That Labour donations thing—with added bonus Abba

[matgb]

YouTube - Money money money: David Abrahams and Labour:

I cannot understand how a party can come into office, say they're going to clean up politics, pass a law demanding transparency in party funding, then perpetually break the damn law they themselves passed. Given all the hoops party administrators are supposed to go through dealing with donations (and yes, the lower end of that admin was something I had to do both while temping in Cowley St and before when on the Exeter exec), it's especially galling to see senior Labour types just ignoring them. Don't these damn fools have training? Or the ability to think? Still, at least one of them has done the decent thing, but again, too early to save flack spreading out—you have to resign after someone calls for it, otherwise they go after someone else. Bloody stupid Westminster games.

now_show recording was great, pub afterwards with innerbrat was also cool, even if the annoying drunk talking VERY LOUDLY was a little too loud for me to hear at times. If you're at all interested in taking the piss out of the whole recent debacle, 6.30pm Friday or noon Saturday, BBC Radio 4—you should know this already but some people seem to have an aversion to the channel that, for some obscure reason, also hosts The Archers; no, I don't like that either. Complete with Vince "power" Cable and any many jokes about missing details, lost CDs and the mysteriously appearing donations. Oh, and assuming it gets broadcast, Mitch does a great little ditty about Emma Clarke the voice of the Tube—because she used to be one of the Now Show cast as well. Gordon seems to have forgotten that the breakdown of any relationship, whether with the electorate or a partner, always ends up in an argument of CDs.

I suspect Robin Ince's monologue will get cut to ribbons. I suspect it'll need to be the amount of it that he fluffed up trying to present it.

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

* wishes she could have been there *

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Ah, you can't go wrong with a bit of Abba. :)

Yes, the old Labour party do rather seem to have fumbled the ball on this one. They're either very careless, or they just assume that we're all too stupid and apathetic to catch them with their fingers in the till.

Contempt for the electorate, always a good trait in a government!

[mooism.livejournal.com]

It’s not the contempt for the electorate that amazes me, new Labour’s always had that. It’s the contempt for the press.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're getting very complacent.

[ihavecake.livejournal.com]

There are not words to express how happy I am that The Now Show is back. That quote has got me salivating with glee.

[innerbrat]

Hey, Deepest Sender doesn't appear to be hurting LJ Login!

- what was the addon you were espousing last night?
- does Deepest Sender support scrapbook? I can't find it.

[matgb]

Plugin is ljaddons but the screencaps are all that's useful at that link unless you read cyrillic.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4536
http://ljaddons.livejournal.com/683.html

DS doesn't do scrapbook that I know of, no—I rarely use scrapbook so not a problem for me, when I do I tend to use the web interface or boot up semagic.

[innerbrat]

Thank you! *goes to install*

But bah, I use scrapbook all the time, and the web interface doesn't work with LJ Login.

[matgb]

What would be really nice is a browser plugin for scrapbook to complement DS, because the web interface is sucky anyway (although SB likes it for some reason I can't fathom).

But I wouldn't have a clue where to start :-(

With LJaddons, the insets need customising at first install, but you can add as many as you like, one of my favourites is one that encloses my clipboard text within [q] tags, use that one a lot. Also, it works on other text boxes on other sites (if you tell it to), so I've put some BBcode in there and similar as well.

[innerbrat]

You mean <q> tags, surely?

But yes, I'd definitely use that a lot too. I use the quote button whenever it turns up, but I don't understand why it seems to be random.

I haven't restarted Firefox yet, but I will. I'm busy writing about creationism.

[tiredstars.livejournal.com]

It is always a test of reactions to turn off before the Archers comes on. Very slow reactions, admittedly, but nonetheless.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

> I cannot understand how a party can come into office, say they're going to clean up politics, pass a law demanding transparency in party funding, then perpetually break the damn law they themselves passed.

I can.

They're in power.

It is the purpose of political parties to seek power like a terrier chasing fter a steak and then hang on to it like barnacles.

And rationalising it? Well either the pooch is screwed and Cameron's in next time round anyway, so hey, who cares... or they'll win anyway and the ends will continue to justify the means.

Nobody important will go down for this - it's too much like rocking the boat.

Bloody disgrace, but this is what you get in a country with a professional "political class" and an effective two-party state. And no, the LibDems couldn't change this. They're an irrelevance. Britain is essentially a two-party state, and apart from the first third of the 20th century essentially always was and always will be.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Labour party funding is indeed bizarre. But quite amusing to see the party in power imploding. Mr Bean indeed!

Although I am a bit surprised about the fuss directed at Wendy Alexander, at least north of the border - I thought that the rules kicked in at donations over £5,000. Still, apparently she sent a thank you letter to the guy's Channel Islands address, so she clearly knew where the money (£800?) was from.

Also, Vince Cable jokes were very good. Actually, I thought most of the Now Show was pretty good.

And I like the Archers!