For all those who appreciate political humour it must be a pleasure to see Labour's Stephen Pound returned to Parliament. His summary of the new coalition was suitably incisive; "the Lib-Dems are like vegetarians who've just got jobs at McDonalds."
This political marriage is the strangest and most unwieldy alliance since Heston Blumenthal joined up with Delia Smith. There will be sprinklings of Lib-Dem Ministers throughout Whitehall but only Vince Cable landed a heavyweight role as SoS for Business and Banks. The rest will have to act like civil servants, accepting highly unpalatable policies with the expectation they will be implemented with gusto.
A looser arrangement of supporting individual votes would have allowed both parties to retain political coherence. But this is not just a compromise, it amounts to a collapse in integrity.
If (and it is 20-storey high 'if') Labour can emerge united after the election of David Milliband as party leader, then they can establish themselves as the party of principle. What an amazing political turnaround. There is a fair chance unity can be achieved as the Brownite-Blairite schism becomes effectively obsolete although Ed Balls only really does tribalism.
Cameron has been canny in deluding Lib-Dems of the sense of ‘sharing’ power in that it buys him probably at least an additional 12 months as PM. When it falls apart he can continue on a minority basis for a little longer. So reports of this Parliament’s demise are certainly premature. I’d give it a couple of years at least.
A looser arrangement of supporting individual votes would have allowed both parties to retain political coherence. But this is not just a compromise, it amounts to a collapse in integrity.
If (and it is 20-storey high 'if') Labour can emerge united after the election of David Milliband as party leader, then they can establish themselves as the party of principle. What an amazing political turnaround. There is a fair chance unity can be achieved as the Brownite-Blairite schism becomes effectively obsolete although Ed Balls only really does tribalism.
Cameron has been canny in deluding Lib-Dems of the sense of ‘sharing’ power in that it buys him probably at least an additional 12 months as PM. When it falls apart he can continue on a minority basis for a little longer. So reports of this Parliament’s demise are certainly premature. I’d give it a couple of years at least.
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Sky News have maintained a fair level of impartiality through the election, scrupulously so given the crude insulting remarks of one Murdoch’s other organs, the Sun (on Monday they called Lib-Dems ‘Shysters’ and Brown ‘a Scottish idiot’.)
Kay Burley’s acid-in-the-face attack on a rather meek electoral reform activist was peculiar and disturbing. She was so aggressive she appeared to be in an audition for Fox news.
But that little spat was as nothing compared to the Hagler/Hearns like encounter between Sky’s Adam Boulton and Alistair Campbell. As a sporting contest Campbell won on points - Boulton looks like he wants to lamp him, breathing heavily and brooding like a grumpy gorilla. Alistair dances around coolly telling him to calm down. And Campbell get the last word, “Adam, you’re a pompous little arse.”
What is yet to be explained is why Sky’s political analyst is being interviewed as if he were a Conservative spokesman. A line was certainly crossed - after an exhausting post election period I hope it was more cock-up then conspiracy. We don’t do political TV news in this country. If anyone tries, this will be the result.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdidz_48fGI&feature=related
Sky News have maintained a fair level of impartiality through the election, scrupulously so given the crude insulting remarks of one Murdoch’s other organs, the Sun (on Monday they called Lib-Dems ‘Shysters’ and Brown ‘a Scottish idiot’.)
Kay Burley’s acid-in-the-face attack on a rather meek electoral reform activist was peculiar and disturbing. She was so aggressive she appeared to be in an audition for Fox news.
But that little spat was as nothing compared to the Hagler/Hearns like encounter between Sky’s Adam Boulton and Alistair Campbell. As a sporting contest Campbell won on points - Boulton looks like he wants to lamp him, breathing heavily and brooding like a grumpy gorilla. Alistair dances around coolly telling him to calm down. And Campbell get the last word, “Adam, you’re a pompous little arse.”
What is yet to be explained is why Sky’s political analyst is being interviewed as if he were a Conservative spokesman. A line was certainly crossed - after an exhausting post election period I hope it was more cock-up then conspiracy. We don’t do political TV news in this country. If anyone tries, this will be the result.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdidz_48fGI&feature=related
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