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

The one group that the Tories seriously cannot afford to alienate is the older voter, but if they keep going after pensions and medical treatment for the elderly, they are going to do just that.

Huh. Should probably try and get 'death panels' going as a meme in the UK.

On the other hand, pandering to their core audience is likely to screw over the under-75s even more so you can't really win.

I was about to say that under-75s don't vote for Tories, but actually recent experience working in the banking industry shows that actually, many of them do, and the motives aren't traditionalism at all (or thinly dressed up, if it is) but greed. The greatest myth the Tories ever put out was that if you vote Tory, act Tory, think Tory, you will have access to the kind of privilege that Tories openly display themselves as having (both the wealth kind and the other kind) and when Tories flaunt their privilege, it's actually advertising for the Tory lifestyle, rather than the grotesque posturing we see it for. And if you don't get with the Tory program, you're just a chav and it's your own fault. Or something.

I have met a lot of socially liberal finance types who don't relish voting for them but probably will because they buy into the idea that they are managing the economy pretty well. It's not clear-cut greed, it tends to be 'I would like the country to spend more on social welfare but the economy just cannot sustain it' which, if they do win the next election, will be the message they win it on.

As good as time as any to chime in with my monthly "I can't believe the Tories are actually as bad as the caricatures they've been drawn as for all these years"

Some of us old bores have been saying it for years and getting mildly teased on ILX for it - but not recently

Like a banker would ever knowingly have contact with people who require social welfare? Economy can sustain welfare spending just fine (it's adding costs via third parties like Atos and other costs are going up in, say, the NHS that wouldn't be rising outwith cuts elsewhere) and I do not see how any intelligent person hasn't figured out the cuts are wholly ideological, a made choice rather than 'we have no choice'.

Would help if more than a handful of people in party politics or the mainstream press was making the case for that to be true. The choice seems to be between 'we need to make major cuts quickly' and 'we need to make major cuts a bit more slowly'. The idea that the country was almost on the brink of economic collapse and had to be dragged away from the precipice or go the way of Spain / Greece has been effectively sold and not effectively challenged.

The recession's been such a great opportunity for them – they've always wanted to do this stuff but now they get to pretend they have to do this stuff

It has occurred to me now I'm sober that aforementioned Tory friend is a history teacher so him being pissed off by the Tories is perhaps not surprising.

Big hearted Britain

fuck's sake

Why, why, is there nothing surprising about that?

Outrage fatigue? No rage left in the rage-pot?

want to see the actual thing before making a judgement (the article seems to be giving it a bit of a spin) but can't really be arsed.

i'm just jealous because i never get given any shopping vouchers for good/bad work

i do! amazon vouchers. and i got a cinema voucher for shooting that one guy in the face.

are you an escort?

The recession's been such a great opportunity for them – they've always wanted to do this stuff but now they get to pretend they have to do this stuff

― cardamon, 11. januar 2014 17:33 (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whenever someone told me about Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, I would think they were way too conspirational. But it's exactly what has happened.

Shock Doctrine should be required reading for just about everyone.

Thank you, The Guardian.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2014/1/16/1389904845298/Britains-Chancellor-of-th-009.jpg

nice one Labour!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25803006

Not even pretending to oppose Tories any more.

Tory spokesman zing otm:
"After 13 years of Labour running our education system, many young people looking for work do not have the English and Maths skills they need to get a job."

Problem is both parties then punish/blame the person with the no job and the poor education.

don't forget continuing to pursue the same fucked-up education policy that helped create the situation

They seem to have given up on the argument that one of the problems is that there are 100x candidates chasing after x jobs. Perhaps they should just have done and praise the Tories for creating all of these jobs that people are too thick and illiterate to do.

So what about this Costa Coffee thing. Wow.

'Why don't you get a job at Costa Coffee' is the sort of thing it might be reasonable for a middle-class parent to say to a teenage son or daughter who wanted a new iphone. 'You're just unemployed because you're lazy and expect too much' is the kind of thing it might be appropriate for close friends and relatives to say to each other.

In fact so much of what the Tories come out with sounds like they live in quite a closed, immediate, family-friends-work lifeworld, one sufficiently well-off such that there's no-one whose disability is compounded by poverty, and no-one who's going to struggle to network into a job after university, and no-one whose immigration status is in question.

Can they just not see beyond the petit mondes they each live in as individuals or is this all intentional

tbf that statement was made by a former GMTV presenter.

'Why don't you get a job at Costa Coffee' when not applied in the situations Cardamon describes are words that could only be used by someone who has no idea how little they pay in such coffee shops and no inclination to find out.

tbf that statement was made by a former GMTV presenter

I really don't see why that makes any difference either way. Please elaborate.

Because they would, I suspect, see things in a GMTV way.

cutting

What are you really annoyed about?

I'm annoyed about this shitty govt and I don't really see what GMTV has to do with it but if that's how you process stuff then get on with it

I'd argue that as an ex-GMTV presenter, one should not complain about the demographic that provided a great deal of one's viewers and thusly a sizeable slice of the ratings which kept one salaried and clothed in low-level designer fashions.

Really, what is it with Scousers who become rich and turn Tory? Is there some kind of extended self-denial going on, or is it some form of rebellion against their having to grow up in socialist Liverpool?

Low-level designer fashion oh the shame

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10591755/Iain-Duncan-Smith-welfare-reform-is-like-struggle-against-slavery.html

they just keep topping themselves

I'm sure that's the hoped for outcome.

Oh wait, you meant the tories topping their own rhetoric, yeah, that too.

Mr Duncan Smith said people should stop “disapproving” of people on benefits, whom he terms “our fellow citizens”, and instead blame politicians for creating a failing welfare system that traps people on benefits.
The current benefits system encourages people to turn to crime and the cash-in-hand economy because they are penalised for earning money legitimately, he said.
But he indicated the Government is preparing a crackdown on in-work tax credits, which cost £170bn a year between 2003 and 2010, saying some families spend the extra money on drink and drugs while their children go unfed.

well that lasted a whole paragraph

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2014/01/tory-councillor-matthew-palmer-checks-shares-in-cuts-meeting/

saying some families spend the extra money on drink and drugs while their children go unfed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18391663

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gTiYjxpSL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg

would facebook have been better/worse than shares?

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2014/01/labour-councillor-checks-guardian-food-blog-in-cuts-meeting/

I can't work out if IDS is a cretin or an evil cunt or both

...but Evil Cretin seems to fit tbh

... do not underestimate the determination of an evil cretin, to paraphrase an evil cretin

From a Nick Cohen article a while ago:

One told me that I and other opponents of the coalition did not understand the Conservative party's leading figures. Cameron had a human face. He may be tetchy and rude in private, but if he saw that a government policy was causing avoidable harm, there was a faint chance he would change it. Iain Duncan Smith had a Christian conscience and did not like seeing suffering. He was a "decent" man, despite everything. If you showed him he was hurting people, he was hurt in turn.

But George Osborne… well, Osborne was another matter. He was like a computer program. You couldn't appeal to his better nature, or to any notion of the public good.

Iain Duncan Smith had a Christian conscience and did not like seeing suffering. He was a "decent" man, despite everything. If you showed him he was hurting people, he was hurt in turn.

I mean clearly this is bollocks right?