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

Matthew Hancock. Wiki page has this delight

In January 2013, he was accused of dishonesty by Daybreak presenter Matt Barbet after claiming he had been excluded from a discussion about apprentices after turning up "just 30 seconds late."[11] Barbet said Hancock knew he was "much more than a minute late" and he should have arrived half an hour before to prepare for the interview. His opponent expressed surprise that "a minister whose Government berates ‘shirkers’ couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed to defend his own policy."[11]

Jon Snow asking Cameron about his love of Breaking Bad on last night's C4 News was horribly cringey. Dave came out with some bollocks about enjoying it because it's so different to his everyday life. Of course - can't imagine Cameron would find anything to identify with in a show about an amoral monster who puts profits above all else and destroys countless lives in the process.

OTM

those evil fucking tory bastards

hoo boy we seem to have reached the point where food banks are too generous now

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/conservative-mp-paul-maynard-food-6124177

Emergency food parcels should not be given to people – because they could get too reliant on handouts, a Tory MP has said.

Paul Maynard, who works for Minister of State Oliver Letwin, said people could start going to food banks out of habit rather than helping themselves.

they don't want them to have benefits, they don't want them to have charity, fucking hell make your minds up

They just want them to starve and die, obvs

yep

Earn or burn.

"Sanya-Jeet Thandi, a 20-year-old LSE student living in Holborn who joined UKIP when she was a sixth-former and was described at the party’s last national conference as future leadership material"

She was on Ch4 news in the week. I've never heard anyone more posh and clueless.

She was on again last night - possibly even more posh and clueless this time round - alongside a 40 year old man who was representing young ethnic minority voters

She at least has youth as an excuse I suppose. Her Twitter backdrop is a faded picture of Gandhi with 'DISOBEY' underneath. Not sure she's really asked the rest of her party of their opinion on that one.

she means disobey gandhi i think

You get a lot of hardcore free-marketeers who are clueless about everything other than Hayek at the LSE.

LSE students are either well meaning Sociology/Development Studies/IR types, or dead-eyed capitalists in my experience.

or yeah what you said!

In Canada you have people going to food banks every week and it can become a habit

Even with nutcase Harper still in charge, Britain could do with being a lot more like Canada.

http://www.libertarianinternational.org/SomaliaLibertarianParadise.jpg

Shit, about to get real, now hits fan:

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, has written to Lord Rothermere, the proprietor of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday newspapers:

Dear Lord Rothermere,

Yesterday I spoke at a memorial event held at Guy’s Hospital in London for my uncle, Professor Harry Keen, a distinguished doctor who died earlier this year. It was an event in a room on the 29th floor of Guy’s Hospital which was attended only by family members, close friends and colleagues.

I was told by one of my relatives late yesterday evening that a reporter from the Mail on Sunday had found her way into the event uninvited. I also discovered that, once there, she approached members of my family seeking comments on the controversy over the Daily Mail’s description of my late father as someone who “hated Britain”.

My wider family, who are not in public life, feel understandably appalled and shocked that this can have happened.

The Editor of the Mail on Sunday has since confirmed to my office that a journalist from his newspaper did indeed attend the memorial uninvited with the intention of seeking information for publication this weekend.

Sending a reporter to my late uncle’s memorial crosses a line of common decency. I believe it a symptom of the culture and practices of both the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.

There are many decent people working at those newspapers and I know that many of them will be disgusted by this latest episode. But they will also recognise that what has happened to my family has happened to many others.

I believe no purpose would be served by me complaining to the Press Complaints Commission because it is widely discredited.

Instead, I am writing to you as the owners of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday because I believe it is long overdue that you reflect on the culture of your newspapers. You should conduct your own swift investigation into who was responsible at a senior level for this latest episode and also who is responsible for the culture and practices of these newspapers which jar so badly with the values of your readers.

There are bigger issues for the people of Britain in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis for a century than intrusion into the life of my family. But the reaction of many people to the Daily Mail’s attacks on my father this week demonstrates that the way your newspapers have behaved does not reflect the real character of our country.

It is now your responsibility to respond.

Ed Miliband

Jesus. Good on Milliband. This could be the making of him.

Yeah that's stiffer stuff than i ever figured out of him.

too soon, darragh

The Mail shoot themselves in the foot yet again if they're trying to resist press reform.

Campbell might be right about Dacre "losing the plot" after all

Public denunciations, spies at private memorial service - only one of these parties is acting like they're operating in a totalitarian regime and it isn't Ed Miliband.

to be fair the mail was just being robust, raucous and, by definition, will sometimes offend.

Jon Snow: My source at the Daily Mail tells me Rothermere is fuming: Has given Dacre a one year contract only: wants him out and Geordie Greig in!

https://twitter.com/jonsnowC4/status/385734239028645889

A response to that

Tom Latchem ‏@theboylatch 1m
@jonsnowC4 He's been on 1-year rolling contract for a while, apparently, just extended by a year. And GG is ed of MoS who sent reporter.

So much for sauces. and saucers.

Kinda hoped this was dying down, Little Ed had made his point and should avoid appearing to labour (lol) the point... but along come some stupid cunts from the Mail to give the story a shot in the arm! Hurrah!

Rothermere will be thinking of his investment as well as "what happens if Miliband gets in?" Geordie Grieg is about as establishment as they come but less rabid than Dacre. A Daily Mail under his stewardship would be no less right-wing but with some of the thundering replaced by puff pieces about Kensington socialites no one cares about.

It would also become the Daily Boris within seconds.

Grieg is the current MoS editor. This memorial thing happened on his watch, although he is saying he did not send the journo himself.

Yeah I mean the Mail and MoS newsroom culture is just utterly poisonous and they all get infected with it, it basically all flows down from Dacre.

i was under the impression that greig was fond of subtly undermining dacre, as his rival, rather than supporting him, which makes this interesting

yeah tbf besides the fact that this happened under Greg's watch, there've been rumblings for a while now that he's in line to succeed Dacre soonish. Private Eye mentioned a few weeks ago that he'd been telling friends he'd be in the seat by Christmas iirc.

The smart thing for Greig to do would be to apologise unreservedly and deal with the journos internally. Would put Dacre in a very awkward position.

2 journalists suspended, according to the BBC

Oh it appears he's already done so.

Is there a Private Eye this week?

In Thursday's edition, columnist Stephen Glover accuses Ed Miliband of staging a "show of calculated hysteria" for political reasons.

"On one level, Red Ed knew that, as he has bound himself to his father in a series of speeches, he could not afford to let the accusation that Miliband senior had hated Britain go unchallenged," he wrote.

"On another level, Ed Miliband realised that his diatribes against this paper would go down well with the party faithful, and possibly convince the wider electorate that he was stronger and more determined than they had thought.

"He may also hope that, by creating such an almighty hullabaloo about his supposedly traduced father 19 months before the general election, he will somehow neutralise a potentially embarrassing issue - the influence of his Marxist father on his own beliefs - and deter the press from returning to it in the near future."

Or, you know, he maybe hopes you fuckers would stop disparaging his dead dad. That's how a human being would respond, anyway.

I've heard this argument from other sources (aka right wing twats), blown out the water by this latest indiscretion from the Mail

"supposedly traduced"

lwwwwwwwwwl

i don't think it would be completely unfair to speculate that it was a mainly column b but certainly column a would have been weighed and measured too? not a criticism, but certainly this was also a very good political opportunity to do as described, more fool he that didn't take it at the level of the game he's at.

Somewhere out there, MEL P is sharpening her pen, ready to enter this debate like Godzilla.

"Melanie Phillips", that totally non-fictional columnist.

please can they make liz jones write about it

When you think about it, your ex-husband having an affair IS a bit like fleeing the Holocaust.

Somewhere out there, MEL P is sharpening her pen, ready to enter this debate like Godzilla.

Mel just the girl to take down Ed's evil witch of a mother, I mean:

"a long-standing supporter of left-wing pro-Palestinian organisations" and is a signatory of the founding statements of both Jews for Justice for Palestinians

I can almost see the Phillips' eyes bulging, head revolving, bells clanging, klaxons, sirens etc

Many xps to Stevie: yep!

Slimey squirmy Quentin Letts making an ass of himself on QT now. Unbelievable.