Off Topic Politics Thread

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TheSecondStain said:
There is an old mistaken adage that as you grow older you become more Conservative [with a big C]. It alludes to a continual sense of personal well-being and economic stability. Basically, you get comfortable, draw up the drawbridge in your mind, and buy the story. You'll always think you're right because you'll never test yourself again. And if you feel yourself falling into that comfy way, then good luck to you, but we ain't gonna get along really. There's far too much injustice and inequality for anyone to sit there feeling comfortable.
When I was first able to vote, Mrs Thatcher had just become Tory leader and she said unifying things. Unfortunately, her deeds broke the country up. What her government did to communities and ordinary people should be illegal. If Blair is a war criminal, then Mrs Thatcher was absolutely a peace criminal. Under her St Francis steal, "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope." it was a total falsehood for many people who were just unlucky to be in her firing line. And miners were meant to retrain as coders and call service staff. What a joke that was. If they had had the choice of training they would most certainly had trained as plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc... They were trade people - they worked with their skilled hands. That's where their confidence lay. Of course, when you kick people out of jobs, you kick the retail and community services out that depend on those people being economically active. Thing was, I didn't really know this at the time. I just sensed the unecessary hardships those people were being put to, and many of them would live the rest of their lives handicapped by that huge setback. And the repercussions continue to this day for many of those affected families. But what do Tories care?
So I shifted Left pretty much from 1979-81 onwards. However, the Labour Party somehow had a mindset stuck in the 1930s, it seemed, and they paid no heed to the growing threat of Global Warming [as it was called then]. So I voted Liberal, who did, and I often still fluctuate between those two, because the lines between them get blurred anyway. But really the older I get, the more Left leaning I become, because I become more enlightened and continually check the story. The Labour Party doesn't get a free ticket from me, but at least their existence is to make the whole population healthier, more educated, and have better lives. Not just the top 1-2%.
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The majority of old gits on this forum certainly don't vote Tory from what I can see which gladdens my heart.
 
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I have never voted for a Tory in the whole of my long sad life and if I were ever to do so I would know that I have finally lost my sanity and my father would turn in his grave. Never forget that a Tory thinks the poor have too much money and the wealthy too little and that influences there policy thinking. Why give money to the poor when they would only go and spend it FFS.
 
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St Godders said:
God bless Harold Wilson, Shirley Williams, Barbara Castle and David Owen. No politician today can get near them for integrity, sound leadership and wisdom. They would wipe the floor with Billy Bunter Johnson.
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The booming, sunny, swinging 60s when UK was the culture capital and England won the World Cup....Halcyon days indeed...:emoticon-0157-sun:

The Summers seemed to last forever then (I was only 3-8 in '64 -'70).

Neil Kinnock gets a bad rap, mainly for celebrating too early at Sheffield during the '92 election campaign. But I believe he was in the same mould as the people you mentioned Godders and would've been a good PM IMO.
The sadly late lamented John Smith too.

For sheer honesty and integrity I don't think any of them could match Tony Benn...a great Politician and Human being.
 
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St Godders said:
I have never voted for a Tory in the whole of my long sad life and if I were ever to do so I would know that I have finally lost my sanity and my father would turn in his grave. Never forget that a Tory thinks the poor have too much money and the wealthy too little and that influences there policy thinking. Why give money to the poor when they would only go and spend it FFS.
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That's a really, really good point you make there, St.G.

A Tory's natural instinct is to give a tax cut to the rich. Because, as the myth goes, the rich create wealth and jobs. In truth, the rich just pocket that tax cut and put it in the bank. They have so much, they just put the extra away for the rainiest of days. It helps them almost not at all.

In contrast, give a poor person a tax cut, money, or take them out of tax at all. They have previously been working [or not working] from day to day, worrying if they will be able to pay their bills the next week OR shop for food. Poverty totally limits the brain. People actually register with a lower IQ while enduring poverty. They are unable to perform tasks as well as when their brain has been free of worry. And by the way, anyone can reach poverty by accident.
So, you give that poor person that tax break or real rebate [for example, no more Council Tax - the local council must be compensated from national funds], and that poor person spends the little bit of money to make their life worth living. And in doing so they become more economically active. The money goes straight back into the system and stimulates the economy. And those people being poor, their spend tends to be local, so they enrich the local economy. Imagine if this was open to ALL poor people? The economy would flourish and it would actually generate tax revenue, effectively costing the country very little at all. Plus, you get side benefits. The poor person is now less worried, so is happier, that means they become generally healthier, which means they burden the NHS less [OK, it doesn't work that way with everybody, especially those with chronic/terminal conditions]. The positive knock-on effects of helping the working poor financially are incredible, because much of the money comes back to the treasury, and the economy benefits. There's a name for it. It's called 'Trickle Up' [note, not trickle down, which doesn't work] And incidentally, back in the 1970's several 1st world countries were going to do this. Then Thatcher [and Reagan shortly after] came along and literally the whole thing turned on its head, such was her influence.
 
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It's odd.

Some people are convinced that Tories' entire purpose in life is to give tax cuts to the rich while stamping the faces of the poor into the mud.

Whereas I suspect other people might think that Tories are, in general, supporters of self-help, happy to have, and pay for, a social safety net but not at the expense of seriously hindering people starting and running businesses (after all, the source of every single penny of added value in the UK is businesses of one kind or another) or people working hard for a living.

If the first one is true then I would be amazed if the Tories gained a single seat in any election. If the other is true then it might explain why people, not just here but across Europe tend to vote for socially liberal, slightly right-of-centre governments.

I speak, by the way, as someone who'll not be voting Tory again.

Life's not black and white, folks.

Vin
 
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Saints_Alive said:
"The Bullingdon Club is an exclusive and covert all-male dining club for Oxford University undergraduates, although it is not officially recognised by the institution. It is noted for its wealthy members, grand banquets, boisterous rituals, and somewhat destructive behaviour, including the vandalisation of restaurants and students' rooms; with many local outlets refusing to host the club upon these grounds. The club is known to select its members not only on the grounds of wealth and willingness to partake but also by means of education; with undergraduates from top colleges such as Christ Church and Magdalen who formerly were pupils at elite Public Schools such as Eton, Harrow, Radley, and Westminster making up the majority of its membership."

Two of the last three PMs and a COTE have been members of this highly exclusive club of which a prerequisite of membership is to be extremely wealthy.
Surely even the notoriously gullible UK electorate will recognise that it is not representative of the country as a whole and that they are likely to be motivated by looking after the interests of their own top 5% richest of the population, male and white.
Pig head ****ers the lot of them...:mad:
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Do you think it's democratic and representative to have the people running the country come from such a narrow elitist pool Vin?

Furthermore do you really think that they could understand about the struggles of life for millions of people that have to rely on charity and handouts?
 
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Onionman said:
It's odd.

Some people are convinced that Tories' entire purpose in life is to give tax cuts to the rich while stamping the faces of the poor into the mud.

Whereas I suspect other people might think that Tories are, in general, supporters of self-help, happy to have, and pay for, a social safety net but not at the expense of seriously hindering people starting and running businesses (after all, the source of every single penny of added value in the UK is businesses of one kind or another) or people working hard for a living.

If the first one is true then I would be amazed if the Tories gained a single seat in any election. If the other is true then it might explain why people, not just here but across Europe tend to vote for socially liberal, slightly right-of-centre governments.

I speak, by the way, as someone who'll not be voting Tory again.

Life's not black and white, folks.

Vin
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As someone who has, very occasionally, voted Tory (where I was living at the time, they appeared to be the only “reasonable” choice - labour was a card carrying communist and the lib/dems at the time weren’t a possibility), I’d like to say that I have never believed (until recently) that the Tories are out to only support the rich elite. However, I voted for Jim Callaghan in Cardiff in 73/74 and would like to say that I try and vote for a party who can represent the ordinary people. As with Vin, I will never vote Tory again - but then, with the current lineup, I won’t be voting Labour either!!
 
St Godders said:
God bless Harold Wilson, Shirley Williams, Barbara Castle and David Owen. No politician today can get near them for integrity, sound leadership and wisdom. They would wipe the floor with Billy Bunter Johnson.
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Can we add to your litany of Saints, Peter Mandelson, John Prescott, Mo Mowlem, Dianne Abbott, Gordon Brown, Chuka Ummana, Alan Milburn - all great names that have given much to the Labour movement?
 
Saints_Alive said:
I don't think it is at all...:)

They are leaders of the Tory party...
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I meant, given that I'm talking about the benfits of avoiding extremes, what do you think my opinion is about whether "it's democratic and representative to have the people running the country come from such a narrow elitist pool"?

Vin
 
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ChilcoSaint said:
This is the reality of how Brexit will affect people’s lives. Not Project Fear, reality. This is really happening to real people, now.

A Bath baker has lived and worked in the UK for 31 years, married an English woman, has 3 children, all born here, and has been denied “settled status” and will be deported if Brexshit happens.

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/richard-bertinet-brexit-baker-bath-3247943

****ing Brexiteer ****s.
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TheSecondStain said:
Good post Chilco. Obviously, I don't 'like' it.
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I like it because it is a good post. Ridiculous. And funny to see them back tracking now.

It is amazing peoples attitudes towards others that are perceived as foreigners. As I have said on numerous occasions, I have an Indian father and an Italian mother, but was born in Bournemouth and always lived in the UK. Heck I can't even speak another language.

I was talking to one of our neighbours the other day (an older guy in his 60s) that I haven't spoken for a while and he asked me how I feel about Brexit and am I worried i'll be 'sent home'. I pointed out that I was born here, and have lived here for the last 49 years 11 and a half months so this was home. His reply was "Surely that isn't legal though, they will want to send you home after Brexit"......
 
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thereisonlyoneno7 said:
I like it because it is a good post. Ridiculous. And funny to see them back tracking now.

It is amazing peoples attitudes towards others that are perceived as foreigners. As I have said on numerous occasions, I have an Indian father and an Italian mother, but was born in Bournemouth and always lived in the UK. Heck I can't even speak another language.

I was talking to one of our neighbours the other day (an older guy in his 60s) that I haven't spoken for a while and he asked me how I feel about Brexit and am I worried i'll be 'sent home'. I pointed out that I was born here, and have lived here for the last 49 years 11 and a half months so this was home. His reply was "Surely that isn't legal though, they will want to send you home after Brexit"......
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If people can’t draw parallels between the way that kind of casually racist attitude is being legitimised by the current trend towards populism, and the way ultra-right dictatorships have taken power in other countries, they are missing a very obvious connection.
 
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