the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

"This is a complex crime, a complex area, it is not all about police numbers."
Will have to start a swearbox for every time one of these arseholes uses "complex" to wave away the state of things after 8 years of austerity.

I mean when people talk about a centre party they really mean what they want is a more palatable right wing party so just come right out and admit it. Pro-free market, globalist, socially liberal, perhaps not quite so gleeful about brutalising the poor and with an acknowledgement that a successful capitalist country requires decent public infrastructure - it would either fail or it would permanently hobble the Conservative Party or both and either would be fine.

I think that a decent amount of the types who are clamouring for a centrist party wouldn't want the right wing tag, even moderate right wing, because they see themselves as left - but also "sensible", aware that issues are complex, politics is about compromise, yadda yadda. It's a self-identification thing.

(not saying this is a particularly strong demographic, though it is unfortunately one I tend to run into often)

Most of those names been taken by "The Apprentice" teams.

Just call it the Entitled Middle Class Wanker Party and be done with it?

I'm more surprised nobody's started a "Brexit Party"

It's called UKIP. How are they faring these days?

they became citizens of nowhere.

Well, like I say - hold their victory word high, drop the failed version, that's kinda what the NF did and presumably what the BNP will do next.

i'd love to hear what the sensible left's objections are to the direction under Corbyn if you stripped away the personality and the foreign policy stuff - none of the latter has much effect on electoral choices except amongst hardcore nutters anyway i suspect.

i feel like they're too embarrassed to say "we're fine with public spending at Tory levels and allowing the wealthy to dictate employment law" out loud right now but what else have they got or have they ever done? plus for "social liberals" most of them have very deep authoritarian instincts. the thing about the grown-ups is they really believe they are the grown-ups.

It's also worth pointing out that politicians whose entire career and approach has been based around political expediency/the art of the possible aren't going to jump ship to something with no infrastructure and chimerical support, where they will inevitably be voted out in favour of whoever is wearing a red rosette next time around. Better either to stick around and work with what they have (ie what Corbyn etc did for years) or go off and do something else entirely.

i assume most of them aren't economically savvy - neither am i tbf - so do they have economic ideas at all or just a received wisdom based on being sensible and moderate? the idea of towing the middle line that all right-thinking people hold has been wrecked by Brexit, which wasn't even (fought as) an economic issue. by ceding all ground bar some kind of Briticized version of the Culture Wars - the main strategy in the run up to the 97 election imo - they've forced themselves into becoming this wooly "us vs them" option where "us" is everybody who identifies as a (potential) winner of the status quo and them is everybody who either is already losing or is terrified of the consequences of social liberalism gone mad

If they weren't such slippery quasi-Tory fucks, they might not have to re-invent themselves as new party every bastard week.

i'd speculate that there's never been a point in parliamentary history when the political class has been so far away from understanding the lives of such a sizeable chunk of the electorate. even in the 18th century the patrician class were mostly courting the votes of the comfortably yeomanry.

I think the PM might get the odd subtle hint when mobs are baying for her blood whenever steps out of safe Tory spaces like Cricket clubs etc

yeah but Tories have always had to learn to affect ignorance of the mob, it's the dorks sitting for a party named after the class it was formed to represent that need to get taken out back and shot have a good long think about their motivations and beliefs

on another level i'm not sure Marx ever fully realised what would happen when the working class and the consuming class became so heavily one and the same but maybe somebody in the last 150 years could've had a think about it a bit harder than Peter Mandelson.

But but where are all those legitimate concerns coming from? Surely not Paul Dacre?

i'd love to hear what the sensible left's objections are to the direction under Corbyn if you stripped away the personality and the foreign policy stuff - none of the latter has much effect on electoral choices except amongst hardcore nutters anyway i suspect.

I mean I'm loathe to be the mouthpiece of a position that I have zero sympathy for, but I don't think the objections are difficult to sum up: attacking the ultra-rich and corporations will lead to wealth fleeing the country (already at risk through losing the common market), leaving us isolated and w/o the means to finance the well-intentioned projects Corbyn & Co would have in store. Of course there are solutions to that, but they are radical enough overhauls of the current system that sensible left types will wave them away as totally impracticable and also dangerous (current system the worst except for all the others etc. etc.).

i was gonna tack on something about being economically "sensible" yeah but the argument as you decribe it is basically an argument for their own pointlessness as a political movement

my parents' objection to corbyn is 'we still remember the three-day week!' which i imagine is a chilling warning from history for the pensioner set but sounds like an ideal amount of working week to me tbh

A (genuinely) sensible approach would be to look at countries that have high levels of capital investment AND high levels of social protection/low levels of inequality. Whether those solutions would translate to a country with the same media and political landscape as ours is a different question.

why do journalists insist on asking politicians about their 'naughty' past

Harriet Harman has said she has accepted an apology from a Tory MP for hacking into her website and altering its contents.

Kemi Badenoch, the MP for Saffron Walden and a rising star in the Conservative party, made the confession in a video interview unearthed this week.

Asked about the “naughtiest” thing she had done, Badenoch said: “About 10 years ago, I hacked into a Labour MP’s website and I changed stuff in there to say nice things about Tories.”

She told the Mail on Sunday, which obtained the video: “This was a foolish prank over a decade ago, for which I apologise.”

The newspaper quoted an anonymous Conservative HQ source who said Badenoch had guessed the password to Harman’s website but not carried out “real hacking”.

Harman, a former deputy Labour leader, tweeted: “@KemiBadenoch has written to me apologising. I have accepted her apology.”

Though Badenoch did not name the Labour MP, it was reported in 2008 that Harman’s personal website had been hacked, with posts announcing her defection to the Conservatives and calling on Londoners to back Boris Johnson for mayor of London.

At the time, the hacker told the rightwing site Guido Fawkes they got into Harman’s website with a guessable password, and added a fake blog entry.

A PhD researcher said he had submitted a crime report to the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime.

still, lock 'em both up obv

posts announcing her defection to the Conservatives

took them 6 months to realise the account was hacked

i wonder what the password was

probably 'harriet4pm'

how dare someone do something so disgraceful to Harriet Harman, who was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange affiliated NCCL until '82, during a period where she campaigned on their behalf to water down child pornography laws. She is such a class act!

Harman / Hewitt were pretty good campaigning solicitors before they went into politics imo, despite the NCCL’s more egregiously 70s libertarian aspects.

At the time, the hacker told the rightwing site Guido Fawkes

ffs

"NCCL’s more egregiously 70s libertarian aspects"

that's one way of putting it!

Life of PIE lol

When come back bring PIE

more like Jonathan PIE amirite?

actually that'd probably be funnier than the one that exists

The Pierate Party!

i occasionally get unsolicited emails from an organisation called professionals in higher education and every time i see their domain name i am moved to wonder why anyone would choose thepienews.com in the 2k18

GETCHER KIDDIE-FIDDLIN' NEWS HERE FOLKS

I think I may have ghostwritten something for Pie News. I see their editor at conferences all the time. Obviously not going on my CV.

in retrospect thepienews' decision to hold their 2018 conference at dolphin square was probably a misjudgment

I will auction off my branded tea towel for the next ILX fundraising drive.

You really learn something new every day as an American reading this thread

i too was unaware that sv had a paedo tea towel

we take our mission to inform seriously

You should see the one I got from the Norwegian Academic Marketing Board Leaders Association.

heh

i'd really rather not tho cheers

don't suppose any ilxors have a "Jim Fixed It For Me" badge?

no, but one sold on ebay in feb for £32.16, so it looks like it's a buyer's market out there (an 'i helped savile save stoke mandeville' badge would have set yo back only £19)

there's a fairly active savile memorabilia market on there, upsettingly enough

there are people who collect nazi stuff so it's hardly a shock

say what u like about the nazis tho, at least they were always impeccably turned out, wouldn't be seen dead in a string vest, pink-tinted john lennon specs and a gold lamé tracksuit

how much did they raise for charity tho?