Brits - Who are you voting for in the European Elections?

In case you're wondering Jury Team are the Esther Rantzen mob i.e more Tories.

I agonised, and then voted Green.

SNP

I voted Green, and then agonised

I voted Labour with no great enthusiasm, more to do a (very) small part to stop them getting an absolute kicking than anything else. Also to make any BNP/Fringe Nutter Party votes get a smaller share of the overall vote.

we had a party called 'animals count'. considered it but they're probably mental.

Besides, most animals are incapable of counting.

I wonder if anyone voted for this guy? Google knows fuck all about him except this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Robertson

Represent the voter, not any party or special interest sounds as vague as it gets, right enough. Represent ME! (except I didn't vote for you, and you won't be representing anyone)

Worryingly, the BNP's tagline was about stopping Scottish jobs being lost to them pesky furriners, right here where lots of jobs at Hewlett Packard have just been lost to the Czech Republic. Other less objectionable parties also had mutterings about protecting employment in the local/Scottish area, but less explicitly "fuck off foreigners, stealing our jobs" and they were way further down the list for the hard of thinking who just look at stuff and go "oh, that sounds good to me".

The BNP should be forced to change their name so they're right down the bottom of the ballot papers, so that the clowns who might think of voting for them have lost the will to live by the time they get as far as their names at the bottom of the ballot papers, assuming they have an attention span/reading capability which would enable them to get that far in the first place.

ooh it's like voting all over again. lib dem w/a heavy sigh.

did NOT enjoy the bnp being the 1st thing i saw when i opened the ballot paper.

SNP. I'm fairly centrist, pro-Scotland tho not nationalistic, despise New Labour and the Tories (well on the latter, I am from Scotland, there's not many of us that don't), don't even know vaguely what the Lib Dems stand for (do they?).

Besides, most animals are incapable of counting.

― Teh Movable Object (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Thursday, June 4, 2009 9:42 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yep, girl in the queue made that joek!

The local socialist party, probably. Might go for the communists this time though.

good luck finland

The England and Wales Greens are hardcore Euroskeptic fuckwits, but it's amazing how well they managed to hide it this time. Maybe they've genuinely mellowed a bit and realised that the EU is the best place to achieve their aims. Doubt it though.

Oh, and Labour FTW.

I did wonder about that, but to the Greens' credit they have very progressive views on intellectual propoerty, fwiw.

i voted Bee eN Pee because of their deft sponsoring of the french tennis...

(jokes, comrade)

SNP

Voted Labour because a little bit of me still believes in the party despite the leadership. And may God have mercy on my soul.

Almost wanted to vote for Mr Sad's No Bulls*#t!? Party.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3663/3567810459_f7d119120e.jpg

If only he'd had the guts to leave the 'hi' in. I've looked at his website and still have no clue what on earth he's about (he does win points for this bit on his blog where he points out who London's MEPs are and breaks down how they spend their time - would have been nice for the telly or newspapers to try this instead of yet more 'LOL duck houses' bollocks). I'm guessing he's an unemployed banker with too much time on his hands, or a really stupid Lottery winner.

was reading there that the expected turnout for Scotland is 25%. With 3 of us on this thread voting SNP it's sure to be a landslide!

and grimly makes 4

Didn't Wendy Craig used to be in that?

but the west of scotland will still back labour. Wonder if that will be the case after a few years of tory cunts rule and people realise labour have no chance of winning the next few elections

This video - especially the last ten seconds - is amazing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

and grimly makes 4

Aye, absolutely. Delighted by this showing!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

BNP 2

Oh look, humorists

Very fucking funny.

I proclaim Grimly Fiendish as Prime Minister Of ILX. Choose your cabinet wisely..

If Cameron sees this poll he will be quaking in his boots

I proclaim Grimly Fiendish as Prime Minister Of ILX. Choose your cabinet wisely..

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Saturday, 6 June 2009 23:08

tsk. scots mafia running tings as usual.

Amazingly, he is not Scottish.

Grimly, I mean.

i know. but he is honorary scot shurely

Well yes.

unlike scottish born Tony Blair who described himself as English and Supported England.

Did anyone vote Lab/Lib for positive reasons or was it done safely under a veneer of despair?

^^^Me. And my vote went towards the 47 that kept the tories from winning the seat. The only bright spot on an otherwise v. depressing day. Not least of which is the knowledge that 640 people within a mile or so of me voted BNP.

Why are the BNP getting so many votes in your area?

Loving these poll results.

i'm drunk and will put on dignity by deacon blue then somewhere in my heart and put on a kilt or something in honour.

Jim can be Minister of Cargos for Scotland.

BNP 2

Oh look, humorists

I fucking hope so.

I'd assume at least one of the BNP votes was King Boy Pato voting for a joke.

and the sinn fein vote?

g adams lurks

big in to his minimal.

Wondered what 'RA podcast meant.

lol

which one of these is the pirate party of uk?

Election show on Beeb Two now!

They've just left Jeremy Vine with a map on the floor and a pie-chart on the wall... he is walking in the sea.

UKIP projected to be tying for first with Labour in HULL. Fuuuuck.

Should have made him do it this morning style, on a floating map.

Exit polls say the pirate party have won a seat.

and the sinn fein vote?

Surprised you haven't tried to pin it on a Celtic fan, tbh.

For some reason, I am slightly amazed that Danny Finkelstein has the voice of a grown-up man.

so they do the vote on thursday, announce on sunday, but can't count before then? you gotta fuckin love europe.

Eric Pickles is a Loathsome slug.

It's because different countries have elections on different days. We have ours on Thursdays (same as all our other elections), other countries have theirs on Sundays (e.g. Italy, same as their general elections). Theoretically announcing the result from one country before having the poll in another could influence the result there. Also, you can hardly involved thousands of people in counting millions of votes and expect the result to be hushed up for three days.
(xpost)

Two results and no great shakes so far.

So Labour are losing votes to BNP and Greens and the Tories are not getting them? Come the general election what will happen to those votes? Interesting times.

It will be interesting, are people going to vote tactically when it gets down to constituency level, either to turf out labour or to block the BNP. This weekend feels like it is much worse for the LDs than for labour. I feel like they are going to loose a bunch of seats in the south west and possibly in scotland (although we won't know about that yet).

I keep looking up at Newsnight Scotland and seeing Tories winning stuff. This is giving me proper fear.

Edinburgh could be true blue next year.

Did you think somehow Scotland would be immune to the Rise Of The Right?

Is there anywhere that is publishing the council level vote tallies?

The local news websites are (or at least they are here in Leicestershire) - very depressing reading.

jesus, over 100,000 votes for the bnp in wherever this is, west riding or something.

yorkshire

Fucking cunt bastards

Ned, no, I didn't, but it's the sheer volume of it that's thrown me.

Astonished and depressed by the BNP "success", for fuck's sake what is is happening to this country?

THIS GUY IS A TEACHER?!?

I feel a bit sick. I really didn't think they'd make the top five in any constituency and hence unlikely to snag a seat. Jesus.

I am seriously up for organising a mass protest outside the offices of The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Express where everyone waves massive banners going 'THIS IS YOUR FAULT YOU CUNTS'.

His guff on tv just then was woeful. What a fucking prick, apparently former NF as well.

Well, yeh, apart from the fact it isn't or anything. Still, delighted anyone still thinks the press is that powerful.

Mother fuck, the lack of an xpost warning on iPhone ILX is a pain in the arse.

I don't even know what to say or think. Fuck. I want to cry.

Fucking hell, conservatives largest party in wales.

can yorkshire just fucking fall into the north sea

seriously WOULD NOT MISS ANY OF YOU AND YOUR BNP-VOTING CUNTING POPULATION. fuck off. secede. go back where you came from ie the fucking mud at the bottom of the ocean. cunts.

Umm. Sorry, people are surprised by this?

The only good thing to come from this (eternal optimist that I am) is that the rest of the country might wake up to the fact the festering sore of small-minded racism is a really fucking big problem and can't just be ignored. The BNP might be chumps but we fail to take them seriously at our peril ... as, darkly, this seems to be proving. Christ.

God Toynbee is insufferable right now.

why don't we have any decent political assassins around any more??? if the 60s could produce someone to murder jfk why can't this decade get it together to take nick griffin out

Krishan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News: "people get the politicians they deserve.....maybe all the fuckwits who say they're not interested in politics will sit up"

I knew it was all going a bit wrong, but having it there in black and white, or Tory fucking blue, it's just awful, like a negative photo of that night in 1997 when we all thought everything was going to be OK again. I thought the threat of this might make people cast their minds back further than a couple of years, but no, people are cnuts.

Also: superb, Lex, small-minded broad-brush attack on an entire county there. Irony lost on you, is it?

Dimbleby is outright calling Nick Griffin a racist on TV. Thank fucking fuck for that.

AARGH, GET THIS MAN OFF MY TV. Can we repatriate him to cnutsville?

When people said in 1997 that the Tories would be out of power for a generation I didn't realise that they were talking about Alfie Patten.

ILLEGALS! You dumb cunt, Griffin.

I'm assuming this is the pattern emerging across Europe? Incumbent governments getting a kicking, far right parties gaining ground? The worrying thing is a fascist coalition in the EP.

Maybe I should make my move stateside permanent, or maybe not, the FEC tells me there are plenty of fuckers in my zipcode who gave to Santorum.

Alex Salmond delighted to point out that incumbent party in Scotland remained the most popular.

(note: Scottish Nationalists in no way related to British Nationalists)

Has the UK got to the stage that you can look up campaign contributions yet?

So who else is looking forward to the point when they try to replace Brown with another New Labour type as if that's going to make any fucking difference whatsoever?

This will ensure brown gets to fight the next election, no one is going to want to lead the charge of the light brigade in the next election.

Labour's inevitable defeat (and probable considerable time out of power) at the next general election isn't the most worrying/depressing thing any more, it's the possible collapse of the two/three party balance of power. The combined share of Labour and Conservative votes tonight is going to well under 50%, maybe nearer 40%. Once the BNP (and others) start being seen as a credible alternative ('credible' in the sense that they *could* actually win a seat) then a lot of people who currently vote for one of the big parties because they're the only ones who can win, or who don't vote at all because they don't feel their votes will count for anything, will start voting for these other ones. If it came down to a choice between a 100-seat Tory majority or a minority Tory government with a significant BNP / UKIP presence in parliament, I'd definitely go for the former.

Aye, but the flip-side of that is that other smaller parties can theoretically benefit from such an attitude shift too.

Also: not sure it's that simple, either, but hey.

It's a huge leap for an extremist party to go from polling 10% and hence picking up the last seat in a D'Hondt PR election to actually winning a parliamentary constituency outright in a first-past-the-post system.

Yeah I was going to say. If anyone's going to be dismayed at these results it's the LibDems because the idea of proportional representation is being absolutely trashed here.

0.23am: The BBC has just broadcast its estimate as to the final figures for share of the vote. They are:
Tories - 27% - n/c
Ukip - 17% - up 1
Labour - 16% - down 7
Lib Dems - 14% - down 1
Greens - 9% - up 3
BNP - 6% - up 1

(copy-pasted from guardian 'liveblog')
(there's like at least two very, very minor bright sides there)

But it's the start of the slippery slope. The 'first past the post' system is really designed for two-way contests. If MPs start winning seats with just 25% of the votes in their constituency (which is probably less than 20% of the electorate) and governments get elected with less than a third of the votes (and maybe less than a quarter of the electorate) then there'll be a huge problem of legitimacy and probably a move to PR.
(xposts)

The other thing mitigating against a leadership election is that would labour want to elect someone who may get decapitated at the next election. (Alan Johnson, could loose his seat if a general went like this, not sure about milibands, straw must be at risk)

The Plaid Cymru guy just brought up the inconvenient fact that people are voting Tory in vast numbers at the exact time the consensus shifts towards more state intervention and less free market fundementalism and Dimbleby cut him off to go to the UKIP guy. FFS.

Lib Dems - 14% - down 1

Fuck's sake, lads. Might as well give up now, really.

'lose' not 'loose' (or this another ilx meme?)

The fat lady is singing the blues?!

are the Greens going to not gain an MEP despite gaining more voters since last time than anyone else? that's a shame.

Mr Sad's No Bulls#*t Party only got 1,000 votes in London.

Right, relative good news from London (well, as good as it's going to get) - I'm off to bed.

Yeah, Greens edge UKIP for 4th, Lab get two seats, BNP nowhere.

When is the North West declaring?

North West is the one that's really been worrying me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8088477.stm
he seems like he would be a dreadful teacher

the bnp bring out the ultra-authoritarian in me. how the fuck does one of them get to be a teacher?

Suspect Dimbleby hasn't done any research on the Greens.

"I've heard that Mr Brown is considering doing with this election what they've done with the Irish referendum, and that is to call another one and possibly another one until they get the right answer — that's democracy in the 21st century "

^ there was applause at this but it was sparse

he also manages to suggest his fellow members of the BNP are incapable of understanding the MEP allocation system.

(I think that bit of what he said is meant to be a joke.)

Toynbee now pointing out that the LibDems' weak showing is potentially very bad indeed for Labour at the next election. That's only bad given the assumption that they'll corrode the Tory vote, not the Labour vote, but still...

Just when I was feeling nice and depressed, I come across Lex Pretend's stream of hate. That's what I get for coming back to ILX.

WTF Italy has swung behind Berlusconi?! How the hell did that happen?

LibDems beaten into third place behind the Tories and UKIP in the South West is really bad for them, right? Labour nowhere so obviously appalling for them. At least nothing for the BNP. I'm going to bed.

South East being announced now

"1.12am: It now looks as if Nick Griffin may have won a seat in the North West, according to the Westminster grapevine. That would give the BNP two seats in the European parliament."

Haha dude shouting 'FASCISTS! FUCKING FASCISTS!' well done.

the camera quivered with unease

Best commentator of the night, that dude.

guy announced Lib Dem's Bowles as "Bowels" and got a laugh

This Terminator shit is the worst acceptance speech I have ever seen.

wow this Tory is a supreme cock

And now he's quoting Dr Seuss WTF?!!

i hope people now wake up and realise that is the sort of wanker that IS the tory party and you dont want them in charge

I think he is mental even by the standards of the Tory party.

Farage still butthurt about the ballot fold

Hannan is a fucking twat.

Also, lol at UKIP supporters electing an Argentine-born Spanish accountant.

North West coming up

BNP CUNTS have won another seat, there's been an unofficial announcement and Griffin is grinning .
here's the official result

Griffin got in. And on a pretty small chunk of the vote. Fucking shite turnout.

Greens 5000 short of preventing it. As with Yorkshire fewer votes for BNP than in 2004.

Really hope when he turns up in Brussels they tell him to fuck off home.

Griffins speech live now on Sky News

lots of people have turned their back on him and are leaving with just the journos left

fuck one Griffin

As a Yorkshire resident, I'd like to apologise for having 100,000+ cunts living in my constituency.I'd gladly throw them into the North Sea.

*cough*

When he rolls up in Brussels they should send him back where he came from.

― Scrum of the Earth (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 6 June 2009 19:59 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

good luck england with your right wing paradise

blah blah had one of those for last 12 years blah blah

Griffin being interviewed there on Today. Incoherent, blustering buffoon: I'm confident he and his scummy pal will make total, total cunts of themselves in Europe as they do elsewhere.

But, as Stet says, another key set of cunts here are the ones who didn't even haul their arses down to the polling station. My next-door neighbour, for instance. Sure, most British politicians aren't exactly an inspiring bunch. But look what happens when you shrug and give up. Not sure what we do about this, but I sincerely hope this is a wake-up call for a whole heap of silly fuckers.

Point being made now on Today that the BNP's share might be up but the actual number of votes has fallen. Which is small comfort, I guess.

(ie "actual number of votes cast for the BNP")

Just typed out that same point having heard it too. I think a lot of those silly fuckers probably won't care that they've just passively elected some comedy Nazis tho.

Problem here is that, having failed to make a counter-case, I'm not sure how productive it is for "mainstream" politicians to get a sanctimonious group-wank going and castigate hundreds of thousands of voters for being evil and racist. However true that might or mightn't be.

on Radio5 this morning, Campbell compared his election record to Oswald Moseley's, to which Griffin replied "I like to see it much more like Keir Hardy winning his first seat for Labour" Radio v v close to going out the window. So fucking angry right now.

Problem here is that, having failed to make a counter-case, I'm not sure how productive it is for "mainstream" politicians to get a sanctimonious group-wank going and castigate hundreds of thousands of voters for being evil and racist. However true that might or mightn't be

Yes, exactly: if non-voters are going to use the "disenfranchised by shit politicians" excuse as opposed to "too fucking stupid and lazy to go to the polling station" then the last people they're going to listen to are those politicians. Hell, it'd annoy me if they started up with that.

It'll be interesting to see how the debate goes over the next few days, though: whether the not-interested-in-politics brigade carry on as if nothing's happened, or whether a couple of them perk up and think: "Shit."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCb2Le3wtIk

^^^Looking forward to the "devastating satirical piece" from Brooker in the Guardian...

Woody Allen otm

Curiously I'm optimistic about the future in that it's the sort of result which will focus minds on both the left and the right in dealing with the fascist threat. Difficulty is knowing just how much of it is a temporary protest vote against the Westminster machine and how much is a genuine swing to the far right. Some comfort in knowing that their actual numbers fell last night despite their share going up.

Where it leaves Brown, I don't know. At the moment leading Labour is such a poisoned chalice that they'll probably stick with him for better or worse. Though anything may happen over the next few weeks from someone crossing the floor to another cabinter minister resigning or even Brown throwing the towel in.

whether the not-interested-in-politics brigade carry on as if nothing's happened, or whether a couple of them perk up and think: "Shit."

It'll be the latter, but it will be precisely two people.

None of this is helped by interviews like Harriet Harman's on Today this morning, continuing to insist this is a protest vote over expenses. It's exactly that sort of attitude, that the Government are as knee-jerk as the would-be voters that would be influenced by those sort of media storms, that turns off voters for two reasons; firstly, those who expect more and better of our politicians and secondly those who, on that basis, are upset because said politicians haven't knee-jerked with them on whatever their particular issue is this week.

I still think, however, the fundamental issue with voter apathy is the almagamation of NuLabConLibDem into one identikit conglomerate - with nothing to choose, essentially, policy-wise between them it's difficult to criticise people for failing to make that choice. (I'd argue also that this is why Cameron is perceived to have no policies: he probably does, but they're not sufficiently different to NuLab to amke an issue of.) It's also the key, arguably, to mobilisation of the minority electorate just because they're saying something different and do represent and actual choice as opposed to a different shade of the same.

Yeah essentially people will snatch at crass, hateful solutions for their problems rather than "everything's going fine the public just don't realise that yet".

Last years of the Major government was also full of ministers incapable of analyzing what was wrong beyond "stupid people just don't get it the policies are fine".

Which is made more ironic by the real possiblity that if the disaffected voter could specify what policies he'd like the gov to pursue he mightn't actually want them to be different. Perhaps a big chunk of the electorate is like a fractious child who's gonna keep throwing his tantrum until he falls asleep, no matter what solutions mom and dad offer him.

But still surprising that career politicians haven't worked out that it's not good to show contempt for the voters, no matter how justified that contempt might be.

I think I'm in sympathy with the sentiments of Tom Ewing today. People don't like being told what not to do, stop investing the BNP with such a "horrible mystique" and just treat them like any other fringe party.

I'm certainly not sure about the general worth of the "shock people into facing up to the enormity of what they have done (directly or otherwise)" line.

This is part of what I'm getting at I think. The BNP didn't poll all those votes from people who think of themselves as racist, calling the voters idiots after the fact = DOES NOT HELP

I'm afraid I shall be showing contempt for people who think that voting BNP is any kind of solution to anything. Sorry. 30 years of arguing the toss with these people has worn me out. I used to think I could win them over with reasoned argument but fuck it. Let them see how effective their BNP councillors are.

xpost

The situation for Brown is even worse than it was for Major, though. Throughout Major's tenure, he had to contend with a razor-thin majority which made it almost impossible to govern. Brown has a significant majority and yet he still can't manage any semblance of authority. I predict Brown will survive for the moment, because no one wants to risk a general election now, but that he will ultimately get pushed out in the autumn, when election fears become moot.

As for the BNP, all major European countries have managed to deal with situations where racist parties got double what the BNP got.

All key points by NV, but the reason the disaffected voter can't express what he would like to see is because he doesn't know. Worse still, he doesn't care. And I think the saddest part of it all is I can't think of a way in which politics can actually recapture that ground and involve people or excite them any more.

Completely agree with that but...I suspect most people don't want things to be very different. They'd like to be a bit better off, a bit more secure at work and in their homes and mostly in their heads. A political system that requires the unrealistic, like say an electorate full of philosopher-kings who read a broadsheet cover to cover every day, has got problems as a system. And I think it ought to be easier to adjust the system than adjust the electorate.

Great failures in politics begin with this: "if only people thought and acted differently to how they do". The horrible totalitarian successes of the 20th Century were based on a much more acute understanding of how people actually behave.

someone's probably said it already, but the lack of lib dem bounce is in a way the "bigger story" in terms of the next election.

quite chilling what ewing says re. flow of funds to the bnp from brussels. i don't get how we treat them as a fringe party when they have just won two seats in the european parliament. it'll probably make it just that much more 'acceptable' to vote bnp -- sure, not for nice chaps like us, but still.

i'm usually blase about the bnp, especially when they're used by labour as a bogeyman, like "if you don't vote for us it'll be 1933 all over again" bs. obviously it isn't 1933, and there's not that much you can do about the hard core of racists who will always be with us, but there's a danger they will gather momentum, and it... "diminishes us in the eyes of the world." rly tho.

There's been a massive element of complacency among all three parties that has allowed the BNP a way in. Mostly Labour's fault, they took their core support for granted, they assumed there would always be a working class power base in the North of England and that appears to have collapsed. It's difficult to see what Labour can do to fill that void.

But the other main parties haven't really been able to fill that vacuum, the Tories haven't quite got there, partly because they've been sitting there waiting for Labour to lose. The LibDems have been the de facto party of protest votes for so long they don't seem to know what to do now they aren't.

Who should people vote for, in ILX's opinion?

Geese

I had kind of braced myself over the days since polling for a BNP MEP, though it's still grim reading, and two is worse. I hadn't braced myself for UKIP being the second biggest party. UKIP + BNP + Conservatives = possibly most of the MEPs we're sending to Europe don't believe (we should be) in Europe. Which seems a bit sad and point-missing, somehow.

Greens were robbed with their twice as many votes gained as BNP and no new seats thing. Well, obviously not, that's just how it works, but interesting to be reminded that these things happen even under PR.

ah, here we have a bad use of the bnp's successes to score political points:

"A mess of stuff explains that insane drop, from the expenses imbroglio to Brown's failure to explain what he's in government to do. But make no mistake: if Labour were to follow the path favoured by his current opponents [i.e. Purnell et al], that disconnection would either remain, or get even worse (and elsewhere, needless to say, the BNP would continue to prosper)."

the article gets considerably more complicated after that, but still, not very helpful.

xpost

my region was: 3 con, 2 ukip (ffs), 1 lib dem, 1 lab.

i voted lib dem, out of no conviction whatsoever, but because it's a PR system, and better them than the tories. i have a lot more sympathy with labour in the abstract, but you know, but like indiana jones at the end of temple of doom, they need to be burnt in order not to be evil.

UKIP are going to be a massive pain in the arse for Prime Minister Cameron, aren't they? Assuming they don't disintegrate between now and then of course.

Tories bringing the mad lolz:

In an interview with Nick Griffin, BNP leader, the Today programme's John Humphrys called the BNP a "far right" party. It is not. It is "Labour With Racism", as Lord Tebbit memorably said recently. I fear the BNP may be here for a few years now. The BBC needs to find a more accurate way of describing them.

UKIP do nothing between European Parliament elections, really, and as an MEP you basically have to do a David Carradine if you want to get your name on the TV news.

Or make a speech quoting Dr Seuss.

Or be a fascist.

The day after the results doesn't count. Let's see how much airtime Griffin and the other tit whose name I've already forgotten get in 6 months time.

Also if this means they get some EU money to make more awesome Junior BNP Histor's Eye puppet shows then I can see an up side.

In fact yes, the best way to undermine these twats is to get them speaking in public debate (NB rallies of pissed-up weebles don't count) as often as possible.

What's the closest thing to a proper labour party you guys have, is what I'm actually asking? Politics is boring in a good way over here at the moment, and I'm wondering if UKIP/BNP are really the only option for so many workign class people.

Labour at grassroots is still reasonably working class, as much as it's ever been. The spin-off parties like Arthur Scargill's Stalinist Labour Party are mostly working class I'd guess, but Gulags and comb-overs not really winning hearts and minds on a broad spectrum. The BNP are no more working class than Labour re. membership I'd imagine - plenty of petit bourgeois and disgruntled aging Empire nostalgists. Whether they represent a credible voting option for white working class people as opposed to suits at Westminster, well, there is probably something in that.

What's the closest thing to a proper labour party you guys have, is what I'm actually asking?

I would argue it's the Labour Party, or parts of it at least. One of the reasons I'm against the idea of them getting rid of Brown now is that whoever replaces him would probably stay on after the election. And the party REALLY needs the bout of soul-searching and ideological argument that will follow defeat.

^^ this is why i increasingly think mandy should be caretaker before handing over to whoever. sure it'd be divisive, but the guy has star quality.

I think the Labour Party has stopped reaching out to working class people, too. The semi-skilled and skilled working class has declined as a proportion of the UK's population over the last 30-plus years. Union membership has decreased. Both of these things make local parties less accessible than they were, or at least less accessed by the unfanatical/uncareerist. The game is all about winning points on TV now, not doing the legwork. I don't know what kind of activists the BNP have but jeez it wouldn't take a lot to be in front of the main parties.

What are the downsides to compulsory voting?

There are always going to be fringes and nutters in any political system -- if they weren't getting some votes, something would be wrong. But it breaks down when the vast majorities don't turn out -- that's when the nutters actually win things.

xp I'm not sure who the Labour Party is actually reaching out to at all any more.

Australia has compulsory voting but it also has xenophobic nutters like Pauline Hanson who at times has got a larger percentage of the vote than the BNP in England, so that argument doesn't necessarily work.

^^ this is why i increasingly think mandy should be caretaker before handing over to whoever. sure it'd be divisive, but the guy has star quality.

― FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Monday, 8 June 2009 06:24 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

First PM from the Lords since Salisbury, a perfect epilogue or even epitaph for new labour.

xpost

xpost to stet

Yeah I think in a broader sense I meant Parties don't seem to be doing grassroots activism, but my imagination of the Tories has been that they've never been hugely about that whereas there was a point when Labour assuredly was.

labour've had to concentrate on the south, which pretty much doesn't identify itself as 'working class' on a collective level, whatever its 'real interests' might be. meanwhile they've taken the north for granted, just as they did scotland, which should have been seen as a straw in the wind, maybe.

^^ this is why i increasingly think mandy should be caretaker before handing over to whoever. sure it'd be divisive, but the guy has star quality.

This may be true, but Mandy isn't an MP and isn't that a prerequisite of being PM. It may be possible constitutionally, but the complaints about having an unelected PM would dwarf anything which has happened with Brown and would negate any possible advantage he could bring.

Tories were pretty good at grassroots activism I thought? In rural areas at least.

Incidentally, having government and opposition in the upper, revising chamber, and a lower legislature with strong inquisitorial powers is not a bad model.

Listening to Griffin on Today right now, I feel he is a creature of the Blair years, very smooth operator. (I will let out a primal scream of rage if he says "sikhs and hindus" again)

I feel with the Tories it was a social network, I don't think they actively sought members from the lower orders except for novelty value.

This may be true, but Mandy isn't an MP and isn't that a prerequisite of being PM. It may be possible constitutionally, but the complaints about having an unelected PM would dwarf anything which has happened with Brown and would negate any possible advantage he could bring.

― DJ Angoreinhardt (Billy Dods), Monday, 8 June 2009 06:33 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It is only custom that says the PM should come from the Commons, although the last PM from the Lords was in 1902.

A strong social network sure but the way the Conservative Party was structured until very recently shows that it wasn't unduly worried about maximizing democratic powers of its members.

Yeh, given the way the people who bothered to show up were voting on this one, I'm not sure that getting more of them to vote is a great thing results-wise, but it does at least mean that the results are truly representative, rather than lucky flukes for extremists.

Can't abide this pox-on-all-of-them-I'm-not-voting bullshit. Uncast votes count for something too, especially when fascists are out and voting.

Hadn't thought of it before, but somehow like the idea of Mandy as PM. Will his cupboard have many more mortgage-paying skeletons to drag him down, though?

Can't abide this pox-on-all-of-them-I'm-not-voting bullshit.

Yeah, but it's tough to expect people to vote for something they radically disagree with just to keep out something they even more radically disagree with. I had to vote in the knowledge that in some small way I was registering support for a bunch of clowns who imo should be out of politics. Doesn't exactly feel like Yay Democracy either.

If we're looking to the Lords, they'll only have to wait a few months before parachuting Alan Sugar into the top job.

The bold thing to do would be something like this, Brown steps down, caretaker PM takes over and sets an election for 6 months time. Labour puts every constituency up for re-selection and the invite all comers to public meetings to set the policy agenda, select candidates and choose a new leader, possibly from outside the commons.

Call it a political Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Mandy could probably be tolerable as PM if the only thing he were to do was to call an election. If they don't ditch Brown this week, and cling on for October, that'd be possible. Not a great platform for fighting an election, mind

I feel with the Tories it was a social network, I don't think they actively sought members from the lower orders except for novelty value.

This sort of ties in with the decline of the skilled working class thing - the skilled working class are increasingly self-employed and I can see why it would then be in their interests to vote Tory. But in the areas where the BNP gained most of the manual jobs, where they exist, are less secure and worse paid than they were 20-30 years ago, and guess who it is who gets the blame?

Unless a government is seen and believed to be actively tackling that problem I don't really see how to arrest the decline in both Labour support and wider participation.

xpost

Bold but kind of unworkable in terms of bottom-up/top-down policy setting? If the PLP's failure is at least in part a result of its detachment from the broader party and the general Labour support base beyond that then how much influence can you allow the PLP? And then who's gonna marshall the troops?

If they don't try something like this then labour are going to be out for at least 2 cycles, who ever is next is likely going to be their Michael Howard or Menzies Campbell unless they try something bold to reconnect with their supporters.

(I see GB as a Hague or Duncan Smith, Blair was his own John Major)

who ever is next is likely going to be their Michael Howard or Menzies Campbell

The party higher-ups probably see Alan Johnson as this, no doubt.

Blair was his own John Major

harsh on major.

Johnson is defending a 9000 majority in Hull, the results there last night make him look very vulnerable:

http://www.hullcc.gov.uk/portal/page?_pageid=221,604100&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

I don't really see how to arrest the decline in both Labour support and wider participation

Some truths that need to start getting self-evident:

1. What's left of the working class and the trade union movement can't support alone the weight of a party popular enough to hold workable power. If it ever could.
2. Labour has always been a collab between working class and middle class members/voters, because of 1.
3. If the Labour Party has any point at all it's to increase economic equality and to attempt to make the machinery of Capitalism work for the good of all citizens, by whatever means seem most effective.
4. YOU HAVE TO SELL THAT TO ENOUGH PEOPLE HONESTLY - Not sneak piddling redistributions of wealth through by stealth
5. A decent system of PR wd be an improvement on First Past the Post but only if the Party itself can stop centralizing power and restore proper democracy to the regions

xpost I heard we had a very low turn-out tho Ed, 20 percent or something hilarious.

is the labour party the party to do all that. NV, or are we seeing the likes of the BNP/UKIP attempting to corner that vote?

Australia has compulsory voting but it also has xenophobic nutters like Pauline Hanson who at times has got a larger percentage of the vote than the BNP in England, so that argument doesn't necessarily work.

I would disagree with that. Hanson only ever got into government because she was a Liberal Party candidate who got ditched by the party after the ballot papers had been printed. They only managed to get 9% of the vote in the best Federal election in 1998 and one Senate seat, far less than what the Democrats and Greens (centrist and leftist, respectively). Of course, the fact that the Liberal Party went further right was partly the reason why the never ended up anywhere but at least they didn't reach the point of "Asians Go Home". Well, unless you were seeking asylum and not spending big amounts of cash.

I tend to find Australian politics a race to the centre on EVERYTHING, which is why the Liberals got kicked out last election. They had steered too right and Labor went into for the centrist vote for the first time in twenty years. So you end up with a political landscape which is totally bland, exceptionally centrist and lacking any reform or progressiveness (most of the time). But it keeps out the nutters.

Labour needs to be a party of working people, the party of people who work for money as opposed to those who have wealth. A Northern Rock Branch manager has more interests in common with a dustman than a merchant banker or Alan sugar (or David Cameron for that matter).

45.2% according to wikipedia. xpost

are we seeing the likes of the BNP/UKIP attempting to corner that vote?

The BNP couldn't do it because the majority of people won't vote for a racist party under any circumstances. UKIP really are a protest group and need to realise that if people felt that strongly against the EU they'd be running the country by now. I still think the Labour Party is the best hope for a broad-based left of centre party that represents a majority of the population. That's a bit depressing btw.

xp

Whilst I agree with a broad-brush definition of working people it's also a case of where people perceive their interests to lie. Plus yr definition really ought to include everybody bar a tiny proportion of people with inherited wealth/land, and the Friends of Unfettered Capitalism is definitely a bigger group than that.

So you end up with a political landscape which is totally bland, exceptionally centrist and lacking any reform or progressiveness (most of the time). But it keeps out the nutters.

not necessarily a good thing. a few nutters don't hurt, as long as there's some sort of variance across the political spectrum represented. the sprawling mess across the centre that is new labour is one of the major factors in voter apathy.

Sorry Ed I guess you were distinguishing wage earners from entrepreneurs but I still don't know I mean somebody like Sugar did actually work for his money and technically a lot of wealthy professionals are drawing a "wage".

hey only managed to get 9% of the vote

This is more than the BNP have got at this election.

Hey!

as in, (as demonstrated by ILX) most people that identify as working class or thereabouts will never vote tory, but labour seem to be doing their best to make themselves unsupportable, leaving you the option of voting nutter or staying home, and increasing the nutter vote.

'fuck voting for the current shower' covers a lot of what would be labour's core vote at the moment.

back in the day, there was a lot of e.g.

"Suppose you won the pools, wouldn't you want to leave that to your kids in your will? Or would you want Socialists to take it ALL as part of DEATH DUTY TAXES????!"

Feel bad about not voting Scargill now as it may've encouraged him to do the next Celebrity BB.

I'm probably one of the few, if not the only, Labour members on ILX, and I was out leafleting at 6.30 Thursday morning, but I agree with pretty much all of this (although with the caveat on 1, that if you passed pro-union legislation, more people would join unions).

1. What's left of the working class and the trade union movement can't support alone the weight of a party popular enough to hold workable power. If it ever could.
2. Labour has always been a collab between working class and middle class members/voters, because of 1.
3. If the Labour Party has any point at all it's to increase economic equality and to attempt to make the machinery of Capitalism work for the good of all citizens, by whatever means seem most effective.
4. YOU HAVE TO SELL THAT TO ENOUGH PEOPLE HONESTLY - Not sneak piddling redistributions of wealth through by stealth
5. A decent system of PR wd be an improvement on First Past the Post but only if the Party itself can stop centralizing power and restore proper democracy to the regions

Overall, though, given the context (in which you would expect disaster), I'd say these results weren't *too* bad for Labour - down 7 percentage points overall, Tories only up 1.

Just as a relief, it's good that in London, Labour came second, UKIP fifth and the BNP sixth.

Labour needs to be a party of working people, the party of people who work for money as opposed to those who have wealth. A Northern Rock Branch manager has more interests in common with a dustman than a merchant banker or Alan sugar (or David Cameron for that matter).

Proper definition of working class.

The rest of it is advertising bullshit, imo.

I think you miss the point (and possibly SirAlan was a bad example, caught in the zeitgeist here), what we have now is not a division between waged and salaried workers anymore. the division between ricj and poor has never been greater and what I am trying to get at is the division between those who have economic security and those who don't, an plenty of the middle class (now a useless category IMHO) fit into the latter category.

And the redistribution that Labour has carried out has been from the working comfortably off to the working poor, leaving the rich (or those that in part live off money, as well as their wages) and the non-working and childless poor well alone.

I promise to strenuously avoid trying to nail down the shifting sands of What Class Is as long as everybody else does likewise. (Gots to add 1 tiny little caveat tho which is that it is an attempt to describe something that is real and visible in the world).

Beyond that, yes the Labour Party ought to be able to appeal to a broad spectrum of working people but perceptions of what the causes of and the solutions to peoples problems are always going to be problematic. Crudely speaking Labour under Brown/Blair specifically targetted voters in one income bracket at the expense of those below them. I'm not suggesting a reverse but I'm saying those in the middle are generally more likely to be flexible in their political principles depending on whether the economy is strong or weak.

First priority for Labour ought to be to regain the trust of the people who feel they've been abandoned.

whether those people vote or not?

Yeah, tbh. I think trying to persuade people to vote is probably more important than bidding for a dwindling core of those who already do.

trying to persuade the sections yr talking about is more likely to drive a large % of that dwindling core further away from you, i think.

Widespread suspicion of politicians in general traditionally favours parties of the Right, for one thing, so it's more than just a noble gesture to try and restore some belief in politics as process.

I tend to find Australian politics a race to the centre on EVERYTHING, which is why the Liberals got kicked out last election.

I'm no expert on Australian politics but I did grow up there and my impression is that fringe parties get much better representation there than in the UK, not worse. Admittedly that's more to do with the voting system than compulsory voting per se. I do remember a total xenophobic right-wing nutcase being premier of Queensland for most of my childhood.

I think Belgium also has compulsory voting, and is home to one of Europe's most successful nationalist parties, Vlaams Velang, which Wikipedia tells me won 17 out 150 seats in the last federal election.

Unless darragh you're saying that the BNP's race politics is what won them the number of votes they got this weekend? Cos I don't believe that's true. Core vote of traditional racists plus large cloud of people who haven't thought their shit thru or didn't vote for the BNP because they were the hatred option.

I am trying to get at a post class identity for labour.

Belgium also failed to form a govt for ages and almost ceased to exist as a nation through apathy so maybe not the best example.

Crudely speaking Labour under Brown/Blair specifically targetted voters in one income bracket at the expense of those below them.

I don't think this is true at all. They targeted everyone. They tried to pretend the opposing interests of groups didn't exist.

And in narrow terms of who benefited, it is the working less well-off with children (through active policies) and the very rich (through not doing anything about it). Those that have suffered are the middle class at above average earnings (through not raising the higher-income tax threshold in line with earnings - fiscal drag).

I am trying to get at a post class identity for labour

"We're not cunts, and we're still electable?" That'd do for me.

(I mean, it neatly separates them from the Tories, in the first instance, and the LDs in the second.)

In countries with compulsory voting do you literally have to vote for a party or is there a "none of the above" option on the ballot? Presumably it is a crime to spoil your ballot paper deliberately?

Anyway, the UK results seem pretty much what was expected, but across Europe, I'm really surprised the centre right has done so well.

I was expecting anti-incumbent votes everywhere, but that apart from that effect, the left to benefit. The global economic apocalypse having slightly shaken faith in markets etc. I know that we're talking about all these different political contexts and so it's hard to generalise, but genuinely perplexed about this.

Fuck, I knew Stoke results would be depressing but this is even worse that I expected. 20% of the vote went to the BNP, leaving them only 13 votes behind the Tories and around 1k behind Labour.

Tuomas (if you're still reading): what do you make of Perussuomalaiset's gains in Finland? My Finnish friends seem to put them in the same category as the BNP.

Jamie they did also raise taxes on the poorest people in the country in order to offer a tax cut for everyone else. That's pretty big and was a catastrophic cock-up on Brown's part.

I think centre-right parties in France and Germany in particular have done well by positioning themselves as the alternative to the Anglo-American model that brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse. Also France actually weathered the storm better than most countries. Spain's Socialists didn't do too badly seeing as its unemployment rate is at something like 20%. Genuinely have no idea what happened in Italy.

I'm really surprised the centre right has done so well.

I've been pondering that a bit. General fears of immigration? Some kind of belief that Government interference in the financial crisis after it happened is the cause of economic problems? Anti-American knee-jerkery? Completely unrelated but parallel issues in different member states?

Yeah more what Matt said. France's socialists in disarray, Spain did okay, Berlusconi is Italy's Boris Johnson and seems to score off "being a character" up to and possibly beyond the point where he actually kills somebody in public or something.

xpost

Catastrophic cock-up, yes. No doubt.

But they introduced the 10p tax rate in the first place, and tax credits etc etc. Overall over the 12 years, the tax/benefit equation has been to the benefit of those on lower incomes (especially with children), at the expense of people who are now just over the higher-rate threshold.

I think centre-right parties in France and Germany in particular have done well by positioning themselves as the alternative to the Anglo-American model that brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse.

Yeah, I think there must be something about that - but why then vote for the party that is trying to drag your country a little way towards that model (both Merkel and Sarkozy have invoked Thatcher, I think).

Tax Credits have been far from an unblemished success. The administration has been shit, the paperwork is terrible, nobody I know who's entitled to them has anything good to say about the system, which makes people suspicious about why it was made so tortuous.

I agree with you, but still, large amounts of money flowing from one group, who are reasonably well off, to another, who are not.

(I don't think they are deliberately tortuous, btw, and the problems are much exaggerated, I would argue deliberately by the Tory press, who politically obviously hate redistributive policies)

In countries with compulsory voting do you literally have to vote for a party or is there a "none of the above" option on the ballot? Presumably it is a crime to spoil your ballot paper deliberately?

In Australia there's a thing called the "donkey vote", where people just rock up to the polling booth and vote for whoever is at the top of the ballot paper, meaning if your name starts with an "A", you have a slight advantage, maybe a percentage point. But yes, you can just put in a blank vote or spoil the paper and you've made a legal vote.

Also France actually weathered the storm better than most countries.

Yeah, but Germany is completely fucked, so what happened there?

Whatever, it's depressing.

Agree that Tax Credits are positive on the whole but this is my point, almost everything Labour has done since 1997 which has been positive has been undermined by timidity and poor administration and sometimes an outright lack of understanding of the problems they've tried to ameliorate. I say that not as a devotee of the right wing press but as somebody who's benefited from some of those policies and made a living off Government-financed projects for some of that time.

But they introduced the 10p tax rate in the first place, and tax credits etc etc. Overall over the 12 years, the tax/benefit equation has been to the benefit of those on lower incomes (especially with children), at the expense of people who are now just over the higher-rate threshold.

― Jamie T Smith, Monday, June 8, 2009 2:42 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

any benefit to the poor was totally eaten up by the fact that the rich (and a bunch of people who weren't rich to begin with, mark you) got richer. all you've done is antagonize the slightly-above-average earners (who don't think of themselves as 'reasonably well off', especially now), and there isn't a coherent explanation in place for any of it. you'll vaguely ameliorate the condition of the poorest people while encouraging the system that by nature will always produce a class of labouring poor. or, when it fails, non-labouring poor.

'ameliorate' in two posts in a row, a+

Noodle Vague - I agree with you!

Free Dom etc. - I dunno. People on the left tend to want a redistributive tax system without tearing down the foundations of capitalism itself, and they got one. Me, I'm all for a bit more tearing down, and it should have been much more explicit that that was what they were doing.

But, still, I don't get the argument that it was a bad thing to bring however many children out of poverty, the main effect, even if more could and should have been done.

We are getting slightly off topic again, and it's all my fault.

Unless darragh you're saying that the BNP's race politics is what won them the number of votes they got this weekend?

jeez, no. exactly the opposite. what won them the votes was the abject failure of labour to engage the traditional working classes, and the vacuum that created. but i also think that labour can't get those votes back without dramatically shedding at least that amount from the centre. they're spread too far across the spectrum, which would be ok if they were generally popular/competent.

the losses to the BNP/UKIP are something that has to be lived with in the short term, while labour consolidate with the middle class (if they can do even that in the current climate)

But, still, I don't get the argument that it was a bad thing to bring however many children out of poverty, the main effect, even if more could and should have been done.

i'm not sure if that actually happened, though. and what noodle says about the system does seem to be true, and it's bound to be that way. but in any case it's incoherent. the last thirty years have seen people's job security go down, and the gap between rich and poor increase. labour encouraged both of those things. to try and fix this, it evolves a very expensive and inefficient way of paying people back taxes. it doesn't make any sense to me.

i also lol at it being called 'child poverty'. it's a backhanded way of getting round the glaring fact that working people don't get paid enough and lack secure employment. even a right-wing labour government would get behind those two things rather than fuck about with tax rebates which depend on the rest of the economy running smoothly.

xpost

Oh right I getcha. Don't know, I don't think Labour moved that far towards the centre when they "lost" the people who voted BNP. I think sometimes secretly a lot of the middle class (apologies) don't really want to be that consolidated.

Or in other words what's coming up is the equivalent of a shitload of people feeling a bit guilty for too many beers/curries and about to embark on some kind of painful and life-threatening crash diet.

political left/right voting as just another cyclical nu-middle class fad?

Or in other other words I think for a big swathe of "middle England" voting Labour has felt like a tenuous experiment for 12 years and they are now ready to get back to doing what feels good.

xpost Yeah you could do a lot of interesting analysis of how "the country" thinks and feels about itself, how that's reflected thru the media etc. and how that will be subject to the vagaries of fashion

Isn't "poverty" in the UK officially defined as the poorest third of the population?

In which case, the "million children lifted out of poverty" (as stated by a Labour party activist on FiveLive Thursday) is more than a bit disingenuous, isn't it? Obviously I am not suggesting KEEP THE POOR POOR but say what's happened ("making people less poor") rather than emotive soundbites.

"lifting children out of poverty" = putting more money into schools/SureStart/children's centres/childrens services rather than giving it to their ghastly feckless parents.

FOOD VOUCHERS

It's all a bit bad faith if you ask me.

basing poverty figures on average income as opposed to, say, a CPI of household necessities is bollox.

xposts

I think the child poverty figures are pretty unarguable (and the fact that the definitions are of relative poverty, then that means more equality!), but yes you're right - not being paid enough, or even just not having enough money, is what makes people "poor", a statement of the blindingly obvious that is routinely ignored by policymakers.

It's not actually that expensive and inefficient. The problem is that it doesn't (or didn't) take into account people's incomes being unpredictable and varying wildly, which is often exactly the problem for people on low incomes with job insecurity - what Noodle Vague said about lacking understanding.

The pro is targeting - the money only goes to those that you want it to go to. The real argument about the 10p tax rate was about targeted vs universal benefits/credits whatever (not the argument we got, sadly). Brown has always been keen on targeting (or means testing), so all the money goes to the group being targeted. I think universal benefits have the advantage that they are ususally simpler to run, and also you get more buy-in if more people are getting them. But I can see the other side of the argument.

It doesn't seem like a left-right, right-wrong thing, more a technocratic question of how best to achieve that redistribution.

Anyway, I gotta go.

basing poverty figures on average income as opposed to, say, a CPI of household necessities is bollox.

Most right-wing post on thread?

I mean, isn't that *exactly* the Thatcherite argument?

They're not poor! They have playstations!

ok, maybe household necessities is the wrong comparitor, that wasn't the sentiment i was going for. but explain to me what you're going to achieve by expressing poverty on average income, as opposed to the actual spending power of a person't income? that's hardly an irrelevancy?

anyway, it's all water under the bridge. one way or another, government spending, whether it's tax credits or whatever, will be cut, and meanwhile we have even fewer protections as workers, and even less industry.

xpost

Yeah, measures of disposable income or comparative disposable income wd actually be more telling long term. Plus more accurate reporting of the gap between the extremes of the income scale, or even between upper and lower quartiles, rather than using the median as an endlessly escaping floating poverty line.

I see Darra's point completely, what he's saying is 'it costs £x to buy 4 loaves of bread, 6 pints of milk, blah, blah, etc; if you earn less than y% more than this then you are living in poverty.' Under the current model a third of the population will ALWAYS be living in poverty, all you do is change who is and who isn't.

Materially, the poorest in society now are richer (after taking inflation into account) than they were in whenever, but relatively they are not, and they die younger, go to prison more, suffer mental and physical illness etc etc

The evidence is pretty clear that above a certain level of income, relative poverty is more relevant than absolute poverty in terms of these outcomes.

Now you could measure that by wealth or by income, but it's still the relevant stat.

And it's much harder to achieve. Had they set a target based on prices, as incomes have risen by more than prices, they would have got nearer much quicker.

Really, I gotta go. Sorry to derail thread slightly.

but explain to me what you're going to achieve by expressing poverty on average income, as opposed to the actual spending power of a person't income?

Well, theoretically basing the definition on the average helps keep things fairer, as opposed to stopping you being "poor" as soon as you've got an inside toilet. (Not that New Labour ever seemed to give that much of a shit about fairness from where I've been sitting, but hey.)

Under the current model a third of the population will ALWAYS be living in poverty, all you do is change who is and who isn't

Well, yes. There are problems with labelling etc here, but ultimately I think it's no bad thing to work with a model that stresses the difference between the haves and have-lesses, however that difference might be measured.

Plus more accurate reporting of the gap between the extremes of the income scale, or even between upper and lower quartiles, rather than using the median as an endlessly escaping floating poverty line

Very good point.

The evidence is pretty clear that above a certain level of income, relative poverty is more relevant than absolute poverty in terms of these outcomes.

obviously, i'm not au fait with the research, but 'relative' to what? an average, or the top of the scale?

GF, i'd need to know what you mean by 'fairer' before i could respond to that. I don't think it's a bad thing to try to guarantee a minimum level of actual living standards (yr inside toilet, if you like) before you start looking at where you are relative to everyone else, depending on where those standards are set.

anyway,

FOOD VOUCHERS

― U2 raped goat (darraghmac), Monday, 8 June 2009 13:22 (35 minutes ago) Permalink

is clearly the most right wing post on this thread so far.

GF, i'd need to know what you mean by 'fairer' before i could respond to that. I don't think it's a bad thing to try to guarantee a minimum level of actual living standards (yr inside toilet, if you like) before you start looking at where you are relative to everyone else, depending on where those standards are set

Aye, that's a given. But what I'm getting at is that it's the size of the gap between the richest and the poorest that really matters: ie even if dudes at the bottom of the pile are well-off enough to enjoy, say, tellies and PlayStations, they're still going to feel aggrieved if there are cunts sloshing around at the top of the pile with, literally, millions and millions of pounds to play with.

That, of course, is going to be the situation in any capitalist society: I can't really see a way around that. But at least by having a floating poverty point (if you like) you're at least paying lip service to this concept of fairness -- ie trying to make sure the gap between what different people have isn't too great -- rather than just saying: "OK, the proles have got their inside bogs: we can ignore them now."

I'm at work so I've not got time to look, but there's some interesting psycho-/sociological research that suggests it's the notion of perceived fairness that causes the biggest problems in society: ie a richer society with a bigger gap between richest and poorest is going to be more unsettled than a society that's poorer overall but has less space between richest and poorest.

(Sorry, that's not very elegantly phrased but, like I say, I should be working!)

That Tom Ewing article linked above is pretty decent. Generally think extremist parties getting elected provides a great 'welcome to big school' moment but MEPs having no profile and some power reduces that and I was surprised how put out by them getting in here&annoyed my vote should have probably gone to Labour.

Politics doesn't need more participants but smarter ones w/better debate. Don't think Cameron or whoever could make a strong case for the most basic tenets of the current political system to a sceptic, let alone try and persuade someone there are better solutions to their problems than voting BNP, so being disgusted at ppl for not taking part in mainstream politics seems a little off.

...i was surprised how put out i was by them... obv

ok, GF, i'm with you comprehension wise so far anyway, but i'd maybe be getting off here:

But what I'm getting at is that it's the size of the gap between the richest and the poorest that really matters:

i think it's more important to reach an actual minimum standard of living for even the poorest in a society than it is to deal with people's envy issues about what those 'c*nts at the top have that i don't'.

And yes, I wouldn't disagree with you there. But by bare-minimum standards, the UK ain't doing too badly at all. And those "envy issues" are, unfortunately, a very salient facet of a society's psychosocial make-up so there's no reason whatsoever why they shouldn't be considered.

"Politics of envy," Tories call it. "Politics of reality," I prefer.

once 'bare minimum' is met, then maybe political capital is more effectively spent making sure everyone has the opportunity to be one of those super rich c*nts than actually trying to decrease the gap.

A lot of it is more inadequacy than envy, and perceptions of worthlessness, just like school.

part of the problem is that the people engaged in doing the redistributing (and in deciding on how much you're 'worth' as a member of the deserving poor) are resented, maybe as much or more as the rich.

once 'bare minimum' is met, then maybe political capital is more effectively spent making sure everyone has the opportunity to be one of those super rich c*nts than actually trying to decrease the gap.

This is about as Thatcherite as you can get by the way.

i actually deleted the words and this bare minimum doesn't have to be based on thatcherite notions from the post, as it seemed a little 'methinks the poster protesteth overmuch'.

clearly not.

'envy issues' I don't like as a concept, partly because I don't care much about people's feelings, but more importantly because it trivialises the issue. There really are big downsides to inequality, because of the human tendency to band together - you get property surges, gated developments, placements-as-routes-into-employment, etc once part of society gets comparatively rich enough to make it all worthwhile, hence sink estates and declining social mobility

Yes. And as the planet's resources are squeezed it will be harder to justify the necessity of the super-rich. Probably harder to be super-rich. The Greens at the moment I see as well-meaning idiots but future leftist thinking is going to have to take into account sustainable economics and Labour as a party of simple redistribution or (hurray!) amelioration isn't really gonna cut it there either.

as the planets resources are squeezed, it will be harder to justify democracy to the super rich.

maybe political capital is more effectively spent making sure everyone has the opportunity to be one of those super rich c*nts than actually trying to decrease the gap

Umm. No, I couldn't disagree more. Not only does that ignore the basic statistical realities that are at least addressed by the moving-average approach (start with the concept that 50% always have to be below the mean and think it through from there), it also ignores the sociological ones: ie rapacious greed that might benefit a few lucky bastards might not be the best way forward (which in turn takes me back to the concept of unfairness as bad for a society's psychological wellbeing).

Everyone can be a rich cunt if only they're vicious and amoral enough: yeh, that was Thatcherism, wasn't it?

(Ismael Klata and Noodle Vague OTM in all manner of ways while I was writing that, btw.)

as the planets resources are squeezed, it will be harder to justify democracy to the super rich.

It'd be interesting to see how that played out. My reading of Roman history is that it usually sucked to be the Emperor.

Depends if you were taking a long- or short-term view, I guess :)

my point was more that removing perceived/real unfair barriers to success among the working classes or disadvantaged would be much more useful than just attempting to remove the super rich as a group, which i think may not be clear.

name me a politician that takes a long term view, or is even afforded the luxury of doing so.

xpost

OK, I'll settle for a pincer movement that deals with both extremities.

YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT RAISING TAXES YOU BASTARD

politics is hard :(

1. Raise taxes
2. Shoot everyone who moans, in the face, repeatedly
3. ???
4. A better society for everyone!

(Note to policy wonks: this needs a bit of work. Can we put a positive spin on number 2?)

positive spin on 1, 2 is only a small step from the met's current modus operandi, 3 can be left on the long finger until after the election, but 4 isn't going to sit well with the media. needs work.

I've suddenly realised that the reason I can't take Nigel Farage at all seriously is because he looks like one of those South Park dudes with the heads that flip right open.

GF this book basically backs up what you're saying. I'm a little surprised it research hasn't been coopted by Labour as it's pretty darn convincing.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21KM%2BOMW42L._SL500_AA180_.jpg

More on their findings here http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/

metaphor here somewhere

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8089498.stm

Alison Pratt, from the National Farmers' Union, gave the following advice to others should they find themselves in a similar position.

"The best thing to do is to let the dog off the lead so it can run away because obviously a dog can run faster than you," she said.

now, i might be missing something here, but can anyone think of why this mightn't have been a great option?

xxpost to myself

Actually thinking about it I'm not too surprised that it hasn't gained greater traction in the mainstream yet, as it's obviously something which wouldn't fit with the rights worldview and is very damning about the total failure in this regard by the Labour government.

'uness you are blind, in which case, um,...' (xpost)

GF this book basically backs up what you're saying

Yes: superb. Couldn't remember where I'd seen this stuff but I'm pretty sure it was pegged to that book (and indeed website: I'll check some of that out later on). Awesome: thanks, Billy.

Equality Trust might wanna not consider not using Radiohead quotes as headlines on their front page. Or maybe throw a "Snakes on a Plane!" in there or something.

I haven't followed either of these particularly closely so may have got this wrong, but is there not an overlap with IDS's stuff on the broken society?

http://twitter.com/realnickgriffin

^^^See Woody Allen above.

Andrew Brons: the genteel face of neo-fascism

Jesus, this fucker eh?

Whew.

I ponder this both as a psychology student and a bemused citizen: could such lifelong dedication to such a discredited, antisocial and basically stupid cause be symptomatic of some form of personality disorder?

My guess: yes.

If it wears a suit and rosette, how could it possibly be delusional?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8089142.stm

^ its funny how all the BNP voters in that article are deluding themselves that that they are not racist.

One if the people from that link who voted BNP. He even has his pic on the page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8089142.stm

BBC News website readers have been telling us why they decided to vote for the party.
MARK DAY, TEIGNMOUTH

I've never voted in the past, but I wanted to vote now.

I decided to vote for the BNP because I like what they are saying. They have an opinion and I want them to be heard.

Mark Day
I don't like the way the country has been run to date. I have seen British culture being eroded in the past few years, and British people being made to feel like second class citizens in their own country.

I must stress that I am not racist, but I do believe that when in Rome, do as the Romans do. I have no problem with skilled immigrants who come here and add to our economy and more importantly fit in with our way of life.

I do have a problem with so called 'no go zones' for whites. Some of my family are from Luton, and they will all tell you of the racial tension there. It simply doesn't work when you have mass uncontrolled immigration with no regard for the views of the native British people.

The BNP want to deport all criminal and illegal immigrants. What on earth is wrong with that? Do we want other countries' criminals here?

The BNP's view on foreign affairs is also good. It means no more illegal and immoral wars. No more invading other countries for 'peace keeping' missions. We will trade with other countries when it benefits us. Isn't that what trade is supposed to be about?

I'm totally sick to death of our country being run by out of touch politicians

The BNP will raise speed limits on the motorway! Hooray! Why on earth is the limit 70 miles-per-hour? Cars of today are far more advanced than cars of 30-40 years ago. Yet the speed limit hasn't changed.

The BNP will also stop persecuting motorists. This will be a welcome move, as I'm sick to death of the government using speed cameras, roadside traps and parking tickets as a source of revenue. If the BNP were in power the police would actually be fighting crime rather than hassling innocent people.

People think the BNP is racist. Is it racist to want to look after your country? I certainly don't think so. And I'm totally sick to death of our country being run by out of touch politicians who have everyone else but the native British peoples interests at heart.

I despair.

is Teignmouth not in Devon?

I mean you can at least see where the racism comes from with people from Yorkshire who actually have asians and blacks in their vicinity but in Devon? Really?

also voting fascist for their policy on vehicular transport is a bit of a weird one.

lol the BNP is libertarian as WELL as bigoted! good times, great memories

The BNP will raise speed limits on the motorway! Hooray! Why on earth is the limit 70 miles-per-hour? Cars of today are far more advanced than cars of 30-40 years ago. Yet the speed limit hasn't changed.

here's hoping darwin's law kicks in for this wanker without taking out any innocent motorists along the way.

so basically we can blame the 'rise' of the nbp upon endless reruns of top gear on dave?

I'm not too familiar with bnp policies, but is this true ?

"I don't agree with everything the BNP say. I think people should be free to marry who they chose regardless of race. "

People who work and contribute to our country and society (irrespective of colour or religion) are welcome

Voter not quite understanding BNP policy there.

so basically we can blame the 'rise' of the nbp upon endless reruns of top gear on dave?

No, but I dount Clarkson et al's constant LOL POLITICIANS has helped.

Dount Clarkson - hmm, wonder what I was thinking...

Speaking as a Briton, I say it's time we sent these people back to Lower Saxony and Jutland, where they belong

I'm not too familiar with bnp policies, but is this true ?

"I don't agree with everything the BNP say. I think people should be free to marry who they chose regardless of race. "

Not really, they do put conditions on marrying foreign nationals, such as you (the British National) have to live in your proposed spouses country for two years (reporting to the British Embassy every month) before you can come back to live here.

You can read their white paper (geddit!) here. It's a crock of unthought through shit unsurprisingly.

Tom are you a true Briton or one of those Celts who need sending back to Central Europe where you belong?

And they can put those Belgae back on the boat while we're on.

Did anyone see C4 news last night? Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked Andrew Brons, "Do you think racism is a terrible thing? Or do you quite like it?"

Sadly, he didn't say, "I quite like it"

Apparently, being Irish is OK now with them, dogs will be accepted next I suppose

According to this mornings Guardian, Zelig is Andrew Brons favourite film. Missing the point of the film somewhat.

xxp No, but he generally ate KGM alive, as well as whoever that awful Labour person was--her line of argument against the BNP wanting to stop all immigration was that they might clamp down on tourism???

In fairness being any race is OK with them as long as you go back to where you once belonged.

"Say what you like about the Fascists, they made the trains run on time, and our Autobahns have no speed limits!" etc.

I was pondering Brons' choice of Zelig and wondered if he thought it was a Zionist Conspiracy flick.

No, but he generally ate KGM alive, as well as whoever that awful Labour person was--her line of argument against the BNP wanting to stop all immigration was that they might clamp down on tourism???

Labour women eh? Tchoh!

Being of a curious nature I just had to check the BNP manifesto on speeding...

4. Motorists will be freed from repressive and restrictive legislation; we want to see
overall motorway speed limits raised, and made subject to variable speed limits
depending on surface/weather conditions and volume of traffic. A motorway may,
for example, have a 40mph limit during heavy rain, but a 90 mph limit during a
summer’s night.
...
6. Speeding and careless driving kills and injures but we seek to save lives by
making drivers more responsible. A tougher driving test is needed as well as the
introduction of refresher driving tests for those drivers who have held a licence
for 25 years and again after holding a licence for 50 years.

...it's really like they just write these things as the things come into heads...

Ahh...a summer's night...

6. Speeding and careless driving kills and injures but we seek to save lives by making drivers more responsible. who cares?

we seek to save lives by making drivers more responsible

What does this shit even mean?

I think they mean by stopping black guys driving cars

Berkshire to rhyme with Geeerrrrrrrrrrrtcha

^ a wrong 'un

Berkshire to rhyme with Geeerrrrrrrrrrrtcha

Now I think the BNP have gone too far here.

Recent genetic testing has suggested that only twenty per cent of the native English are genetically Anglo-Saxon, and that almost all the rest is nearly identical to the Scots, Irish, and particularly, the Welsh

AngLOL-Saxon heritage, amirite?

More people (including those conservativehome contributors linked to upthread who are trying to make the BBC call the BNP far left) should read the BNP manifesto, it would certainly help 'on the street' as I am quite sure most people who voted for them haven't read further than the leaflets they got in the election. It really is quite a piece of work. National service, abolition of income tax, ending benefits for single parents, there's something for everyone!

National service

In the Waffen SS

we seek to save lives by making drivers more responsible

What does this shit even mean?

they could argue that it involves getting rid of more traffic lights, road markings etc. - not sure how a speed limit change would really help

I am quite sure most people who voted for them haven't read further than the leaflets they got in the election

the leaflet shoved through my door was blazened with pictures of spitfires and such, how could anyone resist lol

polish spitfires at that

Reabsorption of Ireland is quite the policy

what!

Repatriation of the Irish to Atlantis - voluntary of course

back to the old country

Repatriation of the Irish to Atlantis

any excuse to post:

http://mnanamara.com/WOMEN_IN_FISHERIES/upload/Image/clew%20bay.jpg

"welcoming Eire as well as Ulster as equal partners in a federation of the nations of the British Isles"

oh that's nice.

Jol Brits out

a(n)nation equal partners in a federation of the nations of the British Isles once again

Where is county sutedetenland?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8091605.stm

Nice one!

Motorists will be freed from repressive and restrictive legislation
...
A tougher driving test is needed

At least they're consistent.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/6/9/1244556494402/BNP-leader-Nick-Griffin-e-001.jpg

can't help but wonder if that's the way to treat democratically elected politicians you don't agree with.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/06/09/article-1191829-054764F5000005DC-341_468x309.jpg

^ has that egg passed right through his head?

although that is an awesome shot

like we needed more proof that the BNP are empty headed gits?

can't help but wonder if that's the way to treat democratically elected politicians you don't agree with.

it was a bit different but we all loved it when Major got egged

secret behind leno's streak revealed?

read that as leno's steak. mmm tartare.

Things that people like to see:

1. A dog on the pitch
2. An egg or a cake hitting a politician's face

best thing was when someone thought 'fuck an egg, i'll prepare an entire full english breakfast' to throw at david blaine

it's quite possible it was just a breakfast roll that was the nearest thing handy. but you have to plan in order to throw an egg.

Yes, and I wonder who hatched it.

Sacha Baron-CoHEN

surely it was a duck egg?

can't help but wonder if that's the way to treat democratically elected politicians you don't agree with.

― U2 raped goat (darraghmac), Tuesday, June 9, 2009 4:27 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the other option is move to the north west, register to vote, wait a few years, then vote him out. fuck that noise.

can't help but wonder if that's the way to treat democratically elected politicians you don't agree with.

A democratically elected politician you don't agree with... like Adolf Hitler, for instance?

I hope the cunt gets egged wherever he goes

i wouldn't agree with throwing an egg at a democratic politician. But a democratically elected non-democratic one is fair game.

here's hoping he gets shot, lol eh?

With an egg? Yes.

it's as much a reach to link egg throwing to assassination as it is to link the frustrated election of two BNP councillors to Hitler, but yeah w/e

let's all pretend he doesn't count as a 'real' politician, because.......

would a creme egg hurt more? heavier but would just bounce straight off i guess

i think half the point is the unpleasantness of having egg on you.

I hope the cunt gets egged wherever he goes

― Then in walked Barbara Castle with the Lady Eleanor (Tom D.), Tuesday, 9 June 2009 09:45 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my thoughts exactly. Or possibly the revolutionary bakers can get him when he gets to brussels.

I can't read that sentance without snickering at the idea of the phrase "cunt-egging" (there was a SC in-joke involving this.)

dmac may have a point in that egging him may encourage more sympathy (plus counter-accusations of fascism against him - dubious as these may be they are an irritating obstacle in the process) for him/his causes. it's likely to as much if not more harm than good in this case.

it's as much a reach to link egg throwing to assassination as it is to link the frustrated election of two BNP councillors to Hitler, but yeah w/e

Errrrrrrrrrrr, not really, I was just giving you another example of a democratically elected politician who I wouldn't have agreed with who I would not have been be all butthurt over, like a weepy woolly liberal tosspot, if he'd got egged

that wasn't the point, but in any case i don't think that BNP are what you'd call natural recipients of a sympathy vote.

xpost/

eh, am i a weepy, woolly liberal tosspot? that's go to be one of the great ILX pseudo transformations

well, apart from the tosspot bit granted

dmac may have a point in that egging him may encourage more sympathy ... it's likely to as much if not more harm than good in this case.

Are you kidding me?

Who's the woman?

Anybody know where I can score these?

http://www.pstros.sk/images/ostrich_egg_size.jpg

JK Rowling, I think

xpost, or possibly not

Good job he's got all that muscle he wanders around with, not even prepared to take an egg for the Great Leader.

Are you kidding me?

nope. seems like the kind of publicity he and his supporters will just use as an example of why they are right.

Prescott got egged in 2001. Labour then won two general elections. Coincidenceithinknot.

seems like the kind of publicity he and his supporters will just use as an example of why they are right.

The thing that will make it funny tho is if somebody eggs him as he explains that.

this guy's been elected by a considerable number of people. trying to pretend that their vote was in some way invalid or 'wrong' with this sort of behaviour (or simply refusing to deal with it as if it ever happened) isn't really going to address any of the marginalisation issues that were likely a huge factor in these guys getting in in the first place.

They're right because an egg got thrown at him? Could this egg be the BNP's fire at the Reichstag?

On one level you're completely right darragh, on another level it would be awesome if Griffin became "that guy who gets egged every time he appears in public".

this guy's been elected by a considerable number of people. trying to pretend that their vote was in some way invalid or 'wrong' with this sort of behaviour (or simply refusing to deal with it as if it ever happened) isn't really going to address any of the marginalisation issues that were likely a huge factor in these guys getting in in the first place.

No, but he deserves to get an egg thrown at him, so he's getting an egg thrown at him

ok, i fully agree with you there NV. but it has to be all or nothinh imo

if it happened tony blair more often i'd be happier.

looks like he's about to start blubbing

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0d0o8xccy00X3/610x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/07VqfIP11J3mT/610x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/03UjcJDfux7QQ/610x.jpg

Arshavin etc.

yeah what about Brons? perhaps he is not recognisable enough for eggs

btw isn't that woman her out of Dragon's Den (back off lawyers)

LOL, scared of an egg

Perhaps they could cover the egg in faeces next time, just to stop the whole thing getting predictable?

unhappy fascist is unhappy

Guy could have an egg allergy, that could've killed him.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/144/323865913_59723ae55c.jpg?v=0

Here's hoping he tries a fact-finding mission to Lithuania.

I'm sure that Griffin understands that you need to break a few eggs to make an umlaut.

Prescott got egged in 2001. Labour then won two general elections. Coincidenceithinknot.

To be fair, Prescott's response was to punch the guy whereas Griffin is hiding under his KKK Weekly SS Gazette Daily Mail Grauniad like a reet ponce.

Speaking to BBC News afterwards Mr Griffin alleged that the three main political parties were trying to prevent the BNP getting its message across by colluding with protesters who he said were mainly left-wing students.

LOL, idiot

To be fair the Tories do recruit a lot of members from SWSS.

John Major got egged in around 1994 as well I think. In the face.

But enough about Edwina Currie.

Excellent times to throw eggs.
1.http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m3/jun2008/0/3/BE879E67-0521-19CA-279435991198DA91.jpg

Griffin is hiding under his KKK Weekly SS Gazette Daily Mail Grauniad like a reet ponce.

It is the Guardian probably. Griffin was making a speech whining about the bad press he is getting, poor old diddums.

Presumably the BNP have a policy to stop that happening.

^^ Those chaps prob not about to win two elections.

People need to get inventive here. I'd like to see somebody play hugely amplified farting noises next time he tries to speak in public.

They shouldn't stop until he actually cries in public, looks like they got close here

I'm all for a few eggs being thrown but not under any illusion that he will try and use this to his advantage. However the thought of seeing him like this...

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/2009/06/nick-griffin-415x220.jpg

VS.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00570/pohle_1_570900a.jpg

...makes me inclined to encourage the egg throwers.

Get somebody to dress as a Klansman and follow him around all day.

Same suit, same tie. Hopefully we won't see him for a week while that lot's in the cleaners.

Andrew Brons can loan him one of his old Nazi uniforms

... but I imagine only on condition that he watches him to change into it

Well, I guess we can tell newspapers sympathies tomorrow by whether they run the 'OMG, affront to democracy! Innocent fascist got egged' line, or the 'LOL, look at this' line.

it would be awesome if Griffin became "that guy who gets egged every time he appears in public"

Am spreading this idea everywhere I can think of. Britain, we can do this.

Am going to start carrying a dozen large free-range in my coat pocket from now on, just in case.

In fact, there's surely a market for a tailor-made egg bandolier for this purpose?

Just heard about the Euro election results for Brighton. The Greens got 20,000 votes (a third of all votes cast) - 6,000 more than the Tories and Labour was third, quite some way behind that. Dunno how this would translate to a GE vote, but pretty O_O all the same.

More like Brongton.

Well, I guess we can tell newspapers sympathies tomorrow by whether they run the 'OMG, affront to democracy! Innocent fascist got egged' line, or the 'LOL, look at this' line.

― dowd, Tuesday, 9 June 2009 16:33 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Not so. All the paps had the "lol" angle, but the letters page... (which is where you truly get the newspapers' sympathies: Hey, they get to pick the letters for publication with a "We didn't say it, he did" shrug)

More like Brongton.

Least it's not Bronston, Yorkie folks.

Er, trust me: that is not how newspaper letters pages work at all. Indeed, quite often the letters chosen will be wildly at odds with the paper's editorial stance, in order to foster debate.

If you want to know what a paper thinks, it's astonishingly simple: read the leader column.

I trust you, grimly...

Greens also won Norwich and Oxford.

A handy sortable list.

(May have been posted upthread, sorry).

Hey good list. Tories got 51% of the vote in Gibraltar. Do they let the monkeys vote or something?

All the paps had the "lol" angle

Star had the inevitable "The Yolk's On You"

Has anybody asked Nick Griffin what he thinks of all these Gurkhas coming over here, stealing our women and sleeping with our jobs?

Didn't he say they were mercenaries and don't deserve anything?

nah that was Gordon Brown

lol

I remember posting something along the lines of "they say "Labour want to allow half a million Gurkhas to settle here"" a short while ago.

All the paps had the "lol" angle

Mentioned this on another thread already but the Express won with its front page photo caption of "Griffin was spattered with egg yolk. The BNP only accepts whites."

Not sure if it was intentional, though.

Didn't he say they were mercenaries and don't deserve anything?

Quail egg attack by Joanna Lumley is a must

Good luck Doncaster:

http://andys.org.uk/b/2009/06/08/a-whole-lot-of-nothing/

Like a true Englishman, Peter Davies is celebrating his victory with a pint of foaming nut-brown ale in the Dome's Icebreaker Bar.

I would like to make love all night long to BBC Radio Sheffield's Toby Foster for that.

lolz, don't know what this guy was expecting. toby foster runs the comedy night at my local back home. notorious quick-thinking wag.

Wonder if he is up for the craic crack?

http://img37.yfrog.com/img37/4229/65vs.jpg

you laugh, but let me just get you something real quick

look, it's cllr luke 'ming' flangan, shaking up the stuffy image of the west of ireland political scene

http://www.sdgi.ie/images/films/ming.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4oCVcQRd5yg/Si1K3CDoqKI/AAAAAAAAATo/h9_lv2-KsBw/s1600/partly-political-news-flash.jpg

Luke 'Ming' Flanagan is an Irish politician and social campaigner. He began his political career running unsuccessfully as an independent candidate in the Galway West constituency in 1997, and went on to contest the Connaught Ulster constituency in the European elections of 1999 and the Longford-Roscommon constituency in the 2002 Dáil election.[1] On none of these occasions did he reach two per cent of the vote.[2]

He was viewed as a joke candidate, shaving his hair and styling his beard in the way of Ming the Merciless from the film Flash Gordon. His posters and other election material featured a cannabis leaf, and legalisation of the drug was one of his main policy platforms. He voiced uncompromising support for radical social and environmental issues, and displayed a knack for using the media, being featured in many newspapers and radio programmes who were attracted by his colourful appearance and strong rhetoric.

In 2001 he hit the headlines when he sent more than 200 cannabis cigarettes to politicians in the Oireachtas, one to each TD and senator, as part of his campaign to have cannabis legalised.[3][4]

He returned to his native Castlerea and contested the 2004 local elections, and was elected to Roscommon County Council,[5] topping the poll and getting elected on the first count, defeating sitting councilors John Murray and Danny Burke.[6] He was re-elected on the first count in June 2009, receiving 16.8% of 1st preference votes in his Castlerea electoral area, and exceeding the quota by 394 votes

http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/news/general/an-open-letter-to-nick-griffin-chairman-of-the-bnp-and-mep-for-north-west-england

zing

classy zing

a lot more effective than swp'rs throwing eggs imo.

Yes, let's get old soldier throwing eggs instead, as long as someone does i'm happy

Will give him another excuse to mouth off on national tv no doubt.

a lot more effective than swp'rs throwing eggs imo.

I mean I expect this will play right into his usual guff about PC GONE MAD while missing the REAL ISSUES of, I don't know, some crap about CHURCHILL.

Not that the letters not a good thing, I just don't think it makes any dent on him or his supporters.

idk, but it does make a dent on potential supporters.

Yes, it'll be like egg off cheap suit for him but might make some of the people who voted for him even more embarrassed about it than they already claim to be

and i think it's a good thing if groups that have the potential to command respect amongst likely recruitment/expansion ground for the bnp come out and directly oppose griffin et al.

exactly

They should definitely have Brons on telly more because he'd give anyone the creeps