Labour can be described in the same terms, and has done all the same things.
That's nonsense and you know it.
What’s dishonest about it?
If you don’t want to be associated with lying, venal scum, then don’t vote for them.
My point exactly. I'm sure writing hate speech like that above makes some activists feel better, but the public doesn't share the sentiment. If you can't decide between L or C, and you think they are both just as good/bad, voting against the angry bloke swearing and spitting is a good way to decide.
The first post here is asking the wrong question. It's not about how to force the public to get rid of the Tories, or make the public agree with Momentum, but how to make Labour represent the public.
Most of the posts on here restore my faith in humanity and that, eventually, we will get through the **** storm just about to hit.
Part of it entirely made by government action or inaction in respective areas.
Tory ideology is small government. That means less regulation, lower taxes and less money spent on government. Sounds good, right? Well, without the government helping people who need it - who is? In practice, no-one. And less regulation, oh that pesky red tape, who wouldn't love to be rid of that? Well, if you don't have rules then someone will ALWAYS come along and do something bad to make themselves richer. You don't need me to explain that, just look at what happens in the US.
Labour ideology is to give power to the working classes. In practice that means helping and listening to the poorer end of society, which means higher taxes and more government to spend that money. It also means more regulation to stop the rich (and hence powerful) exploiting those who have no choice but to work for them.
So there is a huge difference ideologically between Labour and Tories. Anyone who says they are all the same is absolutely wrong. If you simply wanted power for the sake of it, why would you join Labour? Why not join the Tories? Why wouldn't you just jump ship to the more popular party? This does happen but it's pretty rare, that shows you there are real differences between the sides.
Now, any government might be incompetent, it might fail in its aims, but that doesn't change the fact that the aims of both sides are different.
But there's a completely separate debate about actual governments. Even if you are a Tory, you must admit that this particular government is really really bad at its job.
And just what would you replace it with? Don't talk Labour. All they manage to do is be spiteful and unfair. I have seen very few practical suggestions from them. All they rant on about is how "fair" life will be under them but have no practical way of doing so. If we want more services we have to pay more. Oh yeah tax the hard working shall we and let those who can't be arsed sit on their arses? I see no problem with a tax increase if it works but it must be fair. Fair means we pay the same as the next chap. So if some bod pays 40% so should everyone else. Your income shouldn't be the deciding factor. Immoral.
Morally speaking of course this doesn't work does it? After all the so called wealthy usually take less from society so should pay less if we are being truly fair.
Labour would have some respect if they were honest but like all pretend socialists they are not. They want to take from the rich yet are not the first to set an example. Any one of you lot out their practising what you preach by putting others first? Doubt it. You are riding around on an expensive bike. How very considerate. If socialism worked it would be wonderful but it just doesn't. It is against human nature.
Hopefully the whole cabinet will go on a fact finding mission to Rwanda and find that despite all their years living and working in the UK they're not entitled to return.
My mum was unable to renew her passport a few years ago as she was born overseas despite living in this country from the age of 17 with a British passport, serving in the Army and working for social services for most of her working life. She's just died and we're going through the whole "unable to prove identity" thing as she doesn't have a current passport and never had a birth certificate or her birth registered in the UK because that's not where she was born. I await the Kafkaesque news that she can't be dead because she hasn't got the right paperwork or that her corpse will be deported.
If socialism worked it would be wonderful but it just doesn’t. It is against human nature.
There are plenty of socialist democracies around the world.
We've had socialist governments in this country that have done ok.
Ummm an awful lot of them have ended up badly.
Lots of social constructs go against human nature. That doesn't mean they're a bad idea. For example, should we decriminalise violence?
Sorry to hear that Murray.
Any one of you lot out their practising what you preach by putting others first? Doubt it. You are riding around on an expensive bike. How very considerate
Socialism is a pretty broad church and means different things to different people but I don't think it has to involve the relinquishment of personal property or always putting others first.
Your income shouldn’t be the deciding factor.
Why not? Everyone needs a certain amount to survive. Why tax someone living on a subsistence income at the same rate as someone earning more money than they could ever really “need”. That makes no sense at all, practically or “morally”. And earnings are not pegged to “hard working”… plenty of people work hard for low wages, and plenty of people have a high income (and/or wealth) while working less hard, if at all. There are all sorts of work ethics and levels of application at all sorts of income levels.
51% the Brexit voting Redwall **** wits.
I am from this "community" i have expanded on this previously.
The 51% simply want to piss off, make life difficult for anyone they "perceive" is doing better than them.
This 51% has and continues to be weaponised by the Tories to enable them to retain power.
We are long long way from any change.
Your income shouldn’t be the deciding factor.
Why tax someone living on a subsistence income at the same rate as someone earning more money than they could ever really “need”.
After a lot of argy bargy were down to the nitty gritty of left v right with these two posts and I fear it's east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.
After a lot of argy bargy were down to the nitty gritty of left v right with these two posts and I fear it’s east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.
Easy enough. Set the minimum wage to the national living wage. Everyone pays same tax rate so if you earn twice as much as someone you pay twice the tax. All tax records public, divs and interest same as paye. No one receives more on benefits than a full time worker on the minimum wage, less £1, so that someone working full time to support their needy family is always better off than someone claiming.
Fair means we pay the same as the next chap. So if some bod pays 40% so should everyone else
I don't believe fairness means treating everyone the same because everyone's needs and abilities are different.
If we want more services we have to pay more. Oh yeah tax the hard working shall we and let those who can’t be arsed sit on their arses? I see no problem with a tax increase if it works but it must be fair. Fair means we pay the same as the next chap. So if some bod pays 40% so should everyone else. Your income shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Immoral.
But there’s the kicker, it’s the punching down mentality that the tories have harnessed so effectively when in reality, benefits are chicken feed compared to the bare, naked greed of the top 0.01% who contribute **** all.
edit. According to ONS ~2.2B spent on unemployment benefit. £46B on working benefits. £111B on pensioners…
we just wrote of £4B in fraudulent covid loans, and that doesn’t include the Tory donor hotline PPE cash machine.
Easy enough. Set the minimum wage to the national living wage. Everyone pays same tax rate so if you earn twice as much as someone you pay twice the tax. All tax records public, divs and interest same as paye. No one receives more on benefits than a full time worker on the minimum wage, less £1, so that someone working full time to support their needy family is always better off than someone claiming.
At first glance and practicalities aside, that sounds good to me* but I doubt it would sit well with the right as getting (almost) the equivalent of minimum wage in benefits would be a sure fire trigger!
*The fact that it sounds good to me as an old leftie is further evidence that the right wouldn't like it.
The whole thing needs changing. The system is rigged to ensure that the current broken voting system carries on putting people in charge that no one actually voted for.
I've never understood how voting for your local MP, based purely on the individuals talents, morals, competence and character. Can result in a political party dominating Parliament and putting a Prime Minister in place without any other further input from the general public.
Some leaders became Prime Minister without even an election.
Did we vote or have any say for any of the following becoming Prime Minister:
- John Major
- Theresa May
- Boris Johnson
We really need to bring people's wages up to at least the level where they no longer need a government issued top up. It's bonkers that the public have to subsidise people's wages who work for companies that make huge profits. Make the companies pay fair wages, so what if their profits are hit.
My idea to bring more of the dis-infranchised voters (or non voters it would seem) would be to take advantage of the fact that Westminster needs major renovations.
Move the parliament around the country for the next 10 years. You could have the parliament based in a different area every 1-2 years.
This way you'd even ensure that all the current sitting MP's would get a seat in parliament instead of the current undersized one we have. You could also build it in such a way that members of the public, schools and universities could attend as witnesses.
I'd also make all MP's have to vote in person for every parliament sitting, no abstaining.
I didn’t know we had Sunak’s family on this forum.
.....because everyone’s needs and abilities are different.
That sounds suspiciously marxist to me........"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
That sounds suspiciously marxist to me……..“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
Ha ha, I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that! 🙂
That sounds suspiciously marxist to me……..“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
And Jeremy, Len, Diane, Jenny, and the other union bosses naturally deciding everyone's needs, and receiving a bigger house and car as reward for their strains in that regard. What could possibly go right...
Maybe that's the difference, tory dishonesty being orders of magnitude larger in scale simply doesn't register with normal people.
Jenny, and the other union bosses naturally deciding everyone’s needs, and receiving a bigger house and car as reward for their strains in that regard.
Is there any chance that you could expand on that please because I have no idea what you are referring to?
And I haven't got the foggiest idea who Jenny is.
Wow.. ok..
Oh yeah tax the hard working shall we and let those who can’t be arsed sit on their arses? I see no problem with a tax increase if it works but it must be fair. Fair means we pay the same as the next chap. So if some bod pays 40% so should everyone else. Your income shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Immoral.
Morally speaking of course this doesn’t work does it? After all the so called wealthy usually take less from society so should pay less if we are being truly fair.
The reason so many countries do what's called progressive taxation is that there is a basic minimum amount of money required to live. Let's say the minimum survivable wage is £100 a week (it's not in real life of course). If someone only makes £100 a week, then they are just scraping by. Taking 10% of that money means they are on £90 a week and that's just not enough. If however someone makes £1000 a week, that's plenty of money. But crucially, if you take 10% from them they still have tons of money, nine times the basic living cost. So how about you let the poor person keep their £10 and the rich person pays £110. Rich person barely notices, but the poor person can now make ends meet; and the government gets the same revenue to spend on services. Even in the UK that's how income tax works.
If socialism worked it would be wonderful but it just doesn’t. It is against human nature.
Communism doens't work, no. But social democracies do. When they do surveys to find the happiest countries (which to me means the ones that work best) social democracies are usually at the top. So yeah, it does work. And ultimately your argument is 'we have to continue being bastards because we're bastards'. That's nonsensical really. There are many historical examples where people were made to stop being greedy and act for the greater good, and ultimately everyone realises it was a good thing after all. The US even had a war along those lines.
Oh, and acting altruistically is NOT against human nature, not at all. If you put people in small groups, then they help each other very nicely, because everyone's 'one of us'. We 'look after our own' quite well. The problem occurs when people view others as 'one of them', because we don't want to help 'them', they are funny and not right. The problem is that it's very easy to convince any group that members of some other group are 'them' rather than 'us'. It could be the people from the next town, it could be Eastern Europeans, blacks, gays, southerners, northerners, the English etc etc. And because we all belong to many groups, it's easy to get people hating each other. But you can unite people by creating a stronger group of 'them'. This is what happened during WWII, of course - most of the country was strongly united against the Nazis, and it's absolutely not a coincidence that the postwar government was social democratic and created so much of what we value today. If we hadn't had that, then we would not have the NHS and we'd all be worrying about wether or not we could afford to go to hospital and pay the excess, or wondering how the hell we were going to afford insulin to stay alive etc etc etc.
I don’t believe fairness means treating everyone the same because everyone’s needs and abilities are different.
Correct. Here is a cartoon illustrating that point:
And here's another cartoon illustrating my points about Toryism:
Which situation in that picture do you think is best?
Correct. Here is a cartoon illustrating that point:
That's hardly an example of fairness....all three are attempting to watch a sporting event without paying for the privilege.
That’s hardly an example of fairness….all three are attempting to watch a sporting event without paying for the privilege.
Well if you're going to stretch the metaphor, what about all the rich people buying up all the tickets at prices that are hopelessly out of reach for the poor? 🙂
And Jeremy, Len, Diane, Jenny, and the other union bosses naturally deciding everyone’s needs, and receiving a bigger house and car as reward for their strains in that regard. What could possibly go right…
Hot take: Collective bargaining a myth, keep yourself above the poverty line thanks to market forces(tm).
The whole thing needs changing.
Sorry to say but it's not going to happen. The country and its people are now firmly on a path that will most assuredly lead to a Dickensian nightmare. And where it goes from there doesn't really bear thinking about, but its clear from this camp we're heading for dystopia.
we’re heading for dystopia
Heading for? It's already pretty bad, when you consider how things actually could be if we were competently run. And I'm not suggesting that a vote for Starmer would fix everything, although I do think he'd be more competent than Johnson (not hard tbh).
Most people are quite happy with the idea of taxing fat cats or making the mega rich pay their fair share. This has been surveyed in the past I'm fairly sure and shown to be a popular idea. But too many people simply aren't aware of what the Tories really are about. So we end up with a government that doesn't really reflect what people actually want; we get the one that people can be conned into voting for by outright lies and disingenuousness. The liars are the ones who win. So yeah, that's a fair old slice of dystopia right there.
2022=1932="1984"
Every time I find myself think that, it feels like it should be far fetched and just paranoid fiction. But... it feels more and more real with every decision made by those in power.
I sadly think we're sleepwalking into something VERY bad.
But then I felt that way as a teenager in the 80s, and we (kind of) got over that OK with a bit of a slap round the collective face and some collective action.
I do feel that Gen X ought to stop habitually shrugging and actually do something though, and I say that as a stereotypical Gen Xer. Boomers are mostly the issue, and Millenials have got all the ideas but none of the cultural power. We need to step up?
I guess that's another way of asking if the current relationship between voting tory and being old is a characteristic of that particular generation, or is intrinsic to simply getting older.
I think (and hope) it's generational rather than a result of just getting older. Drifting towards my mid-50s now, and can not currently ever contemplate voting Tory. If anything, my views are getting more radical and disruptive as I disgracefully age.
'Human nature' is always quoted when someone is bereft of arguments and evidence, it is anthropological idiocy. If such a thing existed, all societies currently and in history would be the same.
I think (and hope) it’s generational rather than a result of just getting older. Drifting towards my mid-50s now, and can not currently ever contemplate voting Tory. If anything, my views are getting more radical and disruptive as I disgracefully age
Me too - brought up Tory, increasingly drifting to the left as my experience and world view has been broadened.
Me three! Moving further and further to the left as I get older (61 3/4).
We really need to bring people’s wages up to at least the level where they no longer need a government issued top up. It’s bonkers that the public have to subsidise people’s wages who work for companies that make huge profits. Make the companies pay fair wages, so what if their profits are hit.
Yep there was a report on this which was interesting reading as the gov are effectively subsidising the payroll of the large companies.
Why pay good wages when the gov subsidise you.
I may have had Tory leanings as a cub,but I just don’t think the Tory of today is anything like the Tory of yesteryear.
I suppose my question is that if we are tending to drift to the left and am indicative of a larger number(humour me) of people as we get older and allegedly(humour me more) the core support is currently daily mail reading pensioners that unless they start grooming the young they are in a world of pain.
I suppose the issue is to point their failings/corruption self serving tendency in a way that catches peoples interest, just moaning about them 24/7 seems to actually work in their favour.
that unless they start grooming the young they are in a world of pain.
Eldest is at Cambridge, and although generally left/liberal leaning as an institution, the Tory Youth sound a truly hideous group. One of his mates is connected to it, though backed Rory Stewart, so presumably a more moderate utter nutter.