"Tory scum, here we come"

First topic message reminder :

I was at the DEMO in Manchester 29th September, my thread title was the chant from around 80,000 people, 40,000 inside the park and 40,000 OUTSIDE. We were kettled so we could not get into the park. IMHO the police were on instructions from the Tory gov't so people would not see 'THE TIDE TURNNG' against this VILE NASTY gov't.   People came from Aberdeen to Somerset and everywhere else in between and we were WELCOMED by the people who live in Manchester and some even joined in the march. There were BANNERS flying high from every Union within the UK; one which really caught my eye was from the N.U.S. from HALLAM SHEFFIELD, Cleggy's seat. (Just in case some on here may not know what NUS stands for it's 'National Union of Students'.)  It's been three & a half years and they have not forgot what the Prostitute party did to them with their signed photo pledge.
 
I myself want to thank the Unite Union here in Glasgow, Jack, Angela, Jackie, Sandra and everyone else on the coach from John Smith House to Manchester, this was my first DEMO and there are plenty more to come. I hear there is one in October and I will be there by hook or by crook because it gave me hope that at last the people in the UK 'HAVE AWAKENED FROM THEIR SLEEP'. There are some posters on here who have thought "would they wake in time?" My answer is a very loud "YES they have". They may have stopped us from getting into the park but we did not miss the Tories outside their conference. They heard us and we made sure with loud hailers, Brass Bands. whistles, rattles and of course our VOICES. They heard us FINE and no doubt Cameron will be worried today, but that is no one else's fault but ours. We were quiet for too long, so I am wondering if there will be more TOILET PAPER used today at their conference??:yeahthat:

tlttf wrote:Red do you want to read my post first before you make any more assumptions?

they make it so expensive for an individual to take the case on themselves that they can't afford to do so, perhaps that's where the help is needed

No apology required. 

 
 
Where oh where have you been tittf. I know you swanned off on holiday but have you been away for the last three & half years? NO, with all the cuts this POXY gov't has brought in its impossible for people to get LEGAL AID for a lesser cases never mind a full on fight in high court with the press barons, so do not accuse me of not reading your post, if you think this shower of Capitalists ass lickers are going to give anyone that needs to take a press baron to the high court for the LIES they have printed about them "YOU ARE A DELUDED SOUL" more so if it was any of the right wing supporting rags e.g. Murdoch Dacre dream on tittf, that is why we can never allow the papers to be their own policeman

We've HAD a General Strike. In 1926. Look it up if you want to see how effective that was.

oftenwrong. What do you think happened in 1926? The union leaders appear to have lost their nerve when they called off the General Strike after just nine days. Were they afraid that it might succeed?

It was a little before my time, Ivan, but my impression is that the weight of public opinion forced an end to the General Strike.  "Ordinary People" were repelled by the notion, and many of them volunteered to drive buses, make deliveries, and generally act as blacklegs wherever a need arose.

I wouldn't personally risk a repeat of that public revulsion which might put-back the Socialist cause sixteen years.

oftenwrong wrote:It was a little before my time, Ivan, but my impression is that the weight of public opinion forced an end to the General Strike.  "Ordinary People" were repelled by the notion, and many of them volunteered to drive buses, make deliveries, and generally act as blacklegs wherever a need arose.

I wouldn't personally risk a repeat of that public revulsion which might put-back the Socialist cause sixteen years.

Would you prefer for Scotland to leave the UK OW because I caan see that happening this is something that has bothered me for months hoping that we would have the time and all our questions answered but this Tory gov't is pushing the majority of Scotland in the wrong direction.:yeahthat: 

One of the consequences of Scotland leaving the UK would be the Tories having, for want of a better phrase, a "natural majority" in Parliament, i.e. England tends to return more Tory MPs. Not ignoring Wales and Northern Ireland but obviously the vast majority of MPs would be from English constituencies. I'd hate to think how far they might go with their "essential" austerity measures (which are at least in part driven by ideology and opportunism to my mind) if they weren't tethered to a coalition partner and had a large majority.

Some well-known global companies already channel their UK sales through Luxembourg, Eire or the Isle of Man for tax reasons. The list might conceivably be extended by an independent Scotland.

Dan Fante wrote:One of the consequences of Scotland leaving the UK would be the Tories having, for want of a better phrase, a "natural majority" in Parliament, i.e. England tends to return more Tory MPs. Not ignoring Wales and Northern Ireland but obviously the vast majority of MPs would be from English constituencies. I'd hate to think how far they might go with their "essential" austerity measures (which are at least in part driven by ideology and opportunism to my mind) if they weren't tethered to a coalition partner and had a large majority.

Even with liberal gerrymandering, the number of Scottish MPs is small.    'Wales' has never given the tories a majority since ordinary people could vote but suffers with the devastating psychological effects of racist colonialism still.    We won't be able to stick the bankers' bum-boys forever though.    Keep remembering that a lot of British people in England totally reject this foreign gang, and that no decent British person has ever supported them since the late Eighteenth Century..    I think, honestly, not joking, that Partition is going to be the only long-term answer.

P.S.   Why have you stuck the Unionist flag on this section?    It turns my gut to have to choose it now.

Penderyn wrote: Even with liberal gerrymandering, the number of Scottish MPs is small.    'Wales' has never given the tories a majority since ordinary people could vote but suffers with the devastating psychological effects of racist colonialism still.    We won't be able to stick the bankers' bum-boys forever though.    Keep remembering that a lot of British people in England totally reject this foreign gang, and that no decent British person has ever supported them since the late Eighteenth Century..    I think, honestly, not joking, that Partition is going to be the only long-term answer.

P.SA.   Why have you stuck the Unionist flag on this section?    It turns my gut to have to choose it now.

If you took the Scottish MPs out of the equation I think the Conservatives would have a working majority at present (303 out of 591 according to my dodgy maths). I know that doesn't prove anything about long term results in General Elections but I'd be surprised if Labour would have been able to secure a majority in many General Elections without Scotland in the past. Maybe Blair's 1997 win.

Dan Fante wrote: If you took the Scottish MPs out of the equation I think the Conservatives would have a working majority at present (303 out of 591 according to my dodgy maths). I know that doesn't prove anything about long term results in General Elections but I'd be surprised if Labour would have been able to secure a majority in many General Elections without Scotland in the past. Maybe Blair's 1997 win.

 
 
Or 'Wales', or the North East of England, or a lot of other places.   Very little  suggests that Scotland will have the confidence to break free yet:  the  important thing is for the rest of us to break away from the South-Eastern tyranny at the same time, and set up a genuine British Federation, free of these foreign strutters who rule us by controlling the Noise Machine.

Penderyn wrote: Or 'Wales', or the North East of England, or a lot of other places.   Very little suggests that Scotland will have the confidence to break free yet:  the  important thing is for the rest of us to break away from the South-Eastern tyranny at the same time, and set up a genuine British Federation, free of these foreign strutters who rule us by controlling the Noise Machine.

 
 
Scotland has more MPs than both of those I think. Also, the issue of Scotland is more pertinent than that of Wales and the North East because Scotland is having a referendum on independence soon. There's obviously much more of a appetite for independence there than there is in the two places you mentioned. How many MPs do Plaid have? About 3? The North East of England voted against a regional assembly when they had their chance. I'm not saying Scotland will go it alone (I don't know to be honest), I was expressing some (admittedly selfish reasons) why I hope they don't - i.e. a Tory dominated political landscape, which I think would be inevitable. For what it's worth, I live in the North East and I'd probably want us to join Scotland if the Sweaties do make a break. Not that I think that would ever happen.

Labour would have won the elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005 without Scotland. Even in 2005, the party would have won 315 seats out of 587.
 
(P.S. My fault about the Union flag! I'll see what else we can find to represent UK Politics.)

Ivan wrote:Labour would have won the elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005 without Scotland. Even in 2005, the party would have won 315 seats out of 587.
 
(P.S. My fault about the Union flag! I'll see what else we can find to represent UK Politics.)

Fair enough and I confess to not having done the maths for anything like every election. I would guess that's unusual though. In any case, and this was really my main thrust - Scotland not being part of the UK would be more beneficial to the Tories than to Labour in terms of seats won / lost in general elections.

Ivan wrote:Labour would have won the elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005 without Scotland. Even in 2005, the party would have won 315 seats out of 587.
 
(P.S. My fault about the Union flag! I'll see what else we can find to represent UK Politics.)

I hate to think, and promise not to make unseemly suggestions!

Penderyn. It won't be a politician's face, but unless you have a better suggestion (preferably a 'seemly' one!), it might have to be the Houses of Parliament.

Ivan wrote:Penderyn. It won't be a politician's face, but unless you have a better suggestion (preferably a 'seemly' one!), it might have to be the Houses of Parliament.

That would be entirely acceptable, to me anyway.

We should have a referendum about this before any changes are made.

Penderyn wrote: Even with liberal gerrymandering, the number of Scottish MPs is small. 'Wales' has never given the tories a majority since ordinary people could vote but suffers with the devastating psychological effects of racist colonialism still.   We won't be able to stick the bankers' bum-boys forever though. Keep remembering that a lot of British people in England totally reject this foreign gang, and that no decent British person has ever supported them since the late Eighteenth Century..  I think, honestly, not joking, that Partition is going to be the only long-term answer.

P.S.   Why have you stuck the Unionist flag on this section?    It turns my gut to have to choose it now.

 
There are around 40 Scottish MPs Penderyn in the H.O.C enough that would leave our friends in England with a permanent Tory gov't for the forseeable future.

Redflag. I've just explained above that that isn't the case! The absence of Scottish MPs would make it harder for Labour to win, and would mean a smaller majority when they did, but Labour would still have won in 1997, 2001 and 2005 if there had been no Scottish MPs at Westminster.

Redflag wrote: There are around 40 Scottish MPs Penderyn in the H.O.C enough that would leave our friends in England with a permanent Tory gov't for the forseeable future.

 
Well, there are 36 in 'Wales', I believe, till the gerrymanderers get to work.   I think, though, that faced with bankers' bumboys forever, the British people living in England might well stir their stumps.

Penderyn wrote: Well, there are 36 in 'Wales', I believe, till the gerrymanderers get to work.   I think, though, that faced with bankers' bumboys forever, the British people living in England might well stir their stumps.

 
There are 26 Labour MPs in Wales. I'm not sure why you're trying to make this into a Wales v Scotland thing anyway though. It certainly wasn't my point or intention. Wales leaving the UK would benefit the Tories more than anyone else too but it isn't on the agenda at present.

Image suggestion for "UK Politics" thread heading

LOL. I can't ask moonbeam to change it again, she'd be entitled to throttle me!  
 
Maybe your pic would be a suitable logo for the Pease Pottage Conservative Club board?

New logo is excellent. Diolch yn fawr/thanks.

Ivan wrote:Redflag. I've just explained above that that isn't the case! The absence of Scottish MPs would make it harder for Labour to win, and would mean a smaller majority when they did, but Labour would still have won in 1997, 2001 and 2005 if there had been no Scottish MPs at Westminster.

Thanks Ivan but why was Cameron angling for a boundary change so that he could JERRYMANDER 20 seats every G.E that would be Tory seats? I would be grateful if you could answer and if he got full power over the H.O.C that would go through with no opposition, making it even harder for Labour to win but think yu would find that Wales would be the next part of the UK to want to be seperate, that is one thing Scotland has in common with Wales WE DO NOT VOTE TORY .:yeahthat: 

Redflag wrote:-
why was Cameron angling for a boundary change so that he could gerrymander 20 seats every G.E that would be Tory seats? I would be grateful if you could answer

 
When the Tories had 36% of the votes in 2010, that was their best result since 1992, but they still couldn’t win an outright majority. Had the boundary changes that Cameron wants already been in place, they might just have scraped a narrow majority.
 
The Tories love the ‘first past the post’ voting system, but were still peeved when 36% of the votes only gave them 47% of the seats in Parliament. If they were really interested in fairness, they would support a change in the voting system.
 
‘First past the post’ usually favours the largest party – most notably in 1983 and 1997, when Thatcher and then Blair won landslide majorities with under 45% of the votes cast. However, sometimes the party with the most votes loses (Labour in 1951, the Tories in February 1974), and all of the time the number of seats you win depends on how your support is distributed. A party needs ‘pockets’ of support to win constituencies; if UKIP should poll 10% evenly across the entire country, it wouldn’t win a single seat.
 
Labour support in recent years has been ‘economically’ distributed, so that the party wins many of its seats by relatively small margins. At the same time, the Tories have stockpiles of votes in the southern counties, especially in rural areas, and it doesn’t matter how many hundreds of blue-rinsers, City spivs and gin-soaked colonels live in a constituency, they still only get one MP.

 
Thank you Ivan for explaining it for me, the H.O.C. and the way it works has always puzzled me, in the 2010 G.E. Labour won 258 seats and that was not bad for a party that had fallen out of favour with the voting public, but I bet the ones that voted Tory in 2010 are not sorely regretting there error.:yeahthat:

I seem to remember reading somewhere that, out of the three major parties at least, Labour needs less votes per seat than the Tories with the Lib Dems getting the worst deal of the lot. On that proviso, Labour probably love first past the post more than any other party. It certainly suits them and the Tories more than anyone else.

It really was naive of Clegg to imagine that Cameron's lot were ever going to allow PR to replace fptp in elections to Westminster.

oftenwrong wrote:It really was naive of Clegg to imagine that Cameron's lot were ever going to allow PR to replace fptp in elections to Westminster.

Did the Conservatives promise Clegg that they would replace first past the post with PR? Has Clegg suggested that he thought they would? I thought the Tories just agreed to hold a referendum on Alternative Vote. I'm not sure what you're getting at re: Clegg's naivety on this issue.

I'm surprised that needs explaining to anyone who was a living breathing adult in 2010. The possibility of obtaining PR was the governing factor in the Lib-Dems' decision to throw in their lot with the Nasty Party.

oftenwrong wrote:I'm surprised that needs explaining to anyone who was a living breathing adult in 2010. The possibility of obtaining PR was the governing factor in the Lib-Dems' decision to throw in their lot with the Nasty Party.

Nick Clegg agreed to form a coalition with the Tories on the basis there would be a referendum on Alternative Vote. The referendum was subsequently held and the general public voted to maintain the status quo. Clegg got what was agreed upon, even if he didn't get the result he wanted. You've inferred he was promised PR, which he subsequently didn't get, therefore he was naive. The facts do not back this up. If you disagree, I'd be interested in hearing why.

Occam's razor, DF.

oftenwrong wrote:Occam's razor, DF.

How do you mean? (and I don't mean explain what Occam's Razor is).

Ivan wrote:-
When the Tories had 36% of the votes in 2010, that was their best result since 1992, but they still couldn’t win an outright majority. Had the boundary changes that Cameron wants already been in place, they might just have scraped a narrow majority.
 
The Tories love the ‘first past the post’ voting system, but were still peeved when 36% of the votes only gave them 47% of the seats in Parliament. If they were really interested in fairness, they would support a change in the voting system.
 
‘First past the post’ usually favours the largest party – most notably in 1983 and 1997, when Thatcher and then Blair won landslide majorities with under 45% of the votes cast. However, sometimes the party with the most votes loses (Labour in 1951, the Tories in February 1974), and all of the time the number of seats you win depends on how your support is distributed. A party needs ‘pockets’ of support to win constituencies; if UKIP should poll 10% evenly across the entire country, it wouldn’t win a single seat.
 
Labour support in recent years has been ‘economically’ distributed, so that the party wins many of its seats by relatively small margins. At the same time, the Tories have stockpiles of votes in the southern counties, especially in rural areas, and it doesn’t matter how many hundreds of blue-rinsers, City spivs and gin-soaked colonels live in a constituency, they still only get one MP.

 
The tories scream and moan now, but it used to be very much the other way around.    When there used to be two Rhondda seats the Liberals didn't dare stand, the tories lost two deposits and Labour won (normally by huge majorities) over, respectively, the CP and Plaid  Cymru.   It was just an extreme form of what happened everywhere where the majority did any work, and the tories seemed to live with it very easily  indeed.

Dan Fante wrote: .... Clegg got what was agreed upon, even if he didn't get the result he wanted. You've inferred he was promised PR, which he subsequently didn't get, therefore he was naive. The facts do not back this up. If you disagree, I'd be interested in hearing why.

Slice the salami as fine as you like, DF, the Lib-Dems' prime motivation in 2010 was to obtain PR. Perhaps the strength of that desire clouded their judgment about the reality of Tory intentions. My personal opinion is that they were naive in their expectations at the time of entering into their pact. They were disabused soon enough and brutally enough.

And what are we to make of the New Labour people joining in the destruction of the education system.   This is the key problem:  without democracy or engaged members they  will just go by what pleases the bankers' press, hopelessly, for ever

Penderyn wrote: Or 'Wales', or the North East of England, or a lot of other places.   Very little  suggests that Scotland will have the confidence to break free yet:  the  important thing is for the rest of us to break away from the South-Eastern tyranny at the same time, and set up a genuine British Federation, free of these foreign strutters who rule us by controlling the Noise Machine.

 
 
SCOTLAND IS READY FOR THAT WHEN EVER WALES IS PENDERYN, that would be something I would look forward to a Tory free gov't.  

Penderyn wrote:And what are we to make of the New Labour people joining in the destruction of the education system.   This is the key problem:  without democracy or engaged members they  will just go by what pleases the bankers' press, hopelessly, for ever

Or Labour trying to prove they will be even tougher on welfare claimants than IDS!

Labour are done. If Reeves continues speaking as she has I won't vote at all in 2015. This is beyond a joke now.

I think you have mis-read what Rachael Reeves was saying gw, tough on the ones that cheat the system and definitely not believe in trying to get a job but I can assure you that the people that need will get a HAND UP not HAND OUT.:yeahthat: