Interesting Links for 04-03-2016

[andrewducker]

Tories say they support ban on satire about Parliament footage (tags: freespeech satire politics Conservatives uk ) Oculus Founder: Rift will come to Mac if Apple "ever releases a good computer" (tags: games VirtualReality apple ) A rather nice short, wherein marriage equality reaches the Discworld (tags: lgbt marriage terrypratchett fanfic )

Comments

[gonzo21]

Chris Grayling would quite happily open special camps for all of us who ever say a mean thing about the Party In Power.

Only the Tories can challenge the SNP and prevent Scotland becoming a "one party state", David Cameron is to say.

... that's one of the funniest things I've heard a politician say in a while. :)

(ALthough I do still quite like Ruth Davidson.)

[andrewducker]

Me too.

And yes, it's hilarious. I mean, I'd rather that no party in Scotland had a majority. But with a projected vote of 55% (regional) and 60% (constituency) the people have very much decided that they should do. Thank fuck we have a proportional system, so that it's not going to be a chamber made up entirely of one party.

[gonzo21]

Ruth Davidson might actually be quite well advised to ask Cameron to just shut up and let her run her own campaign without any 'help' from Westminster Tories at all.

But yeah, I mean, maybe it would be a useful object lesson in just how broken FpTP elections are, if Scotland had the Westminster voting system, and we did return a chamber that was all SNP. And maybe then people might sit up and go oh hey, this looks very broken. But yes, very glad we've got the system we've got. Ain't perfect, but it's an improvement.

[a_pawson]

I also really like Ruth Davidson. If only she weren't a Tory!

[andrewducker]

To be fair, I would actively like there to be people who are financially right wing, and believe that capitalism works at least reasonably well, in order to balance out the people on the other side who don't.

And if we're going to have those people, I'd rather that they were on the socially liberal side of things.

So socially liberal Conservatives are something I can happily live with in the political scheme of things. The party they're in is of much less interest to me.

[gonzo21]

She does at least have a chance though. Scotland used to be quite conservative, with a small c. In fact large parts of it still are very small-c conservative. And then of course Thatcher happened.

But Davidson speaks I think to the parts of the country t hat might have once voted Conservative. The people who are still quite socially progressive, but also canny and careful and cautious.

She was a wise pick as leader. I don't think she can overcome the rabid hatred for the Tories and the English enough to make a break through in support. But she was a wise pick.

[alitheapipkin]

I agree. I wonder how much better the Tories would be doing up here if they were actually a separate party from the English and Welsh lot. OTOH, being Unionists, I guess they really couldn't sell that to most of their membership (I'd point out that the NI lot manage it but I wouldn't recommend them as an example to anyone about anything unless it was how not to behave, ever). Also, I think there are still a lot of small c conservatives in the SNP, although probably a smaller proportion than there used to be.

[gonzo21]

She's way better than Kezia Dugdale, who has already had to flip-flop around on important issues quite badly. And rather foolishly came out for 'Anybody But Corbyn' for leader shortly before Corbyn won.

And yesterday, saying she and the Labour party would oppose Fracking, to let Sturgeon explain that the SNP have a moratorium on fracking, and then getting to explain what 'moratorium' means.

It was not a great political moment.

I'd put money on a Davidson resurgence before a Dugdale resurgence.

But yes, I suspect you're right and they would do a lot better. I believe they've thought about it, but the Scottish branch is too dependent on the coffers of the main party, and they can't raise enough money just in Scotland alone.

[alitheapipkin]

Ah, I hadn't thought about the finance aspect of it but that's a good point. I expect most of their wealthy donors are English, aren't they? Or at least of the Scottish-landowners-but-residing-in-England brigade.

And yes, Kezia Dugdale gets on my wick; at least Davidson is honest about being a Tory rather than being a new-labour-not-a-tory-honest wolf in sheep's clothing.

[gonzo21]

Yep, and many of the Scottish landowners are Russians and Arabs and Europeans now. The old British landed gentry who donated big time to the Scottish Conservatives have largely evaporated.

And yes, Dugdale is New Labour through-and-through. I did think Scottish Labour would get a big bounce from Corbyn, I thought he'd play very well up here. But he's hardly been up here at all. So I honestly don't know what their strategy is. But having an Old Labour figure in charge of Scottish labour would... be more effective than Dugdale.

[kalimac]

You get that kind of separation in Canada, where the federal parties and the provincial parties of the same names no longer have any formal connection with each other, and their bases of support are sometimes quite different.

[skington]

Chris Grayling is quite spectacularly consistent: he is, utterly reliably, wrong about absolutely everything.

Witness Michael Gove's dramatic resurgence in popularity as a minister, after the shambles in education, by making it his practically official policy to undo absolutely everything that Grayling did before him.

[gonzo21]

God, Chris Grayling has made Michael Gove look like a potential Prime Minister...

... ~pauses a while to let the horror of this sink in~

[skington]

We'll always have
this classic Guardian carton that I can't inline.

[gonzo21]

Ha. Excellent. :)