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

Cameron was under strict orders to appear Prime Ministerial and avoid any hand-to-hand with the serfs and underlings and he didn't look at all comfortable doing so. Mostly he just stood silently looking as if he was trying to remember where he'd left the car keys. The Bullingdon Bully PMQ persona only really surfaced once when he threw Stafford in Miliband's face during an exchange on the NHS, actually he didn't even throw it just lobbed over the net for Miliband to smash back reasonably convincingly.

Actually you heard quite a bit about anti-austerity from the minority parties (bar UKIP of course). Not as much of a car crash as you'd think going into this.

The most infantile moment was Farage re: HIV but that was confidently put down by Leanne Wood, to applause from the audience for the first time.

xp = Cameron just came across as tired/had enough. Doesn't look like he is hungry enough for a 2nd term of this.

I was most impressed with Sturgeon and liked Ed Miliband finally telling David Cameron to STFU about a) Stafford and b) the 2008 crash being Labour's fault, rather than that of global financial markets. I had to agree with Marina Hyde, who said sweaty Farage looked like he was having a whitey.

Later, it wasn't edifying watching This Week (is it ever?) since Lammy just sat there saying 'Nigel Farage made a good impression' less than two hours after everyone's favourite 19th Hole Nazi was banging on about darkie foreigners and their health-tourism HIV.

agree Cameron looked faded but most of his ilk don't like being held up to account so easily by so many like the debate showed.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBnxySlUIAATUvr.png:large

Farage looked like he was having a whitey.

no debate on the crumbling environment in 2 hours of debate

You're too young to vote so what do you care?

hey, the kid's entitled to worry about whether there'll be any environment left by the time he is old enough

Watching this now and Cameron just defensively whacking out dry statistics is the worst approach here, it misses the human element altogether - he used to be good at that sort of stuff so this is presumably Crosby talking.

Clegg is doing the absolute worst here, he surely knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on when attacking the Tories but this is really feeble stuff.

dunno if it's just my hope (ambiguous hope) but ed miliband does seem to be growing into this campaign. he looks weak in pmqs but he comfortably outdoes cameron on compassion.

that said the entire farce of just voting in hope of no tories is beyond depressing.

Farage is even worse than I had anticipated in this, just talking completely over Leanne Wood for virtually the entire duration of her answer. It's like everyone else has taken a decision not to engage with him and he's responding by barging everyone else out of the way.

good point actually only young people care about environment

still not done comprehension at school eh?

The debate was broadly a positive thing, if only for showing that mainstream political discourse can extend beyond the miniscule pinhead we've experienced over the past however many years. The presence of three anti-austerity female leaders definitely rebalanced the debate and made it more empathetic, made Cameron look isolated on the right and made Miliband looks equivocating and feeble in places.

Clegg was definitely in the weakest position of anyone but that's hardly surprising. Farage toxic obviously but you fear that his core constituency would have lapped that shit up - I do wonder if UKIP are at the point where other people will start voting tactically to stop them winning certain constituencies.

Not including a question on poverty and welfare was an enormous omission. Miliband wasn't a disaster but I'm not sure he did well enough on anything to convince many undecided voters and his response to Cameron on the causes of the crisis sounded fumbled, and that he was lacking in conviction somewhat.

I was wrong upthread and both Nicola Sturgeon and Leanne Wood were strong. Sturgeon's pitch to the rest of the country was a very smart move, and she isn't a repellent figure to other parts of the country in the way that Salmond is. It will give a very different slant to the process of coalition-building or alliance forming that will surely follow the election.

Clearly no one gives a shit about Northern Ireland.

In the context of all that, it made Farage's repeated "See? They're all the same" look faintly ridiculous.

Thing is, there's a worrying amount of people who agree with Farage that anyone-who-isn't-Farage is some homogeneous lump of non-Farageness. All he has to do is go "See?" and people go "yes! he's so right!" because no-one else says stupid racist horrible things like he does therefore he speaks the truth, or something.

ILX should know all about Farage's debate tactics, we see it all the time here with those who hate the Arctic Noon

it's weird, you share the same outspoken forthrightness, soi-disant common sense and put-on persecution complex

I'm surprised to see lots of Lib Dem posters up in my neighbourhood. I thought they would be pretty much dead now.

I suppose it helps that this is the core area of a once-safe LD seat which went to the Tories last election after a boundary change: long LD history, current candidate was not involved in coalition govt and has been quite vocal about a couple of hot-button local-to-this-suburb affairs. I haven't even had any kind of leaflet from anyone except Tories/Lib Dems/UKIP.

Really don't know who I can bring myself to vote for and it's no easier trying to second-guess what everyone else will do for "tactical" voting. If the Tories stay in locally and I didn't vote for whoever's in second I'll be annoyed at myself, even though it's not going to be just one vote difference (or... is it?) so I should probably just forget about that.

At one point Sturgeon talked about how she favoured "strong and effective controls over immigration" and stopping people "abusing the system we all pay for" and this doesn't seem to have provoked the howls of rage you get whenever Ed Miliband does it. Admittedly she didn't put it on a fucking mug.

Thing is, there's a worrying amount of people who agree with Farage that anyone-who-isn't-Farage is some homogeneous lump of non-Farageness. All he has to do is go "See?" and people go "yes! he's so right!" because no-one else says stupid racist horrible things like he does therefore he speaks the truth, or something.

I agree, but that amount of people isn't likely to grow much from where it is.

incredible to see how utterly rattled the press are right now, and still with a month to go.

not entirely sure the strategy of the telegraph fabricating a story that was so easily dismantled by everyone in minutes, but i guess they've got little integrity to still lose after the past few months.

Milliband is shit. I really want Labour to be voteworthy but he comes nowhere near, and any of the Labour forced positivity about his performances makes me wretch. His looking into the camera on Thursday was excruciating in its obviousness.

If it was so obvious, why did none of the others try to do the same?

Perhaps they realise it's shit and looks unnatural?

I'm no fan of Miliband but I thought he did fine.

The supposed awkwardness is just so much noise, the least bothersome thing about Ed.

not entirely sure the strategy of the telegraph fabricating a story that was so easily dismantled by everyone in minutes, but i guess they've got little integrity to still lose after the past few months.

― prolego, Saturday, April 4, 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Has it been dismantled in minutes? Can see SNP supporting either Tories or Labour for a while - and mostly creating havoc.

it was dismantled pretty quickly, if not in minutes. such a nonsense, nothing story. a fie on those labourites sharing it w/glee

honestly didn't think they would find anyone worse than Tim from The Office, excited to see who the next celebrity endorsement will come from

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/82124000/jpg/_82124242_benelton.jpg

back in the fold, then

more like the Party moved towards him

3:41pm

He calls Ben Elton his childhood hero

3:40pm

Says it is 'great to be here in Warrington'

3:40pm

Standing ovation from the audience as Ed Miliband makes his way on stage.

3:40pm

There is a huge emphasis here on getting party members to help the cause

3:38pm

Ed Miliband now showing on screen before his stage appearance.

http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/12871987.AS_IT_HAPPENED__Thousand_gather_in_Warrington_for_election_rally/

Mistah Left

3:41pm

He calls Ben Elton his childhood hero

http://i.imgur.com/a5RnDd5s.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/a5RnDd5s.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/a5RnDd5s.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/a5RnDd5s.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/a5RnDd5s.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/a5RnDd5s.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/a5RnDd5s.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/a5RnDd5s.jpg

Amazing that there are some Labourites still trying to milk something out of this story. They really are shameless/clueless.

Ed Milli feat. Skepta

https://vine.co/v/OlKMEmqqwqa

Worst election campaign ever? If I hear one more Tory twat use the word 'chaos'...

Watched ten minutes or so of Sky News over the weekend at my parents'. They were reading the newspapers, and reflecting on the cast of TOWIE's turn as political commentators in the Sun, and one of these turds was ranting in the paper about 'benefit scroungers', and the polished simulacra of real human beings who hosted the round table was all "we can laugh but they reflect what a lot of real people are thinking" and I thought, this is hilarious, a Murdoch TV show kudos-ing a Murdoch newspaper for tapping into the id of the nation by asking someone who's career involves appearing in a show so bad no-one can tell if it is reality or fiction who has spouted exactly what the Murdoch mindset believes. And when I say "hilarious" I mean I'm still depressed about it now.

The last bit of Sky News I caught had Matthew Syed of The Times, who is a massive cunt, going on about how appalling Farage is except he is so 'refreshing' and you'd have a drink w/him in the pub.

list of retired english sportspeople who are not cunts:

garth crooks
alan shearer
andy townsend
lawrence dallaglio
nick faldo

i forgot ricky hatton

steve davis was very personable when I met him actually

snooker exemption tbh

proper progger that steve davis

david beckham seems decent enough tbf

yeah to both of those

you gotta be a good east end boy is the lesson here

(davis was met at a prog festival)

I have always assumed Steve Davis is a thoroughbred Thatcherite but that may be just due to his indelible association with the 80s in my mind.

he is a tory voter iirc but always comes off as lovely

MIND YOU he did say that thing about female players never achieving the same level as male due to physical deficits

+ cardiacs
+ nice to ilx poster 'imago'

- sexist
- tory

:(

I'm sure I've seen video footage of him at the 1983 Conservative Party conference but I can't seem to find it atm