man over the head with the paddle wrestled from the bosun of the lifeboat.  But the lifeboat is taking on water...the rats will fight and fight in this sinking ship.

[bickster]

Boris makes a move.

 

Not brave enough to go for the kill, he tests the feeling by beating the drowning man over the head with the paddle wrestled from the bosun of the lifeboat.  But the lifeboat is taking on water...the rats will fight and fight in this sinking ship.

The strange thing about that is that Boris and George were apparently seen dining together the night before

[peterms]

The strange thing about that is that Boris and George were apparently seen dining together the night before

 

Yes, apparently having a good laugh over a "raucous" meal.  Getting some criticism for seeming so happy the evening before some bad news on the economy, which they would have known about by then.

 

But the Standard reports that Osborne and Cameron were ganging up on poor Boris:

 

They were described as “noisy and laughing loudly” as they ate at a table for eight at Alte Post restaurant, where the cheapest Margherita pizza costs £22.

 

It was recorded by Greenpeace activist Ben Stewart who tweeted: “Davos pizza joint where Osborne and Cameron are loudly taking the piss out of Boris. They keep mentioning Boris then

laughing uproariously.”

 

[tonyh29]

Intersting bit from a otherwise pointless article (here)

 

Take Tech City, a corner of east London where attempts to create a
British version of Silicon Valley are focused. Thanks to a recasting of
the tax breaks available to entrepreneurs and the “angels” prepared to
back them with hard cash, investment in technology start-ups is booming.
In essence, investors pay no tax on what they make. “This is crazy
generous,” one government adviser says. A minister was surprised
recently to be told by a major American player in hi-tech development
that Britain now beats the world as a place to do this particular end of
business. The pace of investment is such that those involved talk of an
inflexion point being reached: in a few years the growth figures will
tell us that this was the moment when the sector took off.

Two years ago there were 200 new companies clustered on Silicon
Roundabout at the centre of the Tech City championed by Mr Cameron in
2010; now there are 1,200. Google is running a seven-storey “campus”
that makes office space, wi-fi and coffee available for would-be
entrepreneurs who just need a place to meet kindred spirits and
potential backers. Big players from Barclays to BT to Intel are
involved. Better still, some of our leading research institutions,
notably UCL, Loughborough and Imperial College, are moving in. The
opportunities are, it seems, arresting.

In an important speech to Policy Exchange last week, David Willetts,
the science minister, set out why Britain could steal a march in eight
major areas of technological innovation, from making computer switches
out of bacteria to printing out an aeroplane. This focus on encouraging
business on any scale to invest and take risks in this country relies on
unsung work. David Cameron and Mr Osborne, for example, have instructed
their offices that there is always room to be made in their diaries,
even at short notice, for a company executive looking to seal a deal.
Achievements in developing Britain’s hi-tech entrepreneurship sit in a
wider context of necessary Government reforms that are steadily
recalibrating the economy. Corporation tax is being reduced, bank
lending encouraged, investment for small and medium businesses made 10
times more attractive, small business rates eased, research tax credits
multiplied: the list of measures introduced is numbingly long; the
results have yet to be felt. Ministers congratulate themselves that the
number of private sector jobs has risen by 250,000 in a year, and that
welfare reforms will incentivise work. They can almost smell the growth
that will come in a few years’ time.

[tonyh29]

Just as a general bolitical point:

 

 

 Just been told by the man himself that Dom Joly is on QT this week

 

should be fun ... I'm hoping he will answer a giant mobile phone and stand behind Alan Johnson holding up placards

Edited January 29, 2013 by tonyh29

[snowychap]

 Just been told by the man himself that Dom Joly is on QT this week

 

should be fun ... I'm hoping he will answer a giant mobile phone and stand behind Alan Johnson holding up placards

"I'm on a panel show. Yes, it's shit!"

 

In the meantime, I'd just like to point out just how horrible a line Cameron's 'foodbank use went up tenfold under the Labour government' is.

I think he's taking that from the Trussel trust figures which show the usage as follows:

Source: C4's fact check

Edited January 30, 2013 by snowychap

[chrisp65]

from my own limited knowledge and experience, foodbank reliance has just gone exponentially nuts in the last two years

 

Where once it was a low level amateur operation for a couple of pensioners to keep an interest (you know, the usual fair trade nutters), it has had to get properly organised, bully the nationals into donating significant regular reliable quantities and constantly canvass individuals and local shops. Still demand regularly outstrips supply and I have known any number of occassions where the usual handful of volunteers double up as donors, buying food to give to the bank to then distribute.

 

I guess they call it 'big society'.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

This bedroom tax looks a little sinister.

[drat01]

This bedroom tax looks a little sinister.

 

If you listen to the Tory Spin machine this is not a tax ......... the fact that it is has nothing to do with things really. The new poll tax moment ?

[coda]

Couple break down over prospect of 'bedroom tax'

 

Maybe they can follow Lord Freud's suggestion and buy some bunk beds.

[markavfc40]

Have a party ever done more in such a short space of time than the Tories have done in the last 2 and half years to ensure they have no chance of winning the next election?

 

Come 2015 it will be 23 years since the Tories won an overall majority at a General Election and the way they are going about things it will still be many,many more years before they do so again.