Be Excellent To Each Other

So, what do we think about all this then?

Personally, I'm surprised if people are actually surprised that this goes on. It's not right, but I expect it. If we vote for politicians, we get politicians in power, and shit like this happens.

The thing that annoys me most, the other parties decrying the whole practice, as if they have never done it in the past and would never do it in the future.

Cash for questions
Cash for honours
Cash for dinner.

Same old politics.

I'm surprised if anyone is surprised too, but the fact that Cameron is denying it was tacitely condoned is hilarious. The sleazy lizard.

Funniest tweet I've seen about this was from Charlie Brooker, totally cracked me up yesterday:

"I'm guessing Cameron won't reveal who he had round for dinner in case we do a tally and realise he fucking ate half of them, the succubus."
"DAVID CÂMMERÜNG. DÆVID KÅMMERÜNG. DÃĀÃVĮD CÂÅÂMMERRRÜÜÜNNNGGG."

For £250k, I'd hope there was dessert at least. And chips.

**Bah, just posted a pic, then thought i may not be very good for looking at in teh office....**

For £250k I'd expect him to be the table.

Like James Hetfield.

Worst.Escort.Ever.

The happy finish is another hundred grand, and isn't particularly happy. More 'slightly tedious, and involves tears of despair'

I can't see a massive problem with a large party donor meeting the party leader for dinner. That's a pretty logical expectation, and isn't remotely surprising. If Dave does that in his own time, in his own private apartment, then there's fuck all justification for all this flapping by labour. Typical attempt to create a political storm from a teacup, and tiresome.

If the number of private donor dinners that have ever been held at Number 10. amounts to a whole FOUR, that's pathetically inconclusive, and I'm more surprised that Cameron hasn't met with them more regularly in his role of leader of the Conservatives.

Given the accusations of the PM's misconduct are unfounded, and anyone has yet to produce even a sniff of evidence that 'X gave donation. X submitted desire for policy. Policy became practice', then this is all speculative bullshit, hanging on the foolish words of a co-treasurer recorded in secret. Having looked at that video, I'm not massively shocked that donating a shitload of money will put you in the same room as David Cameron at a dinner, and that at such a dinner, you can speak to him as an individual. ZOMG! Telling potential donors their opinions will be 'fed back' to a policy committee isn't exactly an explicit offer of 'cash for policy'. It actually sounds like a pretty shit deal - you get to go to a dinner, you can 'pick up' some information, have a chat with Dave, and they'll write down whatever your 'problem' is on the promise that someone will look at it. Nowhere is there a concrete assurance that a donation will result in a nepotistic policy change.

Naturally, we're seeing cut excerpts from the video which, when combined with a sensational headline, tell a very leading story. I'd like to see the full unexpurgated version of the same so I can form my own opinion on the fullness of the conversation.

I mean, for fucks sake, the trade unions are Labour's major funding source and Miliband is their gurning puppet boy. Are we to be surprised that significant party supporters will be able to feed in their opinion to the party? This is an utter non-story, and will continue to be so until credible evidence of actual misconduct is provided.

Maybe he fires sprouts into your mouth like a Thai ping-pong show.

I think the timing of this is somewhat amusing.

Revenge of the Murdoch, innit.

If the select committee didn't make Murdoch look like an evil fuck, his own spiteful and idiotic tweets since have done that.

You know that £5 you owe me, make is $10 and donate to that

Done.

[edit] Oh wait, "This project page is not live."

Given he's a man, he's an incubus?

Yeah, he's an incubus lizard. Just look at his eyes FFS.



Don't look at the eyes!

That Kickstarter page would work better if it was done on behalf of David Cameron.

£1000. I will personally shake your hand
£1500. I will smile while shaking your hand
£5000. You will get a cup of tea
£6000. You will get a biscuit with your tea
.
.
.
£250,000. I will pretend to listen to the policy amendments you'd like us to make.

Pretty much

Also, Cameron may be a slippery fish, but fuck me, compared to "Teflon Tony" and all the appalling things that went on at No.10 during his tenure...? That guy drips pure evil, as did his whole entourage in my opinion. "Zounds, the ironing" etc. spring very much to mind.

Did I read somewhere that dinner with Nick Clegg only costs £10k? Hehs.

I'm kinda assuming Nick Clegg pays you to sit with him at dinner.

It's not like these dinners were a big secret before - I've read about them from all parties for years. Stump up some cash, a Minister will shake your hand and chuckle at your jokes and make you feel important and then instantly forget you. Clearly there needs to be a proper separation between entertaining as a state function and party fundraising, but as long as that's gone on I think it's fine. I'd sincerely hope that it takes far more cash to influence a British Government than the sums we're talking about. You couldn't bribe a Nigerian customs officer for £20k.

Its never going to be clean for any party.

None of these donations come without stings.

The only real solution is to have a cival type list where they all get the same to run things. No doubt people who moan at that as well

250K would get you a lot of C-Z list people to do your bidding, so he is a bit expensive.

Two words: "Bernie Ecclestone"

People are paying DC to dress up like a Nazi at 'private' parties?

That wasn't Bernie Ecclestone.

Balls, you're right. Confusing one mental F1 mogul with another.

FWIW, although you can take it as read that Cameron is evil, despicable, clearly selling his integrity to the highest bidder, just like he is selling our NHS, roads and trees.

Ultimately, this whole circus is because party membership has slumped. I saw some figures, 50 years ago 3m were members of the Conservative Party, now they are down at 120,000. Labour have nose-dived similarly spectacularly - although oddly they have more members than the Tories. Hell, many of the Tory MPs you will have heard of aren't paid up members of the Party. Neil Hamilton wasn't, Alan Clarke wasn't. Pretty sure Heseltine wasn't until he fought Thatcher for the leadership.

So they have to get money from somewhere. Obviously reconnecting with the grassroots is out of the question, as that would involve listening to ordinary people and no modern day politician cares about them. The Conservatives are pretty much bankrolled by Lord Ashcroft. Labour are flat stony broke - remember when Brown backed out of calling an election in about 2007 (I think)? He couldn't fight an election, they just didn't have the money as the Party was near bankrupt (I'll talk to my mate, who found some interesting stuff aout how they were paying for Millbank). Same after 2010, the bank balances for Labour and the Lib Dems were wiped out, the financiers behind Cameron were furious he couldn't win an election outright and unwilling to put up another £20m to fight, so a hung Parliament and six month later election was unpalatable to all three sides. This is partly why the Coalition won't break up before 2015, they are staying together for the sake of the kids money.

Again, off the top of my head, Cameron in fact charges quite a high price. IIRC, Obama received $260,000 from his highest individual donor - Goldman Sachs. At current exchange rates, buying a President is quite a bargain in comparison.

Well that's some well thought-out wibbledy-woo there. I should try to reply if I get some time later, but I might also just groan inwardly and do something else

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/_ ... report.pdf

Page 11 is a doozy. In 2010, Labour spent less than half of what it spent in 2005 on a much closer election.

Leaving aside the obvious, fundamental disagreement here, I'm just genuinely interested Pliss.

You're obviously a committed left winger who hates the Tories; entirely fair enough as far as I'm concerned. However, how do you reconcile the fact that Labour - indisputably and beyond any doubt whatsoever - did such immeasurable harm to this country and its people? The gap between rich and poor widened enormously; 'we' engaged in illegal wars, parliament misled, hundreds of thousands dead, the 'dodgy dossier', erosion of libertarian values/ID cards and all the rest, total failure to regulate the banks/City leading to a bankrupting of the nation, annihilation of manufacturing sector, rise of the public sector unions and all the increased costs to the public purse and demonstrable, independently verified falling standards in education, record youth unemployment ... it just goes on. Surely someone like you would be far *more* concerned about the betrayal of genuine Labour supporters and all that you believe in, rather than going on about the Tories all the time, who are at least making half a fist of sorting out the unprecedented mess that Labour bequeathed the nation? I genuinely do not understand.

All parties seem more palatable when they're not in power

I don't know any actual socialists personally, but I bet they hated New Labour just as much as they do the Tories.

Blair always seemed like a guy that would've been a tory if given a shot at a nice home counties seat. As it was he was shipped up to the North East and had a whippet polishing kit thrust upon him and had to cope. Poor lad.

Most Labour supporters I know are much more left-wing than the parliamentary party. Probably in part due to me being oop north, and in part because they're all trade unionists too.

It's exactly the same here in the south. The collective feeling since 2001 is that we've had our party stolen by a load of soft Tories with red rosettes.

The problem is though, they'd never be elected if they presented the face of their grass roots support as their public face, in the same way the Tories wouldn't.

I know. Bastards.

Except I'm only Left wing in the way that every party has shifted to the Right. New Labour (which I never fell for) are to the Right, obviously the Conservatives are. My only Labour vote came in the 1992 GE. (Since then, LD as the MP, Andrew Stunnell, was a remarkably decent chap who voted against the Iraq War, ID cards etc. In 2010, we were boundary shifted and the MP is Ann Coffey, one of the New Labour robots. I didn't vote, no point against a 17,000 majority, though any regret at not being able to vote for Stunnell was softened when he became one of the architects of the coalition...) I'd happily punch Ed Miliband in the cock if I ever met him, a man who has the air of someone who thinks politics is some kind of intellectual puzzle that can be solved and game that can be played. I walked out of a room when it was due to be visited by Patricia Hewitt - I believe my parting words were "I don't think you'll want me to say something to her that I'm not going to regret."

I suppose I'm closest to the old idea of a Social Democrat. I'm certainly not Left - after all, I believe in free markets, own my own business, have taken precisely three weeks of unemployment benefits in my life (despite being brought up by a single parent on a council estate back when it wasn't a lifestyle choice). I just believe in a strong social safety net, the NHS, the BBC, Royal Mail, a strong public sector that provides services. The very things that kept the community I grew up in which - although I didn't know it at the time - was among the poorest in the land.

Ally this to a strong contrarian streak (I live by Bill Hicks idea that "the comic is the one who says 'hang on a minute' as the consensus forms) which means I have no tolerance for people pissing on my back and telling me its raining. And a deeply humanist outlook. We all die, so can we just spend some time not fucking each other over for a few quid?

The reason I react so violently against the Tories, they are yet again kicking those who can least afford it for no good outcome apart from ideology and handy demonisation. Meanwhile the wealthier middle classes are spongers and scroungers in a way that would make your average benefit claimant blanch. Cash in hand jobs, playing the address game to get into good schools, complaining from the retirement home on the Costa Del Sol that "Britain has gone to the dogs" yet flying back to get treated for free on the NHS. They get worse than tolerated, they get indulged. If you want waste in public services, look at the wealthy suburbs and not the poorest, which in my experience has people battling and succeeding against the odds while the wealthier places play the system for grants and equipment. (Mrs P's uncle was a Head and his school had stuff like laser cutters and was kitted out with brand new Macs every other year. His wife was also a Head of a primary school. Their daughter went to University and had her fees paid from the University hardship fund.)

Cameron and Osborne were born with silver spoons in their mouths, had expensive educations and were bred for a role in Government that they almost failed to actually get despite every possible advantage going. Yet they have the bloody cheek to tell me that people should work hard and play by the rules - while pulling up the ladder behind them. They haven't had to work a proper day in their life. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how David Cameron can have his son treated and given the best of care on the NHS and then for him to break that very institution up. I just can't get my head around someone benefiting like that and then consciously taking it away from others. I just can't.

And before you say it, I don't envy the rich. The rich being the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, James Dyson. People who are massively wealthy from building businesses and companies. Lot of time for them. I intend to have quite a comfortable retirement, thank you. The City can get fucked. Shares and pension funds good, day trading bad. Investing real money into real businesses, excellent, shuffling fake money around computer systems, bad.


TL, DR: Not a Lefty, it is the rest of the world that is wrong.

I agree with pretty much all of that, and i'd class myself as more right wing than average.

I think, once you take politics out of it and talk about people, everyone is closer aligned than the parties (and press) would like us to believe,

*begins applause*

Big round of applause for Plisskin.

(Also, the following basically sums up my politically ideals to the letter. I am a social democrat, not a socialist.)

While I won't attempt to comment fully on your post Plisk, my major thought is that your sweeping generalisations about the actions and attitudes of your perceived 'middle class', are about as justifiable as the opinion that all working class people are thick chavs that wear burberry caps and have a penchant for casual thievery. The fact you consider this nebulous middle to be unjustifiably better off than others makes the generalisation no less invalid. I find your inability to objectify your view, just a tad, a shame because it detracts from what is otherwise an articulate bit of commentary.

The average person, I think, who pays no attention to politics (I reckon about 10% of the 65% who actually voted pay attention to daily Westminster shenanigans), wouldn't know how to classify themselves as a social class even if such self-classifications were meaningful.

I will not repeat the general point of agreement that everything seems broken and we're all going to the dogs, except that it is my firm belief that if we were in our 15th year of Labour, we'd be so utterly fuckity fucked it would make the grievances about the encumbent Tories seem trivial by comparison.

I think it is unjustifiable because as I said, the middle is massively self-centred and indulged. A bunch of cry-babies, spending £500 on birthday presents and then blaming people for their own lack of budget and self-restraint. They are in a position to play the system best of all, with the handy help of having the Mail and Express either egging them on or terrifying them - look at the poor people, you don't want to end up like them do you? And those filthy immigrants, coming over here.. despite there being more Brits heading abroad, but by Christ they fly home when they need hospital treatment or a prescription. They get the chance of cheap second homes for buy to let purposes, it wasn't someone on JSA getting second mortgages. They bitch about electricity costs and then protest against power stations and wind farms. They bitch about packed trains but God forbid HS2 comes through the Cotswolds.

Yes I am being a bit stereotypical, but considering they have been kicking the less well off for a short while I'm trying to bring a bit of balance to the Force.

Meanwhile the election boils down to about 50 seats out of 600. The other constituencies don't matter, voting for donkeys with the right coloured rosette. Fuck it, just fight the election in Basildon and save us all the time and bother.



The NHS reforms wouldn't have happened. The benefits changes wouldn't have singled out the disabled - I'm not dumb enough to think there are enough cheap votes in kicking the claimants and Labour did introduce ATOS to the system after all. Aside from that, you're right. Tuition fees would have gone up. Banks still left to roam free (to avoid the idea of culpability rather than because they are the politicians mates), Sky would still have gone to Murdoch.

Parties run out of ideas in their third term. The problem is, the Tories didn't come up with new ones during their time in the wilderness, and Robot Ed isn't bothering either, preferring to wait for the coalition to implode.

Well, I'm all cheery and ready for bed, now.

I'd be pissed off if HS2 was going through the Cotswolds, as that'd totally fuck London to Birmingham journey times.

I was on a roll.

Citation needed.

Truly an excellent post there Pliss, many thanks. This is what Beex is all about for me, though I very much enjoy all the banter and larking about as well of course.

I'll need to consider my thoughts and reply at length, but I just wanted to register my thanks - and tip my hat.

Sub-title made me snort with amusement, thanks Trooper.

So, if you were Mr. Rich, who would you pay £250k to have dinner with?

Perhaps Steve Guttenberg. Because everybody would be utterly baffled, including him. And then the Hollywood machine would get all confused and cast him as the lead in the next Transformers film.

Fantastic couple of posts Plissken.

Respect is due