London - the beating heart of our great nation

Wookster

A._Badger wrote: »

Now remind us which party most recently presided over that ever-widening gap?

A fact conveniently forgotten by labour supporters.

Road_Hog

Generali wrote: »

I ask with respect, why live in an awful place for 25 years?

Because it wasn't awful when I lived there.

And quite a fair bit, was as a child and I didn't have a say in the matter.

Now, go and do one.*


* With respect.

John_Pierpoint

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

Not many in the USSR had a car in the 1980s

Nasty selfish capitalist metal boxes with a wheel at each corner.
Owners can move about avoiding any contact with fellow citizens.

They jam up the roads, have killed about 25 million people, pollute the planet to destruction and decimate the bus service.

So we all end up having to buy one but cannot freely drive anywhere in it. No wonder rational communist countries did not encourage the huge waste of resources.

Generali

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Nasty selfish capitalist metal boxes with a wheel at each corner.
Owners can move about avoiding any contact with fellow citizens.

They jam up the roads, have killed about 25 million people, pollute the planet to destruction and decimate the bus service.

So we all end up having to buy one but cannot freely drive anywhere in it. No wonder rational communist countries did not encourage the huge waste of resources.

Right ho. So they had public transport instead which takes you from where you are not to where you don't want to go and is rarely, if ever, on time and is often more wasteful of resources (London buses for example use far more fuel than the equivalent trip by car at any time except rush hour, i.e. for about 20 hours of the day).

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

If you think that taking vast subsidies from taxpayers and making it illegal to compete with state owned monopolies is 'doing alright' then yes they were.

Unfortunately that approach to economics was sending the country bust so the Labour Government introduced monetarist policies after the IMF were called in in 1976.

If anything, Lady Thatcher followed the economic policies introduced by Labour/Lib-Lab in the 70s. The only thing her party added was privatisation.

I can't see an awful lot of difference to the current situation where vast subsidies in corporate welfare are paid to the already super rich, and vast monopolistic corporations collaborate with their friends in government to avoid tax, erode employment law and create virtual globalised cartels predicated on price fixing, dishonesty, and greed.

The main difference is that neoliberalism benefits rich people, which is apparently fine, and socialism benefits poor people, which is apparently steeped in moral hazard.

As with all things a happy medium could probably be struck but it would have to be built on a recognition that once an individual has more money than they can spend in a lifetime, then thats enough.

John_Pierpoint

Generali wrote: »

Right ho. So they had public transport instead which takes you from where you are not to where you don't want to go and is rarely, if ever, on time and is often more wasteful of resources (London buses for example use far more fuel than the equivalent trip by car at any time except rush hour, i.e. for about 20 hours of the day).

Obviously there was an element of tongue in cheek in my previous posting, but in London for example life was getting "impossible" for bus passenger and car driver alike.
Now that taxes, legal and physical restrictions, have forced many of those cars out of central London, public transport and (rich) motorists alike seem to be getting around much more reliably.
Cities in Holland and Switzerland seem to function much more in the interests of their residents than the sprawl that is Los Angeles. (where General Motors cynically bought up and closed down the bus & trolley bus (silent and non polluting) service, realising that would sell a lot more cars). There are places in USA where it is almost impossible to walk because there are no joined up sidewalks across the suburbs.

I am old enough to remember a London with trams and trolley buses plus double decker buses on which most citizens managed to get about satisfactorily 20 hours day on reasonably car free roads.

I am hoping that this substitute for the bendy bus, with its retro recall of the tram, will not prove an expensive "Boris Bus" vanity project.
They need volume production.

*

John_Pierpoint

It echoes the heritage of the open air rear staircase dating back to the days of the horse bus.

150 years ago, a successful man of business would have a villa overlooking Clapham Common and commuted by horse bus to the City.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Bus_for_London
http://www.petergould.co.uk/local_transport_history/generalhistories/general/horsebus.htm

Generali

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I can't see an awful lot of difference to the current situation where vast subsidies in corporate welfare are paid to the already super rich, and vast monopolistic corporations collaborate with their friends in government to avoid tax, erode employment law and create virtual globalised cartels predicated on price fixing, dishonesty, and greed.

The main difference is that neoliberalism benefits rich people, which is apparently fine, and socialism benefits poor people, which is apparently steeped in moral hazard.

As with all things a happy medium could probably be struck but it would have to be built on a recognition that once an individual has more money than they can spend in a lifetime, then thats enough.

I don't believe in corporate welfare either. It was a cornerstone of Nazism and remains as wrong in 2012 as it was in the 1930s.

What do you mean by Neoliberalism? For a lot of people it seems to be used as a term of abuse covering everything from Libertarianism to Corporatism. I've never seen a proper definition so would be interested to know what it means to you. I've been described as a neo-liberal many times so would like to know what I'm being accused of!

GeorgeHowell

"Nasty selfish capitalist metal boxes with a wheel at each corner.
Owners can move about avoiding any contact with fellow citizens.

They jam up the roads, have killed about 25 million people, pollute the planet to destruction and decimate the bus service.

So we all end up having to buy one but cannot freely drive anywhere in it. No wonder rational communist countries did not encourage the huge waste of resources."

How are things today on the Planet Zog ?

GeorgeHowell

"But my whole point was the initial improvement within the first 20 years after the revolution, . No wonder there were many new members of western communist parties and even the fermentation of treachery in the establishment.

This was what was happening in GB then."

Fair point. But of course the subsequent lessons of history have now brought us to a point where anyone who is a Marxist is an idiot.