Dunno, but old Tone has hair to die for *swoons*

quote:

Originally posted by Gusty O'Windflap:
Dunno, but old Tone has hair to die for *swoons*

all i saw was his baldy patch.

Some people are the glass is half empty...

quote:

Originally posted by ContessaQ:
when he got booted out did he go and live in south africa?
just seen him on the david letterman show and he sounds so different from when he was pm.

He didn't get booted out! He chose his moment to leave with impressive precision so that all the bad stuff 'coming home to roost' landed on Gordon's shoulders. For all the guy's destruction of the UK, he's a politician and a half.

Perhaps the changed accent is in preparation for becoming the President of Europe.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

quote:

Originally posted by ContessaQ:
when he got booted out did he go and live in south africa?
just seen him on the david letterman show and he sounds so different from when he was pm.

He didn't get booted out! He chose his moment to leave with impressive precision so that all the bad stuff 'coming home to roost' landed on Gordon's shoulders. For all the guy's destruction of the UK, he's a politician and a half.

Perhaps the changed accent is in preparation for becoming the President of Europe.

The man is a showbiz wannabe and actor who married into an acting family. He acted at being PM and he is acting as President-Of-Europe-in-waiting. Thus, he changes his accent and persona accordingly.

He seems to have got away with....
*Hijacking and destroying an perfectly adequate political party.
*Furthering Thatcherism/Monetarism by another 12 years.
*Actions which if committed by the wrong side would be deemed as war crimes.

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
He seems to have got away with....
*Hijacking and destroying an perfectly adequate political party.
*Furthering Thatcherism/Monetarism by another 12 years.
*Actions which if committed by the wrong side would be deemed as war crimes.

And I could add to that selling the ordinary working man and woman whom he was supposed to represent down the river by totally destroying the labour market, manufacturing industry and importing cheap labour.

quote:

Originally posted by squiggle:

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
He seems to have got away with....
*Hijacking and destroying an perfectly adequate political party.
*Furthering Thatcherism/Monetarism by another 12 years.
*Actions which if committed by the wrong side would be deemed as war crimes.

And I could add to that selling the ordinary working man and woman whom he was supposed to represent down the river by totally destroying the labour market, manufacturing industry and importing cheap labour.

Though TBF most employers will be very happy with the current cheap labour market.
Those of us in the top right know that Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing industry although baffled people of the left wing such as George Monbiot assure that it will never rise again.

Blair and his party have subverted and modified the relationship between the state and the citizen. We're a different country now. It's all very sinister. I don't know whether we libertarian liberals can repair the damage now.

quote:

And I could add to that selling the ordinary working man and woman whom he was supposed to represent down the river by totally destroying the labour market, manufacturing industry and importing cheap labour.

And yet for all his faults, he had the ability to slaughter the Tories at the ballot box,
so I guess he wasn't all bad.

Employing imported cheap labour to do jobs in the labour market he had destroyed.

quote:

Originally posted by RZB:
And yet for all his faults, he had the ability to slaughter the Tories at the ballot box,
so I guess he wasn't all bad.

I can't tell the difference between Stork and butter Brown and the Tories.

quote:

Originally posted by RZB:

quote:

And I could add to that selling the ordinary working man and woman whom he was supposed to represent down the river by totally destroying the labour market, manufacturing industry and importing cheap labour.

And yet for all his faults, he had the ability to slaughter the Tories at the ballot box,
so I guess he wasn't all bad.

Employing imported cheap labour to do jobs in the labour market he had destroyed.

Brings to mind the old maxim, 'you can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time'. Tony Blair talented politician, failed human being.

quote:

failed human being.

What does failed human being mean

I've never heard that saying before.

quote:

Originally posted by RZB:

quote:

failed human being.

What does failed human being mean

I've never heard that saying before.

Well perhaps its just my term. I don't tend to judge people on whether they have zillions in the bank, ferraris or a bloomin great yacht. But are they kind, just, fairminded. Not greedy but keen to help their fellow man/woman. Not determined to leap on the nearest available gravy train and make sure that they get super super helpings of everything and never mind whether someone else is being done down. You know the kind of thing. These are not qualities I associate with the Blairs. And yes I know that dear Cherie is a lawyer who specialises in helping people achieve justice but she doesn't exactly go without herself does she? First in the queue for all the freebies going. Anyway, my view of them, maybe not one shared by you

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:

quote:

Originally posted by RZB:
And yet for all his faults, he had the ability to slaughter the Tories at the ballot box,
so I guess he wasn't all bad.

I can't tell the difference between Stork and butter Brown and the Tories.

NuLabour's Tax and Spend recklessness is an enduring one. Their core philosophy about the proper role of the state is another. Obviously, how the citizen and the state are related is a significant one; the most significant one for me as I abhor what they're doing. Now most of Labour have realised working class consciousness died decades ago with the homogenous working class, it's small wonder the two parties have moved closer together. They're not the same though, not at all.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:

quote:

Originally posted by RZB:
And yet for all his faults, he had the ability to slaughter the Tories at the ballot box,
so I guess he wasn't all bad.

I can't tell the difference between Stork and butter Brown and the Tories.

NuLabour's Tax and Spend recklessness is an enduring one. Their core philosophy about the proper role of the state is another. Obviously, how the citizen and the state are related is a significant one; the most significant one for me as I abhor what they're doing. Now most of Labour have realised working class consciousness died decades ago with the homogenous working class, it's small wonder the two parties have moved closer together. They're not the same though, not at all.

One tends to look at the big picture, aka The Economy. I still find it hard to believe that this so-called Labour government gave more power to the merchants, bankers, and merchant bankers than any previous regime, thus arriving at the inevitable collapse of capitalism. Having said that, Brown appears to have mended it, without us getting to the soup kitchen, means test, wads of banknotes for goalposts stage.

The demise of the Labour Party was inevitable. It was unelectable until Blair ditched socialism for his strange mix of market economics and social communitarianism. Brown has kept the economics for the obvious reasons and shifted more towards a social culture of dependency masquerading as social justice and using the middle classes as his wallet. Socialism in the Marx sense is flawed anyway as it profoundly misunderstands human nature. Socialism as the base of communism is demonstrably unworkable. Socialism as some some sort of 1970s working class paradigm died a natural death years ago except in the mind of some dinosaurs like Scargill and Benn.

So Danjay. Do you think that the usual grumpy moaning suspects on here would prefer a return to the left wing style of Eden, MacMillan, Wilson, Callaghan etc. Would they prefer to take even more power away from government and let the evil capitalists run the lot? Or something else? I can't work it out.

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
So Danjay. Do you think that the usual grumpy moaning suspects on here would prefer a return to the left wing style of Eden, MacMillan, Wilson, Callaghan etc. Would they prefer to take even more power away from government and let the evil capitalists run the lot? Or something else? I can't work it out.

Lots of people vote for a change of government if the current government has chossed enough of them off during their tenure. In some ways, that's not too bad as a regular change of government limits the extent of the damage each government does. Lots of people simply vote as their parents voted, or how they normally vote, irrespective of the changes governments introduce.

I'd prefer people to look at themes. What themes does, say, a Labour government pursue? Are they consistent in what they do or are they populist and a bit incoherent? What political philosophy do they come from? What do they stand for? Who do they naturally favour in the competition of interests?

By observation, the majority here over the last few months are people with quite limited incomes. The vocal ones anyway. Their interests lie in getting more money, whether through lower taxes or more state benefits. For those who are not working for various reasons, I expect they want a large state if they vote for themselves and live for the moment. If they vote for longer term prosperity then I expected they ought to vote for a small state and a private market economy.

Some of them will remember what it was like when Keynesian economics failed in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Supply side support, wage freezes, the industrial relations carnage, wild inflation, large national debts, national crises, and so on.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:
.....If they vote for longer term prosperity then I expected they ought to vote for a small state and a private market economy.....

(Excuse me doing that)

See! That's the part I don't understand. We now have a smaller state and a private market economy. The only people who have longer term prosperity are the ones who pay themselves bouses, pay little tax, and have the rest offshore.
The rest can go and get chased.

I would imagine that most people on long term benefits at the moment haven't noticed much of a change as regards the economy.

Not to be flippant but day to day living (as far as utilities and food goes) things are pretty much the same. It's interest rates and all that other economic gubbins that I don't understand that is all skew wiff, no?

Anyway I dun understand none of this really so I shall steal the Toids popcorn while she's not looking.

quote:

Originally posted by Demantoid:

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:
.....If they vote for longer term prosperity then I expected they ought to vote for a small state and a private market economy.....

(Excuse me doing that)

See! That's the part I don't understand. We now have a smaller state and a private market economy. The only people who have longer term prosperity are the ones who pay themselves bouses, pay little tax, and have the rest offshore.
The rest can go and get chased.

Maybe some want to break in down further, a separate Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Channel Isles..... We can all live like Hugh Fernley-Worthalot!

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
See! That's the part I don't understand. We now have a smaller state and a private market economy. The only people who have longer term prosperity are the ones who pay themselves bouses, pay little tax, and have the rest offshore.
The rest can go and get chased.

We're considerably better off now than we were in, say, 1960 and 1970. Of course, what you say also depends on what you mean by the state. Something different to me, I expect.

So, if Thatcher's harsh monetarism and social revolution didn't suit you, and Blair/Brown's extension to the resulting market-driven economy doesn't suit you, and whatever Cameron's government might bring doesn't appeal, what is it you want? A return to Keynesianism, a single worker class, state-ownership of major industries as well as utility ones, a dying empire? Or something completely different?

Whatever it is, it won't happen for a while anyway. We've got to get through a decade or more of relative austerity to fix Brown's reckless Tax And Spend spree, his cosying up to the City and all that cost when he should have been toning down the City after the successes of the Big Bang, and his deliberate housing bubble. That's irrespective of whatever government gets in next year.

I suspect that I am older and more rural than you. This area seemed to be better off in the sixties and seventies than now.
I think that industry had a major effect. Real career type work brought cash and familial and community stability. Most of the industries were interlinking and dependant on coal. Once the coal went, the rest followed. We are in a mess.
They thieved all the money out of this area and diverted it to London, and then who knows where? I don't think that anybody, not even HMRC knows where it all is.

What I would like is something constructive, a group of academics to study and recommend, and a government strong enough to back them up. Otherwise we leave all the decisions to a bunch of businessmen and crooks, and their daft market forces.

There was a piece in the Torygraph yesterday that I thought was quite interesting, as rhetoric goes.

"What is being summoned up by the Left revivalists is a vision of working-class life that, if it existed at all, was almost exclusively rural: a peasant idyll of co-operative, mutually supporting communities in which self-betterment was a collective rather than an individual goal. But this will not wash."

Torygraph link

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
What I would like is something constructive, a group of academics to study and recommend, and a government strong enough to back them up.

But based on what? Academics aren't unbiased free-thinkers. We're back to fundamental themes; ideas about human nature, and moral goods, and societal goals. The first thing to ask is what is the state for?

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:
There was a piece in the Torygraph yesterday that I thought was quite interesting, as rhetoric goes.

"What is being summoned up by the Left revivalists is a vision of working-class life that, if it existed at all, was almost exclusively rural: a peasant idyll of co-operative, mutually supporting communities in which self-betterment was a collective rather than an individual goal. But this will not wash."

Moin
It certainly washes here.
Those Torygraph peeps have spent too long in that London killer smog. Silly old fools.

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
Moin
It certainly washes here.
Those Torygraph peeps have spent too long in that London killer smog. Silly old fools.

Well, it is the Torygraph. I just thought it was amusingly coincidental given your language up there and its echoes in their piece. Almost as though they read stuff here and decided to knock something up.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
Moin
It certainly washes here.
Those Torygraph peeps have spent too long in that London killer smog. Silly old fools.

Well, it is the Torygraph. I just thought it was amusingly coincidental given your language up there and its echoes in their piece. Almost as though they read stuff here and decided to knock something up.

Yes I know! I noticed the word "rural!"
OK! I'll love you and leave you, so to speak. Going for a quick ride around the villages on trusty old Kondratiev.

I love reading the comments on the Torygraph articles. They're like the Independent ones, only about 10% as right wing.

I thought this one sums up the Torygraph quite well:

"Mrs Thatcher brought aspirational politics to the working class - the sale of council houses, help for small businesses, ownership of shares, lower taxes - all contributed to the demise of socialism.

However, during the same period, it became apparent that there were those for whom these policies had no relevance and a new word described them - 'the underclass'. Thatcherism never came to terms with them.

And this article displays a dangerous attitude because this class is still with us today. In a time, when more and more young people will fail to find jobs 'the underclass' will remain a major and increasing problem for society.

Tony Blair thought he had the answer with his 'Education, Education, Education' philosophy. Despite massive spending, the Labour Party has failed.

Yet, 'the underclass' do have aspirations - they want mobile phones, holidays, computers, computer games. But they no not have the aspiration to achieve wealth through conventional means. They are realists in that they see that they cannot achieve more in life than the handouts they receive from the State.

We, as a society, have to decide whether we are content to pay off this class, or adopt a policy of 'tough love'. This would require a crackdown on benefit fraud, more policing and certainly free access to the pill for all girls from the age of thirteen"

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

certainly free access to the pill for all girls from the age of thirteen"

I suspect that there is a certain 'looking down the wrong end of the telescope' in your remark. Whilst young girls can be fairly certain of being comfortably housed when they have a young baby, instead of having to be stuck under their mum and dad's nose in their old bedroom trying to manage, then what percentage would not even consider taking the pill?

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:
We, as a society, have to decide whether we are content to pay off this class, or adopt a policy of 'tough love'. This would require a crackdown on benefit fraud, more policing and certainly free access to the pill for all girls from the age of thirteen"

An interesting philosophy. For the purposes of this post let's use the term "boss class!"
We seem to have been content to pay them off, and in a surreal way, after a complete and utter failure of capitalism. Any tough love coming for them or are we content to keep throwing money at them? Who knows where it ends up? Caymans? Lichtenstein, or Rosa Luxemburg?

quote:

Originally posted by squiggle:

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

certainly free access to the pill for all girls from the age of thirteen"

I suspect that there is a certain 'looking down the wrong end of the telescope' in your remark. Whilst young girls can be fairly certain of being comfortably housed when they have a young baby, instead of having to be stuck under their mum and dad's nose in their old bedroom trying to manage, then what percentage would not even consider taking the pill?

Turn your own telescope around and you'll see the quote marks and the reference to where the quoted comment came from.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

quote:

Originally posted by squiggle:

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

certainly free access to the pill for all girls from the age of thirteen"

I suspect that there is a certain 'looking down the wrong end of the telescope' in your remark. Whilst young girls can be fairly certain of being comfortably housed when they have a young baby, instead of having to be stuck under their mum and dad's nose in their old bedroom trying to manage, then what percentage would not even consider taking the pill?

Turn your own telescope around and you'll see the quote marks and the reference to where the quoted comment came from.

I did read the article from your link Dan and maybe I phrased it badly. I didn't mean that the remark was yours but that the reference to girls of 13 being given access to the pill was not the answer to the problem. My view is that many young girls are perfectly well aware of contraception choices and that they choose the council flat/baby and not having to work option.

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
after a complete and utter failure of capitalism.

You say that quite a lot. Perhaps things have changed in the Top Right since I was made redundant from my job, along with the rest of the site, but for most parts of the country capitalism is ticking along like normal. We've had a crisis in the banking utility sector here, largely due to poor regulation by Gordon Brown and the interconnectedness of global economies, but capitalism itself still has its legs. We're going to have to pay for that crisis too but not, I suspect, with a revolution, just some rioting on the streets in some areas. Capitalism, as it is at the moment, contains the seeds of its own destruction but it's a hardy variety and those seeds have yet to flower. Most importantly, most workers have bought into it lock, stock, and barrel. In their heads. They're not going to go back to feudalism, or on to communism, or on to anarchy without a fight. We may have a false consciousness but we're too dissimilar now to develop a class consciousness.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

quote:

Originally posted by Garage Joe:
after a complete and utter failure of capitalism.

You say that quite a lot. Perhaps things have changed in the Top Right since I was made redundant, along with the rest of the site, from my job but for most parts of the country capitalism is ticking along like normal. We've had a crisis in the banking utility sector here, largely due to poor regulation by Gordon Brown and the interconnectedness of global economies, but capitalism itself still has its legs. We're going to have to pay for that crisis too but not, I suspect, with a revolution, just some rioting on the streets in some areas. Capitalism, as it is at the moment, contains the seeds of its own destruction but it's a hardy beast and those seeds have yet to flower.

Capitalism may not be the solution but what is? Communism? Dead in the water. Socialism? If it was the answer then why did they decide to abandon ship and jump on the NuLabour model?

quote:

Originally posted by squiggle:
Capitalism may not be the solution but what is? Communism? Dead in the water. Socialism? If it was the answer then why did they decide to abandon ship and jump on the NuLabour model?

Academiarchy, it seems.