Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

well, increased homelessness is a policy objective, so that's cool. Also, old cliches about 'high-rise blocks' and pledges to knock down council housing gets lapped up by tory rank and file, even more than anti-europe or yay-army stuff. Feel this is more a speech for them than for the London electorate so much.

One underreported aspect of social housing is that despite endemic drug/crime problems there are a lot of people who love their social housing and know enough to know that the lawless badlands of the private rental sector or homelessness is far worse.

Ugh, they even had Peter Hitchens on the BBC Politics show today. The. Worst.

high-rise blocks built as social housing = bad, high rise blocks built for property speculators that remain three quarters empty = cool, or perhaps, completely invisible

Not sure that among Theresa May's goals in giving that speech was having the arse torn off her in the Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11913927/Theresa-Mays-immigration-speech-is-dangerous-and-factually-wrong.html

lol 61% against her in their poll

The Telegraph wants the Tories to win the next election, and they know that Theresa May isn't their best chance of achieving that outcome. James Kirkup himself appears to be a major Osborne shill, so it makes sense in that context as well.

Yes, she's an impediment to the coronation of King George so she must be disposed of, fwiw I think she's more electable than Osborne.

Yep, I think Boris is too. Fingers crossed for Osborne? Christ that could come back to bite me though

Cameron: "That’s right, Labour: you’re not for working people, but hurting people."

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/14/Farfromthehurtingkind.jpg/220px-Farfromthehurtingkind.jpg

Cameron saying the British people "want a government that protects the vulnerable" is sailing pretty close to the wind.

Not sure that among Theresa May's goals in giving that speech was having the arse torn off her in the Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11913927/Theresa-Mays-immigration-speech-is-dangerous-and-factually-wrong.html

― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 7 October 2015 10:43 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But the DM loves her!

[ img ]broken image of the daily mail front page[ /img ]

From what I can see Boris is setting himself up as the (lol) One Nation candidate, with May going for the socially conservative right and Osborne claiming the centre ground for austerity.

@DPJHodges
David Cameron is now the leader of the British left.

"We cannot let that man inflict his security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology on the country we love."

Can't even bring himself to utter the traitorous swine's name, huzzah!

may went for the racist dogwhistle bc osborne and johnson are both pretty firmly pro-immigrant. i don't believe for a minute it's the issue that most exercises her, it's pure staking out a vacant position in the leadership battle

(and i doubt she expected press support, even the RW press - look at the comments on the spectator and telegraph, the ppl she's going for think both those publications are terrible liberal metropolitan elite rags)

funny how these conservatives, who we'd been led to believe were going to just leave corbyn in the dust as a laughable irrelevance, can't stop talking about him now

I think they know when these tax-credit cuts kick in that a lot of people are going to feel visceral hatred for them, it will prove about as popular as the poll tax was in the 90's. They ought to be worried.

Just saw Gove using the Jeremy Hunt line that tax credit cuts will "incentivize" work... how the fuck? Seriously.

I think what he was driving at is that it'll force the plebs to improve their wages by working harder.

Or unionising and making their bosses pay them more.

A lot of people (those who can, at least), will have to take a second job, which of course deprives some even more vulnerable people of a first job. It's a complete clusterfuck in the waiting, and that's before we have to deal with the inevitable bungling of the Universal Credit implementation.

this flagship "starter homes" policy of redefining what the "affordable housing" is that developers can provide also throws up approx 10000000 questions as to its implication on several fronts

I don't know many people who could buy a 'starter home' for a quarter of a million pounds, although I guess it's just about feasible if you're a couple each earning circa £26k (which is approx average wage) and have a £30k deposit. How you save that deposit when rent is not protected I don't know. Our first flat cost £150k. Average wage here is not £26k.

And of course that's going to be £450k in London, isn't it.

"security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising", just how close is cameron getting to slander here?

Dan Hodges ‏@DPJHodges 1 hr

I'm not going to join the Tories. But it may take me a while to come up with a coherent reason why.

Just saw Gove using the Jeremy Hunt line that tax credit cuts will "incentivize" work... how the fuck? Seriously.

― Terry Micawber (Tom D.), Wednesday, October 7, 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also read Hunt apparently saying that people on tax credits lack dignity. That gem hasn't been widely reported but hey he believes it so who cares about accuracy.

I believe Tory press office batted that one down and said those were comments made at a fringe meeting. It was a pretty big fringe meeting from the photo I saw.

is it widely accepted that things said at fringe meetings don't...count?

it's a safe space for thinking the unthinkable eh?

Dan Hodges ‏@DPJHodges 1 hr
I'm not going to join the Tories. But it may take me a while to come up with a coherent reason why.

We've got time.

interesting that the Tories seem to feel the need to move their rhetoric leftwards

Almost as if the centre ground had moved left, but that's crazy talk.

There was a decent piece by (I think) Jonathan Freedland who was saying that policies like the preposterously titled National Living Wage aren't really about winning the votes of the poor, they're about attracting the sort of voter who doesn't like to think of themselves as NOT caring about the poor. Hodges falls for this kind of bollocks time and time again.

In reality they think they can hoover up soft left Labour voters who feel imperilled by the madman, Corbyn.

Also amid all the fawning guff from 'centre-left' commentators, have they all forgotten that Cameron won't actually be contesting the next election?

Indeed. He might have got away with all sorts of plaudits for this conference speech but what about the ones three or four years from now, who will give a flying fuck what he has to say about anything then? Not that I expect him to stick around that long.

Jonathan Freedl @Freedland

Cameron has thrown down a challenge to liberal, even centre-left voters: what, besides habit, is preventing you backing me? #cpc15

Plenty of lib-dems vote Tory already, sheer greed of these ppl.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11917236/David-Cameron-is-the-new-leader-of-the-British-Left.html

The state of this credulous cobblers. "It’s now impossible for anyone on the progressive Left to construct an intellectually coherent argument for voting Labour" - really? The paucity of vision in this sentence is astonishing.

It's possible he's trying to shit the PLP up to such an extent they start trying to oust Corbyn immediately, but I dunno, maybe he's just stupid.

Jonathan Freedl @Freedland

Cameron has thrown down a challenge to liberal, even centre-left voters: what, besides the pig-fucking thing habit, is preventing you backing me? #cpc15

Yeah, why aren't you backing Cameron, Jonathan?

Judging by the content, I think Freedland's talking about political positioning rather than giving a ringing endorsement?

By citing the longtime Labour voter who had written to him announcing his conversion to the Tories, and indeed with this entire speech, the prime minister was throwing down a challenge to liberal and even centre-left voters: What really, besides habit or ingrained prejudice, is preventing you from supporting me? There are plenty of answers to that question – his shameless branding of his Labour opponent as “Britain-hating” would be one, Theresa May’s assault on immigration would be another – but it is a sign of how much Cameron believes the landscape of British politics has been transformed, not least by Corbyn’s victory, that he feels he has every right to ask it.

I mean this is pretty much exactly what Cameron was surely going for? It's also basically the same trick he pulled from 2005 to 2010, so it's hardly new.

And Cameron is not only hardly new, he's on his deathbed, so to speak.

"It’s now impossible for anyone on the progressive Left to construct an intellectually coherent argument for voting Labour"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-attempts-to-defend-squalid-deal-with-saudi-arabia-in-excruciating-interview-with-jon-a6684066.html

What has propelled Corbyn is that the holy 'centre ground' doesn't offer enough opportunities, affordable housing and is killing the poor and vulnerable. Cameron's question is to be waved aside as he leaves to begin the first draft of his memoirs in a couple of years.

Reckon the Tories take a chance and elect Teresa May for the real deal as they believe Labour is finished. Osborne won't connect with voters (nor would May but Thatcher Mk II etc) and Boris has too many skeletons.

Cameron has thrown down a challenge to liberal, even centre-left voters: what, besides habit, is preventing you backing me? #cpc15

just how oblivious to the amount of actual suffering this govt has and will cause the vulnerable do you have to be to make such a ridiculous statement?

oh okay, he was just reporting dcam's statement. well, okay, easy...

https://medium.com/@shirkerism/lots-of-political-commentators-are-making-lots-of-noise-about-how-cameron-s-conference-speech-has-32712cd67902