Be Excellent To Each Other

This is quite possibly the best story of the election.

UKIP chairman Steve Crowther said in a statement: "As promised Nigel Farage tendered his official resignation as leader of UKIP to the NEC. This offer was unanimously rejected by the NEC members who produced overwhelming evidence that the UKIP membership did not want Nigel to go.

"He has therefore been persuaded by the NEC to withdraw his resignation and remains leader of UKIP," the chairman added.

Nigel Farage is to remain as UKIP leader after the party rejected his resignation.
Mr Farage said he would stand down after failing to win a seat in last week's general election.
But the party said there was "overwhelmingly evidence" the UKIP membership did not want Mr Farage to go.
It said: "He has therefore been persuaded to withdraw his resignation and remains leader of UKIP."

10.44 Nervous times for the BBC

Christopher Hope reports on the new Culture Secretary:

One of the BBC’s biggest critics has been made Culture secretary in a move which will be seen as an effective declaration of war on the Corporation.

John Whittingdale, who was the chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport, has been made Culture secretary in David Cameron’s Cabinet reshuffle.

Mr Whittingdale has been a notable critic of the BBC, and particularly its licence fee.

Just last October Mr Whittingdale he said the licence fee was “worse than the poll tax” and is “unsustainable” in the long term.

The appointment comes at a key time for the BBC as the Corporation’s royal charter which sets out its terms of business is set to be renewed next year.

Senior Downing Street sources said they were “furious at the BBC’s coverage” of the campaign and accused the BBC of an “unforgiveable pro-Labour bias”.

Mr Whittingdale made clear his support for fundamental change to the way the corporation is funded last October

Saying he did not believe the £145.50 a year licence fee would survive in its current form in the next few decades, he said: “I think in the long term it's unsustainable.

"I think most people, almost everybody, accepts that the licence fee as it currently stands need some tweaking to sort out anomalies.

“People’s viewing habits have changed and it needs to reflect that. That’s a very simple change and I think people see that.

“You then have the question of whether or not it should remain a flat poll tax, collected through some fairly draconian measures, and whether it should still be criminally enforceable.

“Government has already announced consultation on decriminalisation. I’ve been looking at other countries and I think there's quite an attractive option of linking it to a specific household tax - maybe council tax.

“I think in the longer term we are potentially looking at reducing at least a proportion of the licence fee that is compulsory and offering choice.”

Dave Miliband talks about the Labour campaign. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32697212

TL;DR. Ed sucked balls.

But you know, I reckon if a by-election popped up in a couple of years in a safeish Labour seat, things could get interesting.

Can't see that another Milliband leading the party into the next election would feel like a good play.

Well, they know that they are literally nothing without him.

Despite knowing little about him it seems a shame that Dan Jarvis decided he won't stand for Labour leadership although his reasons seem very understandable. Still, I'd have liked to have seen how the Tory press would have handled him being leader of the opposition.

I honestly don't see any downsides to being in the EU. I'm missing something obvious if so many people don't want to be part of it.

Controversial former MP George Galloway has signalled that he is starting a legal challenge against his defeat in last week's general election. [...] In a statement tonight, he said: "It has come to my notice that there has been widespread malpractice in this election, particularly over postal voting.
"We are in the process of compiling the information which will form part of our petition to have the result set aside."

Galloway "has evidence of malpractice", apparently.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general ... efeat.html

Bradford Council bosses, who ran the election, said they had so far received no such complaints from him or his team.

Suzan Hemingway, acting Returning Officer, said: "We are disappointed that, if Mr Galloway thought there was postal vote fraud, he didn't report this before the Bradford West election result. We have not received any communication from Mr Galloway or his office regarding concerns about postal vote fraud or any proposed legal challenge in relation to the Bradford West election result."

if people knew tuition fees would go up, they would not have gotten so many seats. It was the main cause of the party's popularity. much more than a shitty referendum.

"Nigel Farage is to stay on as leader of UKIP after his resignation was rejected unanimously by the party."

This is how David Cameron will address the National Security Council today:

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone."

"The government defines extremism as 'the vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including queuing, tea first then milk, and discussing the weather'.

This is like my contract which references the HR policy, but no one has seen the HR policy; which can be updated without modification to my contract. I can't help but feel that the definition of extremism should be a legally binding description, which is upheld by law. Strangely enough this sounds like British values, in fact I would say that sneaky laws with back doors is actually anti-British values and more akin to those one might find in more extreme/corrupt countries like Iraq/Iran and soviet Russia.

What other standard would one need their currency to stand up to aside from being 'legal' and 'authorised by the relevant Parliament'?

This is why dickheads who try to settle debts with wheelbarrows of 1p coins can have their payment refused.

Yes. I am profoundly disturbed by the modern trick of passing vague and open-minded laws that allow the administration to cherry-pick convictions against those it takes a dislike to while ignoring others. In this country, the legislature is supposed to act in harmony with the judiciary, not ride roughshod over it whenever it likes.

This criticism applies just as much to Blair's government as it does to Cameron's.