Falco twisted the electrons to say:
The "coalition of spinning capitists" wouldn't need to bring out a law preventing parliamentary elections per se, because the previous "bunch of alleged socialists" already did that in back in 2004.
Yes, it appears that you were.
By who started the "difficult times" - greedy bastard capalistic bankers - and they are *STILL* doing it even now!
Agreed about the labour twits, and it's really is something that I prophesised about a Labour government way back in the days when Harold Wilson ruled the roost.
It will ultimately come that's for sure.
Why should there be "two evils"?
Well, that word was around a long time before the "left" of any party existed - in fact to roman times!
Responsibility was given "back to the population" under Thatcher - and that started accelerated the social degeneration, lack of discipline and blame culture that we have today.
And if you really believe that, well...
I partially accept your view on a the Labour type of state - as for earning "money before you spend it", that has been my belief for the last 60 odd years, it was the Tories idea of "spending money" that you didn't earn was hard to swallow, especially when the anocronym YUPPIE was born and kids hidden away in the financial system who had never done a days works stared to 'bend' (and are still doing so) that system to make themselves millions of pounds to the real detriment of the country - as proven with the events of the last 18 months or so.
An that's the majority - the bastards of minority will still benefit hugely - so we agree!
You missed a group or two out there - what about the pensioners who have to exist on a state pension, those who for legitimate reasons have to exist on a fixed income - especially as VAT is expected to reach 20 to 25% and possibly included on food. Rather like the last Tory govenment increasing VAT from 8 to 17.5% and sticking that on gas and electricity as well. As I said, only the rich bastards will benefit - and most of them have never done a days work in their lives having inherited their filthy lucre.
Not enough to make even a pin-prick in the nation debt, but it will certainly add to the millions that Cameron and Clegg have inherited.
And you think that a private sector worker on at least the minimum wage will pay inheritance tax? Now that is a typical Tory response>
But at least that's spreading the wealth where it can do some good - unlike a Lib/Tory ego building kiddies game.
Thatcher took away central funding for local government and introduced the Poll tax causing riots - and I bet that if the govenment hadn't capped son-of-poll tax rises to 5% you'd be screaming your balls off at the unfairness of it - and you really want to go further down that road?
And all that would happen is that the *new* politicians will succumb to the same old system - as those in Parliament have done - and still live high on the hog to the detriment of others.
If you have really delved into the realms of local governent (which I really doubt), you will find that many really would like to be free from central governments "rubber stamp" but that will not happen in practice - and freedom from that is, and will be illusory. Thatcher's government gave that illusion of "freedom", but in practice, strangled local government and in fact, increased costs hugely as a result whilst "screwing down council's income from central funding and other sources - she even introduced the Right to Buy of council housing *AND* then refused to allow the local authorities to spend the gains off that.
As a matter of further interest, when Thatcher introduced the poll tax, my rated bill went up from around £160 a year to nearly £450 and my council services were hugely reduced because central government funding was reduced to below the income from the poll tax.
No, Tory fiscal control has more to do with funding their rich backers from wherever they can redirect the money from essential services using the old smoke and mirrors routine (a routine which is used by all political parties)
Falco
Who by the way, really has no political affiliation and only comments on what he has experienced over many years.
Posted through x-privat.org as Albasani seems to be down.
They may have been part of it but there have been plenty of people living beyond their means and borrowing like there's no tomorrow.
Rubbish. The UK's problems were caused by Gordo, who has been spending beyond our means for years.
Principally Gordon Brown.
I have one response to you, Falco.
David Cameron is not Margaret Thatcher, and the party is, by and large, not the same party.
From time to time a/the lunatic ideological wing of a party takes over, wrecks the party for a generation, and then as it becomes totally unelectable, is gradually forced out. That happened at the end of Thatchers time, it has happened with Broon, it happened with Michael Foot etc..It happened with Bush and the Neocons..
It has taken a generation to clear the handbag swinging hard line 'on yer bikes' people out of the Tory party and return it to the general sort of center right area it had under - say - Macmillan.
Ideologues are always dangerous, because to them, the end justifies the means. Thatcher and Broon are similar, in that they seem to truly believe their own bullshit, and both in their way have damaged the nation.
In addition, they will ally themselves with the worst elements in any party, in order to get power, and stay in power. Ultimately that destroys the party in terms of its electability.
The force in play now, is a ruthless but very considered pragmatism towards specific goals: I suspect Francis Maude is behind it somewhere..in short to form alliances with who ever is prepared to genuinely help, and marginalise the ideologues: and the target is more GDP, and less debt, with as little social friction and tribalism as possible.
In this contect the coalition is an advantage: it adds credibility to the alliance, and calms peoples fears of what a full Tory majority might have led to, swingeing cuts with a rather nasty political bias against the part of the electorate that voted labour: Namely the North east, Scotland, Wales and the North west. This would only, after all, be a reversal on New Labour policies,which has bled the South East dry to fund the great public sector and unemployed areas (as detailed above).
It is a mistake, however, to project the motives and activities of the Labour party onto to the new conservatives.,. They learnt the lesson of Thatcher.
hat is why all this frantic cosying up to e.g. Alex Salmon: Cameron, and the Toreis need him to be onside, Any Scottish cuts have to be run past him, and will probably be discussed with him, not because Salmon is ever going to entirely agree, but because he can if convinced og the necessity, at least manage his power base so there are no riots in the streets.
This is the ploy. Whether you regard it as cynical, or simple pragmatism, or a genuine desire to actually gain some form of cross party consensus for deeply moral reasons, doesn't matter. The policy that will be worked out, will not base its validity on 'because its for the (whatever electorate you command)'s good against (the other lot) but on the basis that of a set of very bad alternatives, its probably the least damaging to all.
Its a different interpretation of 'Fair'.
Te basic position is, we need to slash public spending and increase taxation, and shift the economic activity of the country away from inward recycling of money through the public sector, and a fat cut off the financial community, towards genuine *production* of wealth and especially exportable wealth. That means people will in time have to come out of the public sector, and enter the private sector, and learn how to work again. In terms of actual results, not just ticking boxes on yet another form.
The Thatcher way would have been swingeing cuts and mass unemployment: the pail of cold water thrown over the workforce. That works if you have the majority, and its bloody fast, but its socially very divisive. Your post shows that it has left a deeply felt resentment among those who never realised why it was necessary, and in fact it led to the demise of moderate right politics for a generation. You were either a Thatcherite, or New Labour. New Labour failed. It failed because there wasn't the competence in the Party to actually achieve any of its (ostensible) aims, and in the end, it was just a rebranding of the same old dinosaurs that have been creating a divided nation full of the unemployed underclass, whilst preaching that they were in fact trying to do the exact opposite.
So the Cameron way (or Francis Maude way) is to go for a more co-operative approach: What must be done, must be done, but using such members of the center left as are prepared to assist in making sure it gets done with the minimum of pain, is the game.
Thatcher style methods could fix the economy, but they cant heal a deeply divided nation. Cuts have to be shown to be hurting those in the Tory shires as much as those in the inner cities. in my case, I don't mind stumping up a couple of thousand a year as my contribution, but not if it means my total lifestyle is destroyed forever. And my freedom is replaced by diktat from Whitehall.
But public sector jobs *have* to go, eventually. And that means pain for those in them. For a while, more debt will have to be taken on, and more taxes will have to be levied, and those will and should fall heavily on the more affluent and the bigger spenders, which is why I suspect VAT will be the method: But it will be tempered by a lower rate of public sector job losses, low income ta relief, and a reasonable underwriting of the social security, to ensure that it doesn't result in really bad side effects.
That plus cutting out as much unnecessary and unproductive effort in the form of useless red tape and petty bureaucracy, is the plan.
Thatchers approach to local government was to emasculate it, in order to stop the ghastly waste of money by left controlled councils, and limit their powers. A situation that was seized by new Labour to make local councils the instrument of social engineering polices. It wasn't the right approach: The way it will *probably* go now, is that local councils will have freedom of action restored, but the price will be that they have to raise their own local taxes, and will not be funded according to central government whim, and they will be made accountable for their decisions to the local electorate. That way if teh local council is raping you and spending it all on jollies, and gay lesbian drop in day centers, you can vote the bastards out and put in someone who simply collects the rubbish efficiently, and keeps the potholes in the roads filled.. or whatever is deemed desirable in YOUR local context.
Those who are too young to remember anything other than Thatcher, wont believe this.
Thos who can remember back to a rather kinder and more paternal tory party of the 50's will know that Thatcher was an aberration: needed at the time, but should have been ditched after the job was done, and a nice sort of John Major figure put in to soothe ruffled feathers. Unfortunately the Thatcher mania had swept through the party, and she had knifed any possible contenders for top bitch position in the back.
That situation has been reversed. This is a style of politics we haven't seen for 50 years, if ever. Don't judge it yet. Give it a chance.
I have to admit, largely because the greedy capitalist bankers encouraged them to, with easy access to unlimited credit at silly interest rates that didn't reflect the lending risk. It takes two to make a lender/borrower arrangement.
And the banks SHOULD have gone bust. Except that would have ruined the thrifty savers as well.
And polayed merry hell with ordinary banking business - helpoing payments flow around teh commercial world.
Which is why clear dividing lines should,m and we hope will, be drawn between merchant banking - high risk banking - mortgage loans - medium risk banking - and consumer deposit accounts which should be low risk.
The travesty was using money that should have been ring fenced - customer deposits - to finance casino capitalism, for the profit of shareholders and executives. But not their loss.
Banks have to be made small enough to fail, and to fail without crapping on investors and depositors on minmal rates of return.
Lets hope we can sort that out.
It was an unhloy allieance.
Banks could happily lend to Gordo, who could spend it on 'job creation' wrongly called 'investment' and buy yet another electoral bloc with it, without fear of default. Governments don't default, do they? Triple A rated debt is government debt..
Except of course, we are in a world where banks fail, and governments do default.
That's the whole issue with the greek situation. You cannot have countries borrowing at a european wide single rate, without imposing european wide fiscal policy across the nations states. The Euro menan, has to mean, that you are running Europe as a single economic policy. You cant have it both ways. Either the European economy is run as a single unit, or its not.
Today, its not integrated enough politically for that, but there is a single currency. Its a situation that cannot last.
Whether the tanks roll into Athens, or Greeces leaves the Euro, is the issue.
Interesting. But Thatcher was needed to:
1) Put the boot into the Unions (and it may need to be done again). Those who are old enough will remember that show "The Rag Trade" and others about industrial relations that were funny at the time because, like Fawlty Towers, they touched a nerve of truth. They wouldn't be funny today because all of the rubbish we had to put up with from the Unions 50 years ago (secondary pickets, demarcation disputes, ...) has been swept away. 2) Privatise all the stuff that should never have been in the public sector. Remember when the Post Office ran the phones? I remember arguing with Post Office suits in 1968 about needing networks at 1Mbps. No, you didn't need more than 300/2400bps, and that was what you were going to get. Public officials know better than you what you need, you see.Huge snip of a very good reply
This raises a question from me. Just how do councils provide jollies, gay and lesbian drop in centres, outreach workers and even worse, all the translators for the influx of immigrants? What is the authority and mandate for doing so.
Dave
Yes, that was the job she was elected to do. Poll tax wasn't on the cards, and neither was mass privatisation of anything that moves as a matter of principle, even when it defied common sense.
if the poll tax had been rolled in carefully over a 5 year period, it would have been fine, and the bad side effects fixed to ameliorate any ill feeling. Instead it was banged in as a once and for all measure, and really pissed people off. It was the 'this is right; f*ck you' attitude that was so damaging,and led to a labour government thinking it was OK to adopt the same attitude.
European policy these days.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.