h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Did I say that? But a company not paying in at all for ***SEVENTEEN YEARS*** will have more of an effect than any taxation schedule.

I do not thnk that tax was hugely opportune, on the other hand pensions trustees should always plan on the basis that returns oculd be less in the future, for whatever reason (taxation, portfolio decrease) and they were allowed to get out of this by the tories.

I think that is is basically blinkered electioneering by people with their bees in their bonnetts to pretend this is all "Gordies" fault.

And lets face it WA you consitantly disply your hatred of anything he does in almost every post you ever make. It almost as much of a broken record as my airy fairy wishy washy liberalism

<<

Red Robbo, Arthur Scargill, Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, unburied bodies, rubbish lining the streets versus the balls to reform the economy from the fag end of the industrial revolution to a leading nation in service industries. Get real guys.>>

And yet when Labour left power in 1979 inflation was falling (but the Tory increase in VAT sent it shooting up again) and unemployment was around the million mark. I lived in Scotland, the Northeast and South Wales during the Thatcher era and saw the devestation she felt was neccessary, my parents grew up in the 30's. Tories don't change, when sacrifices are neccessary they always find someone else to make them.

Come on cut me some slack here, not every post, only those when it's appropriate. He gets up my nose because of his two facedness. He constantly sniped from the sidelines when Chancellor and if you watch carefully you'll see him backing away from almost all the rules and policies that were down to him: Governemnt borrowing as a proportion of GDP, Defense spending, Education spending and look at the mess he's made with targets and NOT value for money in the NHS.

He's a committed wealth re-distributor which may be very laudible but the downside is he's the created a benefit dependent society.

He also has the endearing habit of doing a McCavity whenever there's trouble afoot. We'll see his true mettle while he dithers about the election.

Hi BC

Are you suggesting that you are not making sacrifices now? Taxation, both covert and overt so high that the Govt can keep throwing money at problems rather than solve them, and pay 2 million odd 'unemployed' but on Incapacity Benefits.....

Both parties are a bunch of hypocrites.

Novo

< Are you suggesting that you are not making sacrifices now? Taxation, both covert and overt so high that the Govt can keep throwing money at problems rather than solve them, and pay 2 million odd 'unemployed' but on Incapacity Benefits.....>

Doesn't really compare to whole regions of the country devastated
People made unemployed with no prospect of a anything other than a McJob for the rest of their lives
Active encouragement of unemployed people going on to incapacity benefit by the DHSS so as to keep down the unemployment figures whereas nowadays the pressure to get those on Incapacity Benefit back into work is real
Oh, and throwing money at problems isn't new
It was the North Sea Oil windfall and the revenue from selling off state-owned assets that allowed the Tories to fund tax cuts
Their actual economic policy was a disaster. Remember the constant redefining of monetary targets until monetarism was quietly abandoned

I did say that they were BOTH hypocrites...

There is no need for a long debate or point swapping on who did the most devastating thing, but I will ask you a couple of things if I may.

Who presented Maggie with a golden opportunity by calling the miners out, in the summer, when BC had 7 million tons of coal stockpiled above ground - and would you prefer coal fired power stations and steam trains?

Did the car industry really need a second nightshift at Longbridge?

That is not to misunderstand the pain and hardship involved when wholesale unprofitable industries are forced to face the realities of outside change and competion.

Novo

Oh, agreed. Many of the changes that came about whilst Thatcher was in power were neccessary and inevitable but was the brutality and even at times relish they were enacted with also neccessary?
One of the greatest lost opportunities in British politics was when the unions and James Callaghan scuppered 'In Place of Strife'.
I don't particularly like the current Labour Party but I don't believe a Tory party led by people who joined when she was in power has changed. Nor does the reaction of much of the Tory party to attempts to soften its image give me any confidence.

What did you all expect "Call me Dave" to say? He's the leader of the Opposition. He's the Tory Blicky to the Government SWL. It's his job to hold every action of government to the light of day and to give it a thorough lambasting. Yes he's a hypocrite. ALL politicians are hypocrites. And they get away with it because we have our favourite hypocrites who stick it to the other lot's hypocrites.

Politics is the sleaziest, grubbiest most immoral of professions and it attracts slimeballs. I'd shoot the bloody lot of them. Put a Dr in charge of the NHS, a soldier in charge of the army, a judge in charge of the law etc and have them all assessed by what they've actually done every few years rather than what they promise to do in the next few years.

(What fun, writing the "Tory Blicky" )

>> I'd shoot the bloody lot of them.<<

I've heard you say similar stuff before SWL. But what I've never heard you say is what we would put in their place. What different system to you advocate?

Seriously I'd like really like to hear what other system we could have to run society.

Surely it is obvious.... SWL would like there to be an Islamic Caliphate established in Britain...

The vast majority of politicians are whining hypocrits. However there are good honest men in politics who seriously try to do better for their constituents - it goes without saying that few of them rise to positions of power.

Frank Field is an honest politician that I would vote for - unfortunately my local MP is Geoffrey Robinson - I won't be voting for him.

David has decided the way to power is to play the media game - TB made a total success of this, and continued to manipulate them right up to the moment when they turned on him. He failed to realise that when you go to bed with sharks like the Dirty Digger, you're very handy when they need a snack.

Somebody, this week, made an interesting comment about Moredick saying he doesn't automatically back any party he backs winners; implying that if Dave begins to edge ahead in the polls then NI could well swing in behind him despite Gordy brown nosing them.

I've been thinking more about what SWL said about having specific experts in charge of each department. There is some sense to that. But who would oversee all of these departments? Surely we would still need to have some kind of committee/government to co-ordinate things. There's bound to be conflicts sometimes about such things as how much money should be spent on one thing rather than another because of the sheer complexity of society and what is going on in the world in other countries.

I don't think there is ever going to be a perfect system. And what we've got at the moment in terms of politicians being elected every few years by all of us who live in the country to make the country tick along as best as possible, is not such a terrible system.

There'll always be politicians , but if we executed a few it might keep the rest on their toes

Winston Churchill was he a politician?

Im not happy with you spitting at all politicians. Although Im no fan of the over-rated cigar chomper myself.

I tend to think that politicians are like the wizard in "The wizard of Oz" only as powerful or deceitful as people will let them be. Its easy to shout at the TV or tear up the paper in disgust but we let them get away with their behaviour.

I think we ought to take more respnsibility in pushing for change or working to preserve what we think is good.

Agreed, but the problem is, I for one feel isolated from others of like mind (another clever effect by *them*?).

I think, if I was offered a chance, I'd contribute a modest amount, annually, to a 'Lobby for the Common Man' (Lobby for the common HeShe doesn't sound quite the same).

"Leadership means being ready and willing to recognise that war, suffering and death can always be turned around and put to devastating political use."

Brown also told beleaguered British troops that he will bring them home when it is in the best interests of the Labour Party."

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/help-me-win-election%2c-brown-asks-terrified-iraqis-20071002440/

nice link.

There is a point that occured to me there, regarding David Cameron in particular I suppose: we see politicians as detached from the real world, and not sharing the attitudes and values of common people. They then go away and try to make themselves seem normal, parading their familes, making porridge on their webcam, or whatever it is. And then we see them as tourists, charlatans and imposters.

So the question is, does it matter if Gordon Brown comes from a poor background and David Cameron comes from a wealthy, well educated one? I reckon, ultimately, as long as they have the skills to do the job competently and the will to make an attempt at representing the values of the majority of the people in the UK, then the background shouldn't be the issue.

Representing values doesn't mean doing what the most people think you should do exactly though - after all they are supposed to be experts at their job and I would hope they'd know better than the average person on the street.

We don't elect Prime Ministers, we elect Governments, so we're told (bollocks imo). Well we did that and Labour were elected on the basis of their manifesto promises. We now have a new Prime Minister refusing to honour the manifesto commitment to a referendum on the EU constitution. He is also promising to make further changes. In effect, we have a new government following a new agenda which no-one voted for. Brown I suspect realised this and dipped his toe in the water to see which way the wind was blowing At the first hint of an election, the polls promptly recorded a rise in support for the Tories, helped by a fairly good speech by Sunny D*. So Brown bottled it. Brown imo is toom tabard and I for one want an election for a leader with the courage to put his convictions to the test.

*He did make the cogent point that Brown was talking out his well-padded arse when he talked about British jobs for British workers and deporting criminals.

Dithering Gordy bottles it, couldn't resist, nay baaas, aye.