Thursday, May 13, 2010

I Predict A Riot

Whilst I enjoyed Cameron and Clegg's reenactment of Brokeback Mountain yesterday, it seems that some people aren't entirely happy with the new government.

This tantrum is the pick of the bunch:
You can't 'rebuild the family'. The nuclear heterosexual family, that fragile unit of industrial capitalist economy, has been broken for a generation as people realise that they don't have to chain themselves to each other in order to survive. You can't cram that back in its box, no matter how many women you try to persuade that they'll be better off wedded to their sinks, no matter how many children you shame for having divorced parents, no matter how coldly you judge or how hard you slice at people's earnings. Times are hard already. They won't stand for it.
......

You can't stop the cities. You can't stop the internet fracturing everything that was solid and safe about the priggish culture that made you. You can't stop the riot that's brewing as people in Britain realise that they have been cheated, time and time again, by a system stuffed with people who hate them and want to put them into boxes and make them do what they're told.
It's stuff like this that makes the election result so worthwhile.

via Laban

Incidentally I have to say that I'm mystified at the Lib Dem supporters who are outraged at the very prospect of a pact with the Conservatives. If the only acceptable role that the Lib Dems could play was that of allies to Labour then why bother existing as a separate party in the first place? Without the option of dealing with either larger party the Lib Dems would have no purpose.

9 comments:

JuliaM said...

What a silly child she is! She's just provided people with lots of juicy quotes to hurl at her on her next 'CiF' column...

sobers said...

Its interesting to see the LDs finally under the spotlight a bit. All those internal contradictions that meant they could be all things to all men, Tory-lite in the South, and Labour-lite in the North, while being terribly 'local' everywhere, are now coming to the fore.

And its obvious that there was a large section of the grassroots LibDem party that were just exiles from Labour. Couldn't face the 'red in tooth and claw' tribalism of Labour, but pretty much agreed with the 'progressive' agenda.

My money is on the coalition falling because of LD internal wrangling. The MPs will probably relish some power and influence, and realise (being sensible people, and having personal experience of the Tories) that the Tories are not baby eating benefit slashing monsters. The rank and file will cause massive rows as the first pet projects get canned under the cuts that will inevitably come.

I'll give it 18 months to 2 years before the knives are out. Autumn conference season 2011 onwards I reckon it'll start in earnest.

James Higham said...

If the only acceptable role that the Lib Dems could play was that of allies to Labour then why bother existing as a separate party in the first place?

Precisely.

banned said...

The Libdems have always been a refuge not only for feint hearted socialists but also for softy conservatives.
Anyway UC, thanks for the link to a funny 'progresive' blog, made oi larf.

Anonymous said...

The fundamental contradiction at the heart of any socialist is that they want to be both anti-establishment and an interventionist provider of entitlements. They do not understand that you cannot have both. That's why every pure socialist like Penny Red simultaneously support the Labour Party yet regard it as a sell out of socialist principles.

Matthew said...

My favourite comment on the nuclear family was Joan Collins' praise for it, election night, on board Andrew Neil's sinking BBC ship.

Ross said...

Joan Collins can be knocked on family values, she is so supportive of marriage that she's done it 5 times!

The worse part of Andrew Neil interviewing Joan Collins was that they cut short a genuinely interesting discussion with David Starkey and Simon Schama in order to get her opinion.

Unknown said...

"Incidentally I have to say that I'm mystified at the Lib Dem supporters who are outraged at the very prospect of a pact with the Conservatives. If the only acceptable role that the Lib Dems could play was that of allies to Labour then why bother existing as a separate party in the first place? Without the option of dealing with either larger party the Lib Dems would have no purpose."

Yeah, I don't get that either. This was the best result for the LDs since Llloyd George kew my Great Grandad. No pleasing some people.

Ross said...

Indeed, you'd have thought that a Conservative government constrained by the Lib Dems would be a dream result.