ChatterBank1 min ago
Theory
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The Conservative voters amongst us only think they're bitter about having to "endure" the current government. Really they're just angered and ashamed that their own party has taken over 8 years to get itself a decent leader and become a credible voting option.
I'm not criticising them for this, I just feel sorry for them.
What does anyone else think?
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Although he is younger - which would make a change.
I personally find all this "identify with" sutff a load of rubbish. When I vote in an election, I'm not picking my friends, I'm picking someone/a party whose policies a think are sound on balance. The Tories need a two pronged attack here - sort the policies AND the leader. I guess they need the latter before the former!
Funny how the regular AB right of centres have gone quiet!
You say it took 8 years for the tories to get a decent leader.
Well it took longer for the labour party to find a leader, Tony Blair, who the public would elect. Michael Foot !!
It may have been sooner if Jim Smith had not died.
Anyway, good leaders only come along every so often. If you look back at which party won the election it is often because of the leader more than anything else.
Whether you like them or not leaders such as Harold Wilson, Maragret Tatcher and Tony Blair got their parties elected.
When they went the people that followed them soon lost the party power - Jim Calaghan, John Major and now George Brown.
(I know Brown is not leader yet but I predict he will be an awful leader and will soon lose the labour party the election).
George Brown was Harold Wilson's deputy and never got the chance to lead the party to disaster; the current one is Gordon. He seems quite popular as a man of principle - hard to see him leading the country into Iraq - but the economy may be starting to run out of steam by the time his turn comes, thanks to Blair's extreme reluctance to let go. But economically Britain has been doing pretty well for a long time, for which Brown must take much of the credit.
Firslty let me make it clear that I hover between Conservative and Lib Dem. I voted Conservative in the last election really only due to the fact that the conservative candidate had more chance of beating the labour candidate than anyone else (the lib dem candidate doesn't live in the constituency and even had a two week holiday during the run up to the election). If it wasn't for that, i would have voted Lib Dem in the last election.
Let me also say that whilst I really hate Tony Blair and can't stand this governement, I am adult enough to realise that they have done some very good things - as an example, minimum wage and handing over control of interest rates to the Bank of England.
What I really hate about this government though is the spin it puts on everything - from the sleaze through to massaging figures. I guess Jo Moore to me is the epitamy of a typical new labourite.
It seems that every week there is an article about how Brown is doing fantastic things with the economy - seems to me that not only did he inherit a strong economy, we (as a population) are in over �1 Billion pounds of debt - the only reason we are not in a recession is because we have been encouraged to borrow the money and spend it on the high street!
No matter how much we talk on here, people will very rarely change their views / political beliefs - I see lots of people mentioning Tory Sleaze - but they seem to gloss over Mandelson, Irvine, Blunkett, Vaz, Byers etc.
I find it amazing that we went to war with so many people against it - and that Blair didn't fall when it was eventually found what a lot of people suspected - there were no WMDs.
cont
To be honest, I find it a shame that we have to have a party at all - I find debates on politics interesting, but fail to see how any rational person can hold all the views of their chosen party. If I say I am a tory, then wait for people to attack you on things like minimum wage. Why can't you be a Tory supporter but still want a minimum wage?
Anyway, as I said in a previous post, I am fairly disallusioned with politics now - maybe if the conservatives had a credible leader or maybe if proportional representation was introduced it may reignite my interest. Until then.....
Anyway, as I said in a previous post, I am fairly disallusioned with politics now - maybe if the conservatives had a credible leader or maybe if proportional representation was introduced it may reignite my interest. Until then.....
the reason Blair didn't fall after Iraq was that there was nobody better. Brown loyally supported him, removing the threat of a challenge from within the party. And Howard was all over the place on whether he supported the war, which stymied any Tory challenge - so there actually was an election, in which Blair could have been toppled, and he wasn't. Which brings us back to bug's original question...
And even more amazing that I didn't vote for him .No choice at all on the ballot paper.
Sorry to hijack your thread janbug but just a quick Q to oneyedvic.Perhaps we could chat in CB about this. We moved back to GY ..Gorleston..a couple of years ago after twenty odd years in London.Apalled at the state of the place and the council have their heads up their ar**s.Would love to hear your views.
Sorry to hijack your thread janbug but just a quick Q to oneyedvic.Perhaps we could chat in CB about this. We moved back to GY ..Gorleston..a couple of years ago after twenty odd years in London.Apalled at the state of the place and the council have their heads up their ar**s.Would love to hear your views.
Very few actual answers, although some very interesting points.
This was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek dig back at all the righties, whose only line of arguement comes down to "you're a commie"! :-p
However, as usual with me, there was a serious (and hopefully interesting) underlying point.
Luckyboy made a VERY interesting point. I think it is perhaps fair to say that people who tend towards the left, tend to be more positive, and people who tend towards the right, tend to be more negative.
To me, the right's only answer seems to be to close the boarders, throw out the lazy people (and some further right wing people wouldn't be too sad to see a fair few non-whites chucked out too), definitely chuck out the foreigners etc etc.
Sometimes the left does seem to blindly wander on a bit.
So does your politics say a lot about your general outlook in life? I mean that cheery people vote more left and perhaps fail to think through the consequences of a failure to take a hard line on some issues, and people who think the apocalypse is scheduled for next Thursday around tea time and it's all the government's fault, vote to the right!
Does that (for a total load of stereotype!!) sound right!?!
jan_bug - as I said it seems ridiculous that you seem to think that the conservative agenda is purely all about immigration.
Maybe if we left politics out of this and looked at what we could agree on, the country would be in a better state.
Lets start right here and right now:
Any agreement on the following:
1) A new 60% tax threshold over �100,000 and 80% tax on over �250,000
2) All mps to only be allowed to use public transport, national health services and educate their children in their local school (no private education).
3) Magistrate court judges are to be voted in by the population they serve
4) Newspapers are to be held responsible for their actions - eg if a paediatrician is hurt after a tabloid names him as a paedophile, the editor is charged with manslaughter - and any wrong accusations must be recinded in the same type face, size and area as the original allegation (eg front page news - We are wrong)
5) All prisons are to have a priority into educating prisoners and preparing them for reintegration into society.
Well there's a start
Oneeyedvic, I like your thinking, action versus loud and angry words would be good.
1) Absolutely, how much money do you need to live and prosper? Quite a leftist view so I could imagine all the "pillars of industry" claiming that it would stifle innovation and investment, but since those people are moving wholesale towards Asia in order to get even richer, they won't be around to complain that loudly in a few years or decades. Besides, they are very much in the minority and I thought this was a democracy.
2) Good idea, but I fear forcing them to do this could keep a few dozen human rights solicitors busy for a few months. They should make more of an effort to lead by example though and do this stuff without public pressure.
3) Gotta disagree with you here. It would turn into a major popularity contest where 9 out of 10 times, it would be the person who promised to lock up everyone for life without possibility of parole that would be elected. Read the Letters page of your local paper to see the amount of angry disillousioned people who would vote for your local enforcer. Our right wing friends may like this, but I fear it would be the end of an impartial judiciary, though some may say the end has started and yet others who would say it never existed.
4) Absoultely. How do they get away with half-truths and scaremongering?
5) If it helps 10% of those it would fail today, it's got to be a good thing and worth the cash.
I know this is off the point of the original question..
But reading the letters page of your local paper is always full of negative stuff,and opinions from 'angry and outraged' people, its always been like that..
The point i'm trying to make is not a left or right one, its that whoever is running the country at any one time is trashed whatever they do, by all and sundry especially by people who hold trenchant leftish and rightish positions..i disagree with the opinion that the left are by and large more positive than the right..its even steven...
Take someone like diane abbott or jeremy corbyn they are united in their hatred of blair and acclaim brown as some sort of messiah of the far left, despite the fact that most sensible people know that brown has been one of the architects of new labour, but as long as he gets rid of blair hes alright, until that is the moment he becomes pm and starts making decisions then the usual suspects revert to type and start becoming impatient for the end of brown...its a disease that has infected the party i support since its inception, the tories since thatcher have also suffered from this and will continue to suffer this, whoever becomes the new leader.
My guess is that it will be cameron who will fight labour for the centre ground by aping new labour policies, this will inflame the right of the party who will become bitter towards him as they were major, and if he becomes PM will spend most of his energies in office fighting the angry right of his own party like major, and blair has done with the left of his...
Both parties need to understand that the public hate childish political back stabbing and divided parties.
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