Mind the culture gap

Paul Maynard

What we don't need are new ideas. We need a central message to reduce the share of the state. New ideas are what got us into the mess we are now or at least the belief of New Liebour that if they said something was true, it was.

Paul

SUSAN HILL

They don`t need anywhere else. They should all come here for their ideas. We are their Think Tank.

The Bellman

WTF? 'Ideas infrastructure'? 'Intellectual space'? This sort of buzzword bullsh1t would be irrelevant if our politicians had principles, beliefs, values. Not even necessarily the right ones, but ones they arrived at of their own volition and thought - or, even better, experience of how the world actually works - instead of having them handed to them by think-tanks and focus groups or derived from PR-driven triangulation exercises.

Obviously in a coalition it's going to be harder to achieve unity of thought and effort, but if the two sides weren't forced by the straight-jacket banality of public discourse to have to second-guess the others' *actual* ideas, beliefs etc, it would be a damned sight easier.

Rhoda Klapp

Look, I am not about to read Finkelstein after the last few disappointments, but the chances of anything he ever wrote being of any significance to anybody outside his immediate circle of acquaintance is so small that I am sure the first sentence of this post is going to look pretty stupid even to the writer in the light of day and a thoughtful re-read.

It really is time the bloggers here bucked their bloody ideas up. This is just westminster gossip. Mere fluff. Village idiocy. It is about time you all stopped watching for the auguries when some twerp from the coalition scratches his nose and paid some attention to what is happening in the real world. Why no euro stories? What about Thailand? What about censorship of the Koran on the EDL website? Get a bloody grip.

TrevorsDen

Not read Finks article but I do not see where any of this makes sense.

BTW - the LD tax cut is in effect a Tory one. We can be grateful for the LDs for paving the way for the tories who would have been universally rubbished if they had suggested it.

There are very few tories indeed who will disagree with raising tax allowances. The tragedy of the current huge debt mountain is that real tax cutting is almost impossible - but we must not lose sight of the fact that if we want to encourage real growth real entrepreneurship real job creating and real transfers off benefits into work, then we need to lower all personal taxation.

denis cooper

Oh, so members of the anti-patriotic, anti-democratic, deceitful, corrupt, degenerate, self-seeking and incompetent Tory political gang should get to know members of the anti-patriotic, anti-democratic, deceitful, corrupt, degenerate, self-seeking and incompetent Liberal Democrat political gang.

Presumably with a view to some process of ever closer union of the two gangs, leading to the formation of a fully integrated single, "new", anti-patriotic, anti-democratic, deceitful, corrupt, degenerate, self-seeking and incompetent political gang.

Why stop there? Rather than still having two main gangs - "The Coalition Party", and "The Labour Party" - why not merge all three main political gangs into just one anti-patriotic, anti-democratic, deceitful, corrupt, degenerate, self-seeking and incompetent political gang, "The Party"?

Forming a proper monopoly out of the present triopolistic cartel would make it much easier to snuff out any unwelcome competition from new entrants to the political market place - and let's face it, any competition from new market entrants is unwelcome and should be suppressed by all possible means.

As Harman said yesterday:

"Finally, we in this House have our differences, but I think we are united in being very pleased and relieved that nowhere on these green Benches is there a member of the British National party."

Although of course during the election campaign "we" were also united in yakking on endlessly about "Britain" and "the national interest" as if "we" actually meant it.

Don't mind the rest of us, the 99% plus of the adult citizens who won't demean ourselves by getting involved with any of these three anti-patriotic, anti-democratic, deceitful, corrupt, degenerate, self-seeking and incompetent political gangs while they're still separate, and will find them no more attractive if they merge into two gangs or into a single gang.

Steven

They have plenty to get done without thinking of new ideas...

Grow Up Get Real

As PJ O'Rourke pointed out (to paraphrase); the last thing anyone needs is politicans to have big ideas. After all, under what circumstances do you use the phrase "hey what's the big idea?"

Ben G

"Danny Finkelstein’s column this morning is one of the most important things to have been written since the coalition was formed."

Enough! This blog is too often a platform for literary fellatio.

Verity

Could you give us a link for the EDL website, please, Rhoda K? I'm afraid I don't know what EDL stands for, and when I go to EDL.com nothing comes up.

As for Thailand, frankly, who cares? This is not a nice country ... .

Simon Stephenson

Steven : 12.51pm

"They have plenty to get done without thinking of new ideas..."

Yes, true, but what the mainstream really expects of them is to continue to cram the political arena full of the inconsequential verbiage that is the public's displacement activity exempting them from having to engage in politics. Not until the public has been reacquainted with the fact that politics is what grown-ups do, and that we all have to become grown-ups eventually, will we be able as a society to recommence the journey of advancement that the last twenty years' deviation into managerialism has put on ice.

Snowman

Rhoda @ 12.09 has it just right, all this speculative gossiping of the scribbling tribe amounts to a tsunami in an ant’s tea cup. So insular, so inward looking, so marginal. When the middle classes get hit, and those on the transfer payment suffer a cut in their entitlements, Danny’s ranting about ideas infrastructure will be as relevant as the rest of the pap.

Rhoda Klapp

Verity. englishdefenceleague dot org is the place, but a google of 'edl website' will tell the story. Basically they are an unsavoury bunch, apparently, but in quoting the Koran on their website were accused of race hate and the site was taken down. It's a free speech issue, to do with whether we allow free speech only to those who are not offensive. Free speech is only worth debating when it is something you do not support. In this case though the offensive speech purports to be directly quoted from the Koran. What could possibly be wrong with the religion of peace?

Naomi Muse

I don't know why so many journalists revere Danny Finklestein. He's a nice little character and comes over well when interviewed by the Supreme Being Andrew Neil. But that's damning with feint praise.

He has stood for parliament twice and not got in. That surely says something is wrong in his judgement? Wrong party, wrong constituency, wrong message, wrong person for the job?!

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

EDL. stands for English Defence League. It is considered by the establishment as unsavoury. Not that the EDL has suicide squads, nor has it blown up buses, trains nor flown planes into skyscrapers. If it was called the MDL, 'M' standing for Muslim, it would possibly receive government, or at the very least local government financial help, and if anybody dared to call them "unsavoury" they would find themselves prosecuted for discrimination. That dreadful little oik lawyer who takes it upon herself to defend enemies of this country would scream blue murder and scuttle off to Amnesty International in their defence. EDL is filled with Englishmen, so obviously it is a hateful, exclusive organisation which doesn't support multiculturalism. Far better, support the Black Police Association, although if a white copper wanted to join, he would have to declare that he was an albino black!

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

The last posting was at 5:41 and it is now 23:24. Have the moderators gone on strike?