Politics at Westminster | BREAKING: UKIP

What they do want is classic neoliberalism: to increase the gap between the rich and the poor, looking after their donor mates, whilst shredding as many public services as possible.

I don't doubt their desire to deal with the debt, but austerity gives them the perfect cover to put anything up for tender, whilst the rich keep on getting richer. The media will keep on lambasting scroungers, whilst the real criminals evade tax. Cronyism.
 
alastair said:
I feel one thing that unites politicians is their thirst for continuing control. Getting the economy back into some kind of shape will win them the next election. The Tories can't rely on the Shires alone. It's impossible to say whether they 'care' about the average bloke, but they certainly care about his vote, which is enough to debunk the claim they want the economy to be disastrous.
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Without boundary reforms the Conservatives have zero chance of winning the election.

In two and a half years the economy is more or less level than when they took over. With 80% of the cuts still to come, tax receipts falling and businesses unwilling to invest their substantial capital, there's no chance of a recovery that would make them electable with Osborne refusing to change tact.

The benefits of even the greatest stimulus package won't be seen for years. It's a race to the bottom.
 
alastair said:
I feel one thing that unites politicians is their thirst for continuing control. Getting the economy back into some kind of shape will win them the next election. The Tories can't rely on the Shires alone. It's impossible to say whether they 'care' about the average bloke, but they certainly care about his vote, which is enough to debunk the claim they want the economy to be disastrous.
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Yes, that claim is clearly bollocks.

But again, what is 'the economy'? One reason they're obsessed with austerity is their obsession with keeping inflation very low. That is, they care much more about those with savings than those without jobs.

Depression is a Choice
 
bsc said:
What they do want is classic neoliberalism: to increase the gap between the rich and the poor, looking after their donor mates, whilst shredding as many public services as possible.

I don't doubt their desire to deal with the debt, but austerity gives them the perfect cover to put anything up for tender, whilst the rich keep on getting richer. The media will keep on lambasting scroungers, whilst the real criminals evade tax. Cronyism.
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Having to deal with severe economic difficulties is not really a 'cover' as such, more of a necessity. I can't believe there are people who believe that the reason we're making cuts is ideological. Cut the 'ideo' off that and it's about right.

And you keep quoting the Guardian, who as far as I can tell just about count as media, and they never have a go at scroungers.
 
bsc said:
Without boundary reforms the Conservatives have zero chance of winning the election.

In two and a half years the economy is more or less level than when they took over. With 80% of the cuts still to come, tax receipts falling and businesses unwilling to invest their substantial capital, there's no chance of a recovery that would make them electable with Osborne refusing to change tact.

The benefits of even the greatest stimulus package won't be seen for years. It's a race to the bottom.
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My personal view is that you're right, and the Conservatives will lose the next election on the basis that they haven't got the economy moving quickly enough. That said, I fully imagine they'll be back after Labour fail too whilst wasting an awful lot more money in the process. The one thing that I find slightly comforting is that at least we're trying to get spending under control.


Plechazunga said:
Yes, that claim is clearly bollocks.

But again, what is 'the economy'? One reason they're obsessed with austerity is their obsession with keeping inflation very low. That is, they care much more about those with savings than those without jobs.

Depression is a Choice
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Care is a unfair word to use. They clearly want to protect people with savings to a point because they believe it is right to reward those who have worked hard during their lives to keep a little money aside.

That obviously doesn't take away from the unemployment issues that exist, but they do have to cater for their voters once in a while. The problem is that even if the Tories threw everything into helping the very poor the most, the majority of them would still refuse to vote them in at the next election.
 
alastair said:
Having to deal with severe economic difficulties is not really a 'cover' as such, more of a necessity. I can't believe there are people who believe that the reason we're making cuts is ideological. Cut the 'ideo' off that and it's about right.
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Of course the cuts are ideological, there's absolutely no denying this.

Cameron himself said he wanted to cut the public sector because he's a Tory and would throw his weight behind the private sector.

If you really don't believe selling off the NHS is anything but ideological then there's no point even debating it with you. The NHS, and its fairness for all, is despised by the right.

Furthermore, the constant attacks on some of the weakest in society - the disabled and the unemployed - further satisfies the thirst from the right. Another 10 billion in cuts, making people work for nothing(including cancer sufferers!!!) or face a £71 weekly fine, is nothing but ideological.

The coalition have turned the DWP into a political mouthpiece for their dogma.
 
alastair said:
Having to deal with severe economic difficulties is not really a 'cover' as such, more of a necessity. I can't believe there are people who believe that the reason we're making cuts is ideological. Cut the 'ideo' off that and it's about right.
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Coming to power with the mandate for large public service cuts is the Tories' wet dream.
 
alastair said:
I can't believe there are people who believe that the reason we're making cuts is ideological.
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:lol:

The vast majority of macroeconomists agree that austerity in a liquidity trap will prolong a depression. It's literally in all the textbooks.

Austerity will work, eventually, but at the cost of the terrible and unnecessary destruction of thousands of people's lives. But those are mainly people that the Tories don't care about.

So yeah, it's ideological.
 
alastair said:
My personal view is that you're right, and the Conservatives will lose the next election on the basis that they haven't got the economy moving quickly enough. That said, I fully imagine they'll be back after Labour fail too whilst wasting an awful lot more money in the process. The one thing that I find slightly comforting is that at least we're trying to get spending under control.
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You do know that public spending as a proportion of GDP has only hit 45% three times since 1981. And I'll give you a clue: it wasn't under Labour.

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_20th_century_chart.html

Gideon is now spending more than he mocked Labour for planning to do. He also mocked Labour for QE, calling it desperate, and he's pumped in something like 375 billion, driving inflation down and punishing prudent savers, who are the traditional Tory base of middle England.
 
I was going to post something pithy about the government, but, according to the quiz which was linked from the General, I'm middle class (despite the fact that my cat's more wealthy than me and I only own one sock). So I'll shut up.
 
bsc said:
He also mocked Labour for QE, calling it desperate, and he's pumped in something like 375 billion, driving inflation down and punishing prudent savers, who are the traditional Tory base of middle England.
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:confused: While QE certainly hasn't caused the runaway inflation that supply-siders claimed it would, I don't think anyone is arguing that it's actually deflationary.
 
bsc said:
Of course the cuts are ideological, there's absolutely no denying this.

Cameron himself said he wanted to cut the public sector because he's a Tory and would throw his weight behind the private sector.

If you really don't believe selling off the NHS is anything but ideological then there's no point even debating it with you. The NHS, and its fairness for all, is despised by the right.

Furthermore, the constant attacks on some of the weakest in society - the disabled and the unemployed - further satisfies the thirst from the right. Another 10 billion in cuts, making people work for nothing(including cancer sufferers!!!) or face a £71 weekly fine, is nothing but ideological.

The coalition have turned the DWP into a political mouthpiece for their dogma.
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The disability cuts have been massively overstated. The majority of the potential cuts have been made in cases where technology has moved on to the point where those affected by particular disabilities can live very normal lives(ie, replaced limbs). Cancer sufferers are not intentionally affected at all. I find it remarkable that people forget the plight of the PM's own son. Do you really think Cameron wants to hurt people like that?

MikeUpNorth said:
Coming to power with the mandate for large public service cuts is the Tories' wet dream.
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Maybe they revel in it, but they still have to do it.

Plechazunga said:
:lol:

The vast majority of macroeconomists agree that austerity in a liquidity trap will prolong a depression. It's literally in all the textbooks.

Austerity will work, eventually, but at the cost of the terrible and unnecessary destruction of thousands of people's lives. But those are mainly people that the Tories don't care about.

So yeah, it's ideological.
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Austerity will work at some point, and that's why they're doing it. Text books mean very little to governments of both left and right persuasion.

The Tory view appears to be that sooner or later, the plan will work, and that is better than spending vast sums now which might well end up causing even more damage. They've taken the cautious route. Can you imagine if we'd not made immediate cuts and it still hadn't worked? It'd be even worse for the very poorest in society.
 
alastair said:
The disability cuts have been massively overstated. The majority of the potential cuts have been made in cases where technology has moved on to the point where those affected by particular disabilities can live very normal lives(ie, replaced limbs). Cancer sufferers are not intentionally affected at all. I find it remarkable that people forget the plight of the PM's own son. Do you really think Cameron wants to hurt people like that?
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Have they feck been overstated. Have you been affected? No? Well people are actually dying from these draconian cuts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19433535

And yes I do think it's deliberate. It's absolutely 100% deliberate.
 
Plechazunga said:
Yes, that claim is clearly bollocks.

But again, what is 'the economy'? One reason they're obsessed with austerity is their obsession with keeping inflation very low. That is, they care much more about those with savings than those without jobs.

Depression is a Choice
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You're wrong on the savings thing Plech, all-time record low interest rates, well below inflation, means anyone's savings have been eroded over the last few years, and no sign of that stopping.

Actually I'm not so sure you're right about inflation either, given that QE could almost be designed to keep it up. And that just about the only way out of government debt is to inflate it away.

If you meant keeping interest rates low though fair enough.
 
bsc said:
Have they feck been overstated. Have you been affected? No? Well people are actually dying from these draconian cuts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19433535

And yes I do think it's deliberate. It's absolutely 100% deliberate.
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I said they weren't intentionally affected.

Do you really think if anyone in the top positions of the government knew about her case, they'd have told her to get a grip? No. Of course not.

When you change policies such as this one, things like this happen. It's horrible, but inevitable. I hope you're thankful that the Tories brought in the DLA in the first place.
 
alastair said:
The Tory view appears to be that sooner or later, the plan will work, and that is better than spending vast sums now which might well end up causing even more damage. They've taken the cautious route.
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alastair, the route is cautious only if you don't consider mass unemployment a catastrophe. The 'vast sums' would be essentially free, and as a matter of arithmetic could not fail to boost employment (and demand, and growth) unless they accidentally gave the work to migratory birds.

But mass unemployment is a catastrophe. Actual lives are being ruined, for the sake of bullshit family pocket-book accounting theories and bullshit trickle-down ideology.

Krugman again, from two years ago:

And the kind of unemployment we’re experiencing now, with many workers jobless for very long periods, is precisely the kind of unemployment likely to leave workers permanently unemployable. And there are already indications that this is happening

...

The point is that while policy makers may think they’re being prudent and appropriately cautious in their responses to unemployment, there’s a good chance that they’re prudenting and cautiousing us into a long-term jobs catastrophe.
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bsc said:
Sorry I meant interest rates. Apologies.
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Ah, with you.
 
alastair said:
When you change policies such as this one, things like this happen. It's horrible, but inevitable. I hope you're thankful that the Tories brought in the DLA in the first place.
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Just like unemployment was a price worth paying with Thatcher's monetarism, death amongst the disabled and cancer sufferers is with this lot.
 
bsc said:
Just like unemployment was a price worth paying with Thatcher's monetarism, death amongst the disabled and cancer sufferers is with this lot.
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Thatcher had two economic factors in her favour though, the sudden massive rise in oil revenues, in gdp percentage terms far greater than they are now, and huge once-only gains from selling state assets.

The present lot haven't got either of those, but still think that if things worked out last time they must do again.
 
711 said:
You're wrong on the savings thing Plech, all-time record low interest rates, well below inflation, means anyone's savings have been eroded over the last few years, and no sign of that stopping.

Actually I'm not so sure you're right about inflation either, given that QE could almost be designed to keep it up. And that just about the only way out of government debt is to inflate it away.

If you meant keeping interest rates low though fair enough.
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Read the link I posted>

I am often told that this is absurd because, after all, wouldn’t creditors be better off in a booming economy than in a depressed one? In a depression, creditors may not face unexpected inflation, sure. But they also earn next to nothing on their money, sometimes even a bit less than nothing in real terms. “Financial repression! Savers are being squeezed!” In a boom, they would enjoy positive interest rates.

That’s true. But the revealed preference of the polity is not balanced. It is not some cartoonish capitalist-class conspiracy story, where the goal is to maximize the wealth of exploiters. The revealed preference of the polity is to resist losses for incumbent creditors much more than it is to seek gains. In a world of perfect certainty, given a choice between recession and boom, the polity would choose boom. But in the real world, the polity faces great uncertainty. The policies that might engender a boom are not guaranteed to succeed. They carry with them a short-to-medium-term risk of inflation, perhaps even a significant inflation if things don’t go as planned. The polity prefers inaction to bearing this risk.
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Also, QE was not supposed to be happening, according to the tories. They've been forced into sanctioning it by the terrible state of the economy and the obvious effectiveness of Keynesian demand-creation.
 
bsc said:
Just like unemployment was a price worth paying with Thatcher's monetarism, death amongst the disabled and cancer sufferers is with this lot.
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Yes, clearly.

I literally don't even know what to say to this post except for simply pointing out that even if someone has a completely different idea of how politics should be run, which we do, it doesn't stop the government being formed of real people with real families.

Do you genuinely, in your heart of hearts, believe that the government are happy to see cancer sufferers die? Imagine that cabinet meeting. 'Oh yes, well I tell you what we could do. We could get an extra 2bn here by letting all those disabled people starve to death.'
 
alastair said:
Mass unemployment? Have you seen Spain?

We're currently 0.4% worse than in 2010.
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I don't care about Spain. Over 1 million young people are unemployed in our country, that's a fecking shocking statistic.

More than that, they're being demonised by the right wing media, whilst being forced to work mandatory jobs for no wage, propping up the balance sheets of big business. Britain is turning into a modern day, corporate gulag.

Furthermore, food banks are rising across the country at an alarming rate, whilst the richest 1% get richer and richer. Social mobility is not a concern to this government, there's no sense of fairness. Do you think it's right that poverty and hunger should grow in the world's 7th largest economy?
 
alastair said:
Do you genuinely, in your heart of hearts, believe that the government are happy to see cancer sufferers die? Imagine that cabinet meeting. 'Oh yes, well I tell you what we could do. We could get an extra 2bn here by letting all those disabled people starve to death.'
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As I said before, I believe this government are apathetic towards disabled and cancer sufferers. They are simply statistics and a price worth paying to drive through their ideological reforms. All they care about is money, balance sheets and protecting big business and donors.

Nothing they have done in this 2 and a half years will convince me otherwise. IDS, before coming into power, showed faux empathy towards the unemployed. When his brief was Welfare Reform, that quickly changed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/19/thanks-iain-duncan-smith-poor-must-cry
 
bsc said:
I don't care about Spain. Over 1 million young people are unemployed in our country, that's a fecking shocking statistic.

More than that, they're being demonised by the right wing media, whilst being forced to work mandatory jobs for no wage, propping up the balance sheets of big business. Britain is turning into a modern day, corporate gulag.

Furthermore, food banks are rising across the country at an alarming rate, whilst the richest 1% get richer and richer. Social mobility is not a concern to this government, there's no sense of fairness. Do you think it's right that poverty and hunger should grow in the world's 7th largest economy?
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I used Spain as an example to show how it's really not all that bad here in comparison - yet, at least.

Personally I found the work for nothing scheme a little unnecessary in most cases, but at least it got people out doing something. Doing that kind of job for nothing might inspire them not to join the ranks of the terminally disinterested.

You can't really blame the Conservatives for the food banks springing up. Ever since the economic crisis struck, their popularity has sadly returned.

Plechazunga said:
So a year into the worst economic crisis since the thirties.

And most of the cuts haven't hit yet.
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Unemployment went down a tad last quarter. Not massively significant, but it doesn't immediately imply that we've got a crisis brewing.

A lot of the cuts that are yet to come are cuts Labour proposed too, let's not forget.
 
Yet within two years he was claiming that poverty was not directly due to a lack of money
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You learn something every day.
 
bsc said:
As I said before, I believe this government are apathetic towards disabled and cancer sufferers. They are simply statistics and a price worth paying to drive through their ideological reforms. All they care about is money, balance sheets and protecting big business and donors.

Nothing they have done in this 2 and a half years will convince me otherwise. IDS, before coming into power, showed faux empathy towards the unemployed. When his brief was Welfare Reform, that quickly changed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/19/thanks-iain-duncan-smith-poor-must-cry
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This is what annoys me about the left - it's the automatic assumption that the centre-right basically have no morals at all, even on the most basic level.

Essentially, you're saying that the Tories have a lack of empathy towards the disabled, labelling the entire government as psychopaths. There's one thing disagreeing with policy, it's another to accuse them of actively encouraging and welcoming the death of its citizens.

EDIT - that's not entirely fair, a lot of left-wingers don't hold these beliefs at all.
 
One day interest rates will rise. Might be because they're rising internationally. Might be because they've been so far off the average for so long that imbalances we're not even aware of will kick in big-style and have to be corrected. When they do they wont just go up nicely and gently to the long-term mean, they'll overshoot and go up well above, because that's what happens.

And then, the recession will really begin.
 
alastair said:
This is what annoys me about the left - it's the automatic assumption that the centre-right basically have no morals at all, even on the most basic level.

Essentially, you're saying that the Tories have a lack of empathy towards the disabled, labelling the entire government as psychopaths. There's one thing disagreeing with policy, it's another to accuse them of actively encouraging and welcoming the death of its citizens.
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Sociopaths, actually. But what else would I expect from a neoliberal government who value business and profits before the welfare of their own people. They know they're going to lose in 2015 and are hellbent on doing as much damage as they can before then.

And when it comes to morals, I think I have a reasonable right to question those who believe in the free market.

Take a look at someone like say, Dominic Raab. A man with no experience in business, has never had to work a hard day in his life, read PPE at Oxbridge, calling a section of the British workforce lazy:

"The British are among the worst idlers in the world. We work among the lowest hours, we retire early and our productivity is poor. Whereas Indian children aspire to be doctors or businessmen, the British are more interested in football and pop music."
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This man has the gall and brass neck to call for a reduction in workers' rights. It's absolutely insane.
 
alastair said:
This is what annoys me about the left - it's the automatic assumption that the centre-right basically have no morals at all, even on the most basic level.

Essentially, you're saying that the Tories have a lack of empathy towards the disabled, labelling the entire government as psychopaths. There's one thing disagreeing with policy, it's another to accuse them of actively encouraging and welcoming the death of its citizens.

EDIT - that's not entirely fair, a lot of left-wingers don't hold these beliefs at all.
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Was just going to post on that before you got your edit in. I'm generally to the left but don't agree that this government is happy to accept disabled people dying as a necessary evil.

I do think to some extent ideology is behind a lot of the disability policy failings though e.g. the use of private providers like Atos to provide welfare services, something I am personally quite uneasy about.

My main issue with a lot of policies, often Conservative led, is that the crux of the idea is often not a bad one e.g. incentivising work, but then the execution is crass and so ends up causing more hardship than gain. It's a particular risk with this government given how much they are trying to push through in the event that they lose the next election.
 
alastair said:
This is what annoys me about the left - it's the automatic assumption that the centre-right basically have no morals at all, even on the most basic level.

Essentially, you're saying that the Tories have a lack of empathy towards the disabled, labelling the entire government as psychopaths. There's one thing disagreeing with policy, it's another to accuse them of actively encouraging and welcoming the death of its citizens.

EDIT - that's not entirely fair, a lot of left-wingers don't hold these beliefs at all.
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Maybe if you'd experienced these policies and how they affect real people you'd understand just how horrific the attack on the disabled has been. My brother-in-law is severely disabled and what this government has done to him, my sister and my nephew and nieces is fecking appalling.

He worked for the Job Centre as a general pen pusher for several years, he had a poor illness record since he fractured part of his back when he was in is early 20s and has had severe back pain ever since.

When the Tories got into office they made cuts in funding meaning the Job Centre needed to lay off staff- he was obviously a prime target for this, but couldn't really overtly use his disability to dismiss him- they tried to discipline him a number of times but his doctor would always confirm that he was genuinely unable to attend. They even tried to sack him for "spending time on Facebook" when he didnt have an account.

One day he was called into the office and shown a recording of him walking without his crutches for about 200m going to the bus stop (yes they sent a van to record him over the course of 2 days and this was the only moment when he didn't use his crutches) and was told this is proof that he's faking it, and would be given a disciplinary- he was sacked for it- even though he is in pretty much chronic pain and doctors told them this- they weren't accepting medical evidence.

Not only that, but they then cut his disability and mobility allowance and prosecuted him for benefit fraud. Obviously since it was his word against theirs since they were NOT accepting ANY evidence from his doctor, they won the case and he now has no job, no income other than job seekers allowance, no car and he's in almost chronic agony and had a mortgage and has to repay £12k to the government.

Goes without saying that they defaulted on their mortgage and lost their home. Now they are in a council house in Mirfield and their children have had to go to a rougher school. There's no chance he will find a job now with his disability so thats one family who's been destroyed by the vindictive harassment of disabled people.

I hope they are happy with the fecking pittance a year they are saving by doing this. cnuts.
 
Ken Clarke should join the Labour party.Being minister without portfollio is like being director of football.
 
Lansley going is pretty huge.

Grayling in charge of Justice. Any hopes for a more progressive approach (or at least continuation of Clarke's work) goes with that move I think.
 
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