SymbiantXenos
Member
Legalised fox hunting again?
Shouldn't even be a question, no!1
Shouldn't even be a question, no!1
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May 7th | UK General Election 2015 OT - Please go vote!
- Thread starter Volotaire
- Start date
- Status
I can live with it, unless it becomes a debilitating illness and one the NHS won't cover me for as it's my own fault, and then I can't afford treatment for it.
Sure, manifestos are not a good way to choose who to vote for. Track record is better. And in that regard, it's still pretty incredible to me that anybody would vote Cameron Tory, and perfectly reasonable that nobody would vote for Milliband Labour.
You are arm flapping again.
Yep, it's top of the list done it already before even forming the cabinet.
mostly feels like the left worrying (rightly) about how it can simultaneously win over swing voters in english heartlands on the right, fight the populist nationalism from the snp in scotland on the left, tackle ukip snipping off alienated white working classes all over and threatening the north, while maintaining ethnic minorities and liberal educated types in cities. they need all over those together to win a traditional majority. i haven't seen much tory crowing yet, i think they're just ecstatic to have won out of nowhere.
i feel like that's kind of the same as the republicans wondering how much they need to change to win the current presidential map and changing demographics in america
Chittagong
Gold Member
I see a lot of 'open letters' and 'shame on yous' in social media blaming people for voting Tory. I wanted to offer a peek into the mind of one person who thought they were the best choice.
A bit of context first, I am not British and thus can't vote. I am also a vilified non-dom by my origin. For me, the Tory agenda looked like the better one to give Britain prosperity, create jobs and encourage investment in the country. I know for a fact that only because of the investment incentives and tax breaks Tories champion I have invested a lot in UK, and employ people in UK. Because of that I am able to hire British people and pay higher wages than I would pay for the same people in, say, Estonia or Malta. I also pay a LOT of tax in UK personally. It's money the country would not see had they not attracted me there with the reliefs in the first place. None of these take money away from anyone in UK, they are bringing money to the UK the country would not have seen otherwise, and inject it to the system. On the balance, aside of police and roads, I don't think I utilise really much of the country's resources. I think that's pretty good for the country. So that's my context.
The fact that I see the Tory agenda as better for UK financially doesn't mean that I am anti-NHS, anti-poor or pro-zero hours. On the contrary. Even though I don't use it, I believe NHS is the best of its kind in the world and should be invested in. I believe we need to help homeless people much more. I believe the low threshold for tax free allowance should be higher so that the amount of people needing food banks would be lower. Funding all that needs more money in the system, and I think the Tory plan had the better chance of doing that than the Labour plan where they vilified business and foreign investment.
So in my books the Tory plan has more potential for ensuring UK stays funded to make a better society. Now the pressure is on everyone to make sure that they actually work for one Britain. I would hope the scare of Labour winning would give Tories cause to see that their biggest risk to stay in power is shunning the weakest.
A bit of context first, I am not British and thus can't vote. I am also a vilified non-dom by my origin. For me, the Tory agenda looked like the better one to give Britain prosperity, create jobs and encourage investment in the country. I know for a fact that only because of the investment incentives and tax breaks Tories champion I have invested a lot in UK, and employ people in UK. Because of that I am able to hire British people and pay higher wages than I would pay for the same people in, say, Estonia or Malta. I also pay a LOT of tax in UK personally. It's money the country would not see had they not attracted me there with the reliefs in the first place. None of these take money away from anyone in UK, they are bringing money to the UK the country would not have seen otherwise, and inject it to the system. On the balance, aside of police and roads, I don't think I utilise really much of the country's resources. I think that's pretty good for the country. So that's my context.
The fact that I see the Tory agenda as better for UK financially doesn't mean that I am anti-NHS, anti-poor or pro-zero hours. On the contrary. Even though I don't use it, I believe NHS is the best of its kind in the world and should be invested in. I believe we need to help homeless people much more. I believe the low threshold for tax free allowance should be higher so that the amount of people needing food banks would be lower. Funding all that needs more money in the system, and I think the Tory plan had the better chance of doing that than the Labour plan where they vilified business and foreign investment.
So in my books the Tory plan has more potential for ensuring UK stays funded to make a better society. Now the pressure is on everyone to make sure that they actually work for one Britain. I would hope the scare of Labour winning would give Tories cause to see that their biggest risk to stay in power is shunning the weakest.
sheepishlord
Member
The animal will be quickly and humanely killed. Right after we've chased and terrorized the ever living fuck out of it for miles on end.
pls understand.
Mr. Luchador
Member
The idea that Corporation could sue governments... wow I can't even comprehend that. Has it happened before?
Labour left government after creating a huge feel bad factor. The last government (just in time) managed to reverse that.
It should be noted Labour have been in power numerous times and the perfect social utopia has never been created,far from it. Possibly the opposite on some attempts.
jimbobsmells
Member
Most of the time I agree, but on this issue you are being willfully ignorant. Philip Morris are suing Uruguay and they're mounting a challenge to Australia.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...nt-if-plain-packaging-introduced-9664968.html
PJV3
Member
The internationalist in me believes you should be paying full taxes in which ever country you live in. I don't really care about this country having an edge over others, and I realise it will lose money.
It's a non negotiable position, nothing personal so I'm not going to insult you or vilify you either.
The worst bit it's a point of no return. There isn't really much future governments can do to undo it.
Chittagong
Gold Member
Thanks for the fair and dignified reply. I think it's precisely this disconnect between 'feeling fair' and 'financially smart for Britain' that drove people to Labour or Tories respectively. Labour were willing, like you, potentially lose money for the country for something that feels more moral and just. Tories were pragmatic in trying to give Britain an edge. They are both perfectly reasonable positions. In the current climate the ideals lost to pragmatism.
Mr. Luchador
Member
It sounds and reads like something from one of those future Dystopia movies.
jimbobsmells
Member
It feels like a similar argument to the tax avoidance issue. Moral outrage versus pragmatic business development.
'Creating' = 'being in power when the US banks collapsed'. And the Tories' economic policy did more harm than good. It dragged out what could otherwise have been a relatively short recession, and turned it into the worst recession in a century for the UK.
And honestly it's difficult to take the second line seriously. Nobody has ever said that the Labour party have ever created the 'perfect social utoptia', but when they were responsible for the most prosperous and stable period in modern British economic history, created the NHS and the modern welfare state, saved Britain from effective bankruptcy after WW2...what have the modern Tories done? Ruined livelihoods of industrial workers and in so doing doomed areas of the UK to economic deprivation for generations, embarked on an at-best pointless and at-worst disastrous serious of privatisations, raised inequality levels every time they get into power...
That's why I say that the modern Labour party lost this election with their crappy, directionless policies. Progressive left-wing politics has done more good for this country than the Tories have ever managed. The left wing needs to offer a real vision of what they can bring to Britain to become electable again.
PJV3
Member
It's not just moral outrage, it's also has the feeling of a race to the bottom as countries offer different incentives to attract jobs from elsewhere.
So it isn't just X is getting away with paying y.
JesseEwiak
Member
No, if you actually ask businesses to follow the rules, all of them will leave the country and the only things left will be chavs with 8 kids and Polish plumbers.
Rules are for the little people. If you employ one person, that gives you carte blanche to ignore them.
Kotetsu534
Member
Yes. But I'd go further, being a bit cynical. This is a way of understanding national finances that makes taking resources away from the poorest and neediest necessary, not desirable, or morally just. You don't need to grapple with the consequences of taking away Child Benefit for people with 3+ children, or telling cancer sufferers they have to seek employment, if you believe that it's the only opton to keep the lights on.
In my family there's a lot of sceptism about the benefits system (and we are not rich, I assure you), but I'd been able to fight back pretty effectively with real examples until this line of argument was plastered everywhere. Trying to explain the principles of economics to a 70-year old man who struggles to understand that just because one person from a particular background he interacted with was nasty, it doesn't mean they all are, is not something I have any interest in doing (he voted UKIP, as he has done at every election since 2010).
Jeremy Hunt went in Newsnight and said they would bring forward legislation to do it, why are you pretending we're making it up. The conservatives plan to relegalise it, it's not a conspiracy, it's their policy.
Chittagong
Gold Member
On a global scale, I can see this being the case. I have to hand it to Labour for being willing to hold a greater universal good above the easier benefits of Britain, they were in that sense a vote for a value system.
jimbobsmells
Member
I applaud you sir
Kotetsu534
Member
Companies sue governments all the time. The big question is in whose court and under whose law they have to do so. If a company has a problem with how the UK government acted and wants to take them all the way to the Supreme Court in our public courts, I'm happy to see them do it. What the TTIP provisions are trying to do, as many trade agreements in the developing world have already done, is to allow multinational companies to sue governments in secret arbitration courts, with their own judges, and with their own law (so nobody other than the lawyers and the parties can know what gets argued, who won or lost, what the recompense was, or why). There is a good reason for requiring corrupt countries that have been known to be biased against foreign companies in their courts (e.g. the Democratic Republic of Congo) to agree to this in exchange for investment, but nobody seriously believes Lady Hale, Lord Hoffman et. al. are biased in favour of the UK government.
Because they have a poor grasp of the history of such regimes?
PJV3
Member
Yeah.
We offer it, you would be potentially daft to not use it.
I recognise I also have a self interest in what goes on beyond the border of the country.
Anyway, you put up with our weather so it isn't all one way.
CyclopsRock
Member
Lol. I like how despite the fact that the only election that Labour have won since 1974 have been with Blair at the helm (who it seems most left wingers hate due to a combination of him being a messianic warmonger and more right wing than the Tories) so your suggestion that the reason they lost is because they weren't sufficiently left wing strikes me as an argument about 45 years out of date. Where are these extra votes going to come from? Everyone putting forward that argument seems to think it'll come from the disenfranchised who don't vote. But how did that work out for Foot and Kinnock?
Anyway, I'm not sure there's that much point giving you much of a genuine reply because you're a smart guy who is being obviously obtuse here. There are many low-tax, small state countries which have and continue to be economic power houses where people acting in their own self interest results in a society that gives them a better life. But you know that. The reason so many millions of people attempt (sometimes dangerously, sometimes through laborious paperwork) to emigrate to the US isn't because of their expansive system of welfare and anti-business practices. There are something to the tune of 16,000 Brits working in Paris and 400,000 French people working in London - obviously these people find something appealing about our position too.
In short, stop being a silly billy.
I was with three people from this society I know last night (all students), I've known them a while and they are all from a poor to relatively poor background and one of them wanted to vote Conservatives but voted for Labour "because of his brother" (I donno how that came to be), the other guy who is relatively well off and was in the army voted for conservatives because he believes that his small business that he has set up that makes 1000 quid on a good month and about 500 on a bad month will be charged 30% if labour came into power and that conservatives had clear goals (I am not aware of any such thing). The guy also said a ridiculous thing that Labour has no target anymore as there is no worker class in UK left anymore.
I myself think Labour right now is clueless and they are doing a bad job by trying to appease the right because if people want right they'll vote right and not for a party that is just a slightly more left leaning conservative, which is what Labour are at the moment in my opinion. Labour should just do what they were created to do and go full blown left wing and with a good leader that can provide the people with confidence in liberalism (this is the hard part).
Now this guy's girlfriend, and this will be a bit long because she said a lot of things. Firstly, I'd like to say that she doesn't know much or anything at all, she has only read up on whatever she could in the last month and she is from a very poor background. His girlfriend voted for UKIP, she said because that's what she felt was the best for her area because she doesn't thinks UKIP are anti immigration but only anti negative immigration, she sees a Romanian family of 12 down the street from her place and believes they are on benefits (for all you know they could be working their ass off on shitty jobs to make do). She says that she voted for UKIP because they will get rid of them. I told her, yes negative immigration is bad but the way UKIP wants to tackle it will hurt positive immigration and you should know that immigration brings about a net profit, if it's cut down like the way UKIP wants to do then you'll have a net loss and that does not make any sense. I told her that even people like myself who belongs to the highly skilled migrant group will be severely affected (I am an immigrant but I can vote here due to the fact that I am from a commonwealth country and reside in UK). She also said that she isn't anti EU but she wants it to be regulated and controlled, basically she only wants the good bits and the ability to duck and run away whenever something bad happens.
I also told her that most people who want to leave EU do not realise the repercussions it will have on them and their society. Even mundane things like being able to just make impromptu holiday plan or go on an internship to EU for a few months with no paperwork, or even absolutely silly things like people ranting on FB that they will emigrate next week whenever they are unhappy with the government (they make that joke because they have the ability to do that). She also didn't quite seem to understand how tax brackets work and that the 50p on a pound that Labour were proposing was not for everyone but for income beyond a certain limit and that the current rate is 45p on a pound anyway. She then went on to talk about how most people are ill informed and will vote for anything, and I just tell myself that she is one of the people she is complaining about. Then she blames the media for giving conservatism a bad name, when infact the media has been more right wing all this while. Oh by the way, she didn't even know what left and right wing are. Overall, I really didn't know where to start arguing with her as there was so much misinformation.
It just left me with a bad mood because I realised that this is how most people are, these are university educated people, that girl is a physics student who is on her way to a first class degree and they know bugger all about politics and economics and I can only imagine how the other less fortunate people are.
I myself think Labour right now is clueless and they are doing a bad job by trying to appease the right because if people want right they'll vote right and not for a party that is just a slightly more left leaning conservative, which is what Labour are at the moment in my opinion. Labour should just do what they were created to do and go full blown left wing and with a good leader that can provide the people with confidence in liberalism (this is the hard part).
Now this guy's girlfriend, and this will be a bit long because she said a lot of things. Firstly, I'd like to say that she doesn't know much or anything at all, she has only read up on whatever she could in the last month and she is from a very poor background. His girlfriend voted for UKIP, she said because that's what she felt was the best for her area because she doesn't thinks UKIP are anti immigration but only anti negative immigration, she sees a Romanian family of 12 down the street from her place and believes they are on benefits (for all you know they could be working their ass off on shitty jobs to make do). She says that she voted for UKIP because they will get rid of them. I told her, yes negative immigration is bad but the way UKIP wants to tackle it will hurt positive immigration and you should know that immigration brings about a net profit, if it's cut down like the way UKIP wants to do then you'll have a net loss and that does not make any sense. I told her that even people like myself who belongs to the highly skilled migrant group will be severely affected (I am an immigrant but I can vote here due to the fact that I am from a commonwealth country and reside in UK). She also said that she isn't anti EU but she wants it to be regulated and controlled, basically she only wants the good bits and the ability to duck and run away whenever something bad happens.
I also told her that most people who want to leave EU do not realise the repercussions it will have on them and their society. Even mundane things like being able to just make impromptu holiday plan or go on an internship to EU for a few months with no paperwork, or even absolutely silly things like people ranting on FB that they will emigrate next week whenever they are unhappy with the government (they make that joke because they have the ability to do that). She also didn't quite seem to understand how tax brackets work and that the 50p on a pound that Labour were proposing was not for everyone but for income beyond a certain limit and that the current rate is 45p on a pound anyway. She then went on to talk about how most people are ill informed and will vote for anything, and I just tell myself that she is one of the people she is complaining about. Then she blames the media for giving conservatism a bad name, when infact the media has been more right wing all this while. Oh by the way, she didn't even know what left and right wing are. Overall, I really didn't know where to start arguing with her as there was so much misinformation.
It just left me with a bad mood because I realised that this is how most people are, these are university educated people, that girl is a physics student who is on her way to a first class degree and they know bugger all about politics and economics and I can only imagine how the other less fortunate people are.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I don't get the "let's move left arguments". This isn't the same as saying "I think moving to the left is innately wrong". I don't. I thought Miliband would have been an excellent, transformative Prime Minister; I think that policies even to the left of his would have had real, appreciable benefits. However, I don't think you can win an election on them. Where do you get the votes?
Let's suppose, just for a moment, that Labour moving leftward would have caused them to win every single Green vote, without losing any of their own. This is an unrealistic assumption. Moving to the left in an amount sufficient to capture the Green vote would almost certainly lose some centrist voters. But fine, we'll pretend it does. Great, Labour has now moved from 30.4% to 34.2% - and are still behind the Conservatives.
Let's suppose, just for a moment, that Labour moving leftward would have caused them to win every single SNP vote, without losing any of their own. This is even more unrealistic, because the SNP is a pluralistic party and encompasses a very wide range of economic opinions. Many SNP voters are firmly rightwing and it isn't a left/right attraction that causes them to vote SNP. But fine, we'll pretend it does. Add that to our previous result, and Labour has now moved from 34.2% to 38.9%. You've finally overtaken the Conservatives, but you're still not in majority territory yet, and you've had to make some pretty ridiculous suppositions to get there.
Where are your non-voters, suddenly enthused to vote, coming from? This election had the highest turn-out in two decades. It had the highest youth turn-out in longer, the demographic the left most relies on. What is there left to do?
The votes aren't there. Even with better narrative, the votes aren't there.
Let's suppose, just for a moment, that Labour moving leftward would have caused them to win every single Green vote, without losing any of their own. This is an unrealistic assumption. Moving to the left in an amount sufficient to capture the Green vote would almost certainly lose some centrist voters. But fine, we'll pretend it does. Great, Labour has now moved from 30.4% to 34.2% - and are still behind the Conservatives.
Let's suppose, just for a moment, that Labour moving leftward would have caused them to win every single SNP vote, without losing any of their own. This is even more unrealistic, because the SNP is a pluralistic party and encompasses a very wide range of economic opinions. Many SNP voters are firmly rightwing and it isn't a left/right attraction that causes them to vote SNP. But fine, we'll pretend it does. Add that to our previous result, and Labour has now moved from 34.2% to 38.9%. You've finally overtaken the Conservatives, but you're still not in majority territory yet, and you've had to make some pretty ridiculous suppositions to get there.
Where are your non-voters, suddenly enthused to vote, coming from? This election had the highest turn-out in two decades. It had the highest youth turn-out in longer, the demographic the left most relies on. What is there left to do?
The votes aren't there. Even with better narrative, the votes aren't there.
Blair's legacy is a lot more varied than a lot of the left think. New Labour undoubtably had its downsides, and I think in general the great shift rightwards (or centre, if you prefer) was probably a poor strategic mistake in the long term, but there can be no denying that most of the people in the country were much, much better off under New Labour than they were under any of the preceding Tory governments.
No, I wont stop being 'a silly billy'. The fact remains that lower taxation and lower public spending has led to more recessions, worse levels of inequality, higher levels of poverty, lower health levels, etc., virtually everywhere it's been tried. The fact that you can point at Switzerland or Monaco and say, 'well their 2% top tax rate is doing them wonders' is a red herring and you know it. And you point to the USA while ignoring that the USA was (economically speaking) a better place to live when it had tax rates double what it has now.
Ireland was the great success story for you types and it suffered among the worst in the world during the last recession. There's a mountain of evidence that it's a disaster. It's not my fault you're ignoring it in favour of some libertarian fantasy about how everything would be better if there was no way to fund the welfare state.
If this is true then I really am moving country. A Britain whose political future is centre-right for the next 50 years isn't one that I want to take part in.
jimbobsmells
Member
What about those who voted for the Tories simply because 'labour did a terrible job last time'. I don't know how you quantify those votes, but anecdotally I've heard this argument a lot.
It essentially relies on the idea that the Lib Dem and New Labour votes who turned into Conservatives at the last election might be persuaded back by a decent left-wing equivalent of where the Lib Dems were in 2010.
MrS
Banned
Really? Awesome! Can't wait to go on the hunt again!
I don't really know much about TTIP apart from it seems like a relatively bad idea, why would any government want to open themselves up to companies being able to sue them privately?
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Where the Liberal Democrat votes were in 2010 is to the right of what the Labour party ran in 2015.
I am sure that there are there are lots who voted with that in mind. And those are completely baseless, "oh atleast it wasn't as bad as when we were under Labour !". Yes no shit it wasn't as bad under the tories as it was during the worst recession since world war 2.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
In other news, Alan Johnson has confirmed he is not running for leader of the Labour Party.
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
It's also super scummy how they've completely disregarded the Citizens' Initiative supported by 1.75 million people against it.
Kotetsu534
Member
In exchange the country will get investment,
and the individuals who pass the laws will find they have friendships with lobbyists inside some of the largest and most powerful companies in the world, which might make their career prospects very good indeed
Love Monbiot's succinct skewering of TTIP in this article: http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...de-deal-transatlantic-trade-investment-treaty
"The TTIP is widely described as a trade agreement. But while in the past trade agreements sought to address protectionism, now they seek to address protection. In other words, once they promoted free trade by removing trade taxes (tariffs); now they promote the interests of transnational capital by downgrading the defence of human health, the natural world, labour rights, and the poor and vulnerable from predatory corporate practices."
Utterly unsurprising. The "rumour" posted earlier about him being a caretaker until David can come back was so ridiculous it was silly. He doesn't want the leadership, and there's more chance of me being elected leader of the Labour party than David Miliband right now.
N7Commander95
Member
I personally see it being Yvette Cooper
It's Reyn Time!
Member
One of my younger sisters is severely autistic. She's approaching 30 and has the mental age of an eight year old. Under the Tories she's had physical help withdrawn, money to live on lowered, schemes to help her get out of the house ended, respite ended and been forced through the whole DLA-PIP clusterfuck. All of that support was replaced by a scheme where she gets to help make sandwiches for a token payment of less than a pound an hour. She hates it, but won't give it up because it's her only chance to do something that doesn't involve her immediate family and carers.
To those of you who voted Tory and are now fucking whining that you're being shamed, fucking good! You absolutely fucking should be! Any positive you manage to claw out of being governed by the Tories over the next five years is done at the expense of the poorest, most vulnerable people in your society, which makes you either ignorant of widely reported facts or outright complicit in evil.
To those of you who voted Tory and are now fucking whining that you're being shamed, fucking good! You absolutely fucking should be! Any positive you manage to claw out of being governed by the Tories over the next five years is done at the expense of the poorest, most vulnerable people in your society, which makes you either ignorant of widely reported facts or outright complicit in evil.
That makes me really mad just reading that
If it's Yvette Cooper against Boris Johnson Labour can kiss goodbye to the next two elections at least; they need to remove any link to the old guard and it's just too easy for the Tories to say "vote Cooper get Balls".
PJV3
Member
I like him.
But didn't he ignore 80 odd warnings about the Mid Staffs hospital or something?
He shouldn't be even at cabinet level.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
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