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KKKlean Energy posted:It's a channel 4 show so I can 100% guarantee that the main focus will be on whatever 'unnecessary' cosmetic surgery the NHS offers, and that the patients in focus will be loud-mouthed self-entitled pricks (or their statements to the camera will be cherry-picked to make them appear as such) I've found C4 stuff (benefits street and the recent adoption program) is generally balanced and sympathetic. Both of those programs had heart breaking moments. The problem is that C4 higher ups are perfectly happy to sell the programs as sensationalist to the papers, who get their own opinion pieces out before even seeing the program. This colours the public discourse (poisons in fact) as was seen with the "scum" twitter comments. On the grey housing market radio 4 had a program that talked about it today, and is well worth a listen. As said above there is very little drive by government to build affordable housing, despite that being the only solution to the problem. One "solution" that was mentioned is converting commercial units to live/work space. This warehouse projects phenomenon is something that has happened in cities around the world including New York, and is an example of gentrification. Plus it allows landlords to skimp on their responsibilities. I don't know why a London borough doesn't buy up empty offices blocks, convert them into single room shared facility dorms and small units and use them as mixed housing. Also remove MPs second home allowance and force them to stay in dorms in the city.
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Apr 23, 2014 17:37
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CancerCakes posted:I don't know why a London borough doesn't buy up empty offices blocks, convert them into single room shared facility dorms and small units and use them as mixed housing. For a start, I doubt any London borough has the cash reserves to do that. Secondly, any borough that did would find that they'd whipped up a shitstorm of colossal proportions as people started asking (prompted by newspaper stories) "If you've got all this money spare, why do I still pay all this council tax?" It would be political suicide for any Council that did this. The Government, on the other hand, could easily do this. They could even get a compulsory purchase order in place to keep costs down. Put out lots of information about how it saves money in the long-run, that because rents are cheaper Housing Support costs the taxpayer less and that flat-out better accommodation results in fewer health complaints, thus saving the NHS money. But they won't, because FREE MARKET  and party donors.
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Apr 23, 2014 17:48
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Spangly A posted:
Did something happen recently that flipped peoples opinions around? I understand everything wasn't final but I was under the impression that the 'No' vote was still the steady leader.
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Apr 23, 2014 17:53
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Spangly A posted:Either way there is absolutely no chance of anyone remotely competent getting it. Cameron has faced the humiliation of being the first British PM to lose a motion to war vote, and will shortly lose Scotland, it seems. At the very least we can thank that he'll go down in history as a complete joke of a PM to all, regardless of his murderous attitude to the less well-off.
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Apr 23, 2014 17:53
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SkySteak posted:Did something happen recently that flipped peoples opinions around? I understand everything wasn't final but I was under the impression that the 'No' vote was still the steady leader. The no vote is trailing behind, Yes has a majority but not the required majority and obviously any "undecideds" are Nos. However, while it's good practice to always assume that undecideds will vote for the status quo, have you seen the No campaign recently? I genuinely think it's bad enough to cause Scotland to vote Yes out of awkwardness. I'm not joking. Spangly A fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 17:55
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Spangly A posted:The no vote is trailing behind, Yes has a majority but not the required majority and obviously any "undecideds" are Nos. However, while it's good practice to always assume that undecideds will vote for the status quo, have you seen the yes campaign recently? I genuinely think it's bad enough to cause Scotland to vote Yes out of awkwardness. I'm not joking. I'm confused by that last sentence; do you mean "have you seen the no campaign recently"?
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Apr 23, 2014 18:00
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Coohoolin posted:I'm confused by that last sentence; do you mean "have you seen the no campaign recently"? I did. I've got a headache  essentially Yes are out-campaigning No quite hilariously, because No is just hiring a bunch of people nobody likes to lie in a totally unbelievable fashion. I mean maybe Gordon Brown is right but I'm not going to listen to a word out of his mouth.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:04
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Spangly A posted:The no vote is trailing behind, Yes has a majority but not the required majority and obviously any "undecideds" are Nos. However, while it's good practice to always assume that undecideds will vote for the status quo, have you seen the yes campaign recently? I genuinely think it's bad enough to cause Scotland to vote Yes out of awkwardness. I'm not joking. There is not a single poll that shows Yes in the lead, and only one pollster showing significant movement since January of this year.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:07
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LemonDrizzle posted:There is not a single poll that shows Yes in the lead, and only one pollster showing significant movement since January of this year. I confused the sides of the 48/52 figure. This is why I do not post about Scotland much.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:10
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Danny Alexander says 'Lib Dems 'won't back Tory or Labour minority rule'. Goes on to say that "an unstable government without its own majority to carry its programme" would not be in the national interest "If there is a balanced Parliament after the next election, I want the Lib Dems to be part of the coalition government. We would seek to work with whichever party, Labour or Conservatives, had the strongest mandate from the electorate. Of course there are differences with Labour on the economy and the Conservatives on Europe, but the whole point of negotiating a coalition is to try to find a way to bridge those differences and make sure we can keep the country on the right tracks.". So all Labour have to do now is get more MPs than the Tories. Unless the Lib Dems decide to break another promise and contradict their 'we think a hung parliament just means the electorate want us to force a moderate government' spiel. Or, in the bizarre circumstance where Lib Dems+Labour/Tories is still not a majority, the Tories and Labour will have to go kiss some major regional party arse.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:11
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You lot should make Salmond PM. Think of the possibilities.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:14
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A big fear I have with the coming election is that despite gutting so much to create it, the whole idea of the 'The Tories recovered the economy from wasteful Labour' routine might actually stick as things slowly pick up.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:14
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SkySteak posted:A big fear I have with the coming election is that despite gutting so much to create it, the whole idea of the 'The Tories recovered the economy from wasteful Labour' routine might actually stick as things slowly pick up.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:20
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SkySteak posted:A big fear I have with the coming election is that despite gutting so much to create it, the whole idea of the 'The Tories recovered the economy from wasteful Labour' routine might actually stick as things slowly pick up. It will. Maybe not enough to give them an outright majority (especially if Labour actually get some gumption and start being an opposition party) but anyone assuming that the Tories are toast next year is probably being massively optimistic.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:26
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Darth Walrus posted:I don't think anyone's OK with Labour here. It's just that when your choice is between cartoon supervillainy and diluted cartoon supervillainy, there's really only one pick. Doodling leftist obscenities on your ballot paper? Umiapik posted:if Scotland votes Yes, the first thing David Cameron would have to do is visit Buckingham Palace for an extremely awkward conversation with the Queen about how he's managed to mislay her country. The second thing he'd have to do is resign - there's no way that he could continue in office as the Prime Minister who Lost Britain. Aside from DC, it's important to realise now just what an extraordinarily bitter post-mortem there'd be at Westminister in the aftermath of a Yes vote. I'm quite sure that the Coalition would be ripped apart and there'd be nothing left to do except call for new elections. Good thing it's not happening then eh?  Is it just me or does the actual function of referendums seem to be to entrench the status quo by asking if people want to change something and then taking the inevitable "no" as an excuse to never ask that question ever again?
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Apr 23, 2014 18:28
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Referendums being the rare political stunts that they currently are means they're basically taken as everything except for 'what does the UK population generally think about this issue right now'; they're opinion polls of the group which presents it versus those that oppose it at best.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:40
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SkySteak posted:A big fear I have with the coming election is that despite gutting so much to create it, the whole idea of the 'The Tories recovered the economy from wasteful Labour' routine might actually stick as things slowly pick up. It's already happening, every time there's the slightest glimmer of some positive data the media starts throwing around phrases like 'back on track' and 'recovery' and 'validation'. It's never in the context of the government's performance with the preceding swan dive. If there ever is any analysis of that, it's framed as the government's hands being tied, having to make 'tough decisions' and so on. Basically the Tories get the benefit of the doubt with all their economic failures, and any slightly positive sign is hailed as a new bright future dawning, with news reporters streaming out to ask people how much they're enjoying the recovery and running Tory PR releases at the top of every programme
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Apr 23, 2014 18:42
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Renaissance Robot posted:Is it just me or does the actual function of referendums seem to be to entrench the status quo by asking if people want to change something and then taking the inevitable "no" as an excuse to never ask that question ever again? Some unionists are self-aware enough to realise that this can't happen, probably just not the right ones. Adam Tomkins; a unionist academic and contributor to the Scottish Conservative Party's extended devolution plans, has said that upon a No vote they have one chance to silence separatism, or a 2nd referendum is a matter of when, and that the Quebec experience shows that it will have a much greater chance of succeeding. I expect Westminster to gently caress it up. The Better Together campaign was meant to smash the SNP and it hasn't succeeded because "Scottish" Labour are so loving terrible.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:45
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Renaissance Robot posted:Doodling leftist obscenities on your ballot paper? Do spoiled ballots actually help anything, though? Personally, I'd work on the immediate problem of ensuring we don't get five more years of Cameron (or Gove, or May, or some other chucklefuck) and then try to address the long-term problem of getting a viable leftist party going. Because seriously, Labour are bad, but I have a hard time believing they'd be worse than the Tories, and as a disabled student, I'm quite aware of the fact that IDS appears to have a vested interest in killing me. Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 19:02
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Dissertation chat: Does anyone know if binders can bind acetate transparencies in a normal hard binding? Or if binders carry tracing paper as a matter of course? 
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Apr 23, 2014 19:43
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SkySteak posted:A big fear I have with the coming election is that despite gutting so much to create it, the whole idea of the 'The Tories recovered the economy from wasteful Labour' routine might actually stick as things slowly pick up. People need to become familiar with regression to the mean. Aka, when things are really good/bad, then chances are good it's going to get bad/good, even temporarily. This explains all those stupid sports curse stories and such. Things have gotten marginally better, statistically speaking. This, when weighed against the reality of food banks and people living in loving barges might as well be the divine hand of God getting involved. I really want an independent Scotland, because I respect the Scottish people and have no desire for a country that has contributed so much to the world and been hosed over so much by an entirely different government to continue to do so. I also really, really want Cameron to be the prime minister that literally destroyed the UK. Sorry, Scotland, there's a slightly selfish reason why I think independence is a good thing for you. Hopefully you'll forgive me. Rush Limbo fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 20:03
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Renaissance Robot posted:Is it just me or does the actual function of referendums seem to be to entrench the status quo by asking if people want to change something and then taking the inevitable "no" as an excuse to never ask that question ever again?
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Apr 23, 2014 20:13
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Don't spoil your ballots goddamnit I mean yeah we live in a country where your vote is almost worthless if it isn't for an already-electable party thanks to FPTP, but if you want those parties to become electable you need to help slowly drag the average up. And if you're more worried about the short term, you need to tactically vote against the tories and UKIP. God I hate FPTP. But there is no practical difference between ballot spoiling and Russel Brand style "pff politics who cares YOLO lets show them!!" refusal to engage.
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Apr 23, 2014 20:15
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Anyone got a recommendation for the best place to find out who will be running in the Euro and local elections next month? I'm in Enfield if that helps.
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Apr 23, 2014 20:21
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spiderbot posted:Anyone got a recommendation for the best place to find out who will be running in the Euro and local elections next month? I'm in Enfield if that helps. Here's a full collection of the party lists for the european elections: https://www.europeanvoice.com/page/european-elections-2014-list-of-candidates-european-voice/3986.aspx You'll want to look at the London candidates, I imagine. LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 20:25
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Spangly A posted:Don't spoil your ballots goddamnit Yeah, this. I live in a labour safe seat and have done my entire life, so I could literally draw a huge spunking cock and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference (I think spunking cock is the acceptable shorthand for labour in this area anyway, so this may be why it's a safe seat). It's still worth voting, even if your vote is worthless because if you don't well you have people like Farage and Cameron who will be able to walk into office thanks to people not voting. This is literally why we have BNP MEPs, because people couldn't be bothered to vote.
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Apr 23, 2014 20:26
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The only person who is going to see that huge spunking cock, is a nice old lady doing the count. Draw a smiley face or something instead.
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Apr 23, 2014 20:30
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A huge jizzing cock should be the official None-of-the-above option. Intricately detailed specimens should count for more than one vote.
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Apr 23, 2014 20:35
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Richard Herring suggested that a huge cock should be a none of the above option, and if any candidate loses out to the cock they should never be allowed to stand for office again. It's a good system, but not actually implemented so just vote for who you would prefer until it is put into place.
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Apr 23, 2014 20:39
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EU elections will be STV, so rank your choice by number.
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Apr 23, 2014 20:45
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A UKIP breakaway has positioned themselves at the top of the ballot paper in all of the English regions for the May EU vote, UKIP comes last. Amazing  
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Apr 23, 2014 20:47
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Is there a good reason why I shouldn't choose the Greens as my top choice in the EU election? Having read through their website all of their policy seems pretty good, with the exception of an EU ban on GM crops and what seems to be a pretty knee-jerk reaction to fracking. I'm only asking as I read the lib-dem manifesto for the general election and voted for them and we all know how that went. (Didn't make the blindest bit of difference I was voting in super safe Tory seat, gently caress FPTP)
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Apr 23, 2014 20:54
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The greens really have kneejerk, weird stances on issues like nuclear power that is backed by literally no evidence, but when I've actually talked to a few candidates about such things they actually seemedhemed:med to listen and take a few points on board. Your mileage may vary, but they are rather forward thinking on a few actually important issues I guess. They would almost certainly get my vote if they actually addressed certain concerns like why they have such a NIMBY attitude to Nuclear. e: I mean look at this shite. http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/04-04-2011-unacceptable-risk-nuclear.html Rush Limbo fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 21:01
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From what I can tell, the Green Party is about as socialist as you can get on most issues, so I'll vote for them. I'm not going to let their stance on nuclear get in the way of that. If I sit around waiting for a party to come along that 100% reflects my personal views then I'll be waiting forever.
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Apr 23, 2014 21:09
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Behold my terribleness in all its terribleness. Ideally I'd have done this sequentially downwards but CBA.
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Apr 23, 2014 21:12
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That is beautiful.
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Apr 23, 2014 21:14
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Ddraig posted:The greens really have kneejerk, weird stances on issues like nuclear power that is backed by literally no evidence, but when I've actually talked to a few candidates about such things they actually seemedhemed:med to listen and take a few points on board. Your mileage may vary, but they are rather forward thinking on a few actually important issues I guess. They would almost certainly get my vote if they actually addressed certain concerns like why they have such a NIMBY attitude to Nuclear. Yeah, funnily enough the main area of disagreement I have with the Greens is on green issues. On social issues they seem pretty good.
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Apr 23, 2014 21:18
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I just accidently heard tonights Four Thought on Radio 4 and much to my surprise found myself largely in agreement with the speaker. It was Benet (sic) Brandreth who despite being the offspring of Gyles of that ilk, and having an eminently punchable smugface, did a good job of arguing that the style and content of current political discourse is bankrupt and suggested a 'revolutionary' solution that makes far more sense than the vague handwavy ramblings of Brand. I wonder what his dad thinks? It's not up on iplayer yet but should be here shortly and at only about 13 minutes isn't too taxing (the picture of him they have is truly awful though, makes it an interesting exercise in avoiding the Book/Cover problem). namesake posted:Behold my terribleness in all its terribleness. This is nice (though I fear ballot papers wouldn't be that great a wick in practice). Reminds me of the David Rushton art piece consisting of ordinary housebricks with "Build" stenciled on one side and "Throw" on the other.
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Apr 23, 2014 21:25
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New Statesman posted:In defiance of Michael Heseltine's recent advice to him not to stand for parliament until he has completed his second term as Mayor of London in 2016, Boris Johnson is set to announce that he will seek to return as an MP at next year's election. The Daily Mail and the Sun report that he will confirm his intentions by the summer in order to avoid acting as a distraction at the Conservative conference in October (although a distraction he will doubtless remain). How will this not be a distraction? His intentions will be the only thing people talk about (although that's probably the whole point). Metrication fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 21:32
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