It was by a tribute act is it.
Looking forward to more noise in the Music Room, perhaps some Nordvargr there?
DS
It was by a tribute act is it.
Looking forward to more noise in the Music Room, perhaps some Nordvargr there?
DS
Still
he said his naim was ralph
Nick Clegg
stephen bennett
Mr Enigma
In my opinion, it's not the MPs themselves who are culpable, but those who signed off these expenses.
Everywhere I've worked, all expenses have been scrutinised thoroughly and I've had to justify them in respect to whether they are valid or not. I'd be well annoyed if my employers came back in five years and demanded them back!
Stephen
Bob McC
Living the life of Riley
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
You've not been minding the shop, you've only yourself to blame. DS was in the Oxfam record shop next door and saw an opening.
Be on the look out for an orange coloured Reliant Scimitar that smells strongly of damp cardboard.
http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/reliant_scimitar_gte_2.jpg
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Report any suspicious postings to Slough Crimestoppers. £25 reward for information leading to an arrest.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
No. I am admitting that not everything NuLab did was perfect, whilst trying to get you to stop using one failure to excuse another.
I don't think so.
It is something of a mantra these days that they are 'All the same'.
I disagree.
There is no doubt that there is expense fiddling on both sides and there is also no doubt that the current economic situation leaves neither side much room for manoeuvre on economic policy.
There is however considerable difference in intent
It is the Tory intent to convert every last penny of public spending into a business opportunity which I find so nauseating.
It strikes at the very purpose and ethos of public service and attacks the notion of collective or societal shared responsibility.
It reduces everything to the status of a business transaction.
What's more, it is calculated to permanently deprive Tax Payers of assets which they purchased, (Ignore Chris's obfuscation of 'state' and 'electorate'.. it's a rather poor smokescreen. The state has no existence without the consent of the people.)
I'm sure that you are familiar with the legal definition of Theft.
'Intent to permanently deprive... ' etc.
I am not aware that NuLab or Lab ever intended to do any such thing. And I'm convinced that however misguided you may think Brown was, his policies were clearly intended to improve the lot of the majority in this country, not to further enrich the minority.
Mull
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
I was in That Prague most of this week. There's a lot of record shops there, but no Oxfam shops that I could see.
Tony L
Administrator
They are just the same thing! Neoliberalism, authoritarianism, privatisation, PFI, outsourcing, asset-stripping, short-term thinking etc, even abominations such as 'faith schools', corporate-backed 'academies' etc. Just think about it from your own perspective: everything you once cared about regarding the careers service was shat upon from a great height by Labour long before the last election (outsourcing to Connexions, movement to payment by results, and finally your redundancy etc). They are just another Tory party with a different colour tie. The vacuous self-interested short-term thinker wearing it is exactly the same. The intent is identical - it is to keep that particular political organisation face-down in the trough for as long as is possible, to take as many backhanders from corporate and union donors and to mop up as many peerages, directorships etc per member as is possible. A dictatorship masquerading as a democracy by giving the impression of choice where in reality none exists. You get to vote for the same corrupt and self-serving establishment whichever way you cast your vote.
G
Guest432
Guest
Problem is this forum is full of 60 something's who still think it is the same political spectrum they argued at college 40 years ago.
They'll never admit there is no longer any clear left or right divide and it is now just a case of the centre being the new battleground and you have to choose which flavour of right has the least bad taste.
They'll never admit there is no longer any clear left or right divide and it is now just a case of the centre being the new battleground and you have to choose which flavour of right has the least bad taste.
matthewr
spɹɐʍʞɔɐq spɹoɔǝɹ ɹnoʎ sʎɐld
There is some truth in that. Although I would add that Thatcher pulled the country very hard to the right and the left got redefined as just to the left of that. Which is a bit of an odd effect.
But I don't think many on the Left argue for anything remotely Socialist or traditional left from a economic point of view. Indeed Socialism seems to only really exist any more in the Fever dreams of certain types of DM and Telegraph readers and the odd (in both senses) PFMer.
Instead the mainstream left is broadly in agreement with a mixed economy based on markets but:
1) with a significant role for the state.
2) progressive social attitudes (gay marriage, equality for women, combating all forms of discrimination and prejudice, etc.)
3) an overriding sense of social justice (e.g. if we need to pay debts we shouldn't do it predominantly by making poor people poorer)
Now since many people disagree with 1) in the abstract but agree with it in the particular; 2) is increasingly the norm and we are just waiting on the last couple of generations that cannot change to die off and 3) is the majority view in the UK as, well, the British are generally decent fair minded people. There is no reason why the UK should not be electing "left" governments for long enough to correct the errant rightward lurch from Thatcher and we end up with something equidistant from Thatcher and Foot (but hopefully without the evangelical warmongering of Blair) which seems like the natural government for modern Britain.
Which would be fine accept a lot of our national conversation is dominated by a predominantly right wing, reactionary press and powerful vested corporate interests. Both of which poisonously effect our politics and means we end up with disasters like the current energy "market", Royal Mail sell off because the politics of privitisation is stuck in a loop that goes from "it took 3 months to get a phone delivered in 1974" to "if you see Syd tell him".
Matthew
PS To return to a topic from earlier in this thread regarding Osbornanomics, there is a comprehensive explanation of events here.
What should be borne in mind in that article is that it's nothing controversial but rather very straightforward, conventional mainstream economics based on official, non-partisan or Washington consensus leaning data (OBR, IMF, etc). But many will read it an start coughing and spluttering and going all "YEAHBUT GORDON BROWN, GOLD SELL OFF, LABOUR DISASTER" rather than admit they, and the government, were wrong.
matthewr
spɹɐʍʞɔɐq spɹoɔǝɹ ɹnoʎ sʎɐld
PS I think anyone who throws up their arms and goes "They are all the same neo-liberal *******" is committing the same non-argument to handle prevent Cognitive Dissonance as a lot on the right and really must do better as well.
PPS I given an honourable exception in all of this to the intellectual left (for want of a better word) still usefully looking at the world from a Marxist perspective. But they are a tiny minority as most people who try are not nearly clever enough to say anything interesting.
PPS I given an honourable exception in all of this to the intellectual left (for want of a better word) still usefully looking at the world from a Marxist perspective. But they are a tiny minority as most people who try are not nearly clever enough to say anything interesting.
So we are left with a mushy I don't give a shit about politics and policies middle bit, which is just what our political class would like especially as we are now mostly governed by Brussels. In that case we no longer need any politicians in the uk any longer they are obsolete.
Tony L
Administrator
The problem is that they really are! It's not an 'argument' or 'non-argument', it's just a simple observation. Sure you can find some cartoon splatter of ideology from say Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg on one extreme and Denis Skinner and Diane Abbot on the other, but both parties as manefesto-touting policy-making entities overlap on the exact same core policies, ideology and practices to a simply extraordinary extent. The extremists within the fringes are just a sideshow to placate those who like to believe they are actually voting for something in an election rather than merely enabling more of the same.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
Tony, as ever there is a lot of truth in what you say and I am not blind to the those issues. There is no real political debate any more in this country which is why we need a genuinely left wing alternative to emerge and take on the right wing establishment. But your view is also a bit of a cop out. It allows you to take the moral high ground, but does nothing to change anything.
And your analysis of the Careers /Connexions things is also flawed. Despite it being ill thought out, over ambitious and under funded, Connexions was an attempt to create a unified and coherent youth support service. I.E it derived from positive intent. It was not 'outsourced' to Connexions. The old Local Authority Careers Services were 'Quangoised' by the Tories in 1991 and simply reshaped according to the Connexions model in 2001. In a very small number of cases the contracts went to true private sector organisations, non of which lasted long.
By contrast, the Tories promised in effect a return to the pre-Connexions model but actually did nothing of the sort. They just allowed everything to whither, as it continues to do. The other evening I sat through the spectacle of some 'know nothing' on the One Show going on about NEETS and coming up with the revolutionary notion that we ought to have some sort of co-ordinated support system, involving educators, advisers and employers. No shit Sherlock!!!
You honestly couldn't make it up.I'm too old to become politically active again, but I am hearing noises about movement on the left. People have already had enough. Embryonic stuff at the moment, but encouraging nonetheless.
The alternative is scary because the more right wing, entrenched and authoritarian the UK political elite becomes, the more resistance it is likely to meet. This brings with it the possibility of Police state or even a military govt.
If (God forbid!) we get to that stage, complaining that 'They're all the same' will be even more pointless than it is now.
Mull
G
Guest432
Guest
Ian r will be along soon to tell us that it's because the govt has been putting Prozac in the water supply since the 90's