i certainly get the impression that the racist thugs of the 80s are no longer dominant in the force

I'm of the impression that proper, full blown racists are simply far, far less common than they were 10 or 15 years ago, let along 25 years ago. Near enough everybody nowadays knows a few people of a different ethnicity, which makes being racist rather difficult.

TandemJeremy – Member
non of these are left wing – all are totalitarain – not the same thing at all. totalitarian states with communist rehtoric does not make them left wing –

Hahahahaha – talk about disowning the past!

So TJ I take it that on that basis you're happy for me to identify the BNP as a totalitarian party with socialist rhetoric rather than right wing?

true tron but i see what the daily wail readers call political correctness gone mad under nulabour as being a very good thing driving out the racists an bigots

No – the BNP are totalitarian with right wing rhetoric – as its a nazi party.

You get totalitarian parties that use right wing and left wing rhetoric. However no matter the rhetoric they remain totalitarian not capitalist or socialist

Its not about disowning the past – its about understanding what the politics are – the "communist" stares especially the puppet states where never socialist – they were totalitarian – a socialist government cannot be totalitarian

We keep hearing how bad Labour were for the economy: Does no one remember the Boom and Bust days of the early 90's? I certainly remember my mortgage rate going up from 7 to 13 percent; it just about finished ME off!
I think the media have a lot to answer for: The need to drive new stories constantly in this 24 hour news world with a focus the whole time on, apparently, just how crap politicians are at everything. The whole expenses scandal (with a few notable exceptions) was just a media witch hunt IMO; European countries were very bemeused; they couldn't imagaine politicians being as UN-corrupt as our.
The media assasinated Neil Kinnock and Micheal Foot; is it any suprise "Media-proof" New Labour was dreamed up. The biggest problem for them was that with all the spin people just didn't believe them when they DID get things right and really DID make real improvements to peoples lives. The funding for these things should have come from increased taxes however, and not by raiding the BofE reserves, but to do so would have been electoral suicide.

I'm pretty sure they're all as bad as each other. Cameron, Brown and Clegg are all politicians aka liars and power hungary etc.

No – the BNP are totalitarian with right wing rhetoric – as its a nazi party.

See, the clues in the title – national socialist!

If you have a look at the BNP's policies they're as far away from "right wing" as you can get – restriction of free trade, state ownership of utilities and production.

Its not just me thinks so – political compass is onside

http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010

Once you accept that left and right are merely measures of economic position, the extreme right refers to extremely liberal economics that may be practised by social authoritarians or social libertarians.

Similarly, the extreme left identifies a strong degree of state economic control, which may also be accompanied by liberal or authoritarian social policies. It's muddled thinking to simply describe the likes of the British National Party as "extreme right". The truth is that on issues like health, transport, housing, protectionism and globalisation, their economics are left of Labour, let alone the Conservatives. It's in areas like police power, military power, school discipline, law and order, race and nationalism that the BNP's real extremism – as authoritarians – is clear. It's easy to see how the term national socialism came into being. The uncomfortable reality is that much of their support comes from former Labour voters.

a socialist government cannot be totalitarian

Hahahahaha! China for example!

molgrips – if you want a police state

We're patently not a police state, and even hinting at it is a gross insult to those who have truly lived under oppression.

Some people don't they're born.

Politicians all liars? If you get asked by the media to resign everytime THEY said you were not doing the things THEY thought were right and everytime you tried to make improvements THEY would only focus on possible negative fall-out from these improvements then wouldn't YOU start being a bit evassive about things?

Cable's got a Phd in Economics, and was chief economist at Shell. I'd hardly call that no experience at all.

Ah I see, you were talking about his experience with Shell – fair enough. I assumed that as you said "second in command" to the Chancellor, you meant at number 11, or in cabinet, or even maybe, in government.

Well I've got experience with riding a single speed bike – does that count ?

Or are you saying that the tricky job of trying to get an oil company to actually show a profit, is the same "experience" as running the world's 5th largest economy and dealing with recession, 2 million unemployed, inflation, debt, allocating funds to education, health, housing, defence, trade agreements, the EU, IMF, etc, etc,

💡 Are confusing "qualifications" with "experience" ?

Vince Cable has no experience. Ken Clark does.

Game on!

Dont let the door hit you on the arse on your way out!

Lol

Nice speech Gordon, slightly rushed though

I just hope the incoming lot will do as much for the funding MTB trails as the outgoing lot! They didn't last time they were in

Game on!

Indeed. Now we'll see how really shit the Tories are after all! 😀

Very dignified.

Looks like Gordon's on the way to see the Queen.

Simple and symbolic. The British way. [or some such bull]

He's already in there

If the rumours of the deal are true, is anybody else concerned about the new Prime Minister's negotiating skills?

Better than Eastenders!

Is it too late to get a fixed rate mortguage? For how many years though?

Dear me, Cameron's cheesy waffle on the BBC live feed already pissing me off and he's only been in for an hour.

Time to stop watching news for a while I think. Don't want my daughter to pick up too many swear words.

a socialist government cannot be totalitarian

Hahahahaha! China for example!

Communism and socialism are not the same thing though! They may be born out of the same theories but they are not interchangeable

China is (supposedly) communist as it has centralised political control….however it also allows capitalist theories when it suits them (to make make money) – worst of both worlds – no freedoms, but no equality at the same time.

Tron. 'The IRA were rather more successful at killing people than islamic extremists appear to be in the UK, but we didn't have anywhere near the level of infringement of civil liberties that we do now.'

Be careful with this as it could be argued that Islamic Extremists are not as 'successful' BECAUSE we have more infringement of civil liberties now.

This will probably get me ejected from STW but I am quite excited about the new government. The Tories have some sensible ideas for the economy but the Lib Dems will temper their elitist arrogance. Interesting times.

I have to admit one of the main reasons I registered was just to say how much Molgrips posts in this thread have made me chuckle.

Can we poke fun at the slimey Mekon like Hague as well now? He's even worse, I imagine him like golum whispering in his ear, ooooh David my preccccious lolol

With the risk of being burned in my second post on here – I do think given the state of the results that the Lib/Tory pact is the better option than flogging a dead horse that is labour in its current state. But then I have always thought coming up to the election Brown would be hung out to dry by his party and pre empted someone like Milliband wanting in. So no great surprise how things have panned out.

All I am hoping, and its a big hope (sat right next to winning the rollover tonight) is that everything that has been force fed us over the last few weeks, about the national interest and the motivational speech last night actually comes to fruitition. I cant help but think though it sounds partially like a Company director telling his workforce to pull together, work harder – but expect no bonus – just do it for the love of the job. Fair point but that doesnt pay bills or cover the ever expanding costs of fuel duty… anyway we shall see.

El-bent: "I don't think he's going to be chancellor."

🙁 Being right never felt so wrong.

Yep. We're boned.