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UK - Election 2015

dudalb said:
I am amused by all the Lefties who claim to be in favor of the people,but when the people don't vote the way they like call the people a bunch of idiots . And I don't like the obvious implication:The people are too stupid to govern themsleves and need a revolutionary elite to tell them what to do.
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This leftie has certainly said no such thing and has actually quoted another leftie to mock such statements. BTW, the first such statement in this thread was actually a quote from a prominent LibDem-er.
 
ddt said:
This leftie has certainly said no such thing and has actually quoted another leftie to mock such statements. BTW, the first such statement in this thread was actually a quote from a prominent LibDem-er.
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I shoud have used "some" instead of "all". I used all in the colloquial way it is often used to mean all of the lefties who had an attiude of contempt toward the massed rather then all on the left period.
And Geroge Orwell had some really great things to say about this phemenon. It climaxed in the contempt that Party Members have toward "The Proles" in 1984.
 
MikeG said:
They despise the poor, hey? You learn this. Obviously, as a sceptic, you wouldn't just fall into the trap of mindlessly acquiring the same gross generalisations as your elders, would you?
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No its not just because of what the torys did in previous generations in Scotland its also because of the Tory policys in regards to today. Stuff like the bedroom tax is a attack on the most vulnerable.
I worked my whole life-well since I was about eight-in the Fields (I'm 35 now) until I got epilepsy about 7 and a half years ago. I have frequent seizures,medication down not work and I get no warning before a fit. My neurologist and my doctor say I'm sick added to almost two dozen hospitalizations for stitches, concussion etc and yet I still had to fight the DUP for two years to get a penny.
If the torys had control of Scotland I would have to stop studying for a history degree via the open university-I would not be able to afford it. They(and labour)want an end to free prescriptions and elderly care. My sister works and she has artheritus ,she would not be able to afford her medication.
I also find it insulting to the ordinary Scottish citizen the(insinuated) suggestion that we are not bright enough to reject the torys on anything other than a previous generations say so. The torys are despised in Scotland for one reason-there actions-in both this decade and previous ones.
The Tory claim that the poor performance of there party in Scotland is because of a anti-thatcher backlash is absurd. And yet talk to a Tory in Scotland and more often than not they will say that. Of course we have not forgotten thatcher,but that is no why we reject the torys in 2015.
In a decade in which irresponsible big buisness practices have cost billions,to target the welfare system,in the way they are,is appalling.
We have accepted the SNP,and rejected the torys and the other torys(labour)because of political policys put forward and on recent past performance-no other reason. The swings are so massive they cannot be explained away by post referendum backlash. That is too simplistic.
 
Rat said:
I think I see your problem.
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Yes,my doctor and neurologist both wrote to the dup ,bluntly,to say given the fact I had been quite badly injured on numerous occasions and they were having problems with side effects for medication,added to the fact I don't get "tells"before a seizure I was not fit for work. The DUP had a clerk interview me ,say I was well, and set up a interview with a window cleaners. Seriously ,ladders.
My neurologist was actually baffled,he actually could not believe it. The citizens advice placegot me a lawyer-still took almost two years though. To top it of when i started the open uni course they tried to say that made me fit for work. The advice place wrote to them,I don't know what ,but I was left alone.
And that at least,both from my own experience and from what my doctor told me was pretty much down to the Tories. I believe labour hired atos but it was the torys that turned it into a faceless destroyeer of human decency.
 
I see that British political rhetoric can be just as over the top and silly as AMerican Political rhetoric...on both sides.

You also have the problem of the hard core Party Partisan just not understanding why Swing voters could choose the other party. Labor in Millebrand put forward a candidate that a great many swing voters simply did not trust,and opted for the "Devil we know rather then the Devil we don't know".
And unlike the US you cannot split your ballot; you can't have the voters reject a parties presendential candidate because they don't like him but still vote for the parties congressional candidate if you like him.
Charecter for swing voters is often just as important as policy;something that hard line partisan ideologues just do not get.
 
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anglolawyer said:
That is far from funny and you have my sympathy. While I don't think the UK will leave the EU (the British public are not stupid) you will nonetheless have the uncertainty hanging over your business while the wrangling goes on.
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I hope you're right, although I'm only cautiously optimistic, but I do think that at some point in the near future a referendum has to happen to (hopefully) legitimise our membership of the EU within the British public and stop the feeling that it has been impossed from above without mandate. I'd like to think that this could be a spur for the EU to address the issues of waste and financial inaccountablity that cause genuine concern to people who otherwise support the European project. Unfortunately, I don't think this will be the case.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I hope you're right, although I'm only cautiously optimistic, but I do think that at some point in the near future a referendum has to happen to (hopefully) legitimise our membership of the EU within the British public and stop the feeling that it has been impossed from above without mandate. I'd like to think that this could be a spur for the EU to address the issues of waste and financial inaccountablity that cause genuine concern to people who otherwise support the European project. Unfortunately, I don't think this will be the case.
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We already had a referendum in 1970-something. How many more?
 
skeptichaggis said:
Yes,my doctor and neurologist both wrote to the dup ,bluntly,to say given the fact I had been quite badly injured on numerous occasions and they were having problems with side effects for medication,added to the fact I don't get "tells"before a seizure I was not fit for work. The DUP had a clerk interview me ,say I was well, and set up a interview with a window cleaners. Seriously ,ladders.
My neurologist was actually baffled,he actually could not believe it. The citizens advice placegot me a lawyer-still took almost two years though. To top it of when i started the open uni course they tried to say that made me fit for work. The advice place wrote to them,I don't know what ,but I was left alone.
And that at least,both from my own experience and from what my doctor told me was pretty much down to the Tories. I believe labour hired atos but it was the torys that turned it into a faceless destroyeer of human decency.
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No, what I mean is that you will not have much luck getting money out of the Democratic Unionist Party. Although after a brief period of epilepsy in my late teens, I sympathise very much with your experience, and am grateful that mine passed eventually.
 
The UK needs to pay off debt and the Tories are the only ones who are prepared to seriously tackle that issue.
 
Rat said:
No, what I mean is that you will not have much luck getting money out of the Democratic Unionist Party.
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Don't you see how Paisley's thundering speeches caused his (?) epilepsy?

Rat said:
Although after a brief period of epilepsy in my late teens, I sympathise very much with your experience, and am grateful that mine passed eventually.
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My sympathies too. I had two petits mals when I was around six, both times while biking - fortunately, no traffic accidents. My neurologist agreed to end medication when I was eleven.
 
MikeG said:
Maybe. I really liked the Wilders photo you linked to last night, though, and I'm wondering if there is a good image from the sleeve of the Beck record: Loser. All options remain open.

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NEVER discount anything AngloLawyer says ever again. He may have been the only one on here to predict a Conservative majority.
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I also predicted it.
 
Nessie said:
The UK needs to pay off debt and the Tories are the only ones who are prepared to seriously tackle that issue.
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Only if you define 'seriously' a particular way, which would be begging the question. Most people agree that the debt would need to be paid, but many object to the poorest and most vulnerable having to pay it, or at least a disproportionate part of it.
 
Rat said:
Only if you define 'seriously' a particular way, which would be begging the question. Most people agree that the debt would need to be paid, but many object to the poorest and most vulnerable having to pay it, or at least a disproportionate part of it.
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Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the principle of progressive taxation, as practised in the UK (yea, even by those nasty Conservatives).

That'll be why the top 0.1% of UK earners contribute 11.3% of all income tax (while they earn less than 5% of total income). And why the top 3,000 earners in the UK pay more total income tax than the bottom nine million earners. And that's before we even start on the massively larger proportion of VAT and duty paid by those higher earners.

Perhaps what you actually meant to write was this: "...many object to the fact that while the richest pay by far the disproportionate part of it, those people should in fact pay an even more disproportionate part of it."
 
LondonJohn said:
Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the principle of progressive taxation, as practised in the UK (yea, even by those nasty Conservatives).

That'll be why the top 0.1% of UK earners contribute 11.3% of all income tax (while they earn less than 5% of total income). And why the top 3,000 earners in the UK pay more total income tax than the bottom nine million earners. And that's before we even start on the massively larger proportion of VAT and duty paid by those higher earners.

Perhaps what you actually meant to write was this: "...many object to the fact that while the richest pay by far the disproportionate part of it, those people should in fact pay an even more disproportionate part of it."
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I would understand it to mean disproportionate to one's ability to bear it, rather than literally a larger portion per capita.

And I'm hoping that you're being facetious, rather than grossly patronising. I'm not quite that simple.

But I never said that was my position in the first place; I said that it seemed to be the position of many people.
 
Rat said:
I would understand it to mean disproportionate to one's ability to bear it, rather than literally a larger portion per capita.

And I'm hoping that you're being facetious, rather than grossly patronising. I'm not quite that simple.

But I never said that was my position in the first place; I said that it seemed to be the position of many people.
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I would argue then that the words you chose to use in your original post, and the way you used them, were both worryingly imprecise.....
 
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