Wouldn't the better response be to educate those people about the perils of misinformation as opposed to trying to stamp out the misinformation?
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Margaret Thatcher has died
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Wouldn't the better response be to educate those people about the perils of misinformation as opposed to trying to stamp out the misinformation?
Peter Oborne made some good points why Margaret Thatcher shouldn't get a state funeral:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/p...-deserves-every-honour-–-apart-from-this-one/
And apparently she didn't want one either:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...t-waste-money-on-a-flypast-at-my-funeral.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/p...-deserves-every-honour-–-apart-from-this-one/
And apparently she didn't want one either:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...t-waste-money-on-a-flypast-at-my-funeral.html
Even then, people seem to think that while the rich do have influential power, there are always alternatives. Which is exactly what a free market is.
In the 60's & 70's, this country had a Neo Socialist economy. The was little to no choice, hense why the unions had so much power to hold the country to ransom.
Hell, even Thomas Cook was nationalised. A travel agent ffs
frankie_baby
Member
There is a reason people are stupid its because they don't want to learn, how do you educate people that don't want to learn
Delusibeta
Banned
Here's a map for the riot state funeral ceremonial funeral, so you can avoid the area since there's going to be a riot going on attend on Wednesday if you want.
Eh, fair enough. Just sounded a little like a No True Brixtonian thing.
Anyone trashing shit at any 'party' or at her funeral is fucking scum, no matter where they're from.
CyclopsRock
Member
Here's a map for theriotstate funeralceremonial funeral, so you canavoid the area since there's going to be a riot going onattend on Wednesday if you want.
Sexy, that goes right near my house! Might take a little peak.
I'm pretty jealous. That looks like a really nice place to live in.
Nicktendo86
Member
hear hear
Here's a map for theriotstate funeralceremonial funeral, so you canavoid the area since there's going to be a riot going onattend on Wednesday if you want.
Thats the onle reason I think its a mistake to have this kind of funeral. It should be private & no details given of the time & place
You can bet some people are going to try to disrupt it. There are just too many people who have nothing but bile in them, to even have the respect to let her children & grandchildren mourn.
PJV3
Member
They are too fragmented to be a serious alternative to traditional media, there's also a lot of FUD, trolling and sock puppetry
the internet can be useful when it's focused, it can be a game changer in certain situations, but it's unreliable and fickle.
radioheadrule83
Banned
I read that earlier. It's missing a few things about the relationship and relies a bit too heavily on the testimony of Lords and professors as opposed to actual scousers who lived through it, but it does at least bring things to the table that people might not be aware of -- her meeting with Tony Benn at the funeral etc. Decline of industry is not so much an issue as the ruined lives and blighting poverty that still affects certain areas in Liverpool today.
Contextually, Liverpool has always been a city home to unions and workers collectives. Long before Thatcher, strikes on the docks had been intervened in by naval miltary, people were actually shot and killed during the 1911 disputes for example. Things like the Manchester Ship Canal were built to circumvent the docks and avoid bringing goods and money through Liverpool. There are reasons for regional animosities and low levels of trust towards neighbours and central government. But with Thatcher, it's quite simple. People will never forget how the police used to treat people, or how the riots erupted on Upper Parliament Street.. they'll never forget the governments complicity and inaction - the part it played - in the Hillsborough scandal.. the disdain with which other parts of the country held them in afterwards. They remember how they were personally affected by the abolition of the national dock labour scheme. People here remember being squeezed dispassionately and seeing people go homeless, and outside of the beautiful city center - they still see some broken communities and streets full of boarded up houses today. Having seen Lord Howe's comments about allowing the city to go in to "managed decline" - they have never been given any reason to believe conservative sentiment towards the city has changed, or that tory governments would benefit them. Inequality is rife and obvious to anyone as soon as you leave the city centre. Nobody here likes it. We are a people built on community spirit.
Some people here can maybe be a bit myopic in their support for Labour, but you have to understand the above and consider that under the last Labour government - regeneration visibly manifested itself and bettered peoples lives. Everything that has happened has only reinforced what they already believed. Conservatives will not win in Liverpool again until they can demonstrate they too can help people lift themselves out of misery and misfortune. "We're all in this together" would be a winning message in Liverpool if people actually believed it.
I don't think he was a terrorist and I take the freedom fighter side, please re-read what I actually said. My point was that if you start planting bombs in order to get what you want, you are by definition a terrorist to some.
The Librarian
Banned
Fucking lol dude. US and UK are more conservative than Sweden and the richest 1% own a larger share of pre-tax income than they do in Sweden. You're proving my point. Also, it says that some of that is a result from societal changes as more people are living in households, and the top income tax rate dropped from 87% to 56%.
Read your own sources.
Ask the Chinese maybe?
CyclopsRock
Member
They aren't mutually exclusive by any means, though. Terrorism is about methods, freedom fighter is about intention. You can be both a terrorist and a freedom fighter, one, or neither. It's always been a slightly odd distinction to make, to me.
frankie_baby
Member
So going from one extreme to the other, very intelligent, all im suggesting is the regulations in the media need to be looked at
This is the thing though. No one at all have any issues with regeneration of places like Liverpool. What they have a problem with is how Labour went about it.
Even during the false boom years under Brown, he borrowed one pound for every three spent. On top of that, alot of the regeneration wasn't by borrowing or through generating tax, its was through PFI's. All so it could be hidden from official treasury figures.
It would be wonderful to do this with every town/city in this country but to do it by putting the entire country into near bankruptcy, was just complete madness
Nicktendo86
Member
Thanks for that Radiohead, as a Londoner it really helps to get those accounts and explainations. The firm I work for is a large law firm that is actually based in Liverpool so I have spent a lot of time in the city, well the center anyway. Not seen much of the outskirts, is it still raelly that bad? Comng from East London I have experience a fair amount of run down council flats etc...
PJV3
Member
I'm not keen on PFIs, but they were sound in principle, it's just a lot of the early ones were negotiated by chumps, they learnt in the end to cut better deals with the private sector.
I realised I may have come across like that but I assure you I don't care about such things as "true Brixtonians". I remember reading this article and finding it hilarious. Just a bit sick of negative Brixton news and this incident didn't really help.
In general they were a bad idea. It doesn't matter what kind of deal was involved, it was just a way to hide a form of borrowing, so it didn't appear on treasury books. So when the IMF & markets checked the books, it all looked sustainable.
It was a something that Major's government invented to hide costs on a few projects. Labour then took it to the extreme and i'm afraid that while the number of new PFI's has dropped off, they are still using the damn things
Little Old Man
Member
Thatcher was certainly not a fan of Liverpool, and it's amazing how many seem to forget that the city was largely left to rot during the 80s.
Very good post.
I think you're getting a little mixed up there. A lot of the regeneration which has occurred in Liverpool in the past decade is private money, alongside large amounts of funding from the EU, both due to the capital of culture year (which in addition attracted further private investment) and funding from its regional development programme (with Merseyside being one of the key targets for Brussels). PFI's was certainly used by Labour in Liverpool and Merseyside, but most projects funded in that manner we public buildings along the lines of hospitals and schools, which again where in dire need of funding. Though I'm in full agreement that PFI's became a useful method to hide government spending, and many PPI deals were on horrible terms in many cases.
In a word, yes. Oddly enough some of the main arterial roads into Liverpool have been regenerated in the last several years so visitors to the city at first glance my miss the signs, but even after 2008, streets of run down and boarded up houses could be seen everywhere on the way into the centre (Edge Hill being one). However even now move off the main roads into so many inner city areas and there is abject poverty.
Porcile
Member
I admire Thatcher in certain ways - her charisma and steely determination make her an interesting figure. Though I certainly feel her domestic policies have been incredibly damaging in the long run.
She seemed to operate on the short-term notion that economic growth is infinite when history shows economies are cyclical. When you take away the bread and butter of the working class (manufacturing and industry), you get what we have now. Rampant unemployment and welfare spiraling out of control, with no real means within our own power to counteract it. Obviously it's not ALL her fault, but her ruthless decisions were certainly a catalyst.
She seemed to operate on the short-term notion that economic growth is infinite when history shows economies are cyclical. When you take away the bread and butter of the working class (manufacturing and industry), you get what we have now. Rampant unemployment and welfare spiraling out of control, with no real means within our own power to counteract it. Obviously it's not ALL her fault, but her ruthless decisions were certainly a catalyst.
The grammar/private school divide was eye opening. From the medical students at my undergrad I honest to God can't think of a person who didn't go to either private school or grammar school. The most I can think of are people who got scholarships from comprehensives.
Phonomezer
Banned
How nice of them to bring things like this to light after she has died..
PJV3
Member
The trouble was that the Schools and hospitals were falling apart, that wasn't down just to Thatcher, it had been going on for 30-40 years. Look how much we spent on health compared to other countries from the 60's onwards for example.
I don't like what Labour did, but it's disgusting that we as a nation allowed it to get that desperate.
Eventually you have to pay, I'd prefer continual investment, rather than putting it off til it costs a bleeding fortune to fix.
Well this is what is on the other side of the coin.
Alot of the private investment came from companies that had money thrown at them by the banks. Cheap credit was everywhere and no one really cared if someone could afford to repay it. That cheap credit all came from banks trading in American sub prime's, all thinking they were investments when it was actually debt.
Everything that happened between 2000 & 2008 are all one and the same. It all contributed to the biggest boom before the biggest bust. The bailouts were just another form of paying for them mistakes
I addressed the rest; it was the shitty straw man argument. My response was a parody of it. Glad to see the whole thing flew right over your head.
Little Old Man
Member
Again you're going off on a tangent. Liverpool One for example was largely funded by the Duke of Westminster's Grosvenor Group, private money that had little effect on the governments balance sheet (directly, nor though banks involved in the project, except for any funding we give to the EU I suppose).
The subprime market crisis, being based on the US market (and cheap credit subsequently given to UK house buyers amongst others) has little to do with private and EU level investment in Liverpool. That isn't to say that there isn't an over reliance on debt by joe public in the past decade.
I cant say much about Liverpool One but the Grosvenor Group is a property company and you can bet they used borrowed money to help their property portfolio. As it was all at the time the height of the property boom, I doubt very much if they themselves didn't feel the crunch like every other property company
Well so far all I have seen from with you so called intellect is the use of the term "straw man". Yeah, your debating skills are obviously supreme.
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
It's Thatcherism's fault.
There's no way of regulating the press so they don't print things you don't agree with without being extreme surely?
radioheadrule83
Banned
It's not that bad I guess. Things have improved overall, but there is more that can be done.
You've probably seen the inner-city regeneration, areas around the Albert Dock, Echo arena, Liverpool One (The Paradise Street project) etc. If anyone has ever come in to Liverpool by train, they might remember how bad Lime Street used to look with Concourse Tower (an eyesore) standing next to it -- that is completely gone now, and regeneration is going to be continuing around Central station.
Some areas on the outskirts that used to be bad have kind of been gentrified by regeneration or improved by more accessible education and funding. There are one or two places I used to dare not walk at night, now populated by students paying cheap rent!
When I was a kid Vauxhall and the Scotland Rd area looked consigned to a destiny of dereliction - there apparently used to be 200 pubs in that area at one point, now there are but a few, languishing as other pubs are, or boarded up already. I remember parts of Bootle and Kirkby being much rougher than they are today. When I was younger, things like the Pitz (aka Powerleague 5-a-side) weren't there for kids to enjoy. Regeneration has seen new housing estate(s) sprout up around the Leeds/Liverpool canal, the Sandhills railway station was completely overhauled, with a park and ride for people attending Liverpool and Everton football matches. The old British American Tobacco office and warehouse is now a set of premium canal-side apartments. During the 2008 capital of culture celebrations the city started using artistic boarding to mask dereliction in properties on the roads entering the city, such as those on Edge Lane. Many such properties are now gone or soon to be. Liverpool FC have recently offered to buy houses that the company I work for owns around Anfield football stadium - and if the club ever get in to the process of enhancing the stadium, that will entail some surrounding change or regeneration too.
All that said, I do drive around various parts of Liverpool as part of my job, and I do meet people in reasonably deprived areas. We still have some of the most deprived wards in the country:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/31/deprivation-map-indices-multiple
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...battle-with-poverty-is-very-real-8458017.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/deprived-england-find-out-if-your-843146
I've seen and heard some really sad things, lives that have transformed from relative normality in to hopelessness. I doubt its any worse than in other big cities, I know for a fact other areas in the North West have these problems and that wards in Manchester and Birmingham are reknowned too -- but this is on my own doorstep.
I am from a reasonably modest household in Aintree - and to see the contrast even from where I live to places just a few miles down the road is abhorrent. Some people in areas like Speke, Toxteth, Anfield, Kensington, Wavertree and further afield are still born in to lamentable, pitiable circumstances. Liverpool is, for me - probably like some boroughs in London - a perfect microcosm of the rich-poor divide problem we have in this country. You can probably wander 300 yards in some places and pass affluent businesses and beautiful Victorian buildings, then suddenly come across some visible sign of poverty.
I don't look down my nose at anyone, but some people have been dealt a harder hand, and that's the truth of it. You see it in the school league tables from one area to the next. You see it in the time of day some people are out drinking in the morning, or the way they frequent the bargain booze or parks at night. You see it in people who have seemingly given up on hope. You see it in the prevalence of exploitative entities like Money Shop, Cash4Gold, Radio Rentals. You see it in people shopping on the cheap, coming out of Lidl, Farmfoods or Iceland with no frills microwaveable meals. I see it in my job in people suffering from homelessness, abuse and addiction. It's so self contained you can just get the train back and forth to town and completely miss it happening around you (if you want to), but its there on the fringes.
Cameron's Big Society is probably more alive here than it is elsewhere to be honest. I work for a social housing and support company, and we are not alone in the work we do. Food banks, social housing services and care workers are doing a booming business here as the councils have to back away. You hear of religious organisations and working volunteers putting on fundraisers for people, providing meals for the homeless... The company I work for recently gave a local school some bicycles, and provided a minibus for others. Places like Powerleague work with charities on homeless football... There are more businesses and initiatives offering skilled apprenticeships and training than ever before, most likely. We have new youth clubs, football, boxing and MMA clubs - all of them giving kids a healthy sporting outlet. Both of the premier league football clubs work with schools and have outreach / spending programs for good causes... there's a lot of that work going on. In a sense, things like that probably mean its better now than it used to be, or would otherwise be... but are there still significant problems? Yes. And they're endured by innocent people the Daily Mail would like to portray as a burden on the welfare state.
Hussein? Supporting him against Iran was as right as supporting stalin against hitler. Now the ones that REALLY support him, just like the abominable degenerates that supported stalin, act as his propaganda and support his vile crimes, are not the likes of Thatcher but scum like you and galloway and this filth. Complaining about Thatcher 'supporting' your socialist hero, what a joke.
Pinochet and Suharto? Did you proclaim that you would spit on the grave of tariq ali for his axis of shit? Exactly.
Great strawman.
radioheadrule83
Banned
Is there any particular reason you decided to paint that particular poster as an extreme left individual who would have agreed with any of that?
Because I'm not seeing it in the post you responded to
CHEEZMO;53254224 said:
This always makes me laugh.
Labour do something right (by the left's standards). Its socialist Labour that make it happen.
Something goes wrong. Labour have not been Socialist for nearly 20 years, its Thatchers fault.
Then people wonder why the centre & right of politics just laughs
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
herpaderpahurrrrr
I also like how you attack him for criticising Thatcher's support of Hussein, and then in literally the next sentence say he's a Hussein fanboy.
CHEEZMO
Obsidian fan
Don't project your party tribalism plskthx
Arsenal2022
Member
More likely to hurt it actually (speaking from experience - Uni's are more likely to go for the state school candidate if there's a tie between one a privately educated one); but the education you've recieved/ preparation (particularly for interviews if you're applying for Oxbridge) gives you the edge if you go to one of these schools, which is why they dominate universities.
I think the statistic is the top 5 schools send more than the bottom 2000 combined?
Left is left. No 'moderate' or 'extreme' ones. All the same pot of shit. It's like a religion, there are moderates and extremes and all kinds of people. Some believe in this part others believe in another. But they're all part of the same religion, all have the same principles. One might not be 'extreme' in one aspect but be extreme in another. One might not support the views of one extreme followers but empathize with him/her because ultimately there's a well of shit those extreme views came from and it's the shared culture and values of the faithful, not some vacuum. The more you read leftists blogs and newspapers - and especially the comments where they're not restrained by the need to appear moderate (as politicians do) the more obvious it becomes. If a leftists has a real problem with those 'extremes' he wouldn't be a leftist. No different than a racist who has friends who owns slaves but he himself doesn't own any. Yeah, his friends are more 'extreme,' but both are the same shit to me.
Little Old Man
Member
It's a private investment company though. I fail to see your issue with them taking on debt to fund their investments. This would seemingly be what you argued for in past posts- private initiative and investment over government spending on large capital intensive projects. ANY large scale project on the scale of Liverpool One requires take on board debt. Debt isn't the issue, it's how that debt is financed by the lending party.
radioheadrule83
Banned
Oh so basically - if you're not with me, you are my enemy
I do not empathise with the extreme left at all, but I do empathise with victims of circumstance and I do empathise with moderates on both sides. The suggestion that everyone even remotely on the left secretly loves a "well of shit" ideas, saddam hussein and communism's greatest nutters should be... well... offensive to just about anyone really
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