UK politics thread

[Guest]

I know we have tended to discuss this in the election thread, but seeing as the election is over I don't see why it doesn't merit it's own thread.

Ken Clarke outlines new plans for radical change in the UK's prison system.

Have to say it doesn't sound very conservative at all...

[Allan D]

Yes, the Labour Party monopolised the "collar the lot" philosophy for 13 years by wanting to detain terrorist suspects for 92 days, threatening MPs who revealed the number of illegal immigrants who worked at the Home Office and Palace of Westminster with life imprisonment as well as of course actually locking up the children of asylum seekers in detention centres in contravention of the United Nations' Declaration of the Rights of the Child, a practice which the present government has now ended.

Yes, you really knew where you stood with the Broonites. No soft options there. The crime rate fell but the prison population doubled. They made Michael Howard look like Elizabeth Fry.

[Guest]

So you think that this radical policy change on the prison system is a typically conservative policy?

I wasn't having a go, I actually applaud them for it, but by definition it is not a very conservative policy. Forgive me if I'm mistaken but I always thought that conservatism was against radical change.

[Allan D]

I don't think it is a conservative policy at all, I think it is a liberal policy that might be more effective than the policy (which was merely an intensification of the policy introduced at the end of the last Conservative Government) carried out by the last Labour Government. It can hardly be any less and would have the advantage of saving the taxpayer a considerable amount of money - it costs more to send someone to prison than it does to send a child to Eton and the education the inmates receive there is considerably more socially disadvantageous.

Prison should be a penalty of last, not first, resort and should be primarily reserved for violent and career criminals. We have a coalition government at the moment which is heir to both the traditions of conservatism and liberalism in British politics. In reality it is New Labour and their union bureaucrat allies, opposed to every innovation in public service provision, cravenly worshipping every manifestation of state power from ID cards to overcrowded prisons, who were and are the real Tories.

[JKLever]

I can't take Harriet Harman seriously at PMQ's. She's like that annoying next door neighbour who drones on and on and on....

[Allan D]

No wonder she herself once admitted that if she ever became PM the airports would be packed with people wishing to leave the country.

[Allan D]

Betting odds on next Labour Leader:

http://smarkets.com/politics/uk/official-labour-candidates/labour-leader-2010-ballot

Looks as if Miliband Major has a substantial lead over the 4 others. Can't imagine Cameron working up a sweat about any of them. Better odds on the next Walker's Crisps flavour:

http://smarkets.com/tv-entertainment/walkers-flavour-cup

[Allan D]

Coalition issues easy-to-understand guide to proposed new voting system:

[taipan]

I can't take Harriet Harman seriously at PMQ's. She's like that annoying next door neighbour who drones on and on and on....

Vuvuzela Harman then?

[Allan D]

'Adenoidal Ed' - the Miliband brother with the permanent head cold was on BBC Radio 5 this morning lamenting growing up in London in the 1980s during the reign of the Evil Thatcher - children with no shoes, men in flat caps standing on street corners with nothing to do. Yes, Hampstead was pretty rough in those days.

[Merlin]

PMSL .... he'll be referring to the St John's Wood and West Hampstead ghettos next where deprivation of the sort akin to that of Warsaw in '40 was rife in the '80's ....

Both the Millibands are snivelling f**king qunts - the archtypical wealthy background snobs who, having taken pity on the poor lower class minnions, feel that they are compelled to become pseudo Socialists in order to cleanse their conscience and thus save the world.

We just had one of those bas**rds who screwed up both individual families and the country as a whole, before swanning off on the lecture circuit to con yet more chumps with his sincerity whilst he rakes in the millions -

Tony f**king Blair.

[Allan D]

Not quite as brutal as Neil's hatchet job on Diane Abbott but pretty effective nonetheless

It's all lies, lies I tell you, lies!!!....

[Guest]

Not quite as brutal as Neil's hatchet job on Diane Abbott but pretty effective nonetheless

It's all lies, lies I tell you, lies!!!....

God I hate Ed Balls.

[Allan D]

1976 - Labour leadership candidates to replace Harold Wilson:

Jim Callaghan
Michael Foot
Denis Healey
Roy Jenkins
Tony Benn
Tony Crosland

2010 - Labour leadership candidates to replace Gordon Brown:

David Miliband
Ed Miliband
Ed Balls
Andy Burnham
Diane Abbott

Why is Labour in decline? Go figure!

[Guest]

Cameron makes another gaffe.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10886435

I really want him to be a good prime minister but he has been making a bit of a tit out of himself abroad recently...

The "junior partner" thing mentioned in the article was worse though.

[eowyn]

He's number one in the polls for Upper Class Twit of the Year.

[JKLever]

I quite like Cameron. He calls a spade a spade.

Plus you know there's a fatman in there somewhere just waiting to burst out!

[bodyline]

Geez guys - on 22 August I'd be putting up the Australian 2013 election thread - UK politics is a bit tame isn't it! Get stuck into it - take no prisoners!

[Merlin]

gaffs come and go, but his tittiness in other quarters has infuriated a shed load of party faithfuls (myself included) - with his f**king apologising for past "misdeeds" to all and sundry, including the Indians - on his recent subi tour.
I mean .... WTF!

He's begining to look like an "apologist" qunt ... and that is very worrying.
Whether it's the LimpDem coalition influence or just himself being a twat remains to be seen.

[Guest]

gaffs come and go, but his tittiness in other quarters has infuriated a shed load of party faithfuls (myself included) - with his f**king apologising for past "misdeeds" to all and sundry, including the Indians - on his recent subi tour.
I mean .... WTF!

He's begining to look like an "apologist" qunt ... and that is very worrying.
Whether it's the LimpDem coalition influence or just himself being a twat remains to be seen.

I'm not a party faithful like yourself, but I do want what is best for my country, so I hope he improves.

I'm sure there are some die hard lib-dems and Labourites that are loving this, but I'm certainly not one of them. Good to see you're not just blindly supporting him anyway merls, nice one.

[Merlin]

Always been a Hague man meself, vilks.

[Guest]

I liked Hague as well, wrong place, wrong time unfortunately when he was leader though.

[Merlin]

I liked Hague as well, wrong place, wrong time unfortunately when he was leader though.

Yep ... as you said.
Tories were in turmoil then, and when he didn't get the support he asked for from the wets, he just p!ssed off on to the lecture circuit and earned a few mill. Man of principle is Hague - an excellent orator and brilliant p!ss-taker in the House.

[Allan D]

Cameron's "gaffes" have been relatively small scale and have been blown up by a left-wing media, especially the BBC, keen to undermine the coalition. The most significant was probably his remarks about "Pakistan looking the other way" regarding terrorism and the links between the Taliban and the ISI which most people, probably even the Pakistanis, regard as true. It was the fact that he made the remarks in India that ticked the Paksters off so much.

In view of the competence, or lack of it, of the intelligence services the difference between Iran "aiming to have" and "already having" a nuclear weapon is purely subjective. Although it is true that the US did not enter WWII until the end of 1941 Britain was still dependent for much of our food and weapons (and fuel) on the US even in 1940 and we were selling off the family silver to pay for it (until FDR introduced Lease-Lend in March 1941). Harold Macmillan once said that Britain played Greece to America's Rome (i.e. we supplied the culture and political philosophy whilst the Yanks supplied the muscle and the infrastructure) which was a more literary way of referring to Britain as a "junior partner".

Cameron's remarks about Gaza being "a prison camp" were stupid and simply reflect the "bash Israel" prejudices of the liberal elite Cameron inhabits. However the gaffe quota is still fairly small compared to the pair in charge across the Atlantic:

Top 10 Gaffes by Barack Obama and Joe Biden

[Guest]

Allan D predictably misses the point. This isn't about "which side is better", as I stated I want him to do a good job. I could have bet my house on you posting something totally irrelevant about someone from the left making a mistake though.

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