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You'd see kids starve then? You want a child quota like in China I suppose?
= less public services
you missed out a bit. less state interference in people profiting from human misery
= rise in poverty, homelesness, crime, drug abuse and misery. Great that eh?
By the way, can you explain what you mean here? Seeing as we've had a right wing government in this country for last 26 years, how is any of that to do with the left?
2. Elaborate...
3. As if they aren't high enough already! And why's that? The confused approach towards dealing with drugs. Policies to try and destroy the nuclear family. Idiots running the education system, etc etc...
So you think that encouraging healthy eating and people to quit smoking is a waste of time? You're all heart you eh?
I'd have thought it was obvious. Allowing business to do whatever they like leads to job insecurity, lower wages, gun running, massive rent, exploitation of the environment, pollution etc. When the only aim is profit, its at the expense of ordinary people.
You really are quite out of touch with reality. We've had 26 years of neo-liberalism and in that time have had more drug abuse, homelessness, poverty and crime. You do the math. Selling off of council homes, lack of building of new social housing, extortionate property prices and rents have led to a rise in homelessness, more drug abuse, more crime, more insecurity etc. I work in drug treatment, I see the results of introducing market forces into all aspects of life everyday. Its really fucked things up and you support it. Nice eh?
I think somebody’s a bit confused. The political compass albeit somewhat flawed places me exactly in the centre. The label ‘far right’ is usually associated with racist extremists such as the BNP and National Front – which interestingly have more in common with the SWP than any of the three main political parties. Anyway what do you mean by far right? You don’t presumably equate classical liberalism, neo-liberalism and conservatism with the ideologies traditionally viewed as far right – as in national socialism and fascism?
The BNP and NF have things in common with the SWP? And you call me confused? Oh the irony.
Your neo-liberalist views are far right in the economic sense. They're barking mad and the results of them are all around us. Come and work in my job for a day and you'll soon change your views.
Numero deux... You're talking about the ugly side of capitalism here, and surprisingly, I'm in some agreement. The amount of money some people in business make is absolutely criminal, and the fact the minimum wage is decided by people who regularly go out for dinners that cost £300 is sickening. But does the state know any better? Too often, the two seem in "kow-tow" with one another...
On to number three... How strange, we both agree the last 26 years or so, policies haven't worked well. I don't particularly think they worked before then either - three-day-week, rubbish being left uncollected, trade unions thinking they run the country - frankly, I'm glad the unions have been docked, but that's another matter. House prices now are indeed ridicilous, great news for people who want to sell, terrible for those who want to buy for the first time. Problem is, the state cocks up running public services, but when you hand them to the private sector, they cock up too. Privatisation of the rail network, anyone?
A complete waste of time and money. Since the 1960s the proportion of the population that smoke has steadily declined – the biggest fall in the 1970s and 1980s was from people giving up and without expensive advertising campaign and thousands of ‘smoking cessation officers’ on £20k/year. While anti-smoking campaigns are in the remits of the likes of Cancer Research UK it’s not something the government should be involved in. Everybody knows smoking is harmful – if despite that somebody chooses to smoke that’s their own decision.
As for encouraging people to eat healthily while there is a problem government campaigns won’t be effective and will prove a useless waste of money. It’s something that could better be tackled at a more local level with private charity and charities like Cancer Research and BHF co-operating with supermarkets to promote healthy foods. Expensive advertising campaigns on TV are only going to benefit advertisers. And essentially it’s for people themselves to take responsibility for their own actions. Same goes with anti-drugs campaigns funded by the government. Pointless waste of money.
So you don't think that education or health care is important? :eek:
Of course the state is in cahoots with big business. Of course capitalism is ugly - its based on exploitation and theft. Do you expect it to be nice? Do you expect a government with a neo-liberal agenda to not support big business?
So you think that neo-liberal policies don't work yet you consistently support them? You're a tad confused aren't you?
So giving people support to beat harnful addictions is a waste of money? All heart you neo-liberals aren't you?
So education is also a waste of money? As for the thing about personal responsibility - yes I agree to an extent. But it assumes that we're all on a level playing field and that we all have the same life choices. We don't, not by a long shot. But for some reason, best known to yourself, you seem to think thats OK, you support policies which increase divisions between people and increase misery. And then you have the nerve to call me a "a nasty yet simple person"? :eek: You're as terminally confused as stargalaxy.
And why are they falling? Nothing to do with people being able to get help with beating an addiction from the NHS?
neo-liberalism
PPP, PFI, introduction of market forces into all aspects of life for a start. You really are quite ignorant
Sounds good to me!
The railways were shit nationalised too. It’s a bizarre myth of a few militant trade unionists that British Rail was some kind of perfect flawless system when it was actually not much different – if not slightly worse than what we have today. British Airways has improved massively since privatisation. Most utilities have with prices in relative terms decreasing. BT got a lot cheaper and improved massively.
Essentially the government is wasteful, inefficient and ineffective. With regard to helping vulnerable people in society – universally private charities almost always direct their resources better than government generally giving better help to those who need it where they can. If the government for instance wanted to help the homeless they’d achieve far more by providing money and resources to say Shelter and the Salvation Army than by increasing Social Services budget.
Hang on, you've just been arguing that the results of neo-liberal policies are shit. Make your mind up.
If they really wanted to do something about the homeless situation then they'd build social housing and do something about the out of control housing market. If you're gonna wank on about something disillusioned, find out a little about the subject first eh? The introduction of market forces into social care has led to a situation where charities are in competition with each other over contracts and budgets with short term contracts awarded leading to inconsistent and uneven care, impossible to reach targets and fiddling of stats to please funders. Try actually working in social care and then see if you have the same fucked up attitudes.
The BNP and NF have more in common with the SWP than they do with the Conservatives, Labour or the LibDems.
A few aspects of Nazi Germany, Hitler’s policy in the Nazi programme of the abolition of all unearned income that doesn’t arise from work for instance and the hostility towards religion – the persecution of Christians for instance, not exactly Tory values are they? But they wouldn't have been out of place in the Bolshevik programme would they?
Errr...what?
What on earth are you on about? Drawing surface comparisons proves what exactly?
It was an example. :rolleyes: I said the BNP has more in common with the SWP than it does with the Conservative party. It’s subjective of course but the far-left and far-right do ironically share some common ground – more imo with each other than with the mainstream parties, as in the Conservatives, Labour and the LibDems.
Anyway it’s thankfully irrelevant. The likes of both the BNP and SWP are fringe parties with a miniscule amount of support and the likelihood of either getting the chance to enact their evil ideologies is fortunately almost nil.
All social care is really is a sticking plaster. Picking up the broken pieces that capitalism leaves behind. Personally I'd prefer a system where everyone was housed and fed and had access to the resources they needed. I don't want to live in a system where money is more important than people. You do.
Errr...yeah. I guess the immigration policies of the tories don't figure in your frankly quite bizarre take on politics then?
I'm no fan of the SWP anyway so I'm not really sure what point you're attempting to make.
People have been housing themselves for years, squatting empty buildings. One of the reasons I have so much contempt for Howard is because he changed the squatting laws, making it much much harder for people to house themselves.
Cameron has since scrapped the policy on immigration that Howard adopted at the last election. That said Howard’s views on immigration do not remotely share any ground with that of the BNP. The BNP I believe support repatriating British citizens? The BNP’s policies are based on xenophobia and racism.
The Tories were taking a pragmatic approach. You don’t have to be particularly bright to realise that we live in a small densely populated island, immigrants have deeply enriched Britain yet as desirable as it may be Britain can’t take an unlimited number of immigrants. With constraints already on housing in the South East and developers already eagerly wishing to make inroads to the Green Belt it’s simply being practical to state that we cannot take everyone who wants to come here. Surely the Tories by reflecting that view were simply been practical? There wasn’t a hint of biological racism in their tone – whether you agree with their policy or not surely you’re not seriously suggesting that Howard was professing some far-right white supremacist ideology?
Oh and the theory that the far-left and far-right share some common ground – Communism and Nazism for instance having more in common with each other than either with the centre-left or centre-right is while generalising to an extent quite a popular approach.