So there go our woods and forests

[boboff]

I watched PMQ the other week, and Cameron did say that what they had done was "consulted" on selling off, the media misrepresented this, and after the consultation they decided not to bother. Part of me hopes that this is true, that they honestly wanted opinion and they got it and based policy on this.

Then again!

[oldjerry]

So they were'misrepresented' by the media for weeks,but nobody bothered to mention it huh?(poor show for someone with a background in advertising)
Seems to me that years out of office has ledto the promotion of incompetents,(bald yorkshire bloke,spotty education bloke) so U-turns are the order of the day,School building,school sports,forests etc,the last shower would have got pelted for all this.
..still, one very small victory.....

[gregorach]

I'm cynical, the Tories backed down because their people in the shires started screaming, but they will be deaf to the ordinary people screaming about the NHS being broken up for privatisation, rising unemployment and cuts in benefits to the poorest.

The thing you have to remember is that there's different levels of policy... There's the stuff that they would ideally like to do, but aren't sufficiently committed to to put up with significant negative popular opinion - such as selling off the forests. Then there's the stuff that they're more strongly committed to, and will try and ram through even in the face of fairly serious, organised protest - such as the poll tax. Then there's the stuff that they're so strongly committed to that they're prepared to effectively go to war over - such as, well, war, or breaking the unions. Policies in the first category can be averted through letter-writing and media campaigns, and policies in the second category can occasionally be averted through really massive street protests, but policies in the third category can only be averted by the sort of thing we've seen in the Middle East recently.

I strongly suspect that dismantling the post-war welfare settlement falls into at least category 2 this time around. They've got the scent of blood in the water.

I watched PMQ the other week, and Cameron did say that what they had done was "consulted" on selling off, the media misrepresented this, and after the consultation they decided not to bother. Part of me hopes that this is true, that they honestly wanted opinion and they got it and based policy on this.

I've got this lovely bridge you might be interested in buying...

[boboff]

Gulible I know.

But a year ago we were all feeling very disafected with the Labour Party.

Personnally I thought the Lib's had a sensible policy, but this early in the day, there inclusion in the coalition is nothing but a sick joke.

Will we ever have a government which is for the people ? Probably not, but you do have to make choices, and at the crux of the matter I would rather money be spent by me as an individual, rather than boorowed on my behalf and wasted on Architects & Consultants fees to build " design award winning" schools & childrens centres which no families use.

Things need to be simplified in all matters, KISS with all things. I still think 10k personal allowance, merge Tax and NI rates, in effect meaning NI is charged on unearned income, flat Employers NI with no higher limit. Get rid of all capital gains allowances except cost, abolish inheritance tax, flat rate of stamp duty of 2% on all property over £125,000, no upper limit. Abolish minimum wage, make all benefits payable under the same rules as Council Tax relief, i.e. strict control over assets and earnings, include all benefits, including Child benefit. Hence welfare will only be for those who need welfare, drastically reducing the cost.

Anyway, bring back the cane, national service, and the good old days!

[grahamhobbs]

Supposedly the happiest place in the world is Denmark - which incidently has the highest taxes in the world and is the most 'equal' society.

Unfortunately low taxes mean the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Go to America or any developing country and see what I mean.

[MKG]

Oh what short memories!

It seems that we are incapable of electing a government which will not be hounded by one or another set of people who choose not to believe a word of anything. Not that I'm propounding that we all believe any politician - I, for one, wouldn't. But ingrained suspicions help no-one. The unions were well on the way to ruining this country before Thatcher stopped them. I didn't like Thatcher, but I didn't like unions being involved in politics even more - they needed to be stopped. I would still oppose union involvement in national policies because, although they purportedly represent "the working man", in truth they are just another political power base for wannabe revolutionaries.

Simply because Thatcher was anti-union does not mean that any modern Tory government would also be anti-union. The present Conservative party bears no similarity whatsoever to Thatcher's government which, in turn, bore no similarity to Ted Heath's government (and, interestingly, a comparison of Ted Heath's election manifesto with that of Tony Blair may surprise some people - pots and kettles and all that). Simply because the Labour party gets into power does not mean that the workers of this country will be better off - in fact, using the last one as an example, the national debt they left behind meant exactly the opposite.

The present government (a coalition, I would remind everyone) mooted selling off forests. The shit hit the fan. For whatever reason (which really could be that the government looked at the tide of negative opinion) the government backed off - and the shit hit the fan.

And this despite the facts, which have been stated on here a few times. Even before the sell-off plans, the majority of forest was in private hands under monoculture designed to make money from timber products. That, of course, would mean that it had the blessing of governments of all colours, therefore including the glorious, never-put-a-foot-wrong Labour party.

There's only one political rule - you can tell when politicians are lying because their lips move. But at least we get to complain about them and can vote to change our government at regular intervals. Do we really have to take swipes at them in the meantime merely because of our personal political leanings?

Rant over - but I would point out that I'm as pink at the edges as they come and no apologist for Toryism.

Mike

[oldjerry]

I'm not sure I was suggesting the labour party never put a foot wrong,in fact just the opposite.There have been two sides to the conservative party for decades(Mrs T in a typically anti-intellectualist manner chose to label them'wet' and 'dry'),and following the Blair years it's easy to forget that a similar situauation once existed in the Labour ranks.Here there's a prob with the 'change govts at reg intervals',you end up with a different version of the same thing.And the bottom line is,what difference does it make anyhow? the govt only rubberstamps decisions made in the places where power really lies.

[MKG]

Sorry OJ - that wasn't pointed at you at all. Just my usual rant - I haven't had one for a while.

Actually, you've just said very succinctly at least a part of what I was trying to say.

Mike

[gregorach]

Anyway, bring back the cane, national service, and the good old days!

There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that I would have killed myself had I been forced to endure national service, and I was there when they banned corporal punishment - it didn't make a damn bit of difference, because it blatantly didn't work in the first place. For quite a lot of people, the supposedly "good old days" truly sucked. Just ask Alan Turing... Oh, you can't - he's dead.

As for the rest... (You too, MKG.) If your political horizons are limited to the options provided by the Big 3 parties in the UK, there's nothing I can do for you. They're all as bad as each other, because they're all wholly-owned subsidiaries of the ruling class. The good cop and the bad cop are both cops, and the good cop is only pretending to help you to make his job (controlling you) easier. You can change the people in government all you like, but you can't change the government itself, because it's an institution (and only one part of a wider, interlocking and self-reinforcing system of institutions) which has its own ingrained behaviour, which results more from its internal structure than the personal beliefs of any of the mere humans who populate it.

[MKG]

Yep. I thought that was what I said

Mike

[gregorach]

Sorry, I thought it read more as "Lets give these evil soulless bastards the benefit of the doubt until it's too late. Now shut up until the next election." My mistake.

[cocobelle]

I'm really not massively read upon policies and politics, but I know what I see, and I agree none of the parties give so much as a passing thought to the people, it's all about their own greed and gain, and unfortunately there is nothing we can do to stop it.

(On an unrelated note Tony Blair as Peace Envoy to the Middle East - he has gallons of blood on his hands mixed with the oil money-I'm surprised he didn't bring back National Service - for the working classes only of course)

[grahamhobbs]

Oh what short memories!
The unions were well on the way to ruining this country before Thatcher stopped them. ......

............... You can change the people in government all you like, but you can't change the government itself........

The only people that could have drastically changed things were the miners, but the Unions far from being

just another political power base for wannabe revolutionaries

were quite the reverse and sided with the government.

Since the defeat of the miners, the working class in this country has become merely an underclass. As a builder, in my life time I've seen a massive deskilling of the industry and wages driven down. Also from when as a kid, virtually no one had servants, now every middle class client has them.

From people with real skills and pride, it has been de-skilled, turned either into tolerated as cheap servants to the rich or a nuisance cluttering up the country. As my old mate said since Thatcher stopped free school milk, the only thing the working class can get free these days are condoms and contraceptives.

[boboff]

Graham you ommited the clamidia tests for there little love ones.

What I do like on here is senisble middle age male debate, and this shows it very well. I know Jerry makes out he is ancient, but I see through that!

What is the answer though? Thatcher didn't work, Blair didn't work, now the joint lib con thing shows all the hall marks of a similar shambles.

I am optimistic, by nature, and the new word order I could have bought into.

I hope beyond hope that what I read as honesty in "consultation" and the idea of " big society" ( yes I get this, and i think its ace) is not just some EDIT: Too Strong sorry. Hopefully you know what I mean.

9 months into a a 60 month term, lets just wait and see, I for one want one thing above all else, a media that is not 100% negative and sceptical, and SOME BLOODY GOOD NEWS FOR ONCE.

[Susie]

What I do like on here is senisble middle age male debate, and this shows it very well.

I'll make sure I keep out of this one, then ;-).