How long do you think the coalition will last?

First topic message reminder :

I want people's opinion of how long they think this coalition will last. ?

Stox 16 wrote:
yet they have always got middle class and working people voting for them..as what many do not fully understand is people never take the time to see though them. most of the Tory party membership have little or no idea what the Tory party hero's stand for.

From my point of view, yes and no.

I can't really talk about Conservative Party membership because I haven't come across many people who are actually members. I can talk about the average-Joe though. In my current and last job, I encounter/ed the general public and most were Tory-voters and left wing bashers. In fact, in Wetherspoon, I got nervous whenever someone asked me what my political persuasion was because I knew I was in for a mickey-take or even a full-blown rant.

I think people tend to vote for a general ideology, rather than for policies (does anyone actually read manifestos?), and I would say that the ideology of people in general does match up with a right wing agenda:

• Most people want harsh punishment for criminals.

• Most people think that people, including rich people, should be able to spend their money however they choose.

• Most people moan about how much tax we pay, and (even though it doesn't apply to them) think that 40-50% of one's wages is ridiculous.

• Most people are anti immigration and believe that foreigners take the jobs and benefits to which "we" are more entitled.

In my opinion, it's the implications of those ideological ideas that people don't understand. If they did, I think most would end up nudging to the left of centre:

• They don't realise that prison doesn't work. All they care about is punishing people. If criminals come out and re-commit, then they should just go back in. If it becomes a cycle, then so be it. They want the death penalty because they believe in the eye for an eye concept. They are unable to look at it objectively and philosophically - they see it black and white. They also fail to see just how far we've come past those days of brutal punishment. Our civilised way of living is seen as a "soft touch" approach and not understood in the bigger picture.

• They don't understand the concept of "society" - that you put in and get out within a standardised system in which we all receive an equal level of protection, care, and education - and that if we didn't have that system, it would probably cost us MORE to get all the vital services that we take for granted because companies would be greedy, and there would be no guarantee of an appropriate level of service.

• They don't think about who pays this high rate of income tax - it doesn't seem to sink in that the kind of salaries that result in high tax are so high in the first place that no one actually needs to be earning that amount of money, and that varying tax levels are a semi-leveller and not an act of greed by the Government. They don't digest that, if we had a rate of 25% for everyone, the divide between rich and poor would reach crazy levels and result in an inhumane society (well, it already is! But it'd be more extreme).

• They don't realise that immigration works both ways - that plenty of UK-born emigrate elsewhere, and that foreigners coming into the country boost our economy, and often take the jobs that Brits don't want (e.g. care home staff and cleaners). They don't understand asylum seekers - that they're not all money-grabbing free-loaders, and that they actually escaped for a reason. And that "asylum seeker" isn't the same as "illegal immigrant".

I hate to say it, but I think most people develop their right wing ideology by reading the press. The press very much enjoy muddying the waters. For the last point in particular, the press have ensured that no one understands immigration, and that anyone coming to this country - unless white, of course - is doing so for the wrong reasons and causing problems for us.

On the other hand, I think there is a strong argument for people not knowing what they're voting for, and that is the case on different levels. Firstly, there are people like me who trusted Clegg and voted for him, not realising that he's just as scheming as any other naughty politician and basically tricked me. Secondly, take my friend Emma as an example. She will tell you that she is staunchly Labour. We've often chatted about how we hate the Conservatives. Yet, when you listen to her ideas, she's actually right wing! I have said to her before that she sounds more like a Tory, but I don't want to keep pushing that because I think (as I discussed above at length) that, if she actually thought through the philosophy and implications of her basic belief system, she'd realise how awful life would be!

She's said to me before that she doesn't mind the concept of private healthcare and private education, and that she believes that if people earn enough money and they want to pay for these things, then why shouldn't they? She's a strong believer in a tough justice system that sends all criminals to jail for longer periods than they are now, and she'd like to see a return of the death penalty. She complains about tax, and thinks the higher tax rate is silly - people earn the money so why shouldn't they keep it? One thing she doesn't moan about is immigration - in her work (she works in a warehouse), there are a lot of ethnic minorities and she has not a shred of racism in her.

Just read up, and I know I've missed questions put to me.

I have heard people moan about Council Tax, but I don't know how it works. All I know is that mine is £125 for my two bedroom flat, which isn't a problem.

How is it a problem for others? The rate is set by the size of the property, isn't it?

And on the means testing for state pension. What does means testing mean? I know that it's a way of setting a rate, but I think the state pension is a standard, rate, isn't it? Is that what you were getting at? That it shouldn't be standard, and should instead be based on what people need?Maybe I should just Google it and then return here!

Blamhappy,

""""•Most people want harsh punishment for criminals.


•Most people think that people, including rich people, should be able to spend their money however they choose.


•Most people moan about how much tax we pay, and (even though it doesn't apply to them) think that 40-50% of one's wages is ridiculous.


•Most people are anti immigration and believe that foreigners take the jobs and benefits to which "we" are more entitled."""

To take these points one by one.

Britain has more people in jail than the countries of Europe.

When it comes to all the services we all use from time to time, people should pay the neccessary taxation re- income tax, to keep these services well funded, and then they can spend their disposable income where they like. The only problem with disposable income is that we have in this country a massive rich and poor devide that began over 30 years ago, with millions of British people living on the breadline due to amongst other things, long term unemployment, caused by right wing free market politics since the 80's.

Immigrants coming to this country are not allowed any benefits until they have completed one full year of employment without being out of work, and even then immigrant's only receive one third of what British claiments get.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work, by law. They are giving vouchers.

Benefits paid to pensioners are means tested again savings and assett's.

If all immigrants were sent home, pensioners benefits would not be any higher.

Yes, immigrants take the jobs the British cannot afford to do due to ever higher houses prices, caused by British greed and self interest in the first place, plus ever higher Utilities, and council tax increases,

The British moan, but they will not consolidate and fight for better wages and conditions like our fathers and forefathers did.

Now, you need to go into all the Wetherspoon pubs and tell people the above!

Have fun!

Haha!

Blamhappy wrote:Now, you need to go into all the Wetherspoon pubs and tell people the above!

Have fun!

Haha!

I do this all the time when I meet people, many just cannot grasp it. It aint fun, its a challenge, the elderly are the worst due to fixed ideas, the young grasp the nettle.

The British in general in my 30 odd years of being involved in politics, are just docile polically, they want everything, but are not prepared to fight for it, and they all have their scapegoats, and immigrants are the number one scapegoat.

What will help is the fall of the Murdoch press.

...IF it does fall, of course. I wonder if Murdoch will keep bouncing back until everyone eventually forgets and it all just reverts to normal.

Mind you, elderly ladies are more likely to read the Daily Mail, and I'm not sure if there's any chance of that sizzling out or changing ideology.

Yes, immigrants take the jobs the British cannot afford to do due to ever higher houses prices, caused by British greed and self interest in the first place, plus ever higher Utilities, and council tax increases,

The British moan, but they will not consolidate and fight for better wages and conditions like our fathers and forefathers did.

Blam.....Ivanhoe conveniently leaves out or feeds you disinformation. Take the two lines above.....He says the immigrants take the jobs that British people cannot afford take due to greed, but then in the next line advocates fighting for higher wages, which then pushes up prices of everything else...including housing. That's how inflation works, so you cannot have it both ways.

Also what the Thatcher haters have failed to tell you is the under Labour prior to Thatcher we were the 'sick man' of Europe (I am sure you have heard of the winter of discontent) The unions called strikes over everything and anything. The highest tax rate was at one time 98%, scaring the wealthy out of the country and seriously harming investment in this country. So this was the time of greed....greed from the unions and greed from the government.
Thatcher had a very difficult task in turning the country round, she wasn't perfect by a long way but she stopped the unions from bringing the country to its knees over and over again

blueturando wrote:

Yes, immigrants take the jobs the British cannot afford to do due to ever higher houses prices, caused by British greed and self interest in the first place, plus ever higher Utilities, and council tax increases,

The British moan, but they will not consolidate and fight for better wages and conditions like our fathers and forefathers did.

Blam.....Ivanhoe conveniently leaves out or feeds you disinformation. Take the two lines above.....He says the immigrants take the jobs that British people cannot afford take due to greed, but then in the next line advocates fighting for higher wages, which then pushes up prices of everything else...including housing. That's how inflation works, so you cannot have it both ways.

Also what the Thatcher haters have failed to tell you is the under Labour prior to Thatcher we were the 'sick man' of Europe (I am sure you have heard of the winter of discontent) The unions called strikes over everything and anything. The highest tax rate was at one time 98%, scaring the wealthy out of the country and seriously harming investment in this country. So this was the time of greed....greed from the unions and greed from the government.
Thatcher had a very difficult task in turning the country round, she wasn't perfect by a long way but she stopped the unions from bringing the country to its knees over and over again

Blue why do you not tell Blam the WHOLE TRUTH about what went on instead o just picking bits and pieces of Ivanhoes post, at the time of winter of discontent why do you not tell Blam what the hourly rate for the average man/women with the cost of utilities plus the conditions they had to work in and how much the bosses of these companies where making off the backs of the normal working man/women.

Do not forget to tell her that Thatcher and the Tory Gov't almost took the right away from people to withdraw there Labour as a last resort, and how even now this Tory Gov't want to remove even more if not entirely the rights to withdraw your Labour, Blam if this Gov't had its way the MINIMUM WAGE would be gone too so that there Millionaire supporters and big company bosses could fill there pockets off the backs of the normal working man/women.

During the time of "red" Labour, I always votel Liberal / LibDem, like most people I could never vote in a government committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament and one which would not tackle the millitant tendancy or out of control lefties running the unions.

How things changed, the Labour Party abandoned socialism, kicked out the miliitant tendancy and fashioned itself into a moderate left of centre social democratic party.

Meanwhile, a few years later the Lib Dems elected Nick Clegg who transformed the radical, libertarian centre party into the "yes" party to anything and everything their Conservative masters commanded.

The only political party which has not changed at all is the Conservatives, they are still the "nasty party".

blueturando. 'The sick man of Europe' (which was originally used by Western diplomats to describe the Turkish Empire in the 19th century) was a phrase conjured up the Tory tabloid press in the late 70s as part of their frenzy to get Thatcher elected. 'Winter of discontent' was nicked from Shakespeare. Please stop trying to pretend that somehow these pieces of propaganda are facts.

Life was so terrible in the 1970s that VAT was 8%, prescription charges were 20p an item, house prices were reasonable and council housing was available for those who couldn't or didn't wish to buy. Labour did inherit serious inflation from the Tories in 1974, caused largely by the quadrupling of the price of oil by the Arab states, and trade unions (far more democratic institutions than the corporations who pull the Tories' strings) did their best to protect the living standards of their members. As you can't have been more than twelve when Thatcher came to power, I won't take any lessons on the 70s from you; I was 30 when that disgusting woman began to destroy the fabric of this country.

Dear Blam......

I am delighted you have come to our forum to, in your own words 'Learn' a bit more about politics.

I know that you are Left leaning anyway, which is fine by me....but it seems some on here refuse to give you a balanced view on the past, mainly due to their own ideologies or allegencies (Please see Ivan's post above)

In my experience there is always good and bad from both Labour and the Conservatives and from both left and right. Some will want to ram their own opinions down your throat and not even contemplate or acknowledge any failings from their side...Others will want to present a more balanced and realistic view of how things actually were both under Thatcher and previous to her. I guess it's up to you on what information you want to digest, but if I were you I would take most of what is said to you on here with a pinch of salt and maybe read up on the facts that are readily available on the web.....Chat soon

Thanks.....Blue x

"take most of what is said to you on here with a pinch of salt ...."

But we DO, blue, unfailingly where posters use mostly second-hand material in their contributions.

Blue, my home city of Perth was a Tory Stronghols since william wallace was a lad!

During your winter of discontent, my Tory bosses were ALL quite content with the blackouts, and I for the life of me could not see why!

Looking back, it had to be engineered that they saw the public mood change, and sat back and watched.

I feel that if Ed can pull the same strokes, he will gain from this just like a certain witch did!!

Didn't realise the Milli wanted to follow Thatcher. I become more enlightened every day, cheers astra.

Will you get it through your head that it was not her actions that caused the decline of British heavy industry. Yes, certain parts of british industry did die on her watch, but all she did was pull the plug on an already vegetative patient.
British industry was massively inefficient, over manned, poorly managed, and subsidised by the taxpayer. British made cars fell to pieces the moment they left the showroom, because of the stunning levels of laziness and lack of productivity demonstrated by the great Britsh working man - especially if it was built by the Scousers. British industry was already dead, she just switched off the life support machine.

British industry declined basically because British industry WAS NOT VERY GOOD. The Japs destroyed the British motorcycle industry because they made better and cheaper and higher quality bikes. The British shipbuilding industry went down the toilet because the Japanese and Koreans and Norwegians made better and cheaper and higher quality ships. The British steel industry went south for similar reasons. Same with metal bashing in West Midlands. There was mass unemployment in the UK in the seventies.
Ian Mcgregor took over at British Steel in 80 or 81 they were employing 400,000 men. Two years later they were producing the same amount of steel with half that number. Strange that!!!!!!
Maggie did not cause the unemployment or the decline of industry: she merely exposed it.

Three day week, power cuts, Red Robbo, strikes every other day, the national humiliation of being bailed out by the IMF, months to get a phone installed, rubbish piling up in the streets, dead going unburied, brain drain to Oz and the U.S. - this country was heading for the third world when Maggie took over, and let's not forget that fact.

"So where did our industries go?"
The British Formula One racing industry, the massive IT businesses along the M4 coridor, the huge pharma industry in Cambridge, the massive Japanese investment from Nissan, Honda, Komatsu, Caterpillar etc, Vosper Thorneycroft, JCB, ICI, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Rover, Morgan etc, are these all figments of my imagination?

Ivan wrote:blueturando. 'The sick man of Europe' (which was originally used by Western diplomats to describe the Turkish Empire in the 19th century) was a phrase conjured up the Tory tabloid press in the late 70s as part of their frenzy to get Thatcher elected.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the United Kingdom was sometimes known as the "sick man of Europe" because of industrial strife and poor economic performance compared to other European countries, culminating with the Winter of Discontent of 1978–1979.
On the 29th of October 2009 Britain was named the "sick man of Europe" on BBC Question Time because it has not yet come out of recession, whereas France, Germany and other countries had.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_man_of_EuropeCached - Similar

My Father also told me that the first time the UK was referred to as the "sick man of Europe" was in Germany and picked up by the British press.

atv wrote:-
My Father also told me that the first time the UK was referred to as the "sick man of Europe" was in Germany and picked up by the British press..

"My Father"....."in Germany"....."picked up by British press". Wow, what a reliable piece of evidence! And how does your father know that? Was he in Germany at the time? And somebody there told him that it had been "picked up" (or do you mean "made up") by the British press?

On the 29th of October 2009 Britain was named the "sick man of Europe" on BBC Question Time because it has not yet come out of recession, whereas France, Germany and other countries had.

LOL. So a Tory panellist on a Tory biased television programme recycled that old phrase, did he (or she)? What compelling evidence! Tory Central Office must be getting desperate and working overtime if that's the best they can do.

What I do know is that the UK economy was growing when this idiotic band of upper class toffs came to power in May 2010 and proceeded to snuff out growth and talk down our economy, instead of building confidence in it. What I also know is that the German economy is doing extremely well and has continued to manufacture goods because it hasn't had homicidal, sleaze-ridden lunatics like Thatcher and Cameron destroying their country to appease their corporate backers.

Still, never mind, just sweep it all under the carpet. Just ignore all Cameron's lies (even about pasties) and broken promises (especially on the NHS). Just ignore the withdrawal of benefits from disabled children (although Cameron claimed them himself) and the forcing of terminally ill cancer patients to take fitness-for-work tests. Just ignore the fact that the Tories are slyly increasing the taxes of old people while giving the mega rich (like your friend Boris Johnson) hefty tax cuts. Just ignore the filthy sleaze of taking massive donations from businessmen who don't pay their taxes in this country, and from private healthcare firms in return for carving up the NHS.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that in Germany in April 1945, at least 10% of the population still supported Hitler as the country lay in ruins. There's none so blind as those who don't want to see.

Here is what wikipedia states about British manufacturing and the balance of trade during the Thatcher years.

By 1983, manufacturing output had dropped by 30% from 1978. The productivity turnaround from labour-shedding proved to be a one-off, and was not matched by growth in output. The industrial base was so reduced that thereafter the balance of payments in manufactured goods was in deficit. In 1983 Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson told the House of Lords Select Committee on Overseas Trade:

There is no adamantine law that says we have to produce as much in the way of manufactures as we consume. If it does turn out that we are relatively more efficient in world terms at providing services than at producing goods, then our national interest lies in a surplus on services and a deficit on goods.

British industry was massively inefficient, over manned, poorly managed, and subsidised by the taxpayer.

Yes you are correct ATV! :affraid:


but it ALL HAD to be the fault of the guy living in 28 Railway Cuttings in his 2 up 2 down?

Yes the man in the street had TIME to influence the country, I remember working 14 hours a day, and totally knackered had time to go play in Unions? NAH Hatton & Robbo NEVER earned pay from a days work, they lazed about for it - it is the only way they could spend time thinking up and executing the disruptive action they took. SO, ATV, who is yer percieved enemy? The bloke keeping a roof over his families head, or the PROFFESSIONAL AGITATORS, or useless self serving Governments, or, and as always, a fawning media?

Remember also, that JAPAN and Germany were REBUILT on AMERICAN money that they never have had to pay back! The UK had to PAY BACK the AMERICANS and REBUILD herself!

[quote="Ivan"]

atv wrote:-
My Father also told me that the first time the UK was referred to as the "sick man of Europe" was in Germany and picked up by the British press..

"My Father"....."in Germany"....."picked up by British press". Wow, what a reliable piece of evidence! And how does your father know that? Was he in Germany at the time? And somebody there told him that it had been "picked up" (or do you mean "made up") by the British press.

Yes my Father a Labour supporter who is more truthful than a lot of so called Labour supporters on this forum.
He was working in Germany at the time for a firm called Lerose, doing a exhibition in Frankfurt.
But as you doubt my Father maybe you could furnish me with the evidence that it was the Tory press that made up the story.

So a Tory panellist on a Tory biased television programme recycled that old phrase, did he (or she)? What compelling evidence!

So now you are telling me the BBC are Tory biased, and of course you also have evidence that it was a Tory panellist.

Another view

"Sick man of Europe" is a nickname that has been used to describe a European country experiencing a time of economic difficulty and/or impoverishment. The term was first used in the mid-19th century to describe the Ottoman Empire, but has since been applied at one time or another to nearly every other mid-to-large-sized country in Europe.

Make No! Mistake about it ATV, Thatcher was only one step away from being a pure dictator in my view !! she did an immense amount of damage to peoples lives.


Under Thatcher...shelfishness was legitimised (as Neil Kinnock once said); unemployment rose; working hours increased; public transport deteriorated; and thousands of council homes were sold off - which was good as a short election winner but costly in the long run as we now have national shortage of social housing!
Now we are seeing a continuation of this evil Witches work and in some cases even worse being carried out in haste by her love child Camer-con.

With regards to those who think the selling off of council houses was a good thing, just remember that a great deal of those houses were eventually reposssessed as their owners joined the millions of the unemployed.

blueturando wrote:Dear Blam......

I am delighted you have come to our forum to, in your own words 'Learn' a bit more about politics.

I know that you are Left leaning anyway, which is fine by me....but it seems some on here refuse to give you a balanced view on the past, mainly due to their own ideologies or allegencies (Please see Ivan's post above)

In my experience there is always good and bad from both Labour and the Conservatives and from both left and right. Some will want to ram their own opinions down your throat and not even contemplate or acknowledge any failings from their side...Others will want to present a more balanced and realistic view of how things actually were both under Thatcher and previous to her. I guess it's up to you on what information you want to digest, but if I were you I would take most of what is said to you on here with a pinch of salt and maybe read up on the facts that are readily available on the web.....Chat soon

Thanks.....Blue x

Hi Blue,

I am, indeed, left leaning and I feel that I'll probably never move to the right. However, I suppose our views are shaped partly by our experiences, so we'll see what life throws up at me!

I do understand the points of view of the right - I have found myself saying to my dad on occasion that I can't see socialism ever truly working. It's a bit like communism - it depends on people behaving a certain way. However, we must always strive for an ideal and have things set in place to deal with problems along the way. For me, socialism is an ideal.

I am always interested to read both sides of a debate, and in no way do I believe that your opinions are any less valid than those of anyone else. I don't like to see people descending into rudeness; that puts me off the post whether it happens to contain opinions I relate to or not!

I like balance, politeness, friendliness, and interesting subject matter. I've seen quite a lot of all of that here I cringe at the sharpness and rudeness of some posts, although I must say that since tone can never be "heard" when reading posts, it's possible that some sound rude but the intention was anything but!

Thanks Blue,
Helen x

Mel wrote:Make No! Mistake about it ATV, Thatcher was only one step away from being a pure dictator in my view !! she did an immense amount of damage to peoples lives.

Dictators are never nice, are they? They're always horrible tyrants who have a limited sense of empathy (or none). Hmmm!

Mel wrote:Make No! Mistake about it ATV, Thatcher was only one step away from being a pure dictator in my view !! she did an immense amount of damage to peoples lives.


Under Thatcher...shelfishness was legitimised (as Neil Kinnock once said); unemployment rose; working hours increased; public transport deteriorated; and thousands of council homes were sold off - which was good as a short election winner but costly in the long run as we now have national shortage of social housing!
Now we are seeing a continuation of this evil Witches work and in some cases even worse being carried out in haste by her love child Camer-con.

With regards to those who think the selling off of council houses was a good thing, just remember that a great deal of those houses were eventually reposssessed as their owners joined the millions of the unemployed.

If it was funny we could laugh but not having enough council houses is all thanks to MAGGIE and her MUPPETS right to buy and how many of those where turfed out when they lost there jobs, then what happened to those repossessed homes they where bought up by MAGGIE'S friends and sold at a great profit just like everything else she sold that belonged the the people of the UK.

Scam..er..on is Son of Thatcher but you must admit Mel people will not just sit back and take it I think we are a bit wiser now, and this weekend will prove the working man/women of the UK when he stops the Family Tax Credits for low paid workers.

blueturando wrote: The unions called strikes over everything and anything. The highest tax rate was at one time 98%, scaring the wealthy out of the country and seriously harming investment in this country. So this was the time of greed....greed from the unions and greed from the government.
Thatcher had a very difficult task in turning the country round, she wasn't perfect by a long way but she stopped the unions from bringing the country to its knees over and over again

I believe in unions quite strongly - I'm very much in favour of "power to the people". However, I get the feeling at times that they feel that they can strike over absolutely anything and any opposition to their argument is regarded as an anti-union push. I think they undermine themselves at times as a result of the over-zealous "let's just strike".

Tube drivers are a good example. Too much moaning, too much striking... They earn a lot for what they do and it sometimes feels like they complain simply for having to do their job.

I think the unions sometimes lend themselves to criticism from those who were anti the union movement in the first place, which is a shame because unions are incredibly important and we need forces for the people. When push comes to shove, governments can do what they fancy really, can't they? I think we saw an example of that with the Health Reform Bill. We need unions because we need some form of people-power that will at least expose injustice, even if actual change doesn't come about. If you can't beat a bad government, you can at least sway public opinion against them.

Unions are a powerful weapon against injustice; I don't like to see them weaken their position.

Good Morning Blam (Helen)

If anything, the one thing we learnt from the eighties and nineties is that neither extreme in politics can work. The extreme left I.e. communism can not work with a head of Government, immediately you have created an inequality and a dictatorship, even if it is run by committee makes no difference, just more Guvnors. We also learnt that the extreme right as in Nazi Germany and Italy will not work for exactly the same reasons. In the UK we had a somewhat watered down version of both, early Labour was obsessed with workers rights and benefits, whereas the Tories where obsessed with making money for the rich. Thankfully Labour Changed their ways from 1997 where we had a government that tried to look after both ends, the rich by encouraging business that would take on workers and the workers who benefited from workers rights and the minimum wage, without the constant fear of unemployement. This I believe is where Labour still is today, whereas the Tories are left back in the past where everyone bowed and pulled their forelock at them. Not only that but this Tory led Coalition has taken themselves even further to the right, where they allow the already obscenely rich bankers rip off the workers and anyone else that uses their banking services. My constant reference to David Cameron as Herr Cameron is exactly how I see him, he is as close to a Nazi as any leader we have had in the UK, and now wants to take it even further with his spy squads, and no doubt snatch squads will follow. What exactly has the working man/woman ever done to deserve such treatment from these soft born louts, Both Herr Cameron and Boris Johnson are results of illegitimacy, whereas my birthright is legal and on my Italian side quite high standing, so in their way of thinking, that should give me the right to pee on them from a great height.

I know what you mean - I think New Labour had it right.

I believe in unions quite strongly - I'm very much in favour of "power to the people". However, I get the feeling at times that they feel that they can strike over absolutely anything and any opposition to their argument is regarded as an anti-union push. I think they undermine themselves at times as a result of the over-zealous "let's just strike".

Believe it or not Blam....and a few on here will scoff at this, but I believe in the unions too. If I were working for a large corporation I would want to be part of the union that represents the workers. My gripe...and I believe I have seen this over and over again, is that some union bosses use the workers as pawns for their own political ideologies....Tube drivers case in point. If the unions could just concentrate on representing their workers rather than scoring political points, or feathering their own nests then the country would be in a better place.
Sometimes their are injustices and even though I'm a Tory, I have to cringe at some of the policies they come out with, so the working man and women does need strong representation....Unfortunately I do not believe Miliband and Balls give two hoots for the general public and much like Cameron and Clegg, they are only interested in gaining power for their own gain and egos.
Current Opinion polls put all 3 major party leaders on a negative rating and that should tell us all we need to know about the sate of politics in the UK at the moment. We have too many career politicians and actors in charge and not enough people with courage and conviction.
Some of my favourite politicians from the past are Labour....I admire Dennis Skinner, Frank Field, Alan Johnson & Tony Blair (up until Iraq) Not because I agreed with their politics, but I believed them to be sincere and passionate in what they believe in..... I also thought the same for Thatcher
As a young lad in the 70's growing up on a council estate most of what I remember and experienced was strikes and disruption. Across the street from where I lived was a huge pile of some 3 or 4 hundred bin bag of rotting rubbish with rats running around all over the place....It was pants!!! So I guess I am saying is that a person politics are influenced by their own experiences from an early age and to me, Maggie came in and cleaned up the mess left behind by Labour and the Unions...That was my experience....Ring any bells?

The subject under discussion is as old as mankind. 150 years ago there was a comment familiar to most people by the impressively-named Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine.

Power corrupts, and Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.

An English translation of Lamartine's essay France and England: a Vision of the Future was published in London in 1848 and included this text:

"It is not only the slave or serf who is ameliorated in becoming free... the master himself did not gain less in every point of view,... for absolute power corrupts the best natures."

Blue, did you read my earlier post to you, by the way? In response to the latest one above, I think the two qualities that all leaders should possess are to be good (as in a good person - ethical, moral, principled etc.) and intelligent. Anything extra is a bonus, and most need extra characteristics to be voted in.

Thatcher was strong, but had a limited sense of empathy. What's the point in having power if you're incapable of using it for the good of others? What a dangerous situation to be in.

It's hard to judge who is in politics for the right reasons. Political apathy comes from the sense that no one is, and in my opinion that's the fault of bad leaders (I believe Cameron is one of them) who appear to do what they fancy, and the press, who enjoy scandals and anything negative.

There must be people who are in the job to better the country. I'm not sure how we work out whom though! I think we just have to vote with our conscience and hope for the best.

Two reports have been published analysing the social and ethnic make-up of Britain’s MPs.

One analysis by the Sutton Trust charity shows that more than a third – 35 per cent – of MPs attended fee-paying schools, even though they educate just seven per cent of the population. It was the highest rate since 1992 and up on the 32 per cent of MPs elected in 2005.

The charity said numbers were fuelled by a rise in Conservative MPs, who are much more likely to be privately educated than those from Labour.

The report revealed 20 MPs, including David Cameron and Zac Goldsmith, were educated at Eton College, compared with 15 five years ago.

Two independent schools – Highgate in north London and Millfield in Somerset - accounted for five MPs each, while Westminster and Nottingham High had four.

Less than half of MPs were educated at state comprehensives, with 22 per cent from grammar schools.

The study also found that almost a third of MPs were Oxford or Cambridge graduates, although numbers have fallen since a high in the 60s and 70s.

Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, which campaigns for improved social mobility, said: “These results show clearly that the educational profile of our representatives in the 2010 Parliament does not reflect society at large.

“There are many factors that determine the make-up of Parliament, but one major obstacle to ensuring talented people from all backgrounds reach public office is the educational inequality that continues to hold back social mobility in this country.”

A separate analysis from the Smith Institute found that politicians were much more likely to come from business backgrounds – or “metropolitan” professions such as the law, media and public affairs – than the general public.

Some 27 per cent of Tories have worked in finance, compared with just three per cent of Labour MPs, the study found.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7701143/General-Election-2010-MPs-more-socially-exclusive.html

Hi Blam......Yes my post was a response to yours and it seems we agree on some things. People power must be there to call Governments of what ever colour to account and we as a society, the unions and the press all have our part to play. My concerns are that too many people are apathetic when it come to politics, the press is weak or influenced by their owners and the unions 'can' be too militant and that scares off many people when it comes to taking action by means of demonstration or striking.

Any decent human being will have some socialist tendencies as no one in their right mind wants to see people suffer unnecessarily, but I also believe we have to be realistic in our modern society...in other words there has to be a balance. I could go on for pages and pages, but there seems to me that there is a desire by the left to encourage and help the feckless and 'under class' in our society at the expense of the working class the left is supposed to represent. On the other side of the coin (and I have to back track here on some of the discussions I've had on other posts) The Tories are increasingly favouring the more wealthy in our society, again at the expense of the working and middle classes.
In my opinion not one of our main political partys are acting on the behalf of the majority. Witchfinder said in a previous post that Labour gave up on socialism and to a certain extend that's true, but I do not want another party the same as the Tories, but hiding under a mask of socialism. There were glimmers of socialism under New Labour, but on the whole they were Conservatives with a small 'c'. What I am trying to say is I would rather have a Labour Party that sticks to it's principles even if I don't agree with them.

Going back to Thatcher for a short while, I agree she was not empathetic, but I view her in the same way as a company that brings in a 'Trouble Shooter' when things have gone seriously wrong and ATV explained it perfectly in the quoted piece below

British industry declined basically because British industry WAS NOT VERY GOOD. The Japs destroyed the British motorcycle industry because they made better and cheaper and higher quality bikes. The British shipbuilding industry went down the toilet because the Japanese and Koreans and Norwegians made better and cheaper and higher quality ships. The British steel industry went south for similar reasons. Same with metal bashing in West Midlands. There was mass unemployment in the UK in the seventies.
Ian Mcgregor took over at British Steel in 80 or 81 they were employing 400,000 men. Two years later they were producing the same amount of steel with half that number. Strange that!!!!!!
Maggie did not cause the unemployment or the decline of industry: she merely exposed it.

Three day week, power cuts, Red Robbo, strikes every other day, the national humiliation of being bailed out by the IMF, months to get a phone installed, rubbish piling up in the streets, dead going unburied, brain drain to Oz and the U.S. - this country was heading for the third world when Maggie took over, and let's not forget that fact

Now I can understand the hatred of Thatcher by some posters on here if they experienced closures of certain industries in their areas back in the 80's, but then personal experience can cloud the realism of the terrible situation the country was actually in...and if Thatcher was so bad, why did she get voted in 3 times?

As OW has pointed out in his above post, our political make up is out of balance and SOMEHOW we need to have more people with experience of the real world in Westminster. If you look at and listen to Cameron and Miliband, can you really believe either of those two know anything about life for the 'ordinary' man and women on the street.....I don't think so!

All Tories ever spout are lies, myths and anecdotes; it’s the only way that the rich can get the poor to vote them into power. The Tories make promises that they have no intention of keeping, such as “no top down reorganisation of the NHS”, when it transpires that Lansley had been drawing up his evil plans for about six years and both he and the Tory Party were being bankrolled by private healthcare firms in anticipation of their rewards. As Michael Portillo said on ‘This Week’, the Tories wouldn’t have been the largest party in the election if they’d come clean about their plans for the NHS.

The Tories peddle the lie that every Labour government leaves behind a financial mess. (They work on the Goebbels principle that if you tell a lie often enough it will come to be believed by enough people to make it effective.) It wasn’t true in 1951, wasn't true in 1970, wasn't true in 1979, and was only true in 2010 to the extent that Brown had no alternative but to bail out the bankers when global capitalism failed. What the Tories don’t tell you is that they left behind a balance of payments deficit in 1964, double-digit inflation in 1974 and a debt equivalent to 43.76% of GDP in 1997. They don’t tell you that Thatcher left office in 1990 with inflation higher than when she came in, or that the Tories left office in 1997 with unemployment higher than when they came to power on the strength of those ‘Labour isn’t working’ posters in 1979. They also don’t remind you that crime doubled in those 18 years.

We’ve had lies on this forum about public sector pensions (the average of which is £5,600 per annum), a so-called “pension raid” by Brown (the abolition of the dividend tax credit, which had already been reduced by Lamont in 1993), and “two illegal wars” (one of which was definitely legal and the other was arguably legal). We used to hear the myth of Callaghan allegedly saying “crisis, what crisis?” in 1979, and now we have the lie that lowering taxes for the very rich brings in more money. What utter tripe! Anyone who is minded to avoid tax at 50% will do the same whether the rate is 45% or 20%.

The Tories make up stories about Labour encouraging people to go on benefits as a way of buying their votes. The psephological evidence suggests that the poorest people in the country and those on benefits tend to feel disconnected from the political system and are unlikely to vote for anyone. The Tories conveniently forget that they are masters at buying votes – with cheap shares in utilities we already owned, and by selling council houses at a discount, something which Cameron is doing now. His answer to the acute shortage of social housing is to sell off what little we have!

Selling council houses was one of the worst things that Thatcher did, even though there are plenty of policies from which to choose. A massive sale occurred around 1986-7, only for interest rates to double in a year because of reckless Tory ‘boom and bust’ economic policies. As a result, many of those who had bought their council houses found themselves being repossessed. A glut of cheap houses came on to the market for those with the spare cash to buy them, resulting in a vast increase in private landlords with multiple properties charging exorbitant rents, which have to be paid by the taxpayer for people on housing benefits, people who in better times would have had a council house.

Labour didn’t build anywhere near enough houses, but then what would have been the point? They no doubt knew that a future Tory government would only use them as bribes once again. Selling council houses is morally wrong. People who need a home are grateful for a council house; if and when your circumstances improve you should go and buy a house elsewhere. Note that the Tories didn’t give 'the right to buy' – at a generous discount - to tenants in private rented properties! Of course not, because private landlords, the Rachmans, are friends of the Tory Party, the party which is dogmatically opposed to all things public.

I find it sad that so many people can’t see what’s going on under their noses. The Tories are asset-stripping everything they can in this country and handing it over on the cheap to their corporate backers. They are the party of traitors, putting private greed before the best interests of the country at every opportunity, and no doubt lining up some lucrative jobs for themselves for when they get booted out in 2015. What also makes me sad is that after thirteen years of Labour, the Tories were able to carry on with their ideological destruction at virtually where they left off. It leads me to conclude that social democracy doesn’t work and that this country needs socialism.

Too many voters are disillusioned with the major parties because they don’t perceive there to be enough difference between them, which is the main reason that a maverick like Galloway was able to get himself elected last week. The Labour government which is a racing certainty to get elected in 2015 must turn the clock back to 1945 and reconstruct the country after the damage which has been perpetrated by these corporate fascists. The country was bankrupt after World War Two, but it still managed to afford to build houses and new towns, construct the welfare state, set up the NHS and nationalise the railways. History needs to repeat itself.

LOL. As soon as I go to 'Twitter', I find the latest Tory lie, exposed by Cathy Newman of Channel 4 - the government claim that “tanker drivers are paid on average £45,000 a year – double that of a regular haulage driver.”

Here's the truth of the matter:-
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-do-tanker-drivers-earn-45k/10116?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Ivan wrote:LOL. As soon as I go to 'Twitter', I find the latest Tory lie, exposed by Cathy Newman of Channel 4 - the government claim that “tanker drivers are paid on average £45,000 a year – double that of a regular haulage driver.”

Here's the truth of the matter:-
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-do-tanker-drivers-earn-45k/10116?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Thanks for that Ivan I knew the petrol tanker drivers was not about pay it is about safety theirs and the publics because there bosses do not care how tired they are when they are making more profit for them took a look at your link, and it just goes to prove the Tories will do anything to cause a fight with the Unions and the reason for that is they know the public are against them with all the sleaze that has came out of No10 over the past ten days so they think if they cause a strike the UK public will be back on there side STUPID.

They seem to forget what is to come all those cuts that they rushed through the H.O.C that effect the low paid and the Unemployed of the UK so dream on Scam..er..on and your Incompetents you have made sure that you will be a "One Term Firm" thanks to your cut in tax for those earning £150,000 or more a year while the hard working man/women are made to feel guilty if they ask for a cost of living pay rise, after all what is Scam..er..on and his bullington boys doing for there large salaries S. F. A.

Ivan wrote: The Tories peddle the lie that every Labour government leaves behind a financial mess. (They work on the Goebbels principle that if you tell a lie often enough it will come to be believed by enough people to make it effective.) It wasn’t true in 1951, wasn't true in 1970, wasn't true in 1979.

In 1979, the incoming Conservative government inherited an economy with inflation of 27%. Also many industries were considered inefficient and trades unions were powerful. There had been a winter of discontent with many strikes taking place in the late 1970s. On coming to power, the government adopted a Monetarist approach to try and tackle the various economic problems of the UK.
www.economicshelp.org/macroeconomics/.../uk-recession-1981.htmlCached - Similar

It was a document that could have changed the course of Scottish history. Nineteen pages long, Written in an elegant, understated academic hand by the leading Scottish economist Gavin McCrone, presented to the Cabinet office in April 1975 and subsequently buried in a Westminster vault for thirty years. It revealed how North Sea oil could have made an independent Scotland as prosperous as Switzerland.

The Freedom of Information Act has yielded many insights and revelations into the working of the British government, but none so vivid as the contents of Professor McCrone's paper, written on request in the dog days of Ted Heath's Tory government and only just unearthed under the FOI rules.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/how-black-gold-was-hijacked-north-sea-oil-and-the-betrayal-of-scotland-518697.html

The "great inflation" of the 1970s was caused by soaring oil prices, and the problem was not restricted to the UK, it was a world-wide problem particularly for the industrialized west.

Inflation in the UK peaked in 1975 during the reign of Harold Wilson at 26% and from that time fell, and was on a downward track at the time of the general election of 1979 when it was below 10%.

The success in bringing inflation under control was down to the "wages and incomes policy" which had been introduced, but which was scuppered by the trade union movement.

If the unions had co-operated with the Labour government then Margaret Thatcher would never have been elected, the public of this country were not particularly angry with the government, they were fed up of the unions, the Winter of Discontent and strikes.

The unions, and in particular the TGWU did more to assist a Conservative victory in 1979 than all the Conservative canvassers put together.

Jim Callaghan was a good man, a gentleman, he was stabbed in the back

In 1979, the incoming Conservative government inherited an economy with inflation of 27%.

Please, atv, not that whopping great lie again! We had that one from you on the last forum, or was it at MSN?

"Inflation was about 10%" (in May 1979):-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession

10.85% in May 1979 according to this source:-
http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historicalinflation.aspx

If you look up any figures for the average inflation rate for the whole of 1979, they will be around 13.4%. That was because, within weeks of coming to power in May of that year, Thatcher increased VAT from 8% to 15% (despite having had "no plans" to do so during the election - same old Tory lie).

In no way, and not according to any figures outside the lie machine known as Tory Central Office, was inflation anywhere near 27%, although after a year of Thatcher in power the figure did rise above 20% as a result of her policies.

Margaret Thatcher dismantled British Industry so as to deprive the Unions of their power-base.

Otherwise known as, Cut your nose off to spite your face.