UK PoliGAF thread of tell me about the rabbits again, Dave.

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We're having a huge debate about media reform in Australia as well. It's been an absolute farce, the Communications Minister isn't allowing any amendment and is trying to ram it through parliament in a week. It may or may not go through. Even if it does the Liberals (Our equivalent of your Tory party) looks set to win by a large landslide (the polls are currently 56-44 two party preferred) in September and they vow to repeal it.
 
Sir_Crocodile said:
Deal's been done

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21825823

Sounds like Cameron got the best of it given the previous positions of the parties.
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Looks that way but I guess we will have to wait to see the details for the full truth.

It doesn't surprise me that a deal has been done though. This story has lost nearly all traction with the electorate. I am hoping that Cameron's version, the Royal Charter without law has made it through. I might not trust the press but I trust politicians even less (the likes of Blair & Campbell would have loved to dabble with that law too much).

It would have been interesting to see how the vote would have gone though. I do know there were more than a few Labour MP's that were dead against Labour's "official" party line
 
The UK would be way better if we had the following leaders:

Tories: Boris Johnson
Lib Dems: Tim Farron
Labour: Andy Burnham

I think shit might actually get done and people would actually care what politicians said.
 
Meadows said:
The UK would be way better if we had the following leaders:

Tories: Boris Johnson
Lib Dems: Tim Farron
Labour: Andy Burnham

I think shit might actually get done and people would actually care what politicians said.
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Its not the leaders that slow things down, its the system. Laws take months bouncing around between the Commons and the Lords. With a coalition being the result of a hung parliament, it just adds another round of horse trading to the equation.
 
I don't quite understand this Leveson compromise, isn't each parliament sovereign?, what would stop a future commons changing the law regarding royal charters. I wad always told that no parliament could tie the hands of another.
 
Ding-Ding said:
Its not the leaders that slow things down, its the system. Laws take months bouncing around between the Commons and the Lords. With a coalition being the result of a hung parliament, it just adds another round of horse trading to the equation.
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Pretty much. The Leaders are good for PR but when it comes to passing laws and getting shit done it falls on inner cabinet and backroom policy makers.

It's also easy to look good when you don't have a shot at party leader, you can be much more open and speak your mind without fear of alienating anyone.
 
Ugh I loathe all this nonsense "Boris for PM!" sentiment. The guy is a buffoon, but forced to focus on just a city, smaller initiatives with a set budget like the bike stuff, all while keeping his shit together is where he can shine while being kept under greater control. Put him in charge of everything and the madness just leaks out of his ears.

"But he seems like a great bloke to have a pint with!" Yes, lets get our own George Bush onto the history books shall we.
 
Pie and Beans said:
Ugh I loathe all this nonsense "Boris for PM!" sentiment. The guy is a buffoon, but forced to focus on just a city, smaller initiatives with a set budget like the bike stuff, all while keeping his shit together is where he can shine while being kept under greater control. Put him in charge of everything and the madness just leaks out of his ears.

"But he seems like a great bloke to have a pint with!" Yes, lets get our own George Bush onto the history books shall we.
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I just want politicians that the average person on the street could relate to. I think things would get done quicker that way.
 
PJV3 said:
I don't quite understand this Leveson compromise, isn't each parliament sovereign?, what would stop a future commons changing the law regarding royal charters. I wad always told that no parliament could tie the hands of another.
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Nothing legally, but I think that's the idea of trying to get a cross-party agreement - not so that it can't be overturned by less than 2/3rds, but so that it isn't.

As a separate point, I also think the phone hacking scandal is a terrible strawman for regulating the press. Hacking phones is already illegal, the onus is on the police to catch criminals. They never got caught, though - and when they did, they were prosecuted. None of this would change with a more regulated media, because you still need to catch the bastards doing it first. Hacking is all just a smokescreen.
 
Pie and Beans said:
Ugh I loathe all this nonsense "Boris for PM!" sentiment. The guy is a buffoon, but forced to focus on just a city, smaller initiatives with a set budget like the bike stuff, all while keeping his shit together is where he can shine while being kept under greater control. Put him in charge of everything and the madness just leaks out of his ears.

"But he seems like a great bloke to have a pint with!" Yes, lets get our own George Bush onto the history books shall we.
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But what has he actually done to make you think that? He's been an MP, a minister and the Mayor of the biggest city in Europe, and he hasn't fucked up any of them. How many more rungs does he need to climb without "madness leaking out of his ears" before you accept that maybe he wouldn't cause the world to end? Besides which, he's an absolute beast at winning elections. Maybe it's just the will of the people that you have casual disdain for, but the idea that the possibility of his becoming PM is dismissed as "nonsense" is utterly wrong from any kind of realistic point of view - it's entirely possible that he could.
 
Meadows said:
I just want politicians that the average person on the street could relate to. I think things would get done quicker that way.
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The only good thing about Boris is that he does fuck all but promote himself, he isn't an ideas man, and he has modified himself for the London electorate. Boris the conservative PM would be a fucking disaster, and the last thing our system needs is even less oversight and more speed.
 
CyclopsRock said:
But what has he actually done to make you think that? He's been an MP, a minister and the Mayor of the biggest city in Europe, and he hasn't fucked up any of them. How many more rungs does he need to climb without "madness leaking out of his ears" before you accept that maybe he wouldn't cause the world to end? Besides which, he's an absolute beast at winning elections. Maybe it's just the will of the people that you have casual disdain for, but the idea that the possibility of his becoming PM is dismissed as "nonsense" is utterly wrong from any kind of realistic point of view - it's entirely possible that he could.
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Boris only wins in London and he only wins because people, who would never vote Tory voted for him just for a laugh.
 
Eh, as someone who is heavily invested in the idea that the following cities* need their entire own parliaments (almost city-state level autonomy) I think Boris would probably play ball and agree.

*
London
Manchester
Birmingham
Liverpool
Leeds
Newcastle
Glasgow
 
avaya said:
Boris only wins in London and he only wins because people, who would never vote Tory voted for him just for a laugh.
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I'm not sure why you think that wouldn't translate nationally, though. Given the enormity of the general antipathy and democratic malaise in this country, someone like Boris would be a great person to have at the helm from an electoral stand point, imo. Again, I'm not sure how many more things he needs to win and then do well at before people stop thinking he's just a buffoon. I wonder how many people said the same thing about that Hollywood actor who tried to become US president that time (and ended up with a political map that looked like this). Nick made some early headway with the "I'm not like these two" schtick - Boris was in the same Bullingdon photo as Dave and yet he's still aeon's further from Dave than Nick ever was, in the eyes of the public. He's not just another politicians, and anyone that dismisses him does so at their peril, imo.
 
I wouldnt want Red Ken as a PM either. These are people suited to Mayoral positions and nothing higher. They can deal with myopic situations on a city scale and blunder through, but dont possess the ability to run and think about a whole country and balance everything out (not that the current lot seem to possess that ability either).

Never mind that Boris' clown act is also super cynically rehearsed, he avoided all the normal hardwork of an MP hence why his career there evaporated and nor does he have the capacity to form a cabinet much less keep an unruly bunch like the Tory's all in and together with it. He's the sort of idiot that a cynical puppetmaster could use to their benefit, and thus he is the epitomy of a homegrown UK George Bush junior.
 
Pie and Beans said:
I wouldnt want Red Ken as a PM either. These are people suited to Mayoral positions and nothing higher. They can deal with myopic situations on a city scale and blunder through, but dont possess the ability to run and think about a whole country and balance everything out (not that the current lot seem to possess that ability either).

Never mind that Boris' clown act is also super cynically rehearsed, he avoided all the normal hardwork of an MP hence why his career there evaporated and nor does he have the capacity to form a cabinet much less keep an unruly bunch like the Tory's all in and together with it. He's the sort of idiot that a cynical puppetmaster could use to their benefit, and thus he is the epitomy of a homegrown UK George Bush junior.
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Boris was King's Scholar at Eton. He is not an idiot. Part of the reason he and Cameron don't get on is because Boris is much smarter.
 
Meadows said:
I just want politicians that the average person on the street could relate to. I think things would get done quicker that way.
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The dozy looking cunt is called de Pfeffel, never in a million years could i relate to his silver spoon upbringing. He is everything i loathe about this political class, and beneath his bumbling exterior is someone rotten to the core.
 
zomgbbqftw said:
Boris was King's Scholar at Eton. He is not an idiot. Part of the reason he and Cameron don't get on is because Boris is much smarter.
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He's also far lazier and impressively even more self serving. The buffoon act is his saving grace. Just imagining the UK voting in someone they "like" because he's an amusing clown when that image is carefully orchestrated is deeply unsettling and disappointing to me.
 
Pie and Beans said:
He's also far lazier and impressively even more self serving. The buffoon act is his saving grace. Just imagining the UK voting in someone they "like" because he's an amusing clown when that image is carefully orchestrated is deeply unsettling and disappointing to me.
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I don't understand why you seem so totally incapable of believing that some people actually like him beyond 'buffoonery', a word so ubiquitous in sentences with his name in that it basically doesn't mean anything any more.
 
Pie and Beans said:
He's also far lazier and impressively even more self serving. The buffoon act is his saving grace. Just imagining the UK voting in someone they "like" because he's an amusing clown when that image is carefully orchestrated is deeply unsettling and disappointing to me.
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Again, you show you know nothing about Boris other than what the Guardian write about him, and even that is more nuanced.
 
Isn't all this Boris for PM talk a little academic? I mean, practically he has to at least be an MP to be PM. He's London Mayor until 2016, so beyond the next GE. So he'd have to either win a by-election or run as an MP in 2020, then become leader of the party (presuming the Tories won), then he'd be PM. Practically, he's an awfully long way off being PM.
 
Cumpkin Hubris said:
Isn't all this Boris for PM talk a little academic? I mean, practically he has to at least be an MP to be PM. He's London Mayor until 2016, so beyond the next GE. So he'd have to either win a by-election or run as an MP in 2020, then become leader of the party (presuming the Tories won), then he'd be PM. Practically, he's an awfully long way off being PM.
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There are a lot of Tory MPs willing to give up their super-safe seats to allow Boris a way back into the House of Commons before 2015.
 
"a word so ubiquitous in sentences with his name in that it basically doesn't mean anything any more."

It's ubiquitous as he's practically crafted his entire political persona around it.
 
fizzelopeguss said:
"a word so ubiquitous in sentences with his name in that it basically doesn't mean anything any more."

It's ubiquitous as he's practically crafted his entire political persona around it.
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I dunno, I don't buy that. I've met him 3 times and every time it was just like in all the interviews and TV appearances I see. If it's a carefully crafted persona, he must have a team of script-writers worthy of a US drama, because it seems to come incredibly naturally. Maybe that is actually just who he is?
 
Sir_Crocodile said:
Deal's been done

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21825823

Sounds like Cameron got the best of it given the previous positions of the parties.
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Nah, it's a Cameron climbdown.

Labour/Lib Dems won on forcing equality of apologies, 3rd party complaints being taken, no veto on board members by the press, and they got their bit of legislation.

Overall it looks like a compromise of the Leveson compromise, not as good as it could have been, but OK.
 
CyclopsRock said:
I dunno, I don't buy that. I've met him 3 times and every time it was just like in all the interviews and TV appearances I see. If it's a carefully crafted persona, he must have a team of script-writers worthy of a US drama, because it seems to come incredibly naturally. Maybe that is actually just who he is?
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Yes, I can attest to that (met him once, friend met him a bunch of times), I may not want to see him as PM (although he isn't the worst candidate by far) but he is genuine, what you see is who he is for better or worse.
 
Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson were actually quite similar. Obviously they were both on opposite sides of the political spectrum but voters are attracted by renegade politicians who speak their mind, criticise their own government and are less diplomatic in their answers. Cameron or Milliband, in contrast, always sound like they're reading off a script - come on Dave, tell us what you really think.
 
defel said:
Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson were actually quite similar. Obviously they were both on opposite sides of the political spectrum but voters are attracted by renegade politicians who speak their mind, criticise their own government and are less diplomatic in their answers. Cameron or Milliband, in contrast, always sound like they're reading off a script - come on Dave, tell us what you really think.
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In fairness, parliamentary leaders have to command a majority of their parties (and they aren't directly elected) so they have other egos to worry about (in a very practical sense) which an executive position like Mayor doesn't. You're right though, they are appealing.
 
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