Politics at Westminster | BREAKING: UKIP

Yeah health is an area where market forces seem to work extremely badly in terms of the consensus goal - good healthcare for everyone at a reasonable price.

Labour has fecked up on education badly in its time, but I don't agree that it did turned into a 'disaster' under Blair. You have to compare outcomes with the funding to what it would have been like with less, or what it was like under the previous government.
 
The big challenge facing education, and families in general, when Labour came to power in 1997 was the obscenely high child poverty rate Thatcher built. Thankfully they did manage to bring it down somewhat, though not fast enough:

Child-poverty-rates-1970-2020.jpg


It will now start to increase again according to projections based on Tory policy.

They also managed to improve educational attainment in the poorest of areas:

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The biggest issue Labour inherited regarding the NHS was chronic under-funding and very high waiting times - it was in a dreadful state. They went a long way to remedying this.

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Shall we throw in crime as well?

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Violent crime:

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The argument is that you should give gay people every right in the land that is afforded to heterosexual couples, but the issue of adoption can affect more than just the couple itself. There is still research being done into the effect that being raised by a gay couple can have on a child, either positive or negative.

The reason I'm pro gay adoption is basically on the premise that two loving parents regardless of sexuality is surely a better place for a child than one of these dreadful orphanage type places.




You can make a point if the cabinet is 95% privately educated, fine. But I don't see why discriminating against Oxford educated MPs is acceptable. They did well at school and fill a position of high office having worked all their lives to get there. A fair proportion of them probably came from the comp down the road.




My original point was and remains that people who have little or no real idea about the normal daily grind. Should not be criticising the work ethic of people they will never be in the same situation as. It isn't fair, and coming from a bunch of MP's (the dodgy fiddling bastards) it's galling.

Do you think it's a good idea to have 19 out of 29 Govt Ministers, probably more if you include the other redbricks coming from almost identical backgrounds? University studying politics, govt or economics and history etc. Secretary to an MP then run as a candidate in a no hope seat and then into parliament.

Go to the link I provided and wiki their personal histories. Start with the authors of Britain Unchained. The Stepford politicians.
 
Surely this is a joke

@SamCoatesTimes No10 announces raft of knighthoods for MPs sacked in the reshuffle.

:wenger:

edit

Honours for sacked Ministers: Sir George Young Companion of Honour. James Paice, Edward Garnier, Nick Harvey, Gerald Howarth to be knighted.

This government is a joke :lol:
 
[/B]



My original point was and remains that people who have little or no real idea about the normal daily grind. Should not be criticising the work ethic of people they will never be in the same situation as. It isn't fair, and coming from a bunch of MP's (the dodgy fiddling bastards) it's galling.

Do you think it's a good idea to have 19 out of 29 Govt Ministers, probably more if you include the other redbricks coming from almost identical backgrounds? University studying politics, govt or economics and history etc. Secretary to an MP then run as a candidate in a no hope seat and then into parliament.

Go to the link I provided and wiki their personal histories. Start with the authors of Britain Unchained. The Stepford politicians.


Good MPs, I would imagine, work many more hours than your average daily grind worker. I don't think you fully appreciate what being an MP entails. 9-5 is idyllic compared to what these people do every week.

You want educated people in charge of government. Ideally, you'd have a mix of people who could provide an insight into as many areas of society as possible, but that's not really how it works.

What you seem to be saying is that you want more 'normal' people to have governmental influence without realising that they would no longer be 'normal' if they did.
 
I think he's saying he would prefer government to be more representative of society.
 
That's not going to happen though. They're both as bad as each other, to be honest. The Tories wheel out Baroness Warsi and Labour do the same with Diane Abbott. They're both incredibly white middle class.
 
That's not going to happen though. They're both as bad as each other, to be honest. The Tories wheel out Baroness Warsi and Labour do the same with Diane Abbott. They're both incredibly white middle class.

Well the leader of the Labour party is the son of Polish Jewish immigrants for a start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_minority_British_politicians#List_of_ethnic_minority_MPs

But I think Bill was primarily referring to the prominence of career politicians who live in the Westminster bubble, which is overly prevalent in both the main parties.
 
Good MPs, I would imagine, work many more hours than your average daily grind worker. I don't think you fully appreciate what being an MP entails. 9-5 is idyllic compared to what these people do every week.

You want educated people in charge of government. Ideally, you'd have a mix of people who could provide an insight into as many areas of society as possible, but that's not really how it works.

What you seem to be saying is that you want more 'normal' people to have governmental influence without realising that they would no longer be 'normal' if they did.


I stand corrected going to Oxbridge and straight into Westminster makes you just like everyone else. I can see now that experience in industry and making your way in the world before deciding you have something to give is old hat. Working long hours as an MP is just like the daily grind most people endure. I don't know why I couldn't see that only the best educated people deserve the chance and are anyway always the best candidates. That is probably why everything is going so well isn't it?
 
Good MPs, I would imagine, work many more hours than your average daily grind worker. I don't think you fully appreciate what being an MP entails. 9-5 is idyllic compared to what these people do every week.

You want educated people in charge of government. Ideally, you'd have a mix of people who could provide an insight into as many areas of society as possible, but that's not really how it works.

What you seem to be saying is that you want more 'normal' people to have governmental influence without realising that they would no longer be 'normal' if they did.

Rubbish, I want smart people in government,not just educated. It would do the country good to have a few people from outside academic backgrounds elected.
 
Rubbish, I want smart people in government,not just educated. It would do the country good to have a few people from outside academic backgrounds elected.

Exactly. Not just people who have worked 'proper jobs', knowing what it's like to survive outside the westminster bubble and can empathise with the electorate; but men and woman who have ran real businesses and have genuine experience in economics and finance, not the modern day identikit politicians who read PPE at Oxbridge, became a spad, then a minister and into a cabinet post. And I mean from all sides of the house.
 
Chief whip in trouble, Cameron in poor judgment shocker.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19675297

Terrible day for the Tories all round. Government borrowing hit a historic record high.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/21/uk-government-borrowing-record-august-high

The neutral Mervyn King of course paved the way for the bad news the night before, moving the goal posts and saying Osborne could miss his targets now, offering some wishy-washy excuse.

After all the bluster and denials, now a picture has emerged of Michael Green - of should I say Grant Shapps, the new party chairman - at a Vegas conference.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/21/grant-shapps-posed-web-guru

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On a lesser note maybe, Farage of UKIP got the prime time interview with Humphrys after 8 on Radio 4 this morning, and even the Guardian politics blog covered the party conference today. Definitely a party on the rise.
 
Going by tomorrow's Mail, I can't see Mitchell lasting tomorrow, never mind the weekend.

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Will be interesting to see the rest of the front pages as they emerge.
 
I didn't think pleb meant 'working class person' these days. It's used as a synonym of idiot is it not?

I'm not sure, to me it still has those connotations. Either way, you'd think it would be one of those words a Tory politician would know to avoid.
 
I'm not sure, to me it still has those connotations. Either way, you'd think it would be one of those words a Tory politician would know to avoid.

Yeh, it was a bit stupid. He should have said muppet or something. This is something out of nothing really though. Slow week in politics.
 
Yeh, it was a bit stupid. He should have said muppet or something. This is something out of nothing really though. Slow week in politics.

Probably shouldn't have insulted the police officer full stop. But yeah, it seems to be overplayed.
 
Never came across too badly when he was in charge of International Development, I thought. I'm not sure many people could have a tirade against a Police officer on the street and get away with an apology, though.
 
Never came across too badly when he was in charge of International Development, I thought.

Exactly, and that is to me at least, the more important aspect to his political record as thing stand. Where were The Sun or the Mail during his two years at DfID?

I have been away on holiday so didn't even know he had been demoted out of that role. Maybe No 11 are planning some cuts to the budget there.

The precise exchange of words remain in dispute at any rate. If we're going to have leaks to the press from police, let's hear what those who encountered him most regularly whilst Secretary of State though.



Sticking with the Tories for a moment :: Conservatives will need to team up with Ukip to win election, says Farage.
 

There was a few mixed stories going out about this yesterday morning, Andy Sparrow covered the party conference today and highlighted the key points regarding this if you're interested.

Here are the main points from Nigel Farage's speech.

• Farage said that Ukip's priority now was to ensure that Britain had a full in/out referendum on membership of the EU, not just a referendum on Britain having a looser relationship with the EU. None of the main political parties is yet fully committed to an EU referendum, but David Cameron has strongly signalled that the Tories would call one after the next election and it is widely assumed that the plans to renegotiate the EU treaties in the light of the Eurozone crisis will eventually lead to British voters being given a say on any new arrangements. Farage said a referendum was inevitable. But it was not the referendum Ukip wanted, he said.

"I'm very, very worried about what I see. From David Owen to Liam Fox, what we're now seeing is the political class uniting around a position. The position is that we don't want to be part of this new federal superstate, but we do want to be part of the customs union, and we do want to be part of the single market and that there's nothing to fear from all those things because we won't be trapped inside a political union with Europe.

Well, I've decided to take that on and I've launched a booklet called A Referendum Stitch-up. Because what is happening is remarkably similar to what happened back in 1975 … when you were told it was a common market. They are trying to do the same thing again.

I think what Cameron will do, next week or the week after, is to say we can have a referendum on whether we join that full federal union, or whether we stay with the single market and a customs union. And that is a battle for us. We have got to go out there as a party and make the arguments. We don't want to be stuck inside a customs union that prevents us from making our own trade deals with the rest of the world, the growing parts of the world ... We in Ukip demand that this country is given a full, free and fair choice in a referendum, so that we can decide who governs Britain.
"

• He played down the prospects of Ukip entering into some form of electoral pact with the Conservatives before the general election. Ukip was an independent party, with its own agenda and its own candidates at elections, he said.

"But if an opportunity came which meant we could get this country closer to walking through a door marked 'UK independence,' if we had the opportunity to do something that was in our national interest, we would be silly not to even consider it."

Farage said that talk of an electoral pact was coming from the Conservatives and that he personally would do nothing to "sell this party short".

"The only way we would even consider a negotiation of any kind at all would be if first an absolute promise was made to give this country a full, free and fair referendum so that we could decide whether we remain members of the EU or not. That would have to be on the table before we even considered any proposal.

And we would possibly have a problem even then. Some of you may have noticed that there are one or two people in politics who make promises and then break them. So I don't think a cast-iron guarantee would satisfy Ukip. At the minimum, it would have to be written in blood.
"

What does "written in blood" actually mean? The only plausible interpretation must be "written in statute" - ie, the government would have to pass legislation before the 2015 election for a referendum afterwards. The chances of that are minuscule.

• He said Ukip's aim was to win the European elections in 2014.


"By then we may well have the bones of a new treaty. We will have a political class doing their best to ignore the issue, doing their best to give us a fudged, stitched-up referendum. I think we will be in the driving seat for those European elections. I believe it must be Ukip's aim and goal to win those European elections in 2014, to cause an earthquake in British politics and to change the future of this country forever."
 
I hope Mitchell goes, one of the worst of the arrogant Tory tosser brigade.

as for UKIP, urgh, just yuk, if they start doing well I might actually emigrate to leave this country to rot in it's own reactionary pit of shit.
 
They're guys that go round making sure everyone votes the way the party wants. Sometimes in intimidatory ways. Essentially, MPs are there to represent their constituents.
 
They're guys that go round making sure everyone votes the way the party wants. Essentially, MPs are there to represent their constituents.

I think this coalition has been fascinating in the amount of dissent that's happening on the backbenches. Unprecedented in recent times really. With fewer ministerial positions available there's less reason to kowtow to the party hierarchy and, I guess, the MPs follow their political instincts and that of their constituents more easily. Conservative whips have an absolute nightmare job trying to placate the recent intakes, who are more to the right than ever, nutjobs like Liam Fox and the 1922 committee and, of course, the right wing media. While Cameron tries to keep the Liberals onside. Good viewing for us who like to follow politics.
 
They're guys that go round making sure everyone votes the way the party wants. Sometimes in intimidatory ways. Essentially, MPs are there to represent their constituents.

Most people vote based on a party rather than the person who is standing for MP in their specific constituency and, mostly, expect them to represent the party's view.

Also, the party fund the MP's campaign and do expect some level of allegiance, otherwise what's the point?
 
I see why they're needed. It's obviously bad for cohesive government to have everyone doing what they want, even if it is, well, you know, right and fair.
 
Also, the party fund the MP's campaign and do expect some level of allegiance, otherwise what's the point?

And donors fund the party. Does that make it fine to cow tow to them when in power?

They're just silly things really. Malcolm Tuckerish enforcers. I did a whole thing on them in A level Politics and some of the tactics employed were hilariously childish.
 
I see why they're needed. It's obviously bad for cohesive government to have everyone doing what they want, even if it is, well, you know, right and fair.

Would you be happy if you voted for, say, a Tory candidate who then voted like a Marxist in parliament? By and large people want their MP to vote with the party as they generally vote for the party they want, not the person.