Off Topic Political Debate

Leo, this is not just a theme on our board. I have often engaged in political debates on other boards and the only ones I have found with a balanced split are QPR and Southampton - all the others have a biase to the left or the right. From my position on the political scale more or less everything is right wing but I have no problems with that - I say that because I think I am the only one here that places the mere existence of capitalism in question. I assume there must be lots of 'passive' readers of these boards. When I started I had read many posts before actually taking the plunge, and, as to starting a thread myself, this took longer. We need people to start their own threads if they don't like what is on offer, and simply take the plunge - like you did with the poetry thread (unfortunately poetry is not my thing) - it doesn't matter what, cookery, fishing , whatever. Somehow we ended up with a thread about dogfish and wine (but it actually worked for a while). Also games threads can be a good bait to draw people to the board - I initially started using the QPR board because they had a pub quiz thread there (I borrowed the idea).

 

To use the local vernacular – what pish! Yet again you express your apparent view that the political divide is no wider than a pencil line between the words left and right – and that berating one side automatically leads to being on the other. Under whose rules does someone have to present a ‘balanced’ viewpoint? That’s certainly not the rule in Westminster, where the Tory party do little but smear, sneer at, spit vitriol at, belittle and lie to the opposition both verbally and in writing, and treat the general population in much the same manner. The fact that I choose, on this forum, to respond to them in the same manner – without the lies – does not therefore mean that I am politically the total opposite, it simply means that I am choosing to respond to them in their own manner. That is no better or no worse than your constant sniping at the SNP, the party which, I’m sure you are aware, I support both actively and financially, and whose policies I mostly, but not entirely, agree with. Oddly enough, they are in the middle of the political spectrum, yet, knowing that, you still choose to label me as a lefty. And again oddly enough, but thankfully, the SNP modus operandi is not to spit bile, venom and criticism at the opposition – so I can hardly be accused of following a party line.

I think I can safely say that I have never denigrated anyone on the grounds of their education or attendance at a ‘posh’ school. I’ve certainly never made any accusations of anyone ‘getting a degree from Oxbridge because of having a rich father’ – and have never seen any such accusation on these boards.

There may well be a degree of totally warranted disaffection over the issue of social mobility though, which is linked to private school education and attendance at Oxbridge. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission issued a report last year on their investigations into the link – a report which identified that, to quote their words “Elitism in Britain is so stark it could be called Social Engineering” and that Britain’s elite are “formed on the playing fields of Independent Schools” – that’s the benefit of having rich parents, not that their affluence is used to buy degrees. No prizes for guessing which political party those elite tend to populate.

 

I knew you liked the SNP but did not realise how much - even to the extent of financial support . Apologies if I have offended - but as someone who values shared destinies I would be saddened to see Scotland leave the UK - my brother who lives in Aberdeen really hopes it never happens. I also favoured Remain for the same objective - we should be with Europe.
Maybe my age is my sin - left and right are the things I understand. When I see somebody who hates the right I place them - in your case incorrectly - on the left. Again my apologies as it offends you and that is not my aim. I consider the left wing as an honourable position where people are kind to and value other members of society, It is only their economic competence that makes me question them.
I cannot hate people sufficiently to say they " do little but smear, sneer at, spit vitriol at, belittle and lie to the opposition both verbally and in writing, and treat the general population in much the same manner". For me we are all the same - we were born with one hole in our bo....m and only differ in how we get to live. I was born without any favours and consider my life to have been a struggle - I have done the best I can for myself and my family. I regard others in the same light. I would never knowingly hurt another person - or animal - and choose to believe most other people are also good and well meaning. Whether you think left or right wings policies will be of most benefit comes down to your upbringing largely but I believe politicians generally care about what they do and do their best.
Hey ho. Perhaps I am just a naive fool. Whatever - this board used to have a lot of people giving a wide variety of views and it is the lack of that which disappoints me.
I think the absence of an active Moderator does not help - at one time I think we had three. There were lots of threads, lots of opinions and as I remember quite alot of fun. I cannot see that now.

 

Maybe I should explain why I am just a middle of the road person and how I came to be there. I did an apprenticeship with British Rail, until I found myself up against very left wing trade unionists who had such a hold over the nationalized industry that I could see that they had no regard for people unless you agreed with them. The industry itself went from one crisis to another depending on the state on the countries economy, sometimes starting on decent trials that when found to work well, didn't progress because there was no money. This has put me off believing that government is the right organization to run industry. Let people who know how to run business do so, but government does have a place in regulating and making sure that the customers are not ripped off.

Much later I was a shareholder and MD of a company that employed around 50 people. My duty was to the shareholders to earn them a decent return on their money that they had invested to enable the company to exist. However my view was that by engaging with the workforce, making sure that they were well paid, being concerned when as individuals they had a problem, and making sure as far as possible that they knew how the company was progressing, I would benefit from them feeling a loyalty and doing their best. It worked very well, and when given a choice to join a union they were 100% against it.

So from these two examples you will see that I do not like government that tries to do things it is too out of touch to do. I do not like unions that think they should run industry. I approve of people who can specialize to run a company well, but do not agree with a total free for all in milking the public to line their own pockets. I believe that people who invest their own money should get a decent return on it, but I do not believe it should be at the expense of the workers.

So is there one party there that embraces all my views? I don't think so. I always voted for the person who I thought would do the best for my area, not just because he/she was a member of a particular party. This meant that I never voted Labour, because they never bothered to even come to my village so that I could judge the candidate. Others did at least make an effort to make themselves known. I would much rather have a person trying to look after my and local interests, than someone who I voted for just because of the colour of their rosette.

 

You identify Government ownership and union power as being things of 'the left' yet in the completed left wing state (ie. perfected Communism) neither of these exist. Both of these are 'products' of capitalism.

 

Sorry cologne, but in my view if you have government in control you will still have people who will gain from their position at the expense of others. As far as I am aware there is no example that we can look at where perfected Communism exists. Nice theory, but it always breaks down when human nature takes over and people want more.

 

It depends on your definition of Communism Frenchie. Even Marx saw the role of the state as being to govern the transition of a country to Communism - but the end goal was the dissolution of the state completely. Other Communist theories state that this intermediate period of state control will actually take over as a permanent power in itself - the USSR was an example of this, the result was state capitalism, nothing more nothing less. Those other theories which stress a direct transition ie. direct ownership by the workers themselves normally result in small scale societies - not whole countries as such. One of my firmest beliefs is that all decision making, both political and economic, should come from the base of the pyramid, based on the worker's cooperative as the dominant economic form. The only example of a large area organized on this principle was during the Spanish Civil War where the Anarcho Communist regions of Catalonia and the Basque region were crushed by the combined forces of Franco, Hitler and Stalin (backed also by the west). We can talk forever about human nature - socialists believe this to be created by environment and so this cuts no ice with me. If human nature was not created by environment then 'greed' would reoccur in all societies, even in the native Indian tribes of the wild west (which it didn't). Man is by nature cooperative, and in nature it is those species which cooperate which survive best.

 

As I said this is theory, and not practical in the world of today. Do you really think that you could get the Germans to give up their love of the car, or the English to stop buying a house and immediately installing a new kitchen and bathroom. Both have been given the choice, and assuming they have the money like to spend it as they want, not as someone else tells them to. The small scale societies disappeared years ago when the villages lost the local tradesmen to the companies that appeared and offered things that people wanted at a price they could afford. People sold off their small plots of land as it was better for them to have the money than struggle through unknown weather conditions when they might not have been able to feed their families. People the world over today believe in choice, although many do not have it because of poverty and bad government, and to try and tell them they would be better off without it is pie in the sky. There are many things I do not like about the way that the world is run today, but I do not see the way forward as a return to a life of a hundred years ago.

 

Frenchie, we are not talking about a life from a hundred years ago - many of the inventions since then are irreplaceable but a lot aren't. The main problem facing our planet today is global warming and in this context it is not enough for countries and governments to have aims - every individual is responsible for their own emissions, and then every town or area, independently of what the government does. Globalisation is not a thing which we must accept in all its facets - we can choose what to accept and what not. It is up to towns and regions to plan for a carbon free future, and that does not mean through techno fix solutions such as electro cars etc. It means towns having a concept of how they will look in 10-20 years time. It is absurd that a rural town should be dependent (for its food) on one or two supermarkets importing about 95% of their nutrition - towns of the future should be lessening their reliance upon worldwide driven systems which are dependent on oil, and finance systems which could breakdown at any minute. This is what the transition town network is all about (there are at least 5 towns in England which already have their own currencies - the Totnes Pound being the best example). No town can be self sufficient completely, I am not saying that, but they should be aiming for self sufficiency in as many ways as possible - beginning with food and energy. They should also be harnessing local skills as much as possible, because every towns biggest asset is its population. With regard to workers cooperatives - as a local I have more trust that a firm run by people who directly share my environment will make decisions which respect my environment, than if they are a part of a global concern.

As a footnote - car ownership is going down in Germany amongst the urban population - by the young in the cities it is no longer seen as 'cool', which is a start.

 

Your sentences I consider the left wing as an honourable position where people are kind to and value other members of society, It is only their economic competence that makes me question them. make me think that we're actually not worlds apart - as I feel basically the same. Over the years I have swayed politically from one side to the other - probably true for many, thinking about it - started in Australia as a Labor supporter but the greed and stupidity of the unions (sound familiar?) soon pushed me to the right, although I still admired Labor's leader Gough Whitlam. What soon pushed me back was the utterly despicable and illegal behaviour carried out by the right wing parties to remove him from office - I've never forgotten that and see so many similarities between them and the Tories. Sadly for Scottish Labour, I simply view them as incompetent dinosaurs, hence my preference for 'middle of the road' these days - none of their leaders/politicians can hold a candle to Gough Whitlam or Bob Hawke...

 

I am not sure what your supermarket looks like cologne, but mine has labels on the vast majority of things that it sells saying that they come from France. Many items will even tell me the name of the farm and have a picture of the farmer and his wife on it. These are the products I buy, not the ones that come from afar, simply because it may cost a little more, but it tastes better. At least I know that the farms are there rather than the con going on in England where farms don't even exist. I am lucky at present to be able to choose where I shop, but many are forced into buying from the supermarkets that sell cheaper imported foods. This of course is driven by how well people can make a living. A news item I read a couple of years ago was about a farmer in the UK who had a surplice of potatoes that he offered to his local food bank. They were turned down because he was told that people did not know how to cook them these days. Sad but true how the world has moved on.

 

This is the way of the World Frenchie. Capitalism relies upon consumerism, which in turn relies upon being able to convince people that they need things which they, in fact, don't. It then further relies upon creating products which don't last eg. cell phones which are out of date within 2 years - of course the technology is there to make products which last, but they just don't do it. This is all helped by making the people more stupid - which the media is happy enough to do (compare the quality of B.B.C. now with that of 30 years ago), or compare the difficulty of school exams 30 years ago with now. Apparently the average 16 year old in England or Germany sends 40 + sms text messages per day - short reduced English, which is then little wonder that many cannot write full sentences any longer. Apparently the average IQ in the Western World was a whole point higher in 1950 than it is now. Unfortunately the shift to the right which we have seen over the last 30 years is a part of this - capitalism makes you stupid !

 

The average reading age of an adult in the UK is 13. Surely this leads people into lack of critical understanding of what is presented to them. You can choose to ignore advertising and only buy what you believe you need. The message that comes out of political parties of all persuasions is that you can have what you want. The cost however will not make you worse off. This is not capitalism, but politicians seeking to gain or retain power.

 

Sorry Frenchie, you cannot separate Capitalism from consumption - the 2 are interrelated. The free marketeers do not understand the concept of limits to growth, or 'degrowth', this is why we always measure 'growth', of whatever kind, in positive terms. There are 2 products of capitalism which are always there - growth of consumerism is one and monopoly is the other. So we sell the idea of freedom of choice, but actually the choice becomes more limited within a few brands. So, most people are compelled to buy their seeds from Monsanto (now perhaps Bayer), without actually knowing their origin, and also without knowing that they are treated to ensure no second generation ensues. The actual growth of World trade (measured in ship's tonnage) is nearly 400 times larger than in the year of my birth - but do we ever ask the question of whether our living standards have increased at the same rate ? They will say it creates jobs - have you ever seen a 18,000 TEU container ship manned by only 14 people and unloaded by 2 computerized cranes ? Another inherant aspect of capitalism is the need to protect spending power by driving the cost of food down and keeping it at around 5-10% of income (as opposed to the 30% of 1900) - which means goodbye to mixed farming, crop rotation etc. all of those things which kept the land fertile (without yearly doses of nitrous oxide fertilizers). I could go on and on Frenchie, but these are not things which we can separate from capitalism, they are an inherant part of it. Just as to keep the people locked into this system it is an advantage to keep them as stupid as possible.

 

All very good cologne, but you do not say how you can turn the clock back. My belief is that people have become used to having a standard of living undreamed of in 1900 and would not be prepared to give it up now they have experienced it. Tractors are now being produced that do not have a driver, just a computer linked to a satellite. Not good for the workers, but the knowledge is there, the hedgerows have been taken out to make the machine an economic possibility and it is another nail in the coffin of what rural life was once like. You might guess from this that I have my doubts about where all this leads to, but I cannot see car makers or ports getting rid of their machines and starting to employ thousands of workers again. I would also challenge the fact that someone spending eight hours a day on an assembly line or clearing ditches on a freezing cold morning is any the brighter for it.
Having said that I am off to find a birthday present for my youngest granddaughter.

 

It's not a case of turning the clock back Frenchie. If you compare life in the cities in 1900 with now you will find that most of the improvements have been medical and to do with sanitation. If you are trying to tell me that the quality of life in our cities has been improved by the motor car then I would hotly debate that. Maybe we need to redefine 'quality of life', and living standards - these things cannot be measured in purely material terms. OK. we have cars to get around with, but in rural areas the existence of the car has led to a massive decline in public transport possibilities - both Britain and Germany had more than twice as many railway stations in 1900 than they have now. Young people in rural areas want cars to make them independent of their parents why, because otherwise they would have to wait hours for local bus services. So, they get cars, and the problem becomes worse - the few public transport possibilities are used, increasingly, by the poorer segments of society and by the old,and so have a stigma attached to them, which makes the problem worse. Also, because of the car, distances which need to be travelled become longer - if you can't buy this or that in your town or village then you can drive to the next one, and so the rural infrastructure gets even worse. So, on balance, has the motor car raised the standard of living ? We could go on and make such a case for more or less any product of our age (apart from those of medicine and sanitation).
Anyway Frenchie, I hope you find a nice (environmentally friendly) present for your granddaughter.

 

I know that this is unlikely, but the splits in many of the parties could encourage more people to stand as independent candidates. What is the situation regarding who forms the government if the majority of MPs are independent?

 

Presumably the same as now? The various parties would simply have a lot more courting to do...

 

An increase in the numbers of independent candidates is not something which we should encourage. Independent candidates have to pay for their own election campaigns and are, therefore, more open to the influence of private sponsors. We would very soon have a situation similar to America if that happened.

 

Steven Woolfe has quit UKIP with immediate effect, saying it is in a "death spiral". Pity he didn't say that six months ago.