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Old clip, I know... but I thought our Yankee friends might enjoy this:




Unfortunately his memory capacity can only fit one statement in there...


The reporter wrote a blog post on the subject:
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/bfensm

I'd say that I wish he'd just out and out said 'Are you on loop?' or 'Yes, yes, enough catchy slogans.' Or hell.. just ask him to answer the darn question.

But as he says, apparently there's a lot of 'etiquette' involved.

...OMG. he IS a robot!








who is he?

The leader of the Labour Party, the main opposition.

Won the Labour leadership election by the slimmest of margins (less than a percent I think). His closest contender was actually his brother... who was born with actual charisma.

How the hell did he manage to become labour leader?

Is labour the same party Blair is in?

AustonT wrote:Is labour the same party Blair is in?

*was
And yes.

Was in, yes. They were the last government.

Henners91 wrote:The leader of the Labour Party, the main opposition.

Won the Labour leadership election by the slimmest of margins (less than a percent I think). His closest contender was actually his brother... who was born with actual charisma.

I liked his brother much more...

Unfortunately I voted for Ed o.O I had yet to finish that wonderful adolescent 'wavy gravy' period.

But I shan't blame myself... the Unions get something like a 1/3rd chunk of the vote, don't they?

Edit:

The Guardian tells me that Unions control 50% of the votes! No doubt David was the choice of the party rank and file then...

I know Blair is no longer an MP but does that really mean hes not a part of the party anymore?
And if this man leads the Opposition....the Opposition is doomed.

Henners91 wrote:Unfortunately I voted for Ed o.O I had yet to finish that wonderful adolescent 'wavy gravy' period.

But I shan't blame myself... the Unions get something like a 1/3rd chunk of the vote, don't they?

Edit:

The Guardian tells me that Unions control 50% of the votes! No doubt David was the choice of the party rank and file then...

YEah there was a lot of people annoyed that it was essentially him promising stuff to the Unions to get into power in the party.

AustonT wrote:I know Blair is no longer an MP but does that really mean hes not a part of the party anymore?
And if this man leads the Opposition....the Opposition is doomed.

Technically no, he is still a member of the party in that sense.

AustonT wrote:I know Blair is no longer an MP but does that really mean hes not a part of the party anymore?
And if this man leads the Opposition....the Opposition is doomed.

The opposition is actually ahead in the polls. That's how bad our government are.
I can't see anything good happening politically in this country unless Vince Cable, Will Hutton and Kenneth Clarke all team up to make a super-group of competent politicians.

purplefood wrote:How the hell did he manage to become labour leader?

Trade Union influence, the party membership wanted his brother. David Milliband was not quite as left wing, so the TUC decided it was time to go back to hard left roots. Ed Milliband is as close to the old left as the rest of the party would allow them to go.

I am not complaining, almost anything that reduces Labours chances of election is a good thing IMHO.

Joey wrote:

AustonT wrote:I know Blair is no longer an MP but does that really mean hes not a part of the party anymore?
And if this man leads the Opposition....the Opposition is doomed.

The opposition is actually ahead in the polls. That's how bad our government are.
I can't see anything good happening politically in this country unless Vince Cable, Will Hutton and Kenneth Clarke all team up to make a super-group of competent politicians.

not being particularly well versed in Brit politics but having seen your work in other threads I'm inclined to believe that would be terrible for your country(ies)

Orlanth wrote:

purplefood wrote:How the hell did he manage to become labour leader?

Trade Union influence, the party membership wanted his brother. David Milliband was not quite as left wing, so the TUC decided it was time to go back to hard left roots. Ed Milliband is as close to the old left as the rest of the party would allow them to go.

I am not complaining, almost anything that reduces Labours chances of election is a good thing IMHO.

No. The Unions voted slightly in favour of him and MPs voted slightly against.
Ed Milliband is as anti-trade union as Blair and Brown.
Unless you're genuinely suggesting Ed Milliband is the uncompromising voice of the working man..

Joey wrote:

AustonT wrote:I know Blair is no longer an MP but does that really mean hes not a part of the party anymore?
And if this man leads the Opposition....the Opposition is doomed.

The opposition is actually ahead in the polls. That's how bad our government are.

They can't be... are the public really so gullible to fall for a guy who spends the entirety of his time in the limelight slagging off anything the government do? Partisan politics is SO boring: you can guess what the opposition statement to any government initiative is going to be... At any rate, Ed doing what he does best:


Aren't schoolboy antics on the playground FUN? No difference from what they do at the end to yelling 'BOOOOOOOOOOOID BRUV!'

At any rate, I can't stand him personally... I just feel that when he's not chipping away at a government that has a job to do he's promising the British public everything and anything they could possibly dream for without accounting where the money's going to come from; if he follows through, that would be the attitude that earned us this deficit... if he doesn't then he's just another cynical politician exploiting peoples' base wants for personal gain.

Right before David Cameron sat down I was thinking to myself "Owned"....then the video ended and I saw the title.

I think the time has come for virtual democracy.

MPs get selected by qualified lottery (you have to have decent academic or professional qualifications) from each constituancy to stand against the last elected MP. Each MP must vote on legislation according to what their constituants vote for on their secure web site.

MPs retain powers in comitee; to propose/modify legislation; and as ministers if they are selected by other MPs.

Screw the party political system, you have to vote for the least repugnant manifesto and not the most desirable candidate.

'Blackbusters' lol

Every time I hear someone referred to as a robot i think of this.

When i see Ed Milliband on TV he always looks like a rabbit in the path of a truck with its headlights on

People keep bashing Ed Milliband for not being very good yet but there won't be a general election for two or three years.

He doesn't have to be good now. He has to be good for about six months leading up to the election.

You can always tell when parties don't want to win an election because they always select crap leaders.

I give you:
Neil Kinnock (arguably good but got no respect from the electorate).
John Major (Charisma of a monotone accountant) even though he did win one election.
William Hague (The shiny and Vague)
Ian Duncan Smith (who? ...Exactly) Boris Johnson would have been better because at least people would recognise him.
Michael Howard (The Vampire Count)
Gordon Brown (The Scottish Miser)
And now Ed Milliband (The Robot Rabit)

Labour got a great deal: Rack up the public expenses giving everyone and their dog what they wanted, then get voted out in time for the Coalition to have to pick up the pieces. Austerity makes the entitled public indignant and they'll punish the Conservatives for it... then who wins?

Henners91 wrote:Labour got a great deal: Rack up the public expenses giving everyone and their dog what they wanted, then get voted out in time for the Coalition to have to pick up the pieces. Austerity makes the entitled public indignant and they'll punish the Conservatives for it... then who wins?

A few small points:

The global banking crisis and Quantative easing (inflation in a can). Not Labour's fault but it was handled badly by everyone. I will give you the fact that saving Northern Rock was a political decision not an economic one.

Take a look at all the intergovernmet lending that we are told ammounts up to 1.7 trillion euros of UK debt. If you take all that we owe and all that we are owed it works out to 275 billion Euros (less than our annual tax revenue).

Without QE caused by the global banking crisis the UK books were pretty well balanced for a western capitalist economy.

The austerity measures have been put in place because the financial sector forms 30% of our GDP and the rich tories have a strange aversion to taxing the rich bankers they went to thier expensive private schools with.

The austerity measures and inflation have cut the spending power of poor and the middle income earners when we need liquidity in our economy whilst changing taxation on the richest 1/3 of our society by less than 2%. The richest 1/3 will just save less and live the same.

We are not in it together, we are paying to keep the bankers afloat on their luxury tchts sipping pina coladas with the tory elite.

How much were the bailouts? I was under the impression that they formed a minor part of the deficit.

As for the taxing the bankers argument... it's a minefield. The typical counter would be to suggest that the job market for them is, to a great degree, international. London's still competitive as a banking centre and has to look more attractive than, say, Tokyo or New York. When people dedicate their whole waking lives to high-stress jobs, I think relocation isn't a huge sacrifice to them. With regard to the bonuses, well, I trust private companies would like to keep them as low as possible... so I am presuming that the markets worked out those golden goodbyes as the most reasonable option?

I may be betraying a fair amount of ignorance here. I was a Labour member until a few months back when my reasoning for leaving was simply general apathy and an intolerance for the 'high-horsedness' my comrades were exhibiting.

Many hundreds of billions of £.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/nov/12/bank-bailouts-uk-credit-crunch

The National Audit Office report reported on here says between mid 2009 and mid 2011 the peak support was over 1.1 trillion and about 440 billion is still owed with about 610 billion having been paid back.

All those figures are out of date and incomplete but it gives an idea of the scale of the expense.

For US readers, 1 UKP = about $1.60.

Iceland declared a load of bigwigs in their banking system criminally culpable and they are fine.

As for banks going elsewhere:

The LSE is the LSE it can't move.

British corporate law is the gold standard for many international corporate cases.

Most of the banks are truly international anyway but the cost of upping sticks and buggering off from London would be phenominal for them beside where would they go? If they already have offices in NY and Tokyo they are left with France (uppity pain in the arse unions), Germany (high corporate taxes), Switzerland (The police take your car if you sneeze on a Sunday)... ...I could go on but I won't.

And lastly but not leastly "if you are just here to fleece the people of the UK then good fething riddance"

Definition of treason: betraying or subverting your nations security and wellbeing for personal profit.

To me it's simple.

How much of a net contribution have the banks made to the UK economy, and what can we expect in the future?

I'm not talking about institutions but rather individuals here. I'm presuming that it takes a fair amount of resolve and willpower to effectively throw your life away in the city and grey yourself before the age of 40.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ergo, is there an abundance of bankers?


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Still, from what I've read we were still racking up a deficit even in the boom years before the bailout?