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

they should just bring back the workhouses and have done with it.

ahem debate ideas for workhouse reintroduction prior to the drafting of the next manifesto tax what tax

Sickness benefit claimants should take steps to improve their health

similar themes becoming more prevalent in workplaces now if mine's anything to go by: more stringent sickness monitoring coupled with lifestyle questions/advice along the lines of 'are you doing all you can to ensure you're healthy enough to work for us, because, you know, we have to pay you to do that.'

i for one am impressed that a Tory PM has been brave enough to suggest cutting benefits

Are there seriously Tory MPs backing Ed Balls in a fite against George Osbourne right now?

Yes. And also LOL.

Balls more valuable to the Tory part long-term than Osborne is presumably

Osborne is a walking disaster area these days

Everyone hates both of them, so yes.

Osborne is supposed to be the tactical genius of the Tory Party!

He is?

He is indeed, their master-strategist. No wonder they couldn't win the election outright.

Osborne keeps digging himself deeper on this one. By all accounts there's no Ed Balls smoking gun to be found, but he is doubling down on his insistence that it was all Balls' fault. As if that means he doesn't need to come up with any actual response for the current situation. So long as he can say "was their fault" the job is done, apparently.

It feels like a dumb self-inflicted wound of the type Osbourne excels at, the Treasury could have just tutted and gone "this is unacceptable", paid some lip-service to changing things, and sailed through the Libor crisis relatively unscathed. They must have some pretty dumb advisors right now.

No Andy Coulson!

http://i.imgur.com/wY4ty.jpg

GQ's 'Politician of the Year'.

has he really gained so much weight or is that a dodgy angle?

he's melting

coke bloat

George Osborne can #HMD

Nell Diamond was right tbh

I don't want george osbourne #HMD tbh

Seb Coe on R4 this morning - you can't attend Olympics in a Pepsi tee-shirt, maybe you can in Nike trainers but who knows?

I literally can't believe it.

it's all a load of shit but the tragic fact is that one bunch of fuckwit marketeers will try and piss on another bunch of fuckwit marketeers' paid-for parade by street-teaming events, seem to remember this happening in a previous Olympics or World Cup.

also fuck you if you desperately want to wear a Pepsi t-shirt.

What if the T-shirt says 'Pepsi & Shirlie'?

that wd be acceptable

paddy power pants?

also fuck you if you desperately want to wear a Pepsi t-shirt.

you know it's going to be, like, youngish dads who pull one shirt from their collection of vintage-looking tshirts with faded logos on, who don't even realise it says pepsi or budweiser or burger king or whatever until they're at the gate.

Bye, Louise.

Woah, proper marginal seat and everything.

From http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/local/northamptonshire-mp-louise-mensch-quits-for-new-life-in-usa-1-4132726

The author recently launched her own social networking site menschn.com, as a rival to twitter where she has 100,000 followers. She is now expected to concentrate on building the popularity of the site.

I googled menschn and the site isn't on the first five pages of results. Going to menschn.com redirects to a "Louise Bagshawe" search on amazon.co.uk. Some work required.

The Chronicle has spelled it wrongly. It's menshn not menschn. She says it's no supposed to be her name!

Having a URL that nobody can spell is probably not the best way to launch a new site. I mean, Google got over it but in those days there were only 10 places on the Internet anyway.

True. Though I think it matters less with social media platforms. I mean, once you're in, you're in.

I'm not saying people will be in.

There are hundreds of article about the site that all call it menschn.

ok I can get to menshn - which apparently was initially only launched in the US. Menshn aims to avoid twitter's irrelevant chatter and stay on topic with subjects such as twitter, facebook and celebrities

2012olympics
america
atheism
catholicism
celebrities
christianity
disaster
exploremars
facebook
fooddrink
mormonism
music
scientology
scotland
taxes
tourism
twitter
ukhistory
ukpolitics
uselection

I think I'll join.

*browses for 3 minutes*
or maybe not

The author recently launched her own social networking site menschn.com, as a rival to twitter where she has 100,000 followers. She is now expected to concentrate on building the popularity of the site.

she truly is our sarah palin

also what's the real reason she's leaving do you think? other than being piss poor

I don't know, but the important thing is to make idle speculation.

CAN DO!

Sorry - that sounded snarky. The important thing really *is* to make idle speculation.

It's being presented as "struggling to be both an MP and a mum" which is kind of playing down additional time taken up by being a startup CEO, author and ubiquitous media figure.

also managing Metallica more important than serving constituents apptly

How hard is it to be an MP living in a foreign country? Like, is that even legal? I was under the impression that the whole "moving to NY" thing was the reason. Why she's moving there is another question. Just kind of irritated at the way it's being presented.

wld be great if mensch worked w/ metallica on their next concept alb

It's being presented as "struggling to be both an MP and a mum" which is kind of playing down additional time taken up by being a startup CEO, author and ubiquitous media figure.

It's fair to decide *something* has to give - presumably MPing is currently the least lucrative of her ventures.

it's the tory way

Clegg to announce today that Lords reform is dead along with entire political reform agenda. And he stays in coalition why?

Rawnsley piece from the other week on this scenario:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jul/15/andrew-rawnsley-only-cameron-can-save-coalition

Crucially this bit:

Whatever you may think of these proposals for the Lords, the Lib Dems burn with an entirely understandable resentment that they have repeatedly done their duty by the coalition by swallowing a lot of things they don't like, but a blocking minority of Conservative MPs simply will not reciprocate when it comes to something that Lib Dems care about. From my conversations with very senior Lib Dems I have absolutely no doubt of this: if Lords reform does not progress in September, the Lib Dems will respond by killing the redrawing of constituency boundaries which are estimated to be worth an extra dozen to 20 seats to the Tories at the next general election. Moreover, they will veto the boundary changes as an explicit act of payback for Tory sabotage of Lords reform. It won't be a case of Nick Clegg quietly licensing his backbenchers and peers to work with Labour to vote down the boundary changes. All Lib Dems, ministers included, will vote against.