Milliband

[pauld]

The problem with "proving" the Nazis are leftwing by using Hitler's words ghanimah is you're relying on extremist nutjobs to provide accurate descriptions of themselves. Which they don't. The Nazis were no more socialist than the various "People's Democratic Republics" were run by their people or in any way democratic (and yes, I'm fully aware of the full name of the NSDAP and if you like we can do a full blow-by-blow analysis of Hitler's usurping of the "Strasserite"/National Bolshevik faction before he seized full control of the party but I don't think anyone's interested. Even me).

I see your point, it's the old saw that at the extremes of left and right the authoritarian variants at either end end up looking remarkably similar in practice, but it's more a criticism of the limits of the left v right axis as a way of describing the political spectrum than anything else. All fascist parties have populist elements in their agenda and most use some form of anti-capitalism as populist propaganda, but it doesn't make them "left-wing" in any meaningful sense. The idea it does is just a bit of a fad going round the various Tea Party style internet circles to try to distance their brand of hard right politics from the "traditional far right" of fascism and do a bit of lefty-bashing at the same time. Like most stuff that emanated from the Tea Party milieu it's utter horseshit and bears very little examination.

[horlock07]

Wow. You actually believed Miliband when he said that.

Not every millionaire in the country will benefit to the tune of £40k, only those with an annual income of £1m - of which there are a total of 6,000. Plus if you take in to account the other tax changes the rich will actually be paying more.

Oh well look on the bright side under those terms I suspect that Messers Blair, Brown and Mandelson amongst others will do jolly well. But obviously they will give the cash to the working classes like their ideology suggests!

I don't care what colour they claim to be (and lets be honest they are all scrabbling for the middle ground whatever party they are!) they haven't got a clue whats its like in the real world. The fact that politics have now become a profession means that it will only ever attract those that have the background to afford to take it as a career. How many of us had the capital to leave university and work as researchers for political parties or stand for councils in our 20's, its only is ma and pa have that cash then you can achieve that.

[horlock07]

Just the 6000? Oh, that's alright then, although I could think of better ways of spending a couple of million quid.

The rich will never pay more under Cameron, he will publicly take from them with one hand and give it back to them, privately, with both hands

And Labour made a great job of taxing the rich didn't they!

[pauld]

I don't care what colour they claim to be (and lets be honest they are all scrabbling for the middle ground whatever party they are!) they haven't got a clue whats its like in the real world. The fact that politics have now become a profession means that it will only ever attract those that have the background to afford to take it as a career. How many of us had the capital to leave university and work as researchers for political parties or stand for councils in our 20's, its only is ma and pa have that cash then you can achieve that.

Nail, head, hit. Osbourne, Clegg, Cameron, Milliband, Balls - none of them have ever lived and worked in the real world, one of the massive problems with politics today is it's run by "policy wonks" who are just career politicians. They are becoming more and more disconnected every year and talking to an increasingly small circle of like-minded jerks.

[Batch]

Nail, head, hit. Osbourne, Clegg, Cameron, Milliband, Balls - none of them have ever lived and worked in the real world, one of the massive problems with politics today is it's run by "policy wonks" who are just career politicians. They are becoming more and more disconnected every year and talking to an increasingly small circle of like-minded jerks.

Are you saying buying a sausage roll in Greggs isn't real world experience?

[horlock07]

Osbourne, Clegg, Cameron, Milliband, Balls

Thats a fairly strong midfield there...

[pauld]

Are you saying buying a sausage roll in Greggs isn't real world experience?

I take it all back. My apologies to the wonks in question

[pauld]

Thats a fairly strong midfield there...

Fuck off, Clegg's completely lightweight and usually facing the wrong direction anyway and a dandelion could get past Milliband. And Osbourne's only ever played the Wall Game with his fags. Balls, though, I'll give you - scored a hat-trick against the journos' XI the other day, IIRC, including a blatant dive for a pen.

[nevillew]

Fuck off, Clegg's completely lightweight and usually facing the wrong direction anyway and a dandelion could get past Milliband. And Osbourne's only ever played the Wall Game with his fags. Balls, though, I'll give you - scored a hat-trick against the journos' XI the other day, IIRC, including a blatant dive for a pen.

Indeed, you can't play football without Balls.

[jonny72]

And Labour made a great job of taxing the rich didn't they!

They realised in the mid 90's that if they taxed the rich (middle class upwards) heavily they'd never get in to power, so they didn't. Anyone who thinks Labour tax the rich to benefit the poor have just bought in to their spin, seem to recall the wealth gap increased under them pretty substantially. See Brown and the 10p tax rate for more info.

If anything it's the Tories that keep taxes down for everyone. They cut public services and expense and hand it back in tax cuts - so you can spend it on what you want rather than what the Government wants. Whilst Labour raise everybody's taxes so they can increase and spend more on public services. Think that is the only real difference between them nowadays.

Lib Dem seem to be the only ones that want to tax the rich to benefit the poor. Their £10k personal allowance policy has probably done more to benefit the poor than Labour and the Tories have managed over the last 30 years.

[Iffy's Onion Bhaji]

Labour didn't spend the money on public services (well there were no improvements to public services to justify the spending anyway) so that raises the question. What was the extra money actually spent on? I'm guessing not much which is probably why the current government has cut taxes back to the level that is more reasonable and needed. OK sure they have made public services cuts in some areas but they had to given the shit the economy has been in over the past 4 years or so. I think some people are far too quick to jump on the Tories back in these hard times. If you think about it they've had to pick up the mess of Labour's over spending for the 12 years prior to their election to government.

[jonny72]

Labour didn't spend the money on public services (well there were no improvements to public services to justify the spending anyway) so that raises the question. What was the extra money actually spent on? I'm guessing not much which is probably why the current government has cut taxes back to the level that is more reasonable and needed.

There was a massive increase in spending on the NHS under Labour, they pretty much doubled it from around £60bn when they came to power to around £120bn when they left. A lot of the capital spending was through PFI, which we will be paying off for another 30 years.

I'd question whether that money was spent wisely.

[Ardiles]

There was real improvement in the NHS under Labour - but I'd have to agree that the improvement came at too high a price.  I'd say the rail network improved immensely as well.  In the late 1990s, the news was dominated by rail disasters and stories of dilapidated track and rolling stock etc.  You don't hear that any more.  There has been a lot of investment and, generally speaking, the trains now run on time.  But the present government has realised that it cannot sustain rail spending at that level, leading to the above inflation fare increases that commuters (like me) are now being hit with.  Can't complain about that.

The only area that Labour didn't seem to throw much money at was road infrastructure - largely, I guess, for ideological reasons.  And it shows now.  Don't expect everyone to agree with this, but road capacity is now very stretched due to lack of investment to the point where we're falling well behind most other western European countries.  Our motorway network, in particular, is short of several badly needed motorways...but I don't think the political will exists to do anything about it.

[jonny72]

I'd say the rail network improved immensely as well.  In the late 1990s, the news was dominated by rail disasters and stories of dilapidated track and rolling stock etc.  You don't hear that any more.  There has been a lot of investment and, generally speaking, the trains now run on time.  But the present government has realised that it cannot sustain rail spending at that level, leading to the above inflation fare increases that commuters (like me) are now being hit with.  Can't complain about that.

I'd question whether the investment in the rail network gave value for money. In general the money was spent on incremental improvements when what was really needed after decades of under investment was to rip out large sections and start again. Putting in a decent high speed network would have cost more upfront but would have saved in the long run.

Personally I'd say fuck the road network and put the money in to the rail network instead.

[Batch]

Personally I'd say fuck the road network and put the money in to the rail network instead.

Interesting, might just have worked if Beeching hadn't damn the railways to hell.

The problem I see with rail at the moment is a) overpriced and b) overcrowded and c) inconvenient.

So what you need is a cheap and frequent rail service that runs to where you need it. That is just too damned expensive to provide unfortunately. Plus, even if the infrastructure was there would it be profitable?