Gordon Brown... haha

[Ugmo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/poli ... 649042.stm

[Supersonic]

He's a doofus

[Ugmo]

I've got to admit the Labour Party make the awesomest gaffes. Check out this guy who had to drop out of his campaign after referring to the elderly as "coffin dodgers"...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/poli ... 610934.stm

Some McClellan Tweets:

[Criticising taste of Fairtrade organic banana] Can I have a slave-grown, chemically enhanced, genetically modified one please?

My gosh I've got a proper chav sitting opposite me this evening

You know I think I might be completely sober for the first time in 4 days

Lots of chavs at Stirling station

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

Coffin dodgers

[Kerry King's Pentagram]

I think this blunder will be enough to cost Labour the election. Whatever chance they had of winning is now gone.

[Ugmo]

I don't really understand his problem either. I watched that exchange between him and the lady, and she didn't ask anything unreasonable. It wasn't a Joe The Plumber ambush or anything where she was trying to catch him off guard. She just wanted him to give her some good answers about the debt.

Where does he get that she's a "bigot"?

[Kerry King's Pentagram]

I don't really understand his problem either. I watched that exchange between him and the lady, and she didn't ask anything unreasonable. It wasn't a Joe The Plumber ambush or anything where she was trying to catch him off guard. She just wanted him to give her some good answers about the debt.

Where does he get that she's a "bigot"?

Well, immigration is something that none of the three main parties has been willing to talk about and Brown is known to become visibly uncomfortable and aggressive when someone dares to challenge his party's views. There's great footage of Brown being played the tape at a radio show appearance where he puts his hand over his face. His reaction says it all really.

[Supersonic]

British politics. Love it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU1u4MnQG8c

[Ugmo]

Oh the bigot thing was about her immigration views? I must not have watched that part.

[chickenona]

He talked to her for a good five minutes - during which he made no effort to hide the fact that he wasn't really listening to anything she was saying - and she made ONE MENTION of "Eastern Europeans". Based on that one mention he branded her a bigot. He's a condescending elitist dick, which almost certainly means he'll be re-elected.

[Kerry King's Pentagram]

He talked to her for a good five minutes - during which he made no effort to hide the fact that he wasn't really listening to anything she was saying - and she made ONE MENTION of "Eastern Europeans". Based on that one mention he branded her a bigot. He's a condescending elitist dick, which almost certainly means he'll be re-elected.

Nah, I reckon it will go to the posh boy:

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

[CliffByford]

I disagree with you, chickenona. He won't be re-elected.

However...

Though he is clearly uncomfortable with PR and presenting himself to the public I do think there is some substance to him. I am no cheerleader for Brown - indeed, I am a Liberal Democrat party member, have been for some time - but I sure as hell prefer him at the helm to David "call me Dave" Cameron. Doubly so when you consider that Brown's autistic about the economy and probably prevented our recession from becoming a depression. Yes, the numbers are grim right now and will be for a while, but the Tories have fucking George Osborne as Chancellor-in-waiting. With Labour in power, you effectively have two Chancellors - Darling and Brown.

I know that Brown's relaxed approach to banking regulation probably helped precipitate some of the problems attached to the financial crisis but I really can't see anyone in the Conservatives (bar, perhaps, Kenneth Clarke) making such decisive moves to ameliorate the worst of it. Hindsight is always perfect, and for a long time we enjoyed prosperity thanks in part to financial deregulation. Some of Brown's decisions, such as part-ownership of the banks, might be unpopular but it was the best move, no doubt. Brown absolutely reams Cameron in terms of intellectual substance, though perhaps not in presentation and demagoguery.

What is right and what proves popular are not necessarily the same thing.

I don't even think he's a dick either. Easily frustrated, quick to anger and borderline sociopathic I'll accept. However, the fact that he handwrites letters to the families of every member of UK service personnel killed in Afghanistan or Iraq impresses me - and even then, he was criticised for one letter (apparently he misspelt an admittedly unusual name; personally, I think it was more down to his awful cursive. Give the man a break, he's only got one eye and that doesn't even work so well).

[chickenona]

I won't lie, I know very little about Brown beyond this incident, and while it did make him look like a gold-plated tool, I took it with a grain of salt because of my ignorance of the whole thing. By the same token most Brits don't seem terribly thrilled with Cameron either, so I figured as the incumbent Brown could probably do anything short of cooking and eating human babies on TV and still end up taking it. By the looks of things today it could still go to any of the three, though - I failed to consider that your "third party" (Liberal Democrats) is actually viable, unlike any third party contender in the US would be.

How much of a majority would one of these guys need to win over there, anyway? Is a plurality sufficient, or does it require a majority vote?

[MickeyG]

The numbers I've seen suggest a hung parliament.

[Kerry King's Pentagram]

I won't lie, I know very little about Brown beyond this incident, and while it did make him look like a gold-plated tool, I took it with a grain of salt because of my ignorance of the whole thing. By the same token most Brits don't seem terribly thrilled with Cameron either, so I figured as the incumbent Brown could probably do anything short of cooking and eating human babies on TV and still end up taking it. By the looks of things today it could still go to any of the three, though - I failed to consider that your "third party" (Liberal Democrats) is actually viable, unlike any third party contender in the US would be.

How much of a majority would one of these guys need to win over there, anyway? Is a plurality sufficient, or does it require a majority vote?

Majority vote is always required for any prospective government. Each of the three parties need a different amount to be the majority party depending on their current position in the House of Commons. The winning post is 326. The Conservatives (Cameron's party) need to gain 116 seats to be the governing party, Labour need to make sure that they do not lose more than 23 seats from their current majority of 349 to remain in power while the Liberal Democrats need to win 264 seats in addition to the 62 they currently have to become the main party. Despite the considerable momentum the Lib Dems have had during this campaign, they are very unlikely to win outright. Their best chance is to form a coalition government in the event of a hung parliament with either Labour or the Conservatives.

One upside of the Conservatives winning is that they will be the party that will have to make some very unpopular decisions in a bid to solve the country's problems. Should they fail spectacularly and truly fuck everything up for us all, then they will be unelectable for the best part of a generation. And with people like Liam Fox and George Osborne running the country, such a prospect looks very likely indeed.

[SmokingGun]

A lot of lifelong labour voters who have been sitting on the fence because of the shit the two idiots Bliar and Brown have pulled in the past decade, ie destroying the UK through mass uncontrolled, unchecked immigration are going to vote BNP now. Though I would never vote for the BNP, it's about time the major parties got a bit of a shake up.

And this event proves perfectly the point of many normal people with a functioning brain: even bringing up the issue of immigration will get you branded a bigot.

[Ugmo]

A lot of lifelong labour voters who have been sitting on the fence because of the shit the two idiots Bliar and Brown have pulled in the past decade, ie destroying the UK through mass uncontrolled, unchecked immigration are going to vote BNP now. Though I would never vote for the BNP, it's about time the major parties got a bit of a shake up.

And this event proves perfectly the point of many normal people with a functioning brain: even bringing up the issue of immigration will get you branded a bigot.

You realize the U.K. is a member of the E.U. right?

[SmokingGun]

A lot of lifelong labour voters who have been sitting on the fence because of the shit the two idiots Bliar and Brown have pulled in the past decade, ie destroying the UK through mass uncontrolled, unchecked immigration are going to vote BNP now. Though I would never vote for the BNP, it's about time the major parties got a bit of a shake up.

And this event proves perfectly the point of many normal people with a functioning brain: even bringing up the issue of immigration will get you branded a bigot.

You realize the U.K. is a member of the E.U. right?

While not as fully committed as other countries, yes, it is. Why do you ask?

BTW, do you really think it's fair that Labour, who got 28% of the votes, gets 191 seats, whereas the Liberal Democrats, who got 22.5% of the votes get only 39? (Preliminary results) Labour gets only a 6% difference in votes, but retains ~140 seats more? I think it's a sign of a flawed election system, designed to keep entrenched parties seated next to the pigs trough for good.

Anyway, Labour losing, and pretty badly (68+ seats) can only be a good thing, so I'm happy.

[Supersonic]

A lot of lifelong labour voters who have been sitting on the fence because of the shit the two idiots Bliar and Brown have pulled in the past decade, ie destroying the UK through mass uncontrolled, unchecked immigration are going to vote BNP now. Though I would never vote for the BNP, it's about time the major parties got a bit of a shake up.

And this event proves perfectly the point of many normal people with a functioning brain: even bringing up the issue of immigration will get you branded a bigot.

You realize the U.K. is a member of the E.U. right?

While not as fully committed as other countries, yes, it is. Why do you ask?

BTW, do you really think it's fair that Labour, who got 28% of the votes, gets 191 seats, whereas the Liberal Democrats, who got 22.5% of the votes get only 39? (Preliminary results) Labour gets only a 6% difference in votes, but retains ~140 seats more? I think it's a sign of a flawed election system, designed to keep entrenched parties seated next to the pigs trough for good.

Anyway, Labour losing, and pretty badly (68+ seats) can only be a good thing, so I'm happy.

Immigration is effectively governed by the EU and as far as I recall, the borders opened during the last Conservative government.

All the 3 main parties are very close to the center. If I was still living in the UK, I wouldn't know for sure who to vote for anymore. Probably would have been Lib Dem this time but the timing of the PIIGS issue has caused uncertainty over what to do over Europe (which IIRC, the LD wanted to become closer to).

And as for the voting percentages. It's down to the number of seats rather than overall %. It's 1st past the post for each constituency seat, always has been. The Lib Dems have wanted proportional representation for a long time but I doubt they will get it. A lot of Labour voters will have voted Lib Dem in the Conservative strongholds and Conservatives will have done the same in Labour majority areas for tactical voting purposes. If everyone voted specifically for who they really wanted then IMO the percentages would differ from this result.

[MickeyG]

I'm gutted the UK Pirate Party didn't win any seats.

Also, I'd have loved to be one of the 76 who voted for the Citizens of Undead Rights and Equality.

http://www.votecure.com/vote/?p=1

"We believe that the exploitation of Zombies has to stop. They may be undead, but they’re still people too."

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

I'm gutted the UK Pirate Party didn't win any seats.

Also, I'd have loved to be one of the 76 who voted for the Citizens of Undead Rights and Equality.

http://www.votecure.com/vote/?p=1

"We believe that the exploitation of Zombies has to stop. They may be undead, but they’re still people too."

You don't think the biologically challenged deserve respect?

[Ugmo]

While not as fully committed as other countries, yes, it is. Why do you ask?

Supersonic covered it: all those eastern European immigrants everyone is complaining about are E.U. citizens who can move freely throughout the E.U. as they please. Has nothing to do with Gordon Brown or Tony Blair.

[SmokingGun]

While not as fully committed as other countries, yes, it is. Why do you ask?

Supersonic covered it: all those eastern European immigrants everyone is complaining about are E.U. citizens who can move freely throughout the E.U. as they please. Has nothing to do with Gordon Brown or Tony Blair.

Yes, but Blair and Brown made the UK extremely, ridiculously attractive for immigrants, and not just for EU citizens. Offering potential migrants free healthcare, free housing, free education, ridiculous amounts of welfare while at the same time not even pressuring them to work or integrate into society is just too good to pass up. Why move to another place in the EU when the UK is so damn generous? And where ghettos are already set up for their respective communities so they can live with minimal contact with the natives, who in the end are the ones footing the bill for them?

If I was leaving some third world shithole, and wanted to do the least amount of work, and get the most amount of benefits, the UK since Blair would most certainly be my destination of choice.

And as for the voting percentages. It's down to the number of seats rather than overall %. It's 1st past the post for each constituency seat, always has been. The Lib Dems have wanted proportional representation for a long time but I doubt they will get it. A lot of Labour voters will have voted Lib Dem in the Conservative strongholds and Conservatives will have done the same in Labour majority areas for tactical voting purposes. If everyone voted specifically for who they really wanted then IMO the percentages would differ from this result.

Yeah I know, but that's my point, the system is set up in such a way as to keep politicians in office for life, barring any huge cock-up. And obviously the UK is not alone in this regard. I just think that if a party gets a certain number of votes overall, that they should get some sort of power, not necessarily a parliamentary seat, but maybe veto power in certain situations or being able to call for initiatives, or propositions or plebiscites/referendums for issues of importance. To effectively nullify the votes of millions of voters due to the way the system is rigged, is pretty skewed. And I know it won't be changing, because the people that benefit the most are the only ones able to change it.

[lerxstcat]

To effectively nullify the votes of millions of voters due to the way the system is rigged, is pretty skewed. And I know it won't be changing, because the people that benefit the most are the only ones able to change it.

The problem is that there's no effective way around that that wouldn't cause anarchy. We have the same thing in the US, even more so because we only have two parties capable of winning elections. So our last election was 52% to 45%, effectively nullifying the votes of over 50 million US citizens.

But it's better than anarchy or civil war, and it motivates you to win the election.

[Ugmo]

Yes, but Blair and Brown made the UK extremely, ridiculously attractive for immigrants, and not just for EU citizens. Offering potential migrants free healthcare, free housing, free education, ridiculous amounts of welfare while at the same time not even pressuring them to work or integrate into society is just too good to pass up. Why move to another place in the EU when the UK is so damn generous? And where ghettos are already set up for their respective communities so they can live with minimal contact with the natives, who in the end are the ones footing the bill for them?

It's the same way in every western E.U. country. The main group of immigrants some people have been complaining about are the eastern Europeans, and they are E.U. citizens and have full access to the benefits of the welfare state everywhere within the European Union. And that's the way people love it over here. Don't project your anti-government, anti-welfare state attitude on people in Europe, because by and large they don't share it.

[SmokingGun]

Yes, but Blair and Brown made the UK extremely, ridiculously attractive for immigrants, and not just for EU citizens. Offering potential migrants free healthcare, free housing, free education, ridiculous amounts of welfare while at the same time not even pressuring them to work or integrate into society is just too good to pass up. Why move to another place in the EU when the UK is so damn generous? And where ghettos are already set up for their respective communities so they can live with minimal contact with the natives, who in the end are the ones footing the bill for them?

It's the same way in every western E.U. country. The main group of immigrants some people have been complaining about are the eastern Europeans, and they are E.U. citizens and have full access to the benefits of the welfare state everywhere within the European Union. And that's the way people love it over here. Don't project your anti-government, anti-welfare state attitude on people in Europe, because by and large they don't share it.

To be honest I think the current welfare system in Europe (and elsewhere) as it stands has a very limited lifespan. Soon the governments simply won't have the finances anymore to support such a burgeoning population, especially an aging, fragmented one. In a lot of European countries they have already drastically scaled back things such as scholarships, student grants etc. This IMO will creep into other sectors too. You will find the situation is similar in other semi-socialized countries such as Australia and Canada. The money just isn't there anymore, and the governments are neck-deep in debt. And for the record, I am not anti-welfare, I just think those that can work (and can find work) should not be eligible for benefits. Too much money is given away on people that contribute nothing, and who have an unsubstantiated sense of entitlement.

[chickenona]

ADFC-type welfare programs are a drop in the bucket in most countries' budgets. Much more is spent on corporate welfare, at least in the US.