Who will win the UK election ?

Conrad

Running right through left of centre politics and the 2 recent COE letters is the fundamental notion that giving benefits to supposed victims and the supposed poor will bring about life changing enhancements.


The problem though is that far from encouraging better outcomes, if you pay people to behave like victims, more people look to see how needy they are.
Children growing up in such landscapes have severely dimmed horizons thus progressive this is not.


You also bring about mass resentment - my particular irk just now is Turkish / Kurdish takeaway owners - very wealthy, typically spending much time at property auctions, that have wives / Daughters on disability and other benefits that pretend to live alone elsewhere in order to win right to buy discounts. On top of this they are into staging fake whiplash incidents (even inside blackcabs just from ordinary braking) and also burning down one anothers properties in order to have their insurers rebuild them brand new and thus add value.
In my very real long term experience, welfare cheating is endemic and leads into other casualised forms of criminality. People run rings around the fabric that results from the heart felt outpourings of hideously niave Bishops and the general thrust found in left leaning policy and trend setters.


Many citizens are frustrated by real world examples of the endemic fraud they encounter in their own lives, but the left has persuaded the sheeple that such examples are one off's from the imaginations of DM journos.


Cash earnings are absolutely rife, many of you guys would be staggered at the extent of it.

ukcarper

Generali wrote: »

So what is socialism in 'the true sense'? Presumably it's not what Marx and Engels discussed in the C19th.

I'd describe socialism as being an ideology which seeks to appropriate a large part of people's income or wealth against their will to be distributed to others.

TBH I'd describe the Labour party of the C21st as a fascist party. Not that they want a new Holocaust obvs but that they see the private part of the economy, you and I deciding to buy and sell stuff to each other, as a vehicle to be used to coerce people into behaving and acting in particular ways to suit the ends of politicians. The Tories believe the same thing to a lesser extent.

Thatcher was probably the only senior politician not to see things like this. I reckon Farrage doesn't support fascist economics either but he's still a d!ck.



Wages aren't stagnating in real terms any longer.

Manufacturing isn't all the economy and nor should it be. Economies are ultimately all about consumption.

There's an article on the interwebs about where the profit from designing, making and selling a Barbie Doll goes. Have a Google and a read as it makes a lot of very interesting and counter-intuitive points.

The TLDR version is that if you want to make money from Barbie Dolls then design them, market them or retail them. The manufacturer makes next to nothing.

I'd say SNP and Plaid Cymru are nearer to what I would call socialism and although I like some of their ideas I realise that the deficit needs to be cut I also think Labour know that all be it at a slower rate than the Tories.

No idea what will happen after election looking pretty bad apart from Europe Labour seem to have more in common with Tories than SNP, Labour/Tory coalition could be best way forward never going to happen though.

Sapphire

When it comes to this, yes, I do have utter contempt for 'champagne socialists'. I cannot stand the hypocrisy of someone affluent – sometimes very wealthy – calling themselves a 'socialist' while doing nothing to redistribute their own wealth among the 'poor'. All they tend to do is talk, and vote, both of which actions require no expense from them.

ukcarper wrote: »

My second paragraph was in response to the contemp you show to "champagne socialist" .

ukcarper

Sapphire wrote: »

When it comes to this, yes, I do have utter contempt for 'champagne socialists'. I cannot stand the hypocrisy of someone affluent – sometimes very wealthy – calling themselves a 'socialist' while doing nothing to redistribute their own wealth among the 'poor'. All they tend to do is talk, and vote, both of which actions require no expense from them.

I'm not so sure so long as they pay their tax and don't complain or avoid it I don't think they are that bad.

Sapphire

I think that perhaps I am somewhat overly sensitive to them. I can remember having discussions with such people at a publishing company I worked in, and they vehemently defended Russian communism close to a time when millions had been murdered under the Soviet system in what was the USSR.

It seemed to me that these people didn't know how lucky they were, living on an island that has never been invaded, and even then in conditions that were the envy of much of the world. (This was a while ago, when many people in this country were poorer than they are now, though they had fewer demands…)

ukcarper wrote: »

I'm not so sure so long as they pay their tax and don't complain or avoid it I don't think they are that bad.

ukcarper

Sapphire wrote: »

I think that perhaps I am somewhat overly sensitive to them. I can remember having discussions with such people at a publishing company I worked in, and they vehemently defended Russian communism close to a time when millions had been murdered under the Soviet system in what was the USSR.

It seemed to me that these people didn't know how lucky they were, living on an island that has never been invaded, and even then in conditions that were the envy of much of the world. (This was a while ago, when many people in this country were poorer than they are now, though they had fewer demands…)

Well I certainly wouldn't advocate communism and I'm sure most champagne socialist wouldn't although I'm sure there are some extremists.

N1AK

Sapphire wrote: »

When it comes to this, yes, I do have utter contempt for 'champagne socialists'.

So you have contempt for anyone wealthy who believes in socialism based on some twonks you knew a couple of decades or more ago? Way to keep with the times...

It's an incredibly dumb position to hold to consider it hypocritical to have wealth, and also believe in socialist policies. It's just as dumb as hating all wealthy conservatives because you've known a couple who blindly believe that everything they've earned is entirely down to their hard work and that the state deserves no credit for it.

I suppose you despise people who argue for military intervention who weren't in the military, people who want to cut NHS spending who never worked in hospitals, people who complain about police brutality who haven't been in the police etc.

michaels

Generali wrote: »

I voted Tory in the UK to help those worse off than me.

This is the problem, the Tories have taken away my child benefit which labour would never have done whilst sharply increasing the personal allowance but only for those on the 20% tax band, so basically as an above average earner I would have been much better off under regressive labour compared to the progressive tories.

They have also tried to encourage rich council tenants with spare bedrooms to pay for the privilege or downsize so some of the overcrowded families can have enough rooms. They have adjusted the benefits system so those who want to work to improve their lot face slightly less crippling marginal tax rates. They have frozen public sector pay so that those who use govt services such as health and welfare can benefit as much as possible from the limited funds available, rather than the govt employees who are often already on above market salaries when including their pension rights. They have cut back govt borrowing so that everyone, particularly those on low and average salaries who don't have the opportunities to evade, has to pay less tax in the future, specifically on interest on govt borrowing which has in turn kept interest rates low saving money for those in debt.

Darn progressive Tories, the last labour govt gave universal benefits to all and sundry, did dubious procurement deals to keep debt of the books whilst rewarding their buddies in crony corporate deals such as pfi. If there is a new one they will repay their union benefactors by rigging the market to reward unionised employees (often already earning more for doing the same job than those not in a union) with higher salaries at the expense of everyone else whilst tightening employment laws to condemn those not in work to longer periods of unemployment (is unemployment in France below 11% yet?) Oh yes and they are planning to cut university fees which will result only in higher earners paying less for their education.

As far as I can see it is pretty surprising when you look at which party is progressive and which is regressive but perhaps the Labour concept of 'children living in poverty' which rose under labour but fell under the tories tells the truth after all.

vivatifosi

michaels... you missed the bit where they removed the 10% tax band and increased the pain for those on min/low wage.

Cyberman60

Generali wrote: »

I voted Tory in the UK to help those worse off than me.

IMHO the best thing you can do for much of the poor is to increase the size of the pie to be divvy'd up rather than divvying it up differently.

Exactly. If only the lefties could see that. I have been arguing that point for years only for it to fall on deaf ears. :T