Is there any alternative to the jaundiced Tory attitudes?

First topic message reminder :

Depressing, isn't it? All the miserable gits can come up with is oppression of the poor and fear of the disadvantaged. Never mind, here's something that can make us all feel better about the human race - even if it does have to include Cameron and Company .........

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/pictures-that-will-restore-your-faith-in-humanity

No, no, no - the addition will dilute the 'traffic' using the original hashtag and could stop it from trending! Big mistake - just use #CameronMustGo.

Cameron trying to buy votes in todays paper, saying he is going to make immigrants wait 4 years for their benefits.

The novel "Three Musketeers" introduced us to the Mission Statement One for all, and all for one.

It would not take long to list the benefits of the Coalition between Tories and Lib-Dems, but European nations tend to stick to a common tit-for-tat arrangement which discourages maverick penalties. Any limitations imposed by a Cameron government on EU immigrants would very soon be followed by similar restrictions on Brits working over there.

Very true OW, Would that mean almost the first step of us leaving the EU?

stuart torr wrote:Very true OW, Would that mean almost the first step of us leaving the EU?

That is indeed what Cameron may be sleep-walking into.

Personally OW I think he is doing it on purpose, as he will need the UKIP probably for a coalition to stay in power, what do you think?

No, no, no - the addition will dilute the 'traffic' using the original hashtag and could stop it from trending! Big mistake - just use #CameronMustGo.

True, that

What true that he is doing it on purpose boatlady? as he will need the UKIP to stay in power next May?

Well Ivan they have put some of there moves off until after may next year, as it may lose them votes and they do not need that do they? but if they get into power heaven help us then.

Charming! Here we have one Tory MP revealing what he thinks of us! Why didn't this cause a furore like Emily Thornberry's photo?  


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B33kIwyCIAAXaY1.jpg

Well how come the chancellor can also suddenly find so much money for the NHS IN tomorrows budget?

Osborne announced another £2 billion for the NHS. Even that BBC stooge Norman Smith conceded that £700 million of that was existing funding. What he didn't mention is that Osborne has clawed back £5 billion from the NHS over the last four years, so even if money is allocated, it doesn't mean that it gets spent in Tory world. And then of course there were the billions wasted out of the NHS budget on the top-down re-organisation which nobody voted for and which Cameron promised would never happen.

It never happened anyway did it Ivan? no monies for the NHS, JUST FOR THE RICH, as usual and the poor suffer, still paying debts off from the first world war? how poor is this country for gods sake?

More promises from Dave and Gideon at the eleventh hour. Is there an election iminent then?
Last night I watched Question Time (Not PM'S) and one female panalist castigated Gordon Brown using the Tory propaganda that got the sods into power on the premis that Brown created the banking crisis. It was good to see that the audience and the rest of the panel put her right, except for one fact. She stated that Brown deregulated the finance/banking sector. He actually passed gov responsibility to the Bank Of England. It was in fact Thatcher who deregulated the banks, because she had to go along with Reagan's ideas and she had to make up for revenue much lost by the decimation of Britains manufacturing base.

People keep saying "all this is in the past". However we now suffer because of Thatchers policies at that time and indeed Heath's desire to take us into the common market. Come to think of it Dr Beeching was responsible for the demise of our rail system which led to privatisation. Next Tory policy will be to privatise the air we breath as nothing much else left other than profit at any cost, service and prices in particular last and we pay up without question. Time for real civil action and prolific protest IMO.

Bloody lying Tories hide behind a cloak of so called respectability, when in fact they are uncaring greedy selfish crooks and con men to boot. I luve em dun I?

Well Mel they could tax anyone on benefits to breathe out or to breathe at all?
As they dislike us so much, they are trying to take as much money off us as they can that we cannot afford food, and we have to pay 20% of our council tax which of course goes up every year.
We will not have anything left to pay us soon will we?

Anyone trying to learn British political History from "Question Time" alone is likely to acquire a somewhat distorted knowledge.

Was it not winston churchill who first discussed us going into the common market ?

Beeching's axe as it was known Mel shed 70.000 jobs to make B.R, profitable, also around 17.000 miles of track. Closing 6.000 stations.
Beeching at the time was paid £14.000 more than the prime minister.

OW, Russell Brand is on the panel on Question Time next week. That should be fun and a few sparks flying.

How are you my learned friend?

All the better for seeing you back on "the boards", Mel.

It's hard to escape a feeling that TV programmes involving public debate are just as tightly scripted as East Enders or Coronation Street.

OW

Ignore the flaws. For only Labour can beat the Tories

Extracts from an article by Polly Toynbee:-

I’m alarmed at how many essentially Labour people find reasons why they might not vote Labour in May because it’s not left enough. This time there will be a 50p top rate, a mansion tax and cuts to tax reliefs and benefits for well-off pensioners. The NHS will be rescued by abolishing compulsory competition. And Labour has given itself at least a £30bn leeway in spending. So let’s have no “they’re all the same”.

Osborne’s cuts would keep the state permanently at the size it was in the 1930s – 35% of GDP – with councils stripped bare of all but basic functions. £12bn is to be cut from benefits, all from working-age families, most in work, making food banks a fixture. The IFS expects government policy to create 1 million more poor children – that’s the million children Labour lifted out of poverty.

The NHS would be barely recognisable. The BBC would be cut back to Murdoch’s preferred model of a small subscriber service. Few of the 3,500 pre-school Sure Starts would survive the next Osborne blitz. Tax cuts for the better-off have cost £11bn so far, and the Tories, tagging after UKIP in a referendum, would take us out of the EU. It’s not “austerity” but ideological shrink-the-state brutality.

No one ever agrees with all of any party’s policies, but I regard Miliband as a decent man who starts out with strong instincts on inequality, predatory capitalism and the need to build housing and borrow for capital investment. I am certain that simply by denying the Tories power, a Labour government would save Britain from irreparable harm.

For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/09/labour-tories-vote-osborne

"I’m alarmed at how many essentially Labour people find reasons why they might not vote Labour in May because it’s not left enough."

Yes Polly, many of us are very aware of what the Tory cuts would mean to the majority of us. Unfortunately only a few will have read your article and yet too many see UKIP as a sort of old Labour and although some Tory supporters will vote UKIP, I fear that Many Labour voters will turn to UKIP AND SNP and together they may push Labour out in the cold.

UKIP, SNP and especially the Tories get more air time and press than Labour. Unless somehow this changes I can't see Labour getting enough coverage to see them through.

We on these boards can tear the Tories apart along with some very good pro Labour anti Tory articles. However, these are not reaching the general fickle voters out there. How can Ed get it across without the media /press assisting. Instead they do all they can not to be helpful IMO.

Of course they will not be helpful Mel, as 80% are Tory bloody owned at least are they not?
Real Labour voters will vote Labour no matter what, even if in their opinion they are not going to win the Election.
You should never become a turncoat when you go in the box to put your X just because you do not think your party is going to win do you?

Interesting comment on BBC Radio (reporting today's PMQ clash between HH and the Clegg person): If it were only women who had The Vote, Labour are more than 9 points ahead.

Ivan wrote:Charming! Here we have one Tory MP revealing what he thinks of us! Why didn't this cause a furore like Emily Thornberry's photo?  


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B33kIwyCIAAXaY1.jpg

With stuff like this Ivan it will be a wonder if anybody but those in the South East will vote Tory 2015.

Exactly Redflag, the areas within 20 miles of me will vote tory too, from nottingham to that distance is labour through and through.

Mel wrote:-
We on these boards can tear the Tories apart along with some very good pro Labour anti Tory articles. However, these are not reaching the general fickle voters out there.

As bobby has written on another thread, Labour needs to have a big poster campaign, but even there we’re handicapped: the Tories have at least twice as much money to spend, thanks to all those donations from Russian oligarchs and others who buy up our state assets on the cheap and give the Tories a donation in return.  

However, there is plenty of ammunition to put on posters. For example, “Why would you believe anything this man promises?”, accompanied by Cameron’s ugly mush and a list of all the things he said in 2010. The Tories have tried to delete all of that material from the internet, but it can still be found. Mark Reckless has on his website the ‘contract between the Conservative Party and you’, where Cameron says: “If we don’t deliver our side of the bargain, vote us out in five years’ time”:-

http://markreckless.com/2010/04/30/a-contract-between-the-conservative-party-and-you/

This gem would also make a nice poster:-

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B38iMaYIUAAwbn-.png

Don’t underestimate the value of this forum to the cause. Click on any board and look at the number of ‘views’ for each thread; that isn’t just from Cutting Edge regulars. As you know, I use Twitter, where I have over 7,500 followers, and I often post links there to items on our forum. I hope that a fair number of those people will see the items and many will retweet them. I doubt if doing that persuades anyone to switch their vote to Labour, but it might make some half-hearted supporters realise the importance of the next election; it may even motivate some people to join their local party and become more active. It has to be worth a try.

But at least we can rely upon the commonsense of the average British voter, can't we?

Can't we?

One hopes so OW sincerely hopes so.

stuart torr wrote:-
still paying debts off from the first world war? how poor is this country for gods sake?

The UK is either the sixth or seventh richest country in the world. That in itself is no guarantee that its inhabitants share in the prosperity, especially as it’s also the fourth most unequal of the developed nations. The Tories will tell you that, despite a cut in the top rate of income tax from 50% to 45%, the rich are paying more tax than they did in 2010. Only half the story as always – the rich are so much better off now that of course they’re paying more tax, even if it is at a lower rate!

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t709-does-inequality-matter

The UK has been in debt for about 250 of the last 300 years, so don’t worry about it! I don’t think we’ve ever really been out of debt since the Napoleonic Wars. The Tories will say that we shouldn’t lumber the next generation with debt (even though they’ve done precisely that to students), conveniently forgetting that our generation has had the burden of the debt from two world wars, but few of us have lost any sleep over it.

Some politicians, usually on the right, try to compare the national debt with personal debt, and come out with crass statements like “the credit card is maxed out”. However, there is a valid comparison with borrowing. Debt is not necessarily a bad thing, it depends why you borrow. Few would argue that borrowing for a mortgage on a house is foolish, and for most of the past seventy years people who have done that have seen their assets (which they couldn’t have bought without a loan) make them quite wealthy. On the other hand, borrowing to go on a world cruise or to gamble away in a casino in Las Vegas is obviously not such a good idea.

When an individual gets into debt, your options are to use up your reserves (if you have any), reduce your spending or, if you can, to increase your income. If you happen to be reducing your spending, the odds are that it will be balanced out by another individual who is doing well and spending more. The effect on the economy of some people spending more while others are spending less should be roughly neutral. However, when a government cuts its spending or increases taxes such as VAT, it reduces the spending power of a great many people and, as we’ve seen, it reduces the tax paid to the Treasury if wage levels are low.

The next Labour government must, in the short term at least, increase the debt by borrowing to invest in infrastructure. When Attlee’s post-war government built new towns, it provided work for those building them, homes for those in need of them, customers for the shops in them, and industrial estates where the newly settled people could work to earn and spend money and pay taxes. We could do with some more new towns now, not around London but in less congested parts of the country. It would certainly be one way out of this blind alley into which Osborne has been leading us.

Well one thing is for sure Ivan, I will not lose any sleep over it.
Even though i'm having yet another sleepless night tonight.
You have informed me of quite a lot and now I know of information to quell a few arguments when they crop up i'm pleased to say, that is always a good thing from this forum.

Ivan - nice summary of the day-to-day impact of fiscal policy and the difference between individual debt and national debt.

It's really not complicated, is it?

Yet, time and again the electorate gets dazzled by the Tory smoke and mirrors.

True boatlady, once it is explained as Ivan did, it is quite straightforward is it not, as Ivan always puts it in a very understandable way.

oftenwrong wrote:-
But at least we can rely upon the commonsense of the average British voter, can't we?

Most people aren’t as interested in politics as we are and probably get their impressions of what’s going on from headlines and short misleading articles in rags like ‘The Daily Mail’ and ‘The Sun’. When lies are repeated often enough, such as “every Labour government leaves the economy in a mess”, they tend, as Goebbels reminded us, to become accepted as facts. The press is owned by just a few mega rich moguls, and most of their papers support the Tories. The BBC has been cowed by this government, though I notice it’s not been quite so compliant since Osborne’s unfounded attack on it last week. If we had a level playing field, maybe we could just rely on the common sense of the voters to see through this vile and corrupt government which operates to the detriment of most of us.

Fortunately we now have social media and the opportunity to redress the balance, though I’m sure the Tories will either control or censor it if they can find a way to do so. Post a link on Twitter and it can reach a great number of people in just a few minutes. All I hope is that people have the opportunity to hear both sides of the story so that they can make an informed choice, although I never cease to be amazed that so many can be hoodwinked by lies and false promises into thinking that the Tories are the best for them and the country. Aneurin Bevan posed that question more than sixty years ago: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? That's the whole art of Tory politics”.

Any member of this forum who uses Facebook or Twitter might like to ensure that as many people as possible at least have the opportunity to read these three articles:-

http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog/2013/08/19/the-mess-we-inherited-some-facts-with-which-to-fight-the-tory-big-lies/

http://johannhari.com/2011/03/29/the-biggest-lie-in-british-politics/

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/its-official--benefits-and-high-taxes-make-us-all-richer-while-inequality-takes-a-hammer-to-a-countrys-growth-9914941.html

Ivan, are they not how you explained things to me earlier?
But if we build these new towns in the less congested areas, would we not then be taking away the green areas that is getting less and less as we live.

Mel wrote:OW, Russell Brand is on the panel on Question Time next week. That should be fun and a few sparks flying.

How are you my learned friend?

Mel Farage is also on this could lead to FIREWOKS on QT tonigh, I think one of the questions will be about women breast feeding in public places which will annoy Farage.

Mel wrote:We on these boards can tear the Tories apart along with some very good pro Labour anti Tory articles. However, these are not reaching the general fickle voters out there. How can Ed get it across without the media /press assisting. Instead they do all they can not to be helpful IMO.

Mel people need to get on to twitter that hit the parts of the UK that some other larger do not reach.

Redflag, you did not mention though the other post that Mel posted, that he could not see why the more fickle of the labour voters would be voting labour, and that was because it was not left enough?
Also not getting the help from the media, which is pro tory anyway.