Five More Years of Tory Rule 61


In the UK, the Tories have edged into the lead in the latest Guardian/ICM opinion poll. While New Labour’s support for benefit cuts, government spending plans and the entire neo-con agenda means it makes no difference who is in power at Westminster, residual voter tribal loyalty to these moribund and corrupt parties remains the basic fact of “mainstream” politics, even after the voters have twigged the politicians are almost all self-serving crooks.

That is important for Scotland, as the perception of continued Tory rule at Westminster will increase the independence vote. By the Autumn it is going to be very clear the Tories are in power until 2020. But will that perception enter the public consciousness before September 18 2014? Charles Clarke, ever anxious to stab his colleagues in the back – a defining Labour trait – is doing his best to make it clear.


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61 thoughts on “Five More Years of Tory Rule

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  • Mary

    Mine too John. He was passed over last time.

    I will vote for any party that undertakes to restore the damage that is being done to the NHS, and means it.

  • Anonymous

    I have flown to Germany via Heathrow many times. Exiting the cattle pens, subjected to the humiliation, then the machine guns of the ‘protectors’, and finally boarding a German flight to Stuttgart – with such relief. Human beings. Relief. Jesus, what a miserable place is the UK. The fascists of Europe.

  • Robert

    Agreed, prospect of a Tory majority in 2015 can only help the Scottish nationalists.

    I started as a definite “no” but will vote “yes”, largely because of the hectoring from the great and good who tell me that independence means the sky will fall in. But a more measured reason for chasing my mind is that it is in the interests of the UK as a whole to start the process of reform and Scotland is the only part of the union that has the chance to get that going.

    Obviously, a Holyrood parliament can be infested with embezzling paedophiles just as easily as the Westmonster version, but there is something for making accountability a little bit more local and plural. Furthermore, increasing democratic argument seems our only hope for resisting the tide of predatory capitalism, or at least exposing it to some scrutiny.

  • Geoffrey

    What on earth is “the entire neo-con agenda”?and what has got to do with “austerity measures”?
    Surely “Neo-cons”are those who support what they might call”freedom and democracy”or Coca-colarisation,or Americanisation,of the world.Or unnecessary consumption of goods usually produced by large multinationals paid for with debt and the destruction of countries,cultures and peoples who resist,if necessary.
    All pursued with religious fervour.

  • Mary

    Someone. Anybody. Please explain to Geoffrey. He might have been on another planet for a couple of decades at least.

  • craig Post author

    Geoffrey,

    Accepting your working definition of neo-con, that is precisely what Labour stands for.

  • خاله ووسو

    No Craig I believe you are wrong. The scandals uncovered so far and the as yet un-exposed scandal of UK management of the total destruction of Syria in preparation for handing over to the custody of Israel or its phoney Caliphate, need whitewashing urgently. Who better to do it than the leader of the sheeple with blue behinds? Milibland.

  • YouKnowMyName

    didn’t we just learn that Cheltenham can allegedly manipulate polls, truly a world of smoke & mirrors

  • Ba'al Zevul (With Gaza)

    We’ll get five more years of Tory rule no matter who wins. Lab and Con are signed up to the same agenda, and Lib will sign up for anyone who lets them play.

  • passerby

    Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet

    The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.

  • Richard Powell

    The Tories will be in power in England long beyond 2020, if Scotland becomes independent.

  • خاله ووسو

    Ba’al

    Lib is finished in my opinion. I can see the popularity of betting shops where people spend many hours betting on Heads or tails. But do people go into a voting booth for that? Maybe in the next election you will be offered half a dozen scratch-cards in the booth, with a prize-draw of 10 million. Voter apathy is big problem.

    Richard Powell

    Please don’t say that. The UK will not survive another 5 years of Thatcherist pandemonium. Are we going to have to have a Fukushima melt-down where even the financial engineers don’t know how to solve the economic design flaws of capitalism.

  • MJ

    “Are we going to have to have a Fukushima melt-down where even the financial engineers don’t know how to solve the economic design flaws of capitalism”

    Yes we are and an independent Scotland still using the pound will get fleeced the same as everyone else.

  • Geoffrey

    Ba’al ,11.22
    Scary article,assuming it is accurate, the TISA proposal appears to show where real power lies,and it’s not with politicians.
    You could,I suppose,say that political parties are Neo-con for allowing/or making these un-democratic agreements,but I would say they are too weak,disinterested,or too well bribed to bother themselves with these complex things,which most of their electorate wouldn’t understand anyway.

  • DoNNyDarKo

    There are two jokers in there that will make a Tory Govt a definite. UKIP & whatever is left of the Liberals.
    The Tories will then allow TTIP to become an irreversible reality.
    There are those that think that borders and flags are ôutdated in our global village.Just wait till company logo’s & banners fill the spaces they leave behind.Can’t wait till McDonalds and Monsanto start making the laws.

  • Ba'al Zevul (With Gaza)

    I would say they are too weak,disinterested,or too well bribed to bother themselves with these complex things,which most of their electorate wouldn’t understand anyway.

    I might have said that too, until I came across some early remarks by politicians re. the EU.

    “No government dependent on a democratic vote could possibly agree in advance to the sacrifices which any adequate plan for European Union must involve. The people must be led slowly and unconsciously into the abandonment of their traditional economic defences, not asked…”
    (Peter Thorneycroft, former Tory MP)

    More here:

    http://iainmckie.co.uk/some-eu-quotes-to-make-you-think-some-to-make-you-smile-and-others-to-scream-280813/

    Oh, they bother themselves. And make sure the electorate don’t understand.

  • Mary

    Stand in line to be whipped by Michael Gove.

    Gove moved on

    Posted by Richard27 on July 15, 2014, 10:39 am

    Reactionary eduction secretary Michale Gove has been moved to “Chief Whip” in Cameron’s purge to try to ensure the Tories win the next election.

    He is just changing the poison but not in the eye’s of the BBC who continued their”love-in” with the Tory party with a very benign and chummy interview with Kenneth Clarke on the right wing “Today” programme this morning. “You have been our guest many times” said the announcer “I hope we will continue to have you here in the future”.

    Sickening

    ~~~

    Alternatively give him a good slap in the face. Childish but therapeutic.
    http://games.usvsth3m.com/slap-michael-gove/

  • MJ

    “Better use the Chinese Yuan then”

    Scotland should have its own currency. It is a prerequisite of independence.

  • Mary

    You put your right leg in,
    You put your right leg out;
    You put your right leg in,
    And you shake it all about.
    You do the hokey cokey,
    And you turn around.
    That’s what it’s all about!

    New slimeballs replace old slimeballs.

    Reshuffle at-a-glance: In, out and moved about
    Prime Minister David Cameron is reshuffling his top team, with details of new appointments and exits being unveiled.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28303854

    It’s all very drawn out.

  • Ba'al Zevul (With Gaza)

    Lib is finished in my opinion. ( خاله ووسو )

    Don’t think so. There will always be a rump of maybe half-a-dozen good constituency MP’s. This has been the Libs’ constant selling point, and it usually trumps national disillusionment in a handful of constituencies. That’s enough to swing a hung parliament.

  • Mary

    The debate on DRIP The Snoopers’ Charter is being broadcast on Ch 81. More of our freedoms are being taken away with all party agreement. The ’emergency’ legislation (guillotine) will all be done and dusted within the day ending at 10pm. Shameful.

    Straw has just spoken in favour. Only objector so far is David Winnick. Diane Abbot objects to the timetable but not to the legislation apparently. Democracy? What democracy?

  • خاله ووسو

    Ba’al

    Yes and the leadership will then swing the election the wrong way so what’s the point?

  • Parky

    Seems like Dave is letting some of the Tory ladies round the table for a few months for good PR management reasons, being a master of same is of course the main reason he got the job in the first place. Make the most of it though because come this time next year, if they get back in again, it will be all change again and back to normal. Even side-lining Michael Gove is surely only a vain cat in hell hope to ingratiate the Tories with the teaching profession before next May ?

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    I don’t find the poll very convincing – a random telephone poll of 1,000 alleged adults over a summer weekend – though, given the increasingly scared electorate because of the overtime work by the securocrats, I don’t think it makes much difference if the No vote wins in the Scottish referendum.

    Seems the polling benefited the stay at homes, a definite Tory group, since they were more likely to be home for the land line calls.

    If Scotland votes Yes on the referendum, something that I don’t think will be allowed to happen, the Conservatives would do better in the General Election since there would be fewer votes for their opponents,

  • passerby

    Caring Sharing Britain with lots of women in politics ]

    An 84-year-old man and his 75-year-old partner have been sleeping in seafront shelters in Bournemouth since moving out of their Charminster flat in April, and have been relying on a local soup kitchen for their meals.

    Note the misdirection in the article; “they refused”, also of note ought to be the skin condition of the elderly lady in the exposed areas.

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