UK Politics: Crisis For Doomed [Insert Name]

[Horza]

All of this could have been avoided if his parents had decided to rebrand the family to something sober and serious; Mark Sensible would find this kind of behaviour appalling.

Anyone want to speculate on the size of the Ukip crossbench in eight months time?

[The Marquis de Leech]

I'll go with six. It's what the SDP managed in 1983.

[Horza]

Given that the present rate of defection doubles every month only an innumerate would predict anything less than 256 Ukip MPs by the beginning of May.

[MinDonner]

...and the Minister for Civil Society sends dick pics to a journalist? There are cries of "entrapment!", but seriously dude. :stunned:

[Pebble thats Stubby]

Was the journalist Male or Female? and was the dick pics unsolisitated?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Pebble,

I though age of the sender and recipient were the keys to determining the appropriateness of "dick pics"?

:P

[polishgenius]

There are cries of "entrapment!",

Which would be a problem if he'd sent them to a police officer and they were trying to charge him with something.

[Alex.]

I notice George Osborne isn't mentioning that he's added more to the debt in the last 4 years than Labour ever did?

[polishgenius]

I'm not sure he's aware, to be honest. He's not the most financially switched-on of people.

[MinDonner]

Ssshhh. This is the Party of Progress we're talking about!

eta: lolwut "Labour were too busy capping each other" <audience applause> - is this some hilarious Tory slang that we need to know about?

[Alex.]

This background audience certainly looks progressive

[MinDonner]

Ha! I notice the Beeb cameraman desperately trying to find the occasional man-in-turban or non-white-anybody in the audience to put into the shot, but they're having trouble maintaining this.

[Alex.]

Osborne officially says that working age benefits will be frozen, presumably in order to cut taxes for old rich people.

Interesting that young people are being punished despite being the only generation who had literally nothing to do with getting us in this position in the first place.

[MinDonner]

I'm guessing that public sector salaries (not including MPs, obvs) count as benefits also, so we can keep those frozen too. The crucial thing is that no-one's inheritance is threatened and that dynasties can continue!

[Alex.]

Or I suppose all those savings could pay for another war.

I wonder how many people will die due to "austerity" before it ends? If it ever ends, of course

[paddington]

Was the journalist Male or Female? and was the dick pics unsolisitated?

Freelance male, sent pictures of unknown female, without their consent. Apparantly just random internet pic.

[MinDonner]

It's funny how the war hasn't exactly been mentioned in this speech. You'd think a massively expensive new venture like this would get at least a footnote.

[Alex.]

£1million per tomahawk missile. Does anyone know how many houses worth of bedroom tax that it?

It's great to live in a country with an apparently spite based economic policy. I would say I'm looking forward to the revolution and blood on the streets, but I suspect we'll all be too weak and malnourished by then to be doing any killing at all

[paddington]

It's funny how the war hasn't exactly been mentioned in this speech. You'd think a massively expensive new venture like this would get at least a footnote.

I'd guess it's in the part of the speech that mentions large corporations and aggressive tax avoidance.

[polishgenius]

The thing about austerity measures is... well, sometimes you need them. It's unavoidable. The reason Poland was the only country in the EU not to have a recession in the credit crunch is (I believe) because they essentially, as part of how the country moved on from Communism and dealt with entering the EU, went through the austerity thing in advance (not on purpose) and had therefore not gotten into the web that claimed everyone else.


But what the Tories are doing isn't that. It's fucking the poor to let the rich keep trundling along as they have been without a change. Austerity is meant to be a quick sharp shock to a country's system that resets the economy into something smaller, but managable and cleaner. What's going on in the UK now is something like patching up the holes in the roof by digging out the foundations, and it's gonna bite us all in the arse.