More good news for the Tories

Inamicus

But deep in your heart do you really believe George Osborne is going to do a better job?

Diana

The difference is George Osborne is a Tory, and Tories don't instinctively want to create or prop up 'feel good' (as opposed to necessary) public sector projects. Why only last week, in an almost throw away line, the Today programme mentioned that millions of pounds were going on a project to encourage kids to dance in school.
In times of economic crisis, and poor literacy, you'd think this was hardly necessary spending. Can you honestly imagine GO sanctioning money to be spent like that???

Alex

Inamicus -

Perhaps you can elaborate for us on your comprehensive remark?

However, to answer your question, I think most of us can answer that with an emphatic 'yes'.

Oscar Miller

Inamicus - yes.

Oscar Miller

Diana - I heard the Today piece on dance. What amazed me is that tax payers already support an organisation to fund and develop dance - it's called the Arts Council, which alerady supports loads of dance initiatives in schools and community arts bodies all over the country. I was amazed that no-one mentioned this simple fact. The wasted money spent on duplication of services by this ill informed government is simply staggering.

Tim For Change

In light of the impending Local Elections, I'm wondering how this national lead might translate into local results. I wonder whether this lead would produce a record breaking result. Can anyone recommend a good site to look for comparative data for historical local elections, or does anyone know how this compares? I seem to remember John Snow having a chart like this when he covered the last local elections, but I can't find anything remotely similar on the web, not even on the BBC.
Thanks for any pointers.

Hereford

Ah Oscar, but the Arts Council is only interested in supporting "innovative, cutting edge dance, with particular reference to radical (Leftist - of course) political imagery and climate change" (of course). Quentin Letts did a great programme on them on Tuesday "what's the point of..."

Nicholas

Emphatically yes. The dance business is just more evidence of a very silly government trying desperately to win over particular voting groups so that they can survive the next election and stay in power rather than properly tackling the many problems of this country. It has become "government by election campaign" and the frantic changes to the spin cycle in the No.10 whitewashing machine just reflect that.

Despite the Cameronian success story I noted with dismay that the Daily Politics today attempted to play this down and presented a nice line in pro-Brown propaganda by wheeling on the Nurse of the Year to tell us that everything in the NHS was wonderful and guesting two journos who were less than equivocal about Cameron's success.

cityboozer

Tim for Change - the site people seem to like is called "Electoral Calculus", at http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/.

Oscar Miller

Tim for Change - Political Betting (politicalbetting.com) is a mine of this kind of information. I suggest you start there.

Nick Kaplan

Diana; speaking of waste have you noticed how much government funded advertising there is about things that are startlingly obvious to anyone with more than half a brain cell. Just listen to the radio for 5 minutes and you will hear adverts about how too much drink is bad for you, how the NHS can measure how addicted to cigarettes you are, how you can help police catch terrorists by reporting strange behaviour of others. Just the other day, whilst listening to LBC I counted 6 separate government advertising campaigns on various issues in half an hour (they only have adverts every 15 minutes!) can you imagine how much that costs? As if constant nannying wasn’t bad enough, now they have to waste our taxes to pay for it too!

David Lindsay

How many people said that they weren't going to vote?

And Cameron has been spared a by-election for far too long. Luck that that can't last for ever.

Oscar Miller

Nicholas - Something has happened to the DP. I used to enjoy it, but lately it seems to have been clobbered by the dark forces of McLabour. I suspect the BBC hierarchy have decided Andrew Neil needs a strong editorial 'minder' to prevent the kind of free and open airing of all shades of political opinion that used to characterise the programme. Now Neil is kept on a very tight rein, able only to make a few caustic asides.

Diana

Nick - you are right.
But it's not just the government taking over this thinking/deciding for ourselves. This nannying has taken root everywhere - we buy Sat navs for cars; South West trains tell me to watch my bag, or inform a member of staff if I see anything suspicious (at least at every stop); signs all over the place telling me to be nice (or else) to members of staff who are doing their job etc etc.
Can we not think for ourselves, decide our own norms of behaviour AND be responsible for them? Or have we got to the point where human behaviour is so pathetic that we depend on the authorities to tell us what the norm should be?

PS I chose to drink a glass of wine most days throughout my four pregnancies. (No harm done.)

Nicholas

Oscar - I have noticed that too. It's as though someone has had words with Neil and the programme has been "adjusted" to take the heat off the New Labour experiment. The same with This Week - it has lost its teeth. Looks like the last bastion of impartial reporting in the BBC has just fallen to McSauron.

"One Beeb to rule them all, One Beeb to find them, One Beeb to bring them all and in their ignorance bind them".