UK General Discussion

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The securocrats are back.

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I would advise against taking ComRes even slightly seriously; I mean I'd say that anyway because they're awful, but they've just published three strikingly different polls within 48 hours...

[1] Look up what happened to Labour in 1968, the year the Tories won control of Sheffield City Council (they won Burngreave) and IIRC Labour didn't win a single ward in Birmingham.

That's right, yes. Most weren't even slightly close either. Elsewhere you had things like the Tories in Newcastle winning Scotswood, the Tories winning control of Hackney...

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/29/leeds-council-bedroom-tax-solution

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Moving away from political onanism for a moment: various rumours are circulating about the 'Honourable' Member for Portsmouth South.

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Patrick Mercer has just resigned the Conservative whip. Apparently he's been caught up in some kind of lobbying scandal, the details of which are currently unknown.

For the record, Newark in its current incarnation is a very safe Tory seat. The pre-1983 version included the Dukeries and less agricultural territory (and was almost always Labour), the 1983-2005 version included Retford (and went Labour once).

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Seems to be some kind of joint Panorama/Telegraph sting.

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But, you know, Opium.

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The eternally colourful Lord Gilbert (once John Gilbert) has died aged 86. He was a minister in the last Wilson government, in the Callaghan government and in the Blair government (as a Lord) and MP for Dudley (then Dudley East) from 1970 until 1997. He had previously polled remarkably well as a Labour candidate in Ludlow in 1966 (presumably aided by the lack of a Liberal candidate and the fact that Madeley was in the seat back then) and had the misfortune of being the Labour candidate in the Dudley by-election of 1968. He caused a lot of trouble for the Thatcher government in the 1980s as a member of various select committees. He recently made the news for suggesting that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan ought to be nuked.

Grauniad obit here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/03/lord-gilbert
Torygraph obit here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10096849/Lord-Gilbert.html

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Convicted criminal Brian Coleman (ex-GLA member for Barnet & Camden, current Barnet councillor and general egotistical arsehole - but then you all knew that) has been expelled from the Conservative Party. He has, however, stated his intention to run for re-election next year on a 'platform of proper Conservative values'. Presumably these values include running up vast taxi bills at public expense and beating up women who have the temerity to film him illegal parking in loading bays.

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The latest name to get dragged into the latest lobbying scandal is Tim Yeo, who actually holds a parliamentary position of some importance.

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The idea that universality ought to be a dominant principle in social policy has been dead for longer than anyone posting in this thread has been alive. Since the 'rediscovery of poverty' (one of many) in the 1960s, actually. And much of the initial intellectual attack came from the Left.

Personally, though, I agree with YL. The old saw about a service for the poor being inevitably a poor service (I think that was Titmuss, though maybe he just popularised it) is often distressingly accurate.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/10/david-blunkett-review-intelligence-oversight-law

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Daniel Kawczynski (Con, Shrewsbury & Atcham) has come out as bisexual.

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This basically just seems to be - incompetent - branch stacking. Not that I'd defend branch stacking or anything (it's really not groovy at all), but, eh.

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I... er... wouldn't include Corus on a list of supposedly successful privatisations if I were you... the privatisation of steel has been almost as disastrous as the privatisation of coal (back in the news at the moment, of course) and that was supposed to be disastrous...

In any event, any list of questionable privatisations should include water (which is a public scandal, frankly) as well as the entire energy sector.

Anyway, there are a lot of surprisingly remote rural areas in the UK. I grew up in one (not far from where you live, actually). Places like that are going to be so screwed by this.

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The reality is that they're all pretty terrible.

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And our old friend Ipsos-MORI weighs in...

Labour 40, Con 29, UKIP 12, LDem 10

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I'm not particularly optimistic wrt the election, to be honest. We'll hold basically (perhaps literally?) everything we currently have and will make gains elsewhere, but I don't know whether it'll be enough. That some gains will be by decent margins (almost certainly) is actually a worry.

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Because Labour need to win a majority to be sure of forming a government. There will be a certain number of minor party MPs Labour could presumably rely-ish on for one reason or another at least for confidence votes (Plaid, the SDLP - if they have any seats left, that is, Lucas/Galloway/etc), but after that you have the unreliable DUP and SNP. The DUP at least are easy to bribe, but like most congenitally corrupt parties are greedy. The current LibDem leadership will have to be ousted for any kind of deal with Labour that lasts more than five seconds.

And Labour have done well to very well in most constituencies that currently have Labour MPs. This is good news, given how badly we did in 2010. There are also quite a few constituencies that do not have Labour MPs where Labour have done rather well. This is also good news. But there are a lot of seats that we sort of have to win where recovery has clearly started, but...

Of course this might just be an expression of pessimism.

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Former Glasgow MP Mohammed Sarwar is off to Pakistan where is, apparently, likely to be appointed Governor of Punjab or some similar post.

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The temperature at present is fundamentally uncivilised.

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Oh please. You'd write that no matter what Labour had done over the past few years because you hate the Labour Party. Which you're entitled to do (of course), but don't pretend that you're an objective observer.

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Anyway, the reality of the Westminster system - when a government has a secure majority, at least, as this one does - is that oppositions can generally do very little other than grumble from the sidelines.

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I am, of course, a total hack. No point denying that

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It's the 'new' Clause IV.

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I still think they should replace "Democratic Socialist" with "Social-Democratic". Those two words put it theoretically outside of the global mainstream, and give false hope to people who needn't bother.  They may be similar, but what they imply is very different.

The words have traditionally meant exactly the same thing in a British context; the powerful right-wing semi-grassroots organisation of the 1960s was called the Campaign for Democratic Socialism, etc.