If I'm LJing again, I suppose I'm preordained to return to the usual rotation of gig updates, rants, cycle trips, and very occasional gaming cons.  Well, here's the rant.  I happened across this piece in the Daily Beast by Andrew Roberts.  If hobbits were British Conservatives -- which in many ways would be about right, at least at the 'One Nation ( Read more... )

I really shouldn't watch 4thought.tv. Compared to The Slot, which it replaced, which was very patchy, but occasionally very interesting, it's shamelessly cut-price and controversialist, in a format that's guaranteed to fail to do justice to any of the topics it supposedly attempts to address. But all too often, I fail to grab the remote quickly ( Read more... )

The Guardian recently had a piece on how it was "socially acceptable" for celebs to be "openly" Conservative, citing the usual mix of the arriviste and the hyphenated. It occurs to me that pressure groups and think tanks have headed the same way: increasing numbers seem to be trotted out to argue a version of Tory policy, "trading as" assorted ( Read more... )

Much as I deplore cruelty to animals, Fox needs a good slap. Liam, that is. With a straight face (as far as one can tell, with all the smug bluster), he informs us how disgraceful it is that Labour has left a situation where the new aircraft carriers wouldn't be interoperable with the planes of "our allies" (code for "the USN", who're the only ( Read more... )

(Well, actually "boardgaming at 7", but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.) If there are any arguments that the government has a mandate for this -- the Tories repeatedly claimed they had "no plans" to do it, the LibDems campaigned against it, or that it's not inherently regressive (Channel 4 News is saying the richest 10% pay 1/25 of ( Read more... )

So, seemingly the LibDems have entirely sold the pass with the Conservatives' "reduce and equalize" plans for the boundaries. That is, they find it deeply unfair that with a mighty 36% of the vote, they "only" get 47% of the seats. The infamy! Essentially, that's not electoral reform, it's sheer partisan gerrymandering. And the LDs are going to ( Read more... )

... who told me that left-wing extremists got a free house from the council.

Well, not me. And presumably not David Cameron, either, but it's what the Cameron Anecdote Generator gave me. (This was just mentioned on Newsnight.)

The other remarkable moment in the UK election for me recently was on a RTE Radio item from Brian O'Connell, in which he ( Read more... )

Channel Four had a clip of a Gay Times interview with David Cameron, in which he was being asked about his MEPs sitting on their hands while one of their dodgy Eurogrouping allies were up to some of their gay-bashing antics. It was striking how all-over the place he was on this. DC may be devoid of any substance whatsoever, but one normally expects ( Read more... )

Apparently, some NI Tories' noses are out of joint by their shameless, opportunistic hookup with the UUP being "endangered" by the UUP's rival (and shameless and opportunistic, needless to say) proposed pact with the DUP.  Cue aghast noises from Catholic PPCs of the first, and apparatchiks of the second (obviously with some cognition of how this ( Read more... )