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

"Income hasn't plummetted - but the top 10% have quadrupled their wealth and the bottom 10% are 20% worse off - UNDER A LABOUR GOVERNMENT !"

Are the bottom 10-20% actually "worse off" than they were in 1997 or is the wealth gap just wider (which isn't the same thing at all)?

I'll need some evidence to back anything up.

I think Zagreb is right, at least the last document like this I looked at showed an improvement for most but not all of the bottom 10-20%.

http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications.php?publication_id=3932

See figure 7 on page 17. The interpretation you put on this is another matter though.

Polly Tynbee seems to restrict herself to launching personal attacks on people, rather than writing about policies.

Her character assasination of Boris in the Guardian ranked alongside any of the works of Putin.

The press is not right-wing (outside everyones favourite hate organ) The Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch - a Labour Party donor who swung his media empire behind Tony Blair when Michael Howard said that a future Tory government would introduce restrictions on dominance of the media.

The red-tops are so dumbed down that the only way Polly Toynbee could even get a mention in them would be by streaking.

The Telegraph is probably the most right wing real paper, and that's matched by the Guardian. That leaves the Observer and The Independant - Unless you're referring to local papers ? In which case most of them are just collections of adverts nowadays alongside sport and 'human interest' stories.

As for Labours re-distribution of wealth - please - what about their treatment of non-doms ? David Cameron says he will do something about it, Sweetheart rushes out a policy, then Gordon runs away from it.

Never mind most journos are middle-class (that despised target group of the luvvies) Most of the country is middle class ! What class are you ? The only working class people left are clinging to a relic of their father's time - we have so little industry left, everyone is a white collar worker with their own home and car - or they're unemployed.

Is that the new working class ? I don't think so.

"Are the bottom 10-20% actually "worse off" than they were in 1997 or is the wealth gap just wider (which isn't the same thing at all)?"

They have less spending power because commodity prices are rising faster than income. And the wealth gap is definately wider, which makes the poor poorer by comparison. (Not sure that sentence works written down ?)

Gordon's idea of people having to claim entitlements fails the most needy for various reasons - illiteracy, they don't understand their entitlement, pride, many older people don't claim all they're entitled to, corruption, the false claims of people who aren't entitled, but understand how to 'work the system.'

"The press is not right-wing (outside everyones favourite hate organ) The Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch - a Labour Party donor who swung his media empire behind Tony Blair when Michael Howard said that a future Tory government would introduce restrictions on dominance of the media."

Rubbish. The "Daily Mail", the "Daily Telegraph", the "Sun" and the "Daily Express" are all solidly rightwing in outlook and would gladly claim so. Murdoch backed Labour because, as you say, it was to his advantage and he's a businessman first and foremost. Whilst the Sun was ordered to back Labour it clearly doesn't outwith general election time and has attacked the party at any given opporunity, sometimes in a barmily rightwing fashion (remember the "Gay Mafia" headline?).

"The Times" (I've no idea where you got the "everyone's favourite hate organ" thing from) is more of a centrist paper these days, despite being owned by Murdoch, but I think he doesn't bother to dictate what it publishes that much since it's far less popular than "The Sun".

"The red-tops are so dumbed down that the only way Polly Toynbee could even get a mention in them would be by streaking."

I've seen Polly Toynbee mentioned in the Sun a couple of times (they hate her); and the red-tops being dumbed-down is the problem. They're yellow press rubbish but they still tell people how to vote and give them simplistic bombast on just about everything which Labour, for one, are convinced people accept as gospel. Whether they do is another story but Labour seem to have believed the Sun's "It was the Sun wot won it" claims about the 1992 General Election.

"The Telegraph is probably the most right wing real paper, and that's matched by the Guardian. That leaves the Observer and The Independant - Unless you're referring to local papers ? In which case most of them are just collections of adverts nowadays alongside sport and 'human interest' stories."

As I said, the tabloids are the most widely-read and hence the most influential. The Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian are only mildly influential in Westminster (even though politicians are more than aware that they're more serious newspapers) and the poor old Independent apparently has no influence at all due to its dwindling readership.

Poverty in the UK? It barely registers which is why Neil Kinnock addressed the issue in the 80's. Speaking to a conference he insisted Labour had to change because the tired oppressed masses had ceased to exist. It's notable that the word "Socialism" has not been seen in a Labour Party manifesto since 1992.

Poverty used to mean living in squalor and being malnourished. It meant not being able to buy the basic basket of foodstuffs as defined by Seebohm Rowntree in 1901. Nowadays, it is defined as people earning/scrounging less than 60% of the average wage. The influx of multi-billionaires and their retinues has paradoxically raised the average wage and thus put more people into the category of "poverty". The new poor can still afford a car, central heating, TV, satellite dish (SKY basic, not the sports channel - obviously), foreign holidays and a massive obesity problem not normally indicative of imminent starvation.

Socialism was born of a desire to redistribute wealth to end real poverty, not the pretend poverty we have now. The only true Socialistic policy Chairman Broon endorses is supporting the £5.6bn a year sent out of the UK by immigrants. Not content with that, he drains our pockets in £bns in "Foreign Aid". Like £850 million a year to India - a country that can afford the Space Programme that the UK can't. The Labour Party don't believe in applying socialist tenets to UK citizens. In their eyes, WE are the nasty capitalists and their real constituency is with the poor of the Third World.

But the problem is, the Third World don't have a vote in our elections, so Labour have to lie and scheme to pull the wool over our eyes. These results are perhaps an indication that the wool is slipping.

>The Labour Party don't believe in applying socialist tenets to UK citizens. In their eyes, WE are the nasty capitalists and their real constituency is with the poor of the Third World.

And what's so wrong with that, exactly? The poor in the third world are in dire need of our help so I can't see anything wrong with what you've just claimed Labour are doing.

"The only true Socialistic policy Chairman Broon endorses is supporting the £5.6bn a year sent out of the UK by immigrants."

So you're arguing there's something wrong with people using the free movement of labour to better themselves by upping-sticks, getting a job overseas and contributing to their home economy (and their guest economy) whilst they do so? I don't seem to recall any tutting from conservatives when Brits do this sort of thing, as they did in West Germany in the 1980s and as they do in the UAE and other places to this day.

""The Times" (I've no idea where you got the "everyone's favourite hate organ" thing from)"

Sorry, just realised you weren't referring to The Times are were alluding to something else (the Mail, I assume). Apologies.

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Because this is the UK and British citizens elect MPs to represent *them*, not people thousands of miles away with their own governments.

<<"Are the bottom 10-20% actually "worse off" than they were in 1997 or is the wealth gap just wider (which isn't the same thing at all)?"

They have less spending power because commodity prices are rising faster than income. And the wealth gap is definately wider, which makes the poor poorer by comparison. (Not sure that sentence works written down ?)>>

Again, any stats to back that up? Commodity prices make up a fraction of the prices of any good bought in shops. EG, a TV has copper wires etc, but the rising price of copper doesn't mean that the assembly worker has to get paid more, or the Curry's assistant is on higher bonus etc. Oil prices do have a more general effect, but they've only gone up since about 2003. And GB isn't actually in charge of world commodity markets, so to blame him for this seems a bit disingenuous.

Why not just admit you ing hate him, and stop making unsubstantiated and vague claims about how life is shit because of New Labour's myriad ways of ruining the country?

The one area where poorer people have been at a real disadvantage is house prices going up. I had to do an essay on this a while ago, and looking at various papers which actually researched it, the only explanatory variables found with any real effect were a) low interest rates and b) low unemployment. Which are usually thought of as good things, not bad ones (although McKay might disagree).

SWL, do you think because people don't die in the street any more that poverty is gone? Not even when people from Shettleston have lives ten years shorter than folk in Bearsden (iirc)?

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A wind-up, right?

I freely admit I hate Brown for what he has done to my pension - the only thing I think he got right as a chancellor was when he put the BoE in charge of interest rates. We had 2 years of 'Prudence' as he tried to follow the Tory policies, then 8 years of insanity as he leapt from one mismanaged idea to the next. "I know lets sell off our gold and buy euros - that'll make the French like us."

However my dislike of Gordon Brown pales into insignifcance compared to my detestation of his former boss. I really don't understand why anyone ever listened to this small town lawyer, with his inflated ego.

He has destroyed in 8 years what had taken 2,000 years build, the reputation of the country and its parliament, and overseen the destruction of the Union in an effort to achieve a European Hegemony.

"Again, any stats to back that up? Commodity prices make up a fraction of the prices of any good bought in shops. EG, a TV has copper wires etc, but the rising price of copper doesn't mean that the assembly worker has to get paid more, or the Curry's assistant is on higher bonus etc. Oil prices do have a more general effect, but they've only gone up since about 2003. And GB isn't actually in charge of world commodity markets, so to blame him for this seems a bit disingenuous"

Well food is a commodity, and that seems to have risen by rather a lot. Electrical manufactured goods have become cheaper - because they are assembled by robots, from componants built by disadvantaged staff in third world sweat shops.

And don't you think that B&B's illegal war might have hgad a wee effect on oil prices ? Not to mention what his tax is doing to the price of transporting goods.

No Pedro, I'm saying poverty has been redefined. It's all relative and any "war to end poverty" is futile as, by definition, poverty must always exist. If Labour succeed in their current aim of driving high-earning non doms out of the country, the national average wage will fall and less people will fit the requirements of being officially poor. No doubt Labour will trumpet this as a huge achievement but the lot of the average Joe in Shettleston will have changed not one iota.

Don't you think that after 10 years of a Labour Govt, the fact that lifespans are decreasing in places like Shettleston are a bloody disgrace? The fact is, Labour heartlands are the poorest and most disadvantaged in the country and Labour does *nothing* for them. By keeping the people in Shettleston downtrodden, Labour secures their vote.

Anyhoo, fun as it is, this wasn't intended to be a Labour-bashing thread per se.

Do the results herald defeat for Labour at the next General Election? Are we about to witness another 97 moment, when a deeply unpopular govt was thrown out? If so, what does this say about the cyclical nature of British politics?

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The tax on pensions did *not* destroy pensions. It's overly simplistic in the extreme to say it did (although it must've had *some* effect). A tax of 1% was it? Destroyed a pension whose value is say £100k? Utter bollocks.


<<[Blair] has destroyed in 8 years what had taken 2,000 years build, the reputation of the country and its parliament, and overseen the destruction of the Union in an effort to achieve a European Hegemony.>>

More hyperbolic rubbish, I'm afraid. Get a grip, eh?


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The reasons that food prices have skyrocketed is US farm subsidies on biofuels. Added to rising wealth in SE Asia, leading to more demand for meat, causing more grain to be fed to animals. Added to previously record low prices for crops, leading to under-investment in new crop types, leading to lower than expected yields. Bugger all to do with Brown, or Blair. If you're blaming that on them you're a fool.

<<And don't you think that B&B's illegal war might have hgad a wee effect on oil prices ?>>

Yes, although probably not much, given that the US would have invaded Iraq anyway.

<< Not to mention what his tax is doing to the price of transporting goods.>>

Has fuel duty actually increased that much under New Labour? Stats, please. Your ranting isn't exactly convincing, you know..

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Despite the hatred shown by you and McKay, NL is much less hated imo than the Tories were. Because they didn't destroy the social fabric of swathes of the country like Thatcher did. I think they've been far too timid in pushing a progressive agenda, for some of the reasons Zagreb mentioned earlier, and this has cost them dearly.

As for cyclical, I dunno. I think that being in government is a *lot* harder than 'keeping your nose in the trough'. Lasting for over a decade is an achievement, and not to be sneezed at. Remember, all political careers end in failure.

And GB has been a much poorer PM than you'd expect given his record as chancellor.

Petrol is £1.09 a litre (by me) Sweetheart gets 71 pence of that.

Some of the things you want stats about are available, but I'm sitting the wrong side of a firewall.

I can say that disability claimants are running in excess of 5,000,000 because I work in that arena.

Regarding NL being unelectable - if people were prepared to re-elect them after the Iraq war, and ID cards - I'd say there is no such thing as unelectable.

The fact is so many people retain a hatred for one of the greatest political leaders of the 20th Century that anything is possible.

A colossus casts a long shadow.