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

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in seara asta, prietenii mei, suntem cu toții Bosko Balaban

LibDems appear to be about to descend into open warfare. It occurred to me the other day that Miliband could conceivably be the only main party leader to go into the next election. The knives seem to be out for Clegg, and if Scotland votes Yes then it will look like an enormous blunder on Cameron's part, and the anger from the press and from his own benches will be so intense that I can't see him surviving.

Scotland won't vote Yes.

Selfishly I hope they won't because its buh-bye anything other than a Tory victory in the UK for the foreseeable, right?

Not necessarily

UKIP got 5x more votes than Lib Dems in Yorkshire, 6x as many in East Midlands. They've absolutely collapsed.

What's actually happening here though - and in other Labour voting areas? I doubt the Lib Dem vote has gone over en masse to UKIP, I suspect what's happened is that it's gone (more or less) en masse to Labour and that, in turn, the Labour Party has somehow managed to lose a shitload of its core vote to UKIP, doh!

Alternatively, a lot of Lib Dem voters didn't bother showing up, i guess. I suspect that Labour would have lost a fair amount to UKIP, though.

A lot of people just didn't vote. I would guess that the vast majority of the UKIP-inclined took the opportunity to vote on Thursday (if they aren't going to vote then, when would they?), but turnout will be 20 percentage points higher in the general election and UKIP won't be picking up any more votes (if anything they'll probably lose some protest voters back to the Tories).

haven't poked around into the yougov figures quoted here, but they reckon 15% of Ukip voters were 2010 Lab, 14% 2010 Lib.

This was worth a read the other day: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/local-election-results-2014-aav.html
(seems to have been written before the Euro results came out)

this is a perspective http://ramblingsofapr.com/2014/05/26/farage-victory-mirage-ukip-2014/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_7595/content/english/img/map_ukip.gif

reckon london should peel off and join scotland

Like West Berlin? Would the Scots have to airlift vital supplies to us?

*Scans perimeter wall for parcels from the Tunnocks factory*

If you could get me some tablet and some square sausage I would be well pleased.

no you continue to eat jellied eels ONLY

TABLET!

no you continue to eat jellied eels ONLY

― conrad, Wednesday, May 28, 2014 5:09 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:((((

Looking forward to the London airlift.

Obama can say "Ich bin ein Berliner 'ere mate, I'm a Londoner"

"I am a blood sausage"

Saveloy

If Obama came over and went "I'm from Essex! IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELLL!!"

Blood Sausage Party.

"Mr Farage, tear down this wall"

Steady on! (X-post)

this reductive exoticising has rather put a dampener on a calondonian union goodnight

Like West Berlin? Would the Scots have to airlift vital supplies to us?

can you get buckfast anywhere in london

Scotland won't have any buckfast. West Country ukip will almost certainly have trade sanctions against Calondonia.

Buckfast to Cameron and Scotland as gas is to Putin and Ukraine

I wonder where the united kingdom of ex-M25 england, wales (sorry wales) and northern ireland will have its parliament

Thurrock

so farage want to legalise guns?

So this "trojan horse" thing...

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/trojan-horse-row-birmingham-schools-special-measures-ofsted

Seems to have started with an unsubstantiated, possibly hoax, letter and might end with every school in Birmingham turned into an academy.

i wonder if there are any other schools in the country with strong religious affiliations

That's the thing. The allegations have been downgraded, as far as I can tell, from "promoting extremism" to "failing to adequately prepare children for life in a modern multicultural society" which would apply to more than a few schools in my area alone.

That also seems to be the division between Gove and May.

i wouldn't argue a strong case for faith schools of any persuasion, but this whole argument has taken place in a context that can't help but appear to be, well let's say "sectarian" as the most charitable construction. the rules regarding governance and funding of all faith schools are problematic imo, but of course this isn't about that because there are more than a few middle England voters whose children attend Catholic or C of E schools.

My American high school was so secular, we used the pre-Red Menace version of the Pledge of Allegiance where God is not invoked. Even though the religions on offer pretty much lost me at Eve from the second I was old enough to have an opinion, I do think studying world religions is important (and the course on offer at my school was offered nationwide as the best of its kind).

Theresa May has also just scuppered including mothers' names on marriage certificates as 'too costly/complicated' so basically, if your dad is effectively a sperm donor and you've been raised well by a single mum, you can't have her name on your marriage docs.

should just take out the parents' names altogether tbh

The letter is ridiculous. Why was it written in English? Is the Trojan Horse a likely cultural reference for an Islamic extremist? Why would anyone write the details of their secret plot down for anyone to read?

Pickles sandwich:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/6/9/1402340645366/cd3dd92f-727c-4d56-b5fe-961f78e99058-460x276.jpeg

Is the original letter online anywhere?

Oh and:

David Blunkett, the former education secretary, said the government's excessive relaxation of oversight over schools had led to a vacuum that had allowed forces opposed to British liberal values to flourish in them.

Blunkett pointed to the removal of the national curriculum from academies and the lack of regional oversight of schools, leaving too much responsibility in the hands of the Department for Education.

He said there was a muddle in the heart of government about whether schools should be left alone in an atomised, fractured system.

Oh good so if we want to end the free-market sell-out of the schools we need to bring back Blair era extremism talk

Or I suppose more accurately, 'The academies are bad because they're letting the Muslims take over'. But the logical response from someone who doesn't want the Muslims to take over is to vote Conservative

Or UKIP.

Wow the knives are really out for Theresa May right now aren't they?

Can't think of many things likely to lose you votes more quickly than ruining a load of people's holidays.

She's seen as a threat to Cameron, i think. His tame hacks are circling.

It's kind of amazing that she has been HS for nearly five years, given how quickly the Labour ones got shunted.

https://scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10419032_10152566809926807_1911706892946300114_n.jpg

genuinely thought that was photoshopped before the horrible truth started to dawn