I do hope you are right. This has been the worst government we have ever had. It leaves behind a bankrupt country festoooned with spy cameras , run by a small clique of very rich & very corrupt authoritarians , policed by the successor to the Stasi , & lived in by a scrufffy population more interested in the X-Factor than their own liberty. The railway is hideously overpriced , the roads massively overcrowded , the health service staggering under the weight of private corporations running off with funds which should be used for patients & education tables show us heading down international tables just about as quickly as statistically possible

Hayward:

Rememeber a minute this government is the first to put the budget in the black in twenty years.
And pause a moment before criticising any government in the terms you do.

The only government that fits your description is the Soviet Union under Kruschev.

There's plenty to criticise this government about: The abandonment of their principles, the drift away from policy towards management, and so on.

Your comment:
"They're the worst government ever, Britain is festooned with spy cameras and run by rich and corrupt authoritarians"

That's not going to help any discussion about who to vote for.

contractor000
11 Dec 2009, 6:41PM
Hayward:

Rememeber a minute this government is the first to put the budget in the black in twenty years.

Welcome to the world of delusion.

contractor000
11 Dec 2009, 6:41PM

Hayward:
Your comment:
"They're the worst government ever, Britain is festooned with spy cameras and run by rich and corrupt authoritarians"

'That's not going to help any discussion about who to vote for'.
_______________________________________________

There is no point to any discussion, simply because there is no one to vote for contractor000 !..................Or hadn't you noticed?

GERONIMO

A very amusing cartoon, but factually incorrect. The two choices, spend now to buy votes and to hell with the consequences, or cut spending now and balance the budget in a timely manner are diametrically opposed positions. How can they result in the same outcome? Of course they can't.

Brown's gerrymandering will kick the ball down the road by six months. The subsequent bust (bond market collapse, crash of the pound, and IMF enforced austerity) will be extremely painful, and definitely far worse than grasping the nettle immediately and managing our decline in an orderly fashion. Sorry if these outcomes upset lefties with their heads in the sand, but there are no other options.

But what the heck, why should Brown care. He will never have to suffer the deprivations which will be visited upon us all thanks to his rigid ideology incompetence. Let's not forget that he has a megalomania to fuel, and whether we suffer more than would otherwise be the case six months down the road is of little concern to him.

The real villains are the monetarists, with Thatcher as figurehead, who cut tax levels to unsustainable levels and covered it up by encouraging people to buy their homes and other items before they earned the money to pay for it. Not only are most people now in debt, but the two-for-one and other bulk purchase "offers" are forcing people to buy food long before they need it and to use up electricty and a freezer when storing it. It is rare to find a single fish or lamb chop in a packet. People earn their salaries at the end of the month but spend it at the beginning. The "Boom" was a fraud by which people lent their money to bankers so that they could gamble with it.

I used to be a middle-of-the-road liberal until the monetarists moved politics so far towards control by the military/industrial/banking complex as to make former tory prime ministers like Macmillan and Heath seem decidedly left-wing.

For the last 12 years I have voted Labour in the hope that the balance can be brought back from the current extreme, but the best they have been able to do is to introduce a minimum wage and to keep the welfare state ticking over despite the damage caused by the tories. Other people have stopped voting at all, because no party is carrying out the original task of the labour party - to protect the worker from extreme actions by employers, and to protect consumers from overpricing and poor quality products.

It is said that people become more conservative as they become older, wanting the world that they grew up in to return. Well, as a late baby-boomer, I want the days back when there was a welfare state, high taxes on high earners, and the price was on the packet, and retailers competed by providing better services. It should also be noted that in those days people went on strike in the hope of receiving better pay and conditions, these days strikes are attempts to stop employers making pay and conditions worse.

We talk about cuts to public services and continued bonuses for bankers and other businessmen. But surely it is the top businessmen who should lose their jobs, as they have done such an appalling job.

The problem is that the government has been supporting the city when it should have been regulating it. Instead, the montarists, who, being greedy and lawless, expect everyone else to be the same, have pressed them to regulate ordinary people and take extraordinary extreme actions in fear of terrorists, who kill and injure far less people than motorists.

Monetarism treats money as an end in itself, not a means of delaying one side of a transanction. They guys at the top worship money, competing to earn more than each other, even though they have nothing to spend it on. Their effect is only to raise prices for homes. At the bottom, people don't have the money to buy the things that manufacturers want to sell. The shop selling four fish for the price of two was almost empty - the customers only wanted one.

The crime of the labour party was not acting like the labour party. Voting tory can only make things worse, as they share the warped ideas of the monetarists.

The bible goes on about Mammon, the god of money. Monetarism is the worship of mammon.

What we really need is big government - big enough to put big business in its place. At least we can vote for MPs. Big businessmen choose each other.

Constituent

A good, thoughtful comment. Especially first five paragraphs.

Funny how happy Gordon looks ,like a man who has escaped the gallows !.He must have a parachute paced ready for the next collapse in the Economy !.Life sucks,those who should look after us regard it all as a big laugh,except at the receiving end of their incompetence, it is a case of how much more can we take before we teach these" bastards" a lesson.Political class have to wake up and smell the coffee ,the arrogance of Tony Blair was bad enough but, the lack of concern for our suffering from Gordon makes me wonder what "zombies" are backing him.Oh,i forgot,the "zombies" who always vote Labour because like "Blackpool Rock" no matter what you do to it it still says "blackpool " inside.

I do hope our decline is "like the man hanged by the lynch mob" quick ,as the sight of all those mindless "zombies " is too painful and death is preferable to more New Labour (the party that claims to represent "working class" but,act like Tories on "coke" whenever they come into contact with "rich" people especially Bankers.Anyone who thinks New Labour are anti Banks should check out New Labour Xmas parties especially Tony and Lord Peter.

Still as we sow shall we reap,Labour Goverments always wreck the economy ,because if they could they could be leading Industry and the Economy by running successful companies.Sick and tired of Socialists Millionaires (how did they make their money ? just check it is an eye opener) telling us how the Tories are only interested in making money (hypocrisy).Still if the heart rules the head again New Labour will finish the job and finally make UK history.The Rest of the World will not miss us,think of Greece fate.

@constituent

The real villains are the monetarists, with Thatcher as figurehead, who cut tax levels to unsustainable levels and covered it up by encouraging people to buy their homes and other items before they earned the money to pay for it.

What pathetic joke........blaming all this on someone who hasn't been in power for nearly 20yrs.

Cut tax to unsustainable levels??? Yes, she cut taxes, but even 40% is a large proportion to take from anybody..........remember, anything over 50% means the payer basically works for the government.

Please note - your own words - "encouraged", people have a choice how to spend their money, that is the benefit of living in a democracy. Before buying houses, cars, goods one doesn't really need one has to add up the cost..........and...........I know this will be a shock.............if you have to borrow a lot of money to buy something it basically means it is not affordable.

Freedom of choice - people should not blame others for making poor choices.

Me, I do not own property and pay my credit cards off monthly I never given a credit card company a penny.........small and short-term overdrafts are far preferable.

This is the problem with the left - the government never takes responsibility for its actions and this encourages people to do likewise.

How Brown and Balls are encouraging more spending is an indication of their crass vote-buying immorality..........by the time the bills come in it'll be Cameron's problem - and they will try to pin all the blame on him.

Disgraceful.

divesandlazarus

You've obviously not read Wilfred Mellors book on VW, otherwise you would know that he would have been entirely in sympathy with Constituent's excellent post.

Crass vote-buying immorality is now a cross-party phenomenon since no one who supports the current neoliberal dystopia - and does well out it - is going to tell voters the truth about what they have been doing since May 1979: ensuring that there is a lucrative post in some corporation at the end of their time in politics.

Nuclear power is emblematic:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e94b0702-949a-11dc-9aaf-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=f0d249de-e821-11db-b2c3-000b5df10621.html

divesandlazarus:
I think you're appreciative of what Thatcher and co. did, which is fair enough. But pause for a minute: When you say "it's not credible to blame Thatcher for today's debt problems" you're implicitly accepting that she was not, overall, beneficial.
What I mean is a defence of Thatcher should read "No, her cutting taxes and increasing debt was a good thing".

Incidentally, I'd avoid "patheric joke" rhetoric, it detracts from what you're saying.
Same for "crass vote-buying immorality" - it's beginning to sound like a rant.

Moving on from methodology to ideology, you say:

Yes, she cut taxes, but even 40% is a large proportion to take from anybody..........remember, anything over 50% means the payer basically works for the government.

You're absolutely correct: Taking 40% tax from someone who earns over ... I forget the threshold - that's a lot of money.

And they are nevertheless left with much more than most of their fellow citizens, which is plenty of incentive for all of us to aspire to that level of pay (if money is our thing).
And when you say "anything over 50% is working for the government" - that's leaving out the fundamental democratic truism that the government is MY govrnment. It's YOURS too.
Even if in the current cycle, it's not the one you voted for,

I'm completely happy to pay 50% tax if I earn enough. I know my tax goes to mostly things that I approve of: All the day to day things we forget.
A few I'm sure you'd approve of from the tone your post is law enforcement, defense of the realm, infrastructure to help enterprise and inovation.
Things that particularly appeal to me are the welfare state, the NHS, education, streets, lights, trains - all the things that oil the cogs of daily life that many of us often forget. I don't like the army, you might guess.

So finally: it's best to discuss things with good humour I'm sure we agree.

p.s. allowing myself a little leeway: Thatcher was evil, and Constituent is quite right in laying the issues mentioned squarely at her door.
I'd add another: The destruction of meaningful political debate by emasculating the Labour party and turning it into an excercise in management.

@Contractor000

That's not going to help any discussion about who to vote for.

There are two decisions one must make when the election comes.

1) Is there anyone who deserves my vote by what they have done?

2) Is there anyone else who should be given the chance to run the country?

Labour fail the first hurdle. They do not deserve to remain in power. They have proven themselves to be incompetent, corrupt liars and have greatly damaged this country and will leave a poisoned chalice for anyone who follows them.

When answering the second question, remind yourself how it could be that the labour party could have grown from a small movement that was unelectable.

If you think someone else should run the country, vote for them even if they are sure to lose this time, and make sure you help them take the small steps that any small party must take if it is to turn grow and have a chance at governing.

Nothing can be worse than Labour.

Roll on the election it's time for change.

Three choices actually. There's always reverse.
Should play Mozarts requiem in D minor instead of the Akira soundtrack.

@dives - the monetarists have been in power for 30 years. The voters haven't.

Let's remember that the tories want to ban strikes unless over 50% of union members (as opposed to those actually voting) vote for them. By that token, the tories should not accept power unless 50% of all voters (not just those turning out) vote for them.

Taxes need to be higher, but people need to earn enough to be able to pay them, which means a higher minimum wage, higher tax allowances, and then, when everyone is earning enough to feed, clothe, and house their family, higher income tax at whatever rate is enough. We're still a long way from George Harrison's Taxman's "One for you, nineteen for me" in the successful sixties.

If the economy is to get going again, and businesses to receive income again, the money needs to be in the pockets of ordinary shoppers, not senior management. The unemployed have nowt to spare, and the redundancy money of newly redundant public servants only lasts a limited time.

@Breaking 3

Are you really sure?

Monetarism, under Thatcher, killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Labour has tried to protect the remaining hatchlings, but they're looking pretty sickly.

Here's a thought for the supporters of free unfettered competition to ponder:

Only one competitor wins a competition. Everyone else loses.

Just because two roads are mapped out for choice of direction by this car toonist does not mean that any number of other routes could not be drawn by another car toonist. And surly the British PM and his pals have an amphibious vehicle at their disposal. There is a place for thinking and it is called "outside the box".
Shucks, even the Irish PM has a private jet at his disposal

Rememeber a minute this government is the first to put the budget in the black in twenty years.

Not true, there were budget surpluses between 1988 and 1991.

The Labour government had budget surpluses in its first three years of power but that was because Gordon Brown was sticking to pre-existing Tory spending plans.

It seems that the banking industry is ripping everyone off, especially those who can afford it least.

Who really owns the Bank of England ?

Surely the Treasury ought to be able to create money interest free to itself and charge interest to anyone who wants to borrow it, including the banks.

The ability to create free money as debt should be taken away from the banks, because it enables them to skim off the publics hard earned money. They should get back to banking instead of rolling dice at the casino.

If you wish to kill a snake, chop its head off.

BarberaO
That's a good point, the "think outside the box".
Or in this case, off the road. Or "Off the beaten track" fits the image better, and sounds creative and independent.

Anyway, looking at the image: There's cliffs to the right of them, cliffs ahead of them, and no cliffs to the left of them.

So a hard left turn is needed, from the viewers perspective.

guardianreeda:
Your words may be true, but I or one haven't seen a substantiation outside the tabloid papers and the right wing press.
I'm not contradicting, I'm just wondering where the facts point to all this "proven themselves to be incompetent, corrupt liars and have greatly damaged this country and will leave a poisoned chalice for anyone who follows them" ?

Corruption: There was the expenses scandal, that applied to most politicians. And always has done. It has to be stopped each and every time it's found - but it's not specific to this admin.
Liars: They lied about reasons for going to war. That's bad.
Greatly damaged this country: They've failed to renationalise industries quickly enough - having to bail them out anyway later (Rail, nuclear, and now banks) - but they stepped in to undo some of the damage done by privatisation eventually didn't they?
Where's the wreckage they made? How to reconcile this claim with the fact that most of the world has followed Brown in his damage limitation excercise?
Poisoned chalice: Hmm, good words, oddly Arthurian. But what chalice, yu might mean the government debt as a result of the damage limitation excercise?

All in all: The British government is deep in debt since 2008 because of pumping money into private hands in order to limit a repeat of the great depression.
Lessons have been learned.
It's facile to say "they bankrupted the nation" and it's also wrong: The global credit scam bankrupted the whole world.
Brown, and Blair before him are big enough blokes: But they can't be responsible for the current global economic rocky patch.
They're not that big.

So you see: I'm not arguing with anything - but I am pointing out that your analysis is more of a political tract and less of a political argument than you probably intend it to be.

Reading about NuLab & Grodon Broown actually gives me heart palputations!
Not the nice ones either.
We now owe 78% of our GDP, a debt which will double in a couple of years to £1.67 TRILLION, essentially meaning that he has sold Britain to the World Bankers.!
It will be they, not Govt who dictates our futures, unless of course we get a PM, whos got the balls to stand up to them and if there is only one thing thats a dead certainty that man wont be Gordon.!

Neither insightful nor amusing. Just a facile, ill-fitting metaphor I'm afraid. I agree with BarbaraO, a bit of creativity wouldn't go amiss, however much fun it may be to cram a load of politicians into an old banger.

@timken - Spot on about kicking the difficult decision down the road although it's not 'gerrymandering' which specifically means changing constituency boundaries to achieve a better election result.

Contractor000

Rememeber a minute this government is the first to put the budget in the black in twenty years.

Keep telling yourself that. Lovely responsible Gordon will make it all better...

It is obvious the banks have too much power. Instead of serving the public they are serving their own selfish interests.

The ability to create money as debt virtually out of thin air is the source of this power, who then control our lives.

@contractor000

Aah my friend, with your "it's my government" remark you have illuminated the fundamental differences in our approach.

SOCIALISM = everything people earn belongs to the state, and people get to keep what the state thinks they need to live on.

CAPITALISM = everything people earn belongs to them, and the state takes what it thinks it needs to function and allows people to keep the rest.

I believe that you live in cloud cuckoo land, and that I live in the real world where people are motivated to work hard and generate income.......in doing so the government benefits and so does society.

There's also another powerful flaw in your philosophy of working for 'your government'; it is the fact that socialists tend to place more faith in the government and never question their motives...........and since socialist governments are by nature statist they end up trying to proscribe how we should all live and behave.

p.s. 'Thatcher was evil'............an outrageous remark to make. Especially when Blair declared and Brown supported an illegal and unnecessary war and sent good men and women to fight without proper equipment

@constituent

Let's remember that the tories want to ban strikes unless over 50% of union members (as opposed to those actually voting) vote for them. By that token, the tories should not accept power unless 50% of all voters (not just those turning out) vote for them.

That's called democracy - why should firebrands like Scargill, Robinson and activists embedded in the work-force determine that young men with families shouldn't be a allowed to get on..........just for the sake of their stupid ego and class war principles?

Extending the principle to general elections is a fallacy - I might be wrong but I don't think any British government has ever received 50% of the vote.

Taxes need to be higher, but people need to earn enough to be able to pay them, which means a higher minimum wage, higher tax allowances, and then, when everyone is earning enough to feed, clothe, and house their family, higher income tax at whatever rate is enough.

I don't see any poor people in the UK today - I see a lot of well-fed obsese people all driving cars, all getting good medical, all with Sky dishes, all getting foreign holidays. There is however a sad sector of society - people who don't know how to care for themselves that, a sector that Labour has pumped with money without encouraging to earn it with the dignity of their own labour. They are creating hell on earth for these people (and those who live in close proximity to them).

I

f the economy is to get going again, and businesses to receive income again, the money needs to be in the pockets of ordinary shoppers, not senior management. The unemployed have nowt to spare, and the redundancy money of newly redundant public servants only lasts a limited time.

I fully agree that banks have had a very easy ride and those paying bonuses with public money are an utter disgrace. However, those banks who took not one penny are private companies making a profit - from the profit comes a lot of corporate and individual taxes that Britain needs........as you clearly point out.

Brown has created such a screwed-up economy (whilst blaming it on other people, don't forget he was the one who de-regulated the banks and kept interest rates too low for too long) that it will take radical policies to get things right again. Let's be honest, there are a lot of public servants doing jobs that are completely unnecessary.........they're going to have to accept that for 10yrs they've had a very, very easy ride and re-train themselves.

Sorry for a long post.

Earwig go!

.

.

Sorry for short post

Socialism has nothing to do with the state.State totalitarianisms can be aggressively capitalistic, and historically often have been. Socialism aims at the most free development possible of the human spirit, and recognises the importance of community, accountability and political, economic and social democracy.
The right have no answer to the economic crisis, and instead engage in crass vilification, which is why they - and their appalling party - are totally unfit to govern.
The mistakes of the adherence to neo-liberal economic dogma are too many to mention. Certainly the Labour party must take its share of the responsibility.
A Tory govt, however would exacebate the problem by its desire to cut the vitally iimportant public services, and undermine social and economic stability.
A bolder and more socially inclusive agenda, will I believe, assist in countering the Tories agenda, and might even produce a Labour victory in May.

The banks have a monopoly on money creation at zero interest, which they then lend out at interest. Seems like a boondoggle doesn't it ? Well, it is.

The banks should borrow created by the government and pay interest for the privilege.

@dives

Where do you live? Have you spoken to Lazarus recently, or do you know he agrees with you because he needs the daily can of dogfood curry and bunk in the laundry room that you let him have? Try getting out of your car and go for a walk along the A23 through Brixton and Streatham.

If 5-year governments can get in with less than 50% of all possible votes, why shouldn't the same apply for a 5-day strike? In both cases you can only assume that non-voters would vote in the same proportions - even though voting totals in recent years suggest that it's the Labour voters who are staying at home.

Unfortunately with our lack of genuine political pluralism we are constantly handing the reigns of power back and forth from one despised and incompetent bunch of self-interested idiots to the other with an unbroken nightmarish persistence: is it surprising they arrogantly ignore the electorate's interests since they know they only need wait for the opposition to mess-up (which they inevitably do) and they are back in office.

There really must be a more sensible alternative - the devil has long been the party system itself since it is not to their constituents or the nation these ghastly fraudulent incubuses owe allegiance, but to their cursed parties with their hidden, often sinister agendas. Let us instead vote for a party whose sole purpose once in office and having attained the necessary majority is to legislate as a constitutional indelible measure to ban political parties (or any form of collective alliance around anything - other, perhaps, than single current legislative issues) completely from our democratic system for all time, then disband itself. By so doing Britain will belatedly take the initiative to rid the world of this wretched evil we imposed on it centuries ago and finally ensure the Commons becomes the genuine and proper democratic debating chamber it ought always to have been - where legislation serving the nations best interests is arrived at from open and honest persuasion.

Yes, I know, you're thinking given our present apathetic politically brain-washed society this can only happen in your dreams, I fear you're probably right but how sad for the imminent future of our nation..

Politics may well have become just a two trick pony, but when one trick is to eat all the hay, then kick you in the face, and the other is to save some hay and work hard to make more, its a no brainer for me.!

"Liar B'Lair, Pants on Fire... Nose as long as a Telegraph Wire....!"

"Humpity Broone sat on a wall, Humpity Broone had a great fall...!"
Well b*gger me, he's all back together again.... but not necesary in the right order....!"

"Darling, Darling, quite contrary,
How does your Economy grow?
With Ponzi Scam bells, and Rotting Tax hells,
And Greedy Banksters all in a row!"

Thatcher was the best thing that ever happened to the Labour party. It's given them someone to blame when they make a massive cock up, for the rest of eternity. I would have though that 20 years and 12 years of New Labour might be enough time to put right her wrongs but apparently not.
It makes things very convenient and seems to absolve Labour from any blame whatsoever. Forever.
Or is there a time limit that no one's told me about. If so I hope it's soon.

Not only that. Saying "It's Thatcher's fault" also seems to absolve them of any requirement to put it right. As if those very words solve the problem they're blaming her for.

contractor000

You say "And when you say "anything over 50% is working for the government" - that's leaving out the fundamental democratic truism that the government is MY govrnment. It's YOURS too. "

Unfortunately this is true about it being our government but it is not our democracy. We live in a "Parliamentary Democracy". They do the democracy. We are allowed by them, as the make the rules, to vote for an MP who then does democracy in Parliament.

To address this weaknesses we need to be looking to change to a bottom up democracy where the citizens make the rules about how we will be governmened. Expect the entrenched parties to try to stop this, especially by changing the rules such as bringing in proportional representation so we no longer have one person one vote.

I believe the change will happen because we cannot continue like this.

Choller 21 misses the point. The issue is not about blaming Margaret Hilda, but criticising the neo-liberal economic policy to which she - above all - was the supreme protagonist of.
If I were to be a pedant I could point out that Jim Callaghan's speech to the 1976 Labour conference, written by Peter Jay, was the beginning of monetarism. The late Milton Friedman would have agreed with me.
The Tories, in office, administered neo-liberalism vindictively and cruelly, and did immense damage to the social fabric of Britain.
New Labour, from a minimalist point of view - there are other factors - gave it a human face. At least until the banking collapse.
Now Labour is - too, too tentatively - discovering Keynes again. Which at least gives us an element of choice. A change of direction that may help to implement an element of economic democracy if Labour is elected, if the Tories are elected, those least responsible for the economic situation will suffer the most. That is what the Tory party always does.

Contractor000

most of the world has followed Brown in his damage limitation excercise?

Except that they haven't. They followed Beligum, the Netherlands, France and Luxemburg who started putting money into the banks a few months before the UK.

Just because British politicians say that Brown did it first doesn't make it even vaguely true.

Yeh! What the cartoon didn't show us was the giant air-bag at the bottom.

Soft Landing!!

Only a revolt will save us.

I think the end means that whatever it is done, they are going to lose election

I remember, in 1997, how gutted I felt that Labour was in power. I can only hope that all the labour supporters feel a genuine wish to apologise to the country for the devastation they have wreaked on my daughters life. It is she, who wasn't even born then, who will have to pay for their, and Brown's, folly. And I blame the whole of the Labour screw-up on Brown. The more I see I come to think that Blair was a willing fool to Brown's master-plan to visit devastation upon England. He was so happy to claim credit whilst it boomed but tries to hide when it crunched.

I saw a picture today of Brown in body armour and shocked myself by hoping that it would not work,

GENERAL ELECTION NOW before any more damage is done.

And a family of eight Afghan immigrants have been housed for the last 14 months in a £ 1.2million house in Ealing, West London, at a cost so far of £168,000. That's just housing benefit I won't mention the rest.
Any comments?

Red Bull gives you wings.

Constituent, you really need to go back to school and learn both history, economics and current affairs and business.

"But surely it is the top businessmen who should lose their jobs, as they have done such an appalling job. "

You are tarring all businessmen with the same brush: 1). Some bankers and other financiers screwed up - many didn't, you clearly lack the knowledge to differentiate. many industrialists and other business owners have helped keep unemployment lower than it could have been by taking action early, and keeping their businesses effective enough to be ready for the upturn.

"Monetarism treats money as an end in itself, not a means of delaying one side of a transaction. "

No it doesn't. Monetarism is a macro-economic policy belief relating to control of inflation and how best to manage economic growth. What you describe is parts of the financial services industry. And the reason that this form of transaction happens is to provide hedging facilities for producers.

"Here's a thought for the supporters of free unfettered competition to ponder:
Only one competitor wins a competition. Everyone else loses."

1). Dead heats do happen; 2). We are not talking about a defined competition but a system of competing beliefs and ideas as a means to allocate scarce resources most efficiently and in response to supply and demand. This is the system that allows people to have and exercise choice and why there are always multiple competitors in any industry, We do not live in a world of unfettered competition, never have and likely never will - we have regulated markets designed to stop monopolies dominating a market and ensuring the flow of information to prevent it. Not perfect but better than state capitalism as per the Soviet Union .

"Let's remember that the tories want to ban strikes unless over 50% of union members (as opposed to those actually voting) vote for them. By that token, the tories should not accept power unless 50% of all voters (not just those turning out) vote for them. "

So if any party doesn't get 50% we have no government? I remember the 1970s and the union fascists and their closed shops and their wild cat strikes their violence and intimidation. My uncle was a miner who refused to strike and was attacked and had his property damaged by the union thugs for noit supporting them. I remember Scargill's rantings - he had the same shrieking hysterical voice as Hitler. Thatcher was right to smash the unions and good riddance to the damned scum.

Constituent "Monetarism, under Thatcher, killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Labour has tried to protect the remaining hatchlings, but they're looking pretty sickly." Are you imbibing something illegal? What the hell does that drivel mean? Britain was bankrupt when Thatcher took over. We were the laughing stock of Europe, we were the sick man of of Europe, and we had been secretly bailed out by America several times when we suffered a sterling crisis. Thatcher rebuilt the economy by cutting out the dead crap and allowng the better stuff to thrive. It as the nanny state socialism of Heath, Wilson and Callaghan that wrecked the economy.

if you want to see a true picture of attitudes to unions read up about grunwick and see how Labour's petty dictators treat the brothers and sisters.

"Now Labour is - too, too tentatively - discovering Keynes again. "

Jeez, read real history. Keynes policies led directly to the bankruptcy of 1976. Callaghan and co didn't start monetarism - their Keynesian and socialist policies wrecked and bankrupted the economy and the IMF bailed us out. Their policies might have been monetarist, the government's policies were merely those of beggars.

I personally have no real faith in Cameron, and less in his party, but labour are proven as failures and authoritarian extremists, time they went.

......or they could just go for it -- straight ahead. If Thelma & Louise can do it...

I only wish the car and its occupants were true.

I would gladly cut the brake pipes.

barberaO wrote:

Red Bull gives you wings.

Yes but red bull-shit doesn't!