The Political Thread

[JayzusB.Christ]

Thanks for your input, everyone - from how you've described Big Society, it's pretty much what I expected:  Hollow Tory rhetoric which can be manipulated to cover pretty much any policy they want it to cover.

And Sharky, best of luck.  As I've said before, your way of doing things definitely wouldn't be mine, but I really hope it works out well for you. 

[Frank]

expenses fiddling and benefit fraud is fine if you're rich but you're going to jail if you're poor, money meant for children will be stolen raided and used to fund the illusion that failed policies are working, underclasses such as immigrants, the poor and the sick will be scapegoated as a drain on resources

>cough< Gary Barlow >cough<  Ironically, the policy of hoping that folk with too much time on their hands will supplant local authorities as providers of essential services might have had more traction in previous eras, when there were stay at home Mums, dole bludgers, and disability claimants hanging around all day with nothing better to do with themselves, but all three groups have been strongly encouraged back into the workforce in recent times.

[Jim_Campbell]

Cuts to public services have to be made because of Blair/Brown's financial mismanagement, the collapse of Western capitalism in 2008, and Tory ideology.

The cuts, I have observed before, have nothing to with correcting financial mismanagement and everything to do with Tory ideology. If the Tories cared one jot about managing the public finances well, they wouldn't be throwing hundreds of millions of pounds into the black hole that is IDS' unworkable Universal Credit scheme. They wouldn't be giving away hundreds of millions of pounds of publicly owned assets to private companies in the form of academy schools. They wouldn't be paying ATOS (or whoever picks up the contract) hundreds of millions of pounds to harass sick and disabled people off benefit in the name of chasing £1.7bn in benefit fraud whilst cutting HMRC budgets so that they have a tenth of the resources to chase £70bn in unpaid tax. They wouldn't be implementing changes to the NHS that have cost £4bn in themselves and which suck still more cash away from front line services, forcing it to be spent instead on rising administration and legal costs.

In fact, the idea that almost any area of government policy has anything to do with good financial management is laughable when the aim almost exclusively seems to be finding mechanisms to shovel public cash into the pockets of private companies on whose boards the MPs and ministers concerned will almost find cushy directorships when they leave parliament.

Note that I'm not claiming that New Labour left the public finances in rude health. I believe, however, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Tories have seized on the issue as a wonderful pretext to comprehensively dismantle sixty years of public and social infrastructure.

Cheers

Jim

[Professor Bear]

Note that I'm not claiming that New Labour left the public finances in rude health. I believe, however, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Tories have seized on the issue as a wonderful pretext to comprehensively dismantle sixty years of public and social infrastructure.

This is giving them far too much credit, Jim - they know full well that they're out in 2015 barring the kind of miracle that only comes with rigging the election wholesale and they're out to get what they can before that happens, which is why so many policies have been expensive political point-scoring like victimising the poor, or rushed-through fuck-ups like the postal service privatization that lost nearly a billion pounds of taxpayers' money.  Current Tory "ideology" is nothing more than a glorified ram-raid on the UK's finances, with each one out to fill their pockets before the election police arrive and drag them back into opposition.
But you know what?  Like I've said before: this coalition government has ultimately been good for the country, because it's shut up those wankers that harped on about how if the Tories ever got back in again they couldn't do much worse, and also highlighted what a spineless bunch of backstabbing cunts the Lib Dems really are.

[ZenArcade]

All of the above! Z

[Ancient Otter]

Sharky's plan to charge people for his time seems to be spreading:

[JayzusB.Christ]

Feck yeah, I saw that one on broadsheet.ie yesterday and immediately thought of Sharky

[Hawkmumbler]

Fuuny, over the last few weeks i've been the target of dozens of fliers by various parties as this is my first local election. Reasonable I assume, but i've received no less than three UKIP one's. My stomach is churning and my blood pressure rises with each growing day as my hatred for these people grows ever more. If it wasn't for Nick Griffin at the BNP, UKIP would certainly be the most loathed candidate by myself.

[ZenArcade]

Jesus Hawk, count yourself lucky, my local candidates consist of ex-paramilitary mother of 10 kids murderers or religious nuts of the Torquemada type. There are  a couple of ineffectual middle ground parties, who I reluctantly vote for in the knowledge they will never have any real power. Z

[Bolt-01]

Nothing more from Sharky- hopefully this isn't the sign things went bad for him...

[Proudhuff]

Nothing more from Sharky- hopefully this isn't the sign things went bad for him...

fingers crossed 

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Very troubling. Anyone in contact with him off-board? Hope he's alright!

[TordelBack]

I e-mailed Shark early this morning to see how he was doing, but haven't heard anything back - I believe he uses his Kindle for email, so should be accessible if he's near any free wifi.  Hopefully he's just out and about with work, but can't help but think that we would have heard if he'd just seen them off like last time. 

[Professor Bear]

Was thinking about doing the same but now don't want to crowd him in case the worst has come to pass.
Fingers still crossed.

[Bolt-01]

I do have a phone number for him so I've sent him a text. Nothing as yet.