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

Sky News Newsdesk ‏@SkyNewsBreak 4m
Police are treating the killing in #Woolwich as a terrorist attack

Sky News Newsdesk ‏@SkyNewsBreak 44s
Sky sources: #Woolwich killing was likely a politically-motivated Islamist terrorist attack

oops xp

@BOYADEE

Mate ive seen alot of shit im my time but that has to rank sumwhere in the top 3.

You'd think/hope a (possible) decapitation and double shooting would be in your top 1, fucking miles ahead of #2.

That twitter TL is quite something, indeed

Remind me not to hang about with that Boyadee character (xp)

According to Nick Robinson, "Attack was "filmed" by the attackers, and was almost certainly carried out by Islamic terrorists."

"almost certainly" = just enough wiggle room to allow you to say all kinds of shit with no clear facts

(we should maybe have a rolling UK news thread)

Indeed

NIck Robinson, Cheshire twat.

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking 1m
Police believe #Woolwich attackers shouted "Allahu Akbar" (Arabic for God is Great) UK government sources tell @bbcnickrobinson

martinbrunt ‏@skymartinbrunt 9m
#woolwich Witnesses say killers posed for photos and waited for police, equivalent of suicide attack.

This Just In: Rolling UK News Thread

howzat

THE members of the Conservative Association in Cheltenham, a lovely Regency town in south-west England, are a mild-mannered lot. But at a recent meeting, voices were raised against “buggery”, “the Spartans” and the coalition government’s effort to legalise gay marriage, which passed the House of Commons on May 21st. Some suspected the European Union was behind this. None liked it. “I had a word with the vicar,” said an 87-year-old member. “He agreed that it’s just not on!”

what don't they like about the spartans?

Pretty gay weren't they?

lmao yes that's it. poor david cameron.

Also foreign. And Southern Europe too. Lot of lazy public service Spartans with gold plated pensions (and spears, helmets, shields etc).

Spartans pretty much the original proto-Fascists, right down to the homoeroticism, any properly posh Tories wd be well on board with them. this is country squires vs genuine upper classes i think.

yeah i can't imagine the tories i met who were reading greats at university having much of a problem with the spartans

a lot of them seemed to vote tory because they were the closest thing they could find to a party that considered suffrage and democracy a vulgarity.

Though Tories were all about hard working families - can't get much harder working than a Spartan, though family life might be of less interest to them

xp

yeah, the bumpkins probably think that too but in a more noblesse oblige forelock-tugging fashion

"hard-working families" is really a vulgar Nu Labourism co-opted by Cameron, real Tories don't worry about who's doing the work as long as it gets done cheap

New Labour couldn't go on about "working people" could they? So it had to be "hard-working people".

Warnings over flagship government projects

This is the thing about Tory governments they're not only hateful they're usually incompetent too

Running over time and budget is something all parties excel at.

yeah it's terrible the way labour used to get all these big it and infrastructure problems in on time and under budget, and now look at the mess we're in

All true but trying to think of the last attempt by a Labour government to do something as big as Universal Credit, let alone fuck it up

UKBA?

NHS records digitization

But are they as big as the entire benefits system?

the NHS one was may have been a smaller budget but was probably more complicated

Dunno, it's not like a Labour government to try anything too ambitious, got to worry what Paul Dacre might think of it

Possibly yes. xp = tbf its not just the govt projects. IT projects in the private sector fail quite badly too, for various factors.

and they fucked the nhs thing up for like ten years, not a couple.

my point is basically none of the parties are realistic in the slightest about these things, but the actual incompetence problem is institutional to the civil service

feel like all these c words should sit down with a copy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month before they're allowed to spend more money on it than the cost of an ipad

I saw a review of the reissue of that in The Observer a couple of months ago.

it's great. totally readable if you're not a computer person. a+ recommended.

MP Patrick Mercer has resigned the Conservative Party whip.

Mr Mercer is a former shadow defence minister who has represented Newark since 2001.

The former Army officer was sacked from the Conservative frontbench by David Cameron in 2007 after allegedly racist comments.

The BBC understands his decision to quit is in connection with a lobbying story being pursued by Panorama, scheduled to go out on Thursday.

In November 2011, the press reported that Mercer had been taped making disparaging remarks about David Cameron, calling him "despicable" and describing him as an "arse" and "the worst politician in British history since William Gladstone". The same articles claimed he had predicted that Cameron would be ousted by Conservative MPs in early 2012. Mercer later denied making the comments

The worst politician since Gladstone is quite a claim.

Was he bad then, ol' Gladdo?

The Tories certainly thought so cos he kept beating them in elections.

Well, by that reckoning they must think Brazil are a terrible football team.

good lookin' guy http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67910000/jpg/_67910721_mercer_pa.jpg

who is the Downing Street Shagger?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/jun/02/mailonsunday-davidcameron

John Prescott & Anne Widecombe. Calling it now.

i may ever cease vomiting

Lead theory on Twitter this afternoon is Samantha Cameron and Boris Johnson. Allegations as to parenthood of a child.

This one seems popular.

Followed by Hague and mystery man.

ach gott mein eyes

Cameron's wife and Boris is just too hilarious to be true. Also, virtually logistically impossible.

Dream scenario would be Clegg and someone but I understand they're both Tories.

1) pick two random Tories
2) imagine 'scenario'
3) vom

not in cabinet but important enough to be a big deal? how many candidates can there be?

meanwhile, pro tip for members of the upper house. if a dude you've never met before offers you a bag full of cash to plug his business interests, you might wanna check see if he's wearing a wire.