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

2.24pm: Nadine Dorries's amendment has been defeated by 368 votes to 118 - a majority of 250.

(xp) House boats, prison ships, seem the Right are obsessed with getting the British on the water to relive our glorious nautical heritage

House boats and prison ships for the poor; punting, Henley and Cowes for the rich.

The occasional booze cruise for the squeezed middle.

newsnight getting bizarre

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/30/1269963294471/Conservative-poster-featu-001.jpg

Too angry about the NHS to think too much about politics at the moment so let's just laught at this instead:

Chancellor George Osborne was jeered off stage at a glossy magazine ceremony after making a foul-mouthed joke.

The shame-faced Tory hurried from the event just minutes later when he realised how badly his attempt at humour had gone down.

Guests including Johnny Depp, Kylie Minogue, Keith Richards and Bono listened in disbelief at the GQ Awards as he cracked the schoolboy gag.

Collecting the award for Politician of the Year from BBC political editor Nick Robinson, Mr Osborne, 40, said: “It is a pleasure to win this award. I’ve just come from addressing about 300 bankers in the City of London and it says something about my profession that I was still the most unpopular person in the room. It is a fine recognition.

“I’m not sure who actually reads the politics pages of GQ magazine though – I suspect they are the only pages of the magazine that a teenage boy hasn’t stuck together while reading the magazine. Some might say that’s because the w*****s are on the page rather than reading them.”

There were a few nervous laughs before hecklers at the back of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, began to jeer. Baronet’s son Mr Osborne’s went red in the face and fled the stage.

Later Stephen Fry was cheered when he queried the Chancellor’s odd remarks.

He said: “What were you thinking? Are you aware the magazine has male models? Were you thinking of Maxim?” He added in a tweet that Mr Osborne had “made an arse of himself”.

An insider said: “It was very embarrassing that Osborne should totally misread the room that badly. It showed arrogance and lack of respect.”

The Chancellor caused more embarrassment backstage when he demanded a flunkie get rapper Tinie Tempah’s autograph for his daughter. When it was produced, he snapped: “It’s not for my daughter, it’s for my son. Now please go and rectify the matter.” His demand was ignored.

Before leaving, Mr Osborne made sure to collect his luxury winners’ goodie bag which included a Samsung Galaxy Tab, DVDs, champagne and spa vouchers.

A source close to the Chancellor, seen out jogging yesterday in St James’s Park, London, insisted his jokes went down well and he was clapped off the stage. He added the speech on Tuesday night was made in “the spirit of the occasion” and was “well received”.

It showed arrogance and lack of respect.

From George Osborne?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ6213IAQHk

Urrgggh!

I do sneakily admire Count Osborne of Gligberg-Ottenscrope for doing bad wanking gags in front of smug gliberati. If it had been Jonathan Ross it would have been a standing ovation.

ffs who gives a toss about what Stephen Fry has to say about anything, stupid arse-propped old vole-chewer, go and speak to your old pal Hugh, maybe he’ll give you 10p.

how is osbourne the villain of a piece that starts with

Collecting the award for Politician of the Year from BBC political editor Nick Robinson, Mr Osborne

what the fuck, politician of the year. give it to tom watson or some other guy who hasn't just actively & cacklingly been destroying the future.

clue: Nick Robinson

'Cunty magazine rewards cunt for being a cunt'

schlump otm. the whole thing's a farce.

well done, cunto

If it had been Jonathan Ross it would have been a standing ovation.

No doubt. Suspect Wossy's comic timing might be a tad better. Bet you Cameron would have got a laugh.

Nick Robinson didn't award it, he presented it.

The GQ readers chose him, right?

I'm very much out of the loop - can someone link to a news story/summarise whatever's happening with the NHS please?

If it had been Jonathan Ross it would have been a standing ovation.

No doubt. Suspect Wossy's comic timing might be a tad better. Bet you Cameron would have got a laugh.

― Euripides Trousers (Tom D.), Thursday, 8 September 2011 11:48 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah, I think it's not so much what he said (despite it being daft and wholly incorrect), but more the fact the Politician of the Year shouldn't be making cheap wank jokes on stage.

It's not a fact, it's a received assertion. If more politicians made cheap wank jokes I'd think much better of them.

And if Jonathan Ross made less I'd think much better of him

Yeah, reading it back he's just calling the people who voted him in a bunch of wankers. I hadn't understood the "horribly formed" joke at first.

Margaret Thatcher, on walking into Number 10:

"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may ... Oy Ted! Ted! Ted Heath? Wankaaaaahhh"

You're missing the point, it is always funny when a politician makes an arse out of himself while awkwardly trying to show off to the cool kids (or what he thinks of as the cool kids). See also Alan Duncan on HAve I Got News For You.

That GQ are arseholes and read by arseholes is neither here nor there.

I say "himself" because it is usually men, occasional cringe-inducing Oonah King tweet notwithstanding.

It's always squirmingly embarrasing when someone takes the stage that isn't a 'comedian', but someone who decides suddenly that comedy is "easy" and decides to do 'unpracticed' humour.

He could have hired Michael McIntyre to knock him off a few funnies.

Or, indeed, Bob Mills COMEDIAN.

these events foster and batten on a kind of "sporting man of the year/all pals here/it's a game between consenting adults" fiction, complete with "licensed jester" roles, an unspoken etiquette, and a deliberate atmosphere of testing the limits that never actually tests limits (or even indicates them)

interesting -- and perhaps telling -- that the etiquette should fracture so sharply here, that certain participants should consider lines have been crossed (or more likely seize the chance to insist we think so): compare/contrast osborne here and julian clary fisting norman lamont back in the day, lines also crossed but in a very different direction

don't think you have to be a "Comedian" to do mildly funny acceptance speech, have seen plenty of professional comedians who wd be equally shit. Osborne misreading an audience that was probly mostly on his side is funny as fuck, GQ thinking it's above being a lads mag is almost as funny.

xp Officially the award was decided by the political editor Matthew D'Ancona, though I'm sure Tory suck-up Dylan Jones had a say. The idea that readers - even GQ readers - voted en masse for Osborne is too depressing to contemplate. As is the idea of anyone wanking over GQ.

Osborne misreading an audience that was probly mostly on his side is funny as fuck

He doesn't 'do' human beings

Ah, whatever happened to Bob Mills COMEDIAN ?

Bob Mills RETIRED? or Bob Mills TELEVISIONXVOICEOVERMAN?

Think Mills took a penalty for the Mighty O's last night.

Bob's friends say he is 'depressed and angry' following his controversial loss to Tom Watt in 2011's Fighting Talk Champions Final.

that was such a fucking fix

Osborne probably is "politician of the year" in that he encapsulates British politics now more than anyone else I can think of, including Cameron. But that's probably not what the GQ dudes had in mind.

these events foster and batten on a kind of "sporting man of the year/all pals here/it's a game between consenting adults" fiction, complete with "licensed jester" roles, an unspoken etiquette, and a deliberate atmosphere of testing the limits that never actually tests limits (or even indicates them)

You can say whatever you want at this sort of thing as long as you don't undermine the backslapping. I saw Michael McIntyre get booed at a magazine publishers' awards ceremony for doing a similar thing.

"don't rip the piss out of the client" wd seem to be a no-brainer for any corporate jolly

there's a strange oblivious carelessness about the way these guys approach everything -- not just not giving a fuck about the modalities, but not even being bothered to be aware there are modalities that might sometimes matter -- is so baked into their reckoning, when said reckoning comes

this in itself is something and nothing -- it was NOT GQ wot won it -- but it is an indicator i think of how lazily entitled and unself-aware they are all up and down the line all the time... stuff which will piece by piece add up and reach critical mass, not on a big set-piece move like the NHS, but on something possibly even sillier

even sillier than this GQ thing, i mean: the NHS stuff is the opposite of silly

Sensible?

That's the thing - you'd think they'd be more self-aware. David Cameron basically got where he is by knowing when not to look like a lazily entitled dick but he's been shooting himself repeatedly in the foot of late. Pretty sure it won't do too much damage though when offset against something like being suitably bellicose about the riots.

yes it's not the general public optics i'm thinking of here, it's the absolute indifference to the amour propre of a contained constituency -- a fairly risible in this case, but also one that it would have cost NO time or effort to pander to --> my conclusion is that they do this all the time, and that all the "contained constituencies", which jigsaw together to make up the professional classes as a whole, from high-end specialist down to anyone with a qualification of any kind, are put in the position of offsetting their (perhaps positive) response how the general optics are managed (re eg riot response) to how the expertise and ethos and self-esteem of their own small sector is respected

any one of these sectors pissed off =small beer
all of them pissed off = manageable provided they don't mutually communicate this pissed-off-ness
all of them pissed off and aware everyone else is = the reckoning

all happening in the context of a general (quite scary) political sea-change in global politics... which may reach us quite late

Actually, I think I disagree with that - Osborne's problem here isn't that he's failing to pander to the contained consitituency, it's that he's trying too hard to be one of the lads and failing.

yes fair enough, pander is the wrong word here: but it's still about not having antennae remotely attuned, or even imagining this is a thing

A Worcestershire council has defended plans to increase the pay of five of its senior managers by up to 15%.

Conservative-controlled Wychavon District Council is having to make £2m in budget cuts.

Paul Middlebrough, the council leader, said: "This is a fair approach because the jobs they are doing have changed fairly significantly."

Esther Lowe from the Unison union said the rises would leave other workers "very annoyed and angry".

Under the proposals the maximum salary for the managing director would increase from £107,004 to £115,000.

The maximum salary for the deputy managing director would be increased to £90,000, from £77,971.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/9/8/1315494922633/cameron-v-boris-johnson-i-003.jpg

Looking like he could do with some exercise these days

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