They really can’t stop them selves it seems, proving that they can be just as keen on controlling every aspect of our lives as the last lot. To counter the cultural pressures of thin models our new equalities minister has it seems decreed that the new approved size and shape to aspire to is size 14 and buxom. She will apparently be holding a body confidence summit to try to persuade fashion editors to impose a new body fascism on the fairer sex in this country. No longer will they need to aspire to being thin, instead they’ll just have to worry if they’re buxom enough and are they more hourglass than egg timer.
The idea of not dictating role models presumably wasn’t an option. But as now thin is undesirable and obviously being over weight remains a horrendous crime it can’t be much longer before we have a single government approved body type. Obviously banning veils/niqabs and other facial covering will make it easier to identify people who fail to achieve the new government approved look.
I look forward to seeing if Laurie Penny will be complaining about this for dictating body shapes to women, or if it’ll be ok as it presumably isn’t the evil Bikini body
Lots of other bloggers have already made far better comments about David Laws than I will, but despite that I’m going to stick my oar in. Mainly because I’d hate for our politicians to get the slightest hint that we’ve lost interest in their expenses.
One thing that does make a nice change is the speed with which Mr Laws resigned, that much at least is an improvement. As many people have observed his sexuality really doesn’t have anything to do with it, that he was fiddling his expenses did. The claim that they weren’t living as spouses would at least from the information to hand be laughed at if anyone on benefits tried the same argument. Were they sharing a bed, a cutlery draw, a letter box etc. Whilst he may not have been claiming as much as he could have and whilst it may have cost us more if he’d not acted with such impropriety that as observed by Charles Crawford is the cost to “uphold honesty”. Iain Dales opinion that he should be let off by the Standards Commissioner is yet again ignoring the fundamental point in the green book rules, that is so consistently ignored by our troughing leaders:
“Members must ensure that claims do not give rise to, or give the appearance of giving rise to, an improper personal financial benefit to themselves or anyone else”.
Mr Laws behaviour certainly has the appearance of having done this, even if in fact it hasn’t in actuality. Mr Cameron and Cleggs responses to his resignation suggest that they too still don’t see a problem with MPs claiming expenses inappropriately and that as ever lessons haven’t been learnt. Though perhaps we can still hope that as these claims all relate to prior to the last election that the current incumbents really have all stopped making claims that might give rise to the appearance of improper benefit. I wouldn’t give you odds on it though.
Whilst I obviously welcome our new overlords, I can’t help but notice that they seem to have an odd idea of electoral reform, and as Tom Harris observes it doesn’t really fit well with either the Tories claim to want to return power to the people, and quite odd that the LibDems seem to be happy going along with it.
The particular bit of reform that Mr Harris is concerned about is to change the vote of no-confidence in a government from a simple majority to 55%. Such a change only makes sense in that it allows a minority government (like say the Tories without the LibDems) more immune to votes of no confidence and actual majority governments virtually bullet proof. At present a simple majority would require 325 MP’s to vote against the government which would be quite a challenge especially as Sinn Fein have 5 MPs that never take up their seats. So even to get out the Tories with their current majority would require all but 9 non-Tory MPs to vote against them. For a 55% vote not even would every non Tory MP have to vote against the Government but 19 Tory MPs would have to rebel as well. Which as the vote would be heavily whipped means that 19 Tory MPs would have to be prepared to sacrifice their political careers (and expense accounts) for a non-confidence vote to pass, evidence suggests that MPs are unlikely to do this. This is as Dizzy says “not just an affront to democracy, it holds the power of Parliament in even greater contempt than the last lot did.”
Of course it gets worse, the form of PR that the ConDems seem to have decided to offer us is AV (alternative vote), which isn’t actually a form of proportional representation at all. It merely changes how the MPs are elected so the proportional of the national vote is still not relevant to the number of MPs any party may have sitting.
Mind you the LibDems would prefer AV+ which combines the problems of the above with
“party list” MPs thus entrenching larger national parties advantages even further and helping to lock out small parties and independents.
Update: Dizzy has further analysis of the 55% vote issue, and observes that it could be used by minority parties in coalitions to force change of government (or at least threaten it) with out recourse to an election. Which quite frankly is possibly worse than my initial take on matters.
This is being widely reported elsewhere (Dizzy> and Old Holborn) but good news is worth repeating. It appears as though steps are already being taken to scrap ID cards. The Identity and passport Service website is advising people to not get ID cards at them moment:
“Both Parties that now form the new Government stated in their manifestos that they will cancel Identity Cards and the National Identity Register. We will announce in due course how this will be achieved. Applications can continue to be made for ID cards but we would advise anyone thinking of applying to wait for further announcements.
Until Parliament agrees otherwise, identity cards remain valid and as such can still be used as an identity document and for travel within Europe. We will update you with further information as soon as we have it.”
Hopefully this is the start of a trend of repeal and keeping manifesto promises. I’m sure it won’t be but for the moment I’m going to enjoy the thought that it might be.
Having been a little bit busy I didn’t link to this at the time, but even this late in the day as electoral reform is still such a popular topic, Bella Gerens has an excellent post on How to solve the problem of a hung parliament
“Whenever constitutional reform is mooted here in the UK, the drive seems to be something along the lines of: the executive has too much power, MPs have too little, and oh yeah, unelected Lords have no place in a democratic nation. (Let’s pretend in this discussion, for the sake of simplicity, that the Lisbon Treaty hasn’t made Parliament redundant.)
What kind of reforms would be required, then, to address these perceived problems?
The House of Lords is easy: sweep out all of the old peers and bishops and allow people to stand for election. Presumably the old peers and bishops would be permitted to stand if they wanted to; certainly they would have to have the franchise returned to them.“
Gordon has left the building, but sadly not the land. Dave and Nick are setting up shop and divvying the spoils between them – give it a few days for the dust to settle and then we’ll see if it’s business as usual with the government having got back in.
Typical of a Gordon Brown announcement things weren’t quite what they seem. Yes he’s going to step down as party leader but in an “orderly” manner so not until conference in September and if the country needs him (fat chance) then he’ll generously agree to cling on to any leaver of power that he can for as long as possible. On an amusing quote front Mr Brown said “parliamentary and not presidential system“, so what were those leadership debates about then?
Meanwhile senior Labour types such as John Reid and Blunkett are saying that Labour should step down and let the Tories as the largest party get on with things. Nick Clegg has abandoned his previous stated intent to work with the party with the largest mandate and is trying to play Labour and the Tories against each other to secure the best advantage for the LibDems and sod national interest. Of course it seems likely that if the LibDems do get to power via the Labour Party that they’ll not be terribly popular and Mr Cameron can paint himself as the victim of a stolen election, regardless of if it’s actually been stolen or not under our system.
All of which of course ignores the fact that there are several seats which may be open to legal challenge due to lack of voting papers, people being turned away etc. Which might not change the balance of power but who knows.
What is certain is that who ever does manage to grasp the reins of power even for a short period of time is probably not going to be popular, due to the massive amount of cuts that actually need to be made to avoid going the way of Greece, who we’re being forced to bail out by something north of 10 billion (and remember before the election the 3 main parties were struggling to find ways to cut 6). Given the renewed interest people seem to have in politics these days (we do so love a farce) I think there may actually be a way to avoid that for the Tories at least, they need to take the radical move of actually telling us the truth. Regardless of if they’re in power or not they need to come clean with us and say “we’re screwed, fixing this is going to hurt a hell of a lot – sorry but it’s got to be done”. They won’t do it obviously and even if they did people would scream but they’ll scream a hell of a lot more if we end up in the same position as Greece.
To end of a more positive note Anna Raccoon has a delightful take on the position Gordon now finds himself in, oh and we already have our first exepenses scandal of the new parliament and they haven’t even sat yet.
The one eyed loon is actually leaving Downing street, of course it throws the horse trading with the LibDems wide open again and may yet result in Labour staying somewhat in power for a while at least. But I’ll take solace where I can find it and that the one eyed Scottish idiot is leaving is worth a drink in my book.
Just over 400 years a after the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions, someone who looks an awful lot like him is trying to get in by more orthodox means.
Old Holborn is standing as the Jury Team candidate for Cambridge – get the low down on his official profile here.
Hopefully he’ll do better than the man whose visage he shares.
Whilst that’s been going on Gordon has re-announced plans to give us all high speed broadband (presumably still paid for by the extra tax imposed on having a land line). Which will at least make sure we can all get to the single central government website, which will allow them to lose out data and screw things up even faster than they currently do. If you can’t afford a computer don’t worry the government will give you one. In time no doubt you’ll need your ID card to be able access your personal government website – for your own security of course.
Whilst that’s going on not content with having nationalised several banks due to evil investment bankers, Darling is planning to spend another billion pounds of money we don’t have to set up a “green investment bank” – presumably to fund projects that are so unlikely to work that normal banks won’t touch them. No that we’ll have any investment banks soon as Mr Cameron is pledging to go ahead with a “banks levy” (presumably the same as the previously proposed “tobin tax”) even if the rest of the world doesn’t – which will no doubt see all those banks toddling off to those countries which haven’t been that stupid.
And finally in case you missed it those whacky MPs have been accidentally breaking the rules, by accepting cash payments to agree to claim higher rents on their expenses. But at least four Lib Dems were jolly good sports and dobbed themselves in for taking the cash.
