Be of good cheer - we're saved!

[daveydave7]

If Labour do win will some celebrities be saying they will be leaving

[maffski]

Victor McDade said:

I'm no fan of New Labour but the differences between the two main parties in this country when it comes to the economy are minuscule. Both are for higher taxation, lots of spending and lots of borrowing.

Yep, I remember in the run up to the election it was all Conservative austerity and Labour spending, Newsnight compared what the two parties were planning/commiting to and it turned out the Tories wanted to cut spending by something like 0.3% of GDP more than Labour.

[stitched]

vonuber said:

Or, maybe they think they are a party who care for the poor, sick, disadvantaged and disabled more than the Conservatives and value that?

Just how do you imagine all these doctors from third world countries managed to qualify? Perhaps it's because they had the courage and determination to drag themselves out of poverty, instead of crying about being forced to do an hours homework during X Box time.
Nobody who had access to the learning opportunities our education system offers those who actually want qualifications has anyone but themselves to blame.

[speedy_thrills]

vonuber said:

Or, maybe they think they are a party who care for the poor, sick, disadvantaged and disabled more than the Conservatives and value that?

I thought the Conservatives had the high ground on cuts actually even as a lefty socialist type. In fact at first I thought they made swift headway. They squandered it though, there is something about the way many Conservatives relish the perceived social justice of spending cuts that really rubs the public up the wrong way.

As a nation the British seem able to tolerate a belt tightening if we feel it's for the greater good, all in it together etc. When they dropped the top tax rate (regardless of the validity of their argument) it was as if they just tacked too close to the wind and both public and press opinion turned. The British aren't inherently socialist (unfortunately ) but they are pretty egalitarian. Conservatives have not managed to reassure the public that while pulling the carpet on social support there will be a greater opportunity and equality of opportunity. No one will vote for a government that promises a prosperity from which ordinary people are excluded ergo the Conservatives are destined for the opposition benches again. This shouldn't be so difficult for a centre-right party to grasp, after all Thatcher almost perfected that exact pitch on opportunity which won her a lot of support in the lower middle and skilled working class.

In a way that's why I can sympathise with UKIP voters, the Conservatives just don't deserve a vote at the moment.

[speedy_thrills]

stitched said:

Just how do you imagine all these doctors from third world countries managed to qualify? Perhaps it's because they had the courage and determination to drag themselves out of poverty, instead of crying about being forced to do an hours homework during X Box time.
Nobody who had access to the learning opportunities our education system offers those who actually want qualifications has anyone but themselves to blame.

Though the UK has one of the worst measures of inter-generational income elasticity in the OECD. Regardless of if it's a problem with roots in social or economic it’s squandered talent and potential.

[stitched]

speedy_thrills said:

stitched said:

Just how do you imagine all these doctors from third world countries managed to qualify? Perhaps it's because they had the courage and determination to drag themselves out of poverty, instead of crying about being forced to do an hours homework during X Box time.
Nobody who had access to the learning opportunities our education system offers those who actually want qualifications has anyone but themselves to blame.

Though the UK has one of the worst measures of inter-generational income elasticity in the OECD. Regardless of if it's a problem with roots in social or economic it’s squandered talent and potential.

Maybe if someones parents and 2 elder siblings had to work 80 hours a day to afford the privelige of schooling of the 3rd child then they would make a tiny bit more effort, however watching your parents and two elder siblings lounge around the house all day, quite comfortably smoking, watching telly and playing computer games might IMHO leave you less than inspired.
I'm all in favour of providing shelter and sustenance, free medical care and training to anyone who through no fault of their own is not working but we have gone far too far along the route of rewarding the feckless.

[einsign]

Haggleburyfinius said:

You know what's terrifying?

the every day retard in the UK

We are all doomed: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[AnonSpoilsport]

speedy_thrills said:

stitched said:

Just how do you imagine all these doctors from third world countries managed to qualify? Perhaps it's because they had the courage and determination to drag themselves out of poverty, instead of crying about being forced to do an hours homework during X Box time.
Nobody who had access to the learning opportunities our education system offers those who actually want qualifications has anyone but themselves to blame.

Though the UK has one of the worst measures of inter-generational income elasticity in the OECD. Regardless of if it's a problem with roots in social or economic it’s squandered talent and potential.

The sad but true fact, elitist as it sounds, is that many don't have much talent or potential to begin with. Worse, a sizeable number of those who do waste it - in our feckless, poorly parented (state as the parent, control and moral guardian, hah, all too often), shallow, instant reward, easy gain, high expectation society and our lamentable state education system (esp. KS3 and 4).

Unless we change our expectations of what we want or are willing for the education and economy to give and accomodate what is to be done with people with little academic ability, intelligence or flexibility of thought? Let alone drive or ambition.

Historically, agrarian labour catered, to an extent, for the people we now see clogging up the economy and benefits system - though in a parlous and harshly perilous way - but with a far smaller population to provide for. Mass industrialisation gave scope for many more, of the expanding population, to find gainful employment, including the types who (now) will never hack it in banking, IT, insurance or whatever. Then there was the mass-labour approach to the multitude of wars and Empire building/protecting. The archetypes of 'factory fodder' and 'canon fodder'.

Much of this has gone and the demands are now so different. What are people without the cognitive abilities or skills needed by our service industry and finance led economy to do? Every time someone calls for the move to provide practical, vocational courses in schools (as courses equally valued with the traditional academic type) it seems to be stymied. Anyone who calls for the deployment of the lowly qualified/long term unemployed/benefit takers/young/ et al on infra-structure schemes like road building, city regeneration, social projects etc. - the myriad of 'workfare' activities that could be organised - they risk being accused of slave labour loving fascists.

So what should we (or our esteemed 'leaders') do? Surely we can't carry on like this for too much longer...