Champagne socialists
Discussion
I hate hypocrites. Once upon a time Steve Coogan was a left-wing drama student who read the Guardian. As such, he doubtless reviled the selfish culture of cars and held them entirely responsible for all man's woes, global warming, death, AIDs etc etc. I expect he rode a bike too.
Now that he's got a few bob though, he's happy chatting to Jeremy Clarkson about fast cars and how nice they are. One of us in fact. Wonder if he still votes for high tax, high regulation, fun-is-bad Labour?
Now that he's got a few bob though, he's happy chatting to Jeremy Clarkson about fast cars and how nice they are. One of us in fact. Wonder if he still votes for high tax, high regulation, fun-is-bad Labour?
I hate hypocrites. Once upon a time Steve Coogan was a left-wing drama student who read the Guardian. As such, he doubtless reviled the selfish culture of cars and held them entirely responsible for all man's woes, global warming, death, AIDs etc etc. I expect he rode a bike too.
Now that he's got a few bob though, he's happy chatting to Jeremy Clarkson about fast cars and how nice they are. One of us in fact. Wonder if he still votes for high tax, high regulation, fun-is-bad Labour?
One thing Steve Coogan has never done is ride a poxy bike – he's too much like Paul Calf in real life.
"And all the mungbean salad you can eat ..."
Classic.
I hardly think it's hypocritical to be well off, have a few nice cars, and yet still vote Labour.
After all, that's what I do too.
I come from a poor background, have worked my way up, and want to make sure that the party with the best chance of keeping that happening is in power.
Yes, there are problems with Labour, but recognising that doesn't make me a hypocrite.
Hypocrites are those that call for lower taxes for themselves (middle classes), while happy to punt the burden upwards, to those of us who already pay well into six figures.
After all, that's what I do too.
I come from a poor background, have worked my way up, and want to make sure that the party with the best chance of keeping that happening is in power.
Yes, there are problems with Labour, but recognising that doesn't make me a hypocrite.
Hypocrites are those that call for lower taxes for themselves (middle classes), while happy to punt the burden upwards, to those of us who already pay well into six figures.
northernboy said:
Hypocrites are those that call for lower taxes for themselves (middle classes), while happy to punt the burden upwards, to those of us who already pay well into six figures.
No but the likes of the labour elite are. You may well be fortunate enough to sustain a life style that you have worked hard to achieve.
Very many of the class you refer to as 'middle' are struggling to do so, especially in the South and South East. They work probably just as hard.
The Hypocrisy comes from within the ethos of Labour strategy. They are squeezing the 'middle' class beyond what they can endure. They will have to be very careful as Labour may end up biting off more than the can chew.
>> Edited by madcop on Monday 11th November 09:12
Have you noticed how many people who have become well off put it down to 'hard work'. Yes, I'm sure hard work is part of it, but the bigger part is LUCK. There are plenty of people who have worked their b***ocks off all their life and can't afford a second hand Mercedes, let alone a new one
John
John
spnracing said: I've always been a bit of a leftie yet I've been driving 'performance' cars since I was 21 and I currently cruise around in a new E class.
Hypocrite?
Being a leftie is not the same as being a socialist. Are you sure you're not a tad jealous of New Labour's continued success?
Jealous of their succes???
What the f@ck have they been successful at?? No-one votes any more cos the damn politicians are all so bent and corrupt that its a worthless exercise, so polling 50% or more of sweet FA isn't exactly successful? I can't think of a single thing so far that New Improved Bleached Semi-Organic You Can Taste The Freshness Labour have done that gives them any cause for celebration
Schools - Ummmmmm nope
NHS - Ummmmm, nope
Social Security - ummmmmmm, nope
Immigration Policy - Ummmmmm nope
Policing - Ummm nope
Roads - Ummmmm nope
Armed Forces - Ummm nope
Taxes - Ahhh YES!!!!!!!! Here's the winner!
Its all boll@cks n arse
I meant success in the polls.
But if you are referring to the massive investments they are making in education, health, etc etc - yes, these things take time especially after far too many years of Tory government cutbacks.
Anyway we digress.
The topic was 'champagne socialists'. and the point was basically that people who vote labour shouldn't have any money. Which is bollocks.
But if you are referring to the massive investments they are making in education, health, etc etc - yes, these things take time especially after far too many years of Tory government cutbacks.
Anyway we digress.
The topic was 'champagne socialists'. and the point was basically that people who vote labour shouldn't have any money. Which is bollocks.
Those who work their balls off, and yet earn very little money could, if money is what motivates tyem, earn more. It might mean re-training, but the only reason I can earn what I did is that I put in the effort to get a numerate degree, trained, and then chose a career that I knew at the outset would pay well. I tried some other careers first (which paid poorly), and made a conscious decision to move, at age 25, into a better paid area.
I get a little pissed off when the people who voted tory for eighteen years (when their main selling point was that they'd cut social spending and cut taxes) to reduce their own tax bill now scream how unfair it is now.
Lok at what your precious party did to the North East (among other areas), and perhaps realise that you still have it damned good. I had to leave my home region to get a good job, and I will resent the conservatives until the day I die because of that.
No such thing as society? Well they tried damned hard to make that true, and thankfully, the country has at last seen them for what they really are.
Bah, humbug.
I get a little pissed off when the people who voted tory for eighteen years (when their main selling point was that they'd cut social spending and cut taxes) to reduce their own tax bill now scream how unfair it is now.
Lok at what your precious party did to the North East (among other areas), and perhaps realise that you still have it damned good. I had to leave my home region to get a good job, and I will resent the conservatives until the day I die because of that.
No such thing as society? Well they tried damned hard to make that true, and thankfully, the country has at last seen them for what they really are.
Bah, humbug.
northernboy said:I come from a poor background, have worked my way up, and want to make sure that the party with the best chance of keeping that happening is in power.
My background's much the same, but I got a good start in life due to the Tories' assisted places scheme enabling me to go to a private school which my parents could no way have afforded otherwise, instead of the drug-ridden local comp with its high staff turnover and appalling academic record. Since then, Labour has gone out of its way to ensure that bright working-class kids are forced into the strait jacket of the comprehensive system, where they're dragged down to the lowest common denominator level. I can't bring myself to vote Tory under IDS, but I'm sure as hell not going to vote for a party that hinders people from ordinary backgrounds from making something of themselves.
johnelliott said:Have you noticed how many people who have become well off put it down to 'hard work'. Yes, I'm sure hard work is part of it, but the bigger part is LUCK.
Bullsh*t. Other than a (very) few jammy gits who have a rich daddy or win Pop Idol or something, no-one gets a well-paid job due to luck. I work in investment banking, and I can tell you, there's no-one here who got their job on the roll of a die. Everyone has a CV that shows years of bloody hard work and dogged ambition, all the way through school, university and professional life.
Do you have any actual evidence to back up your claim that luck is more important than hard work in doing well for yourself in life, or is it just based on jealousy and too much reading and believing of leftie tabloids?
spnracing said:
The topic was 'champagne socialists' and the point was basically that people who vote labour shouldn't have any money. Which is bollocks.
I interpreted the thread as asking, effectively, how do you reconcile, or perhaps interpret, the position the comic had in his presumably 'radical' past with his more 'corporate-friendly' contemporary persona.
Certainly, I recall almost puking with laughter at the guy a while back during an extremely unradical corporate gig he was milking...I had no idea he had had any such political leanings but there you go.
Isn't Alexi Sayle another one like this? Twenty years ago, the concept of him running a Lexus to the south of France for CAR magazine would not have endeared him to his then core audience.
And John Lydon, ne Rotten, is almost monarch friendly in his fond, middle age dotage! How the flame of revolution dims with a tan of cash and a stack of french porn...
Socialism was all about equality, fundamentally; I think the proposer was simply highlighting an apparent contradiction of attitude within one previously allied to it's closest definitions.
Which might be, kind of, hypocritical.
I'd disagree with the assertion that comprehensive education drags peopel down to the lowest common denominator. It MAY, in certain cases, but my comp education was enough to propel me to my current career (also in investment banking, by the way, DrSeuss, what bit are you in?), so clearly, in certain cases, it educates people perfectly well.
>> Edited by northernboy on Monday 11th November 13:41
>> Edited by northernboy on Monday 11th November 13:41
And you honestly believe that having Labour in power will allow that to continue? Already the country seems to be on the road to massive strikes....
northernboy said: I come from a poor background, have worked my way up, and want to make sure that the party with the best chance of keeping that happening is in power.
Do you believe that things are better, worse or the same since Labour came to power. Why?
Thats a bit of a generalisation, saying that only the "middle classes" are hypocrites.
Hypocrites are those that call for lower taxes for themselves (middle classes), while happy to punt the burden upwards, to those of us who already pay well into six figures.
Also I wasn't aware that they were punting the burden upwards - personally I think that less taxes should be raised full-stop. Where can the savings be made? - in the civil service & governmental beaurocracy. We need a complete strip-down & rebuild of our civil service, as the inefficiencies & timewasting by public servants is criminal.
Aren't you a load of whingeing bankers. It's because of all your hard work that the country has no real manufacturing base left. Don't you realise that each time you "make" money through your "hard work" that it is actually at the expense of some poor company that is getting trashed.
Get yourselves a real job that does something positive for the country.
By the way I'm an engineer who is likely to be laid off soon because of "investment?" *ankers.
Get yourselves a real job that does something positive for the country.
By the way I'm an engineer who is likely to be laid off soon because of "investment?" *ankers.
Craigalsop, what makes you think that civil servants are all inefficient or timewasting?
My wife is a senior civil servant, and is doing an absolutely necessary job, and earning about 100k per year less than she would in the private sector (and she does have the choice of switching). She does this because she wants to do some good for the country.
I too used to be a civil servant for a while. I eventually decided to multiply my salary by a factor of fifteen, and leave, as I wasn't willing to make the same sacrifice as my wife does.
Despite the good work, she gets nothing from grief by the great public, unaware of just what sort of work goes on in whitehall. The civil service is constantly being streamlined, cut back, and forced to make efficiencies, to the point where it has trouble functioning. If you really think that it could be done cheaper in the private sector, you're living in cloud cuckoo land.
My wife is a senior civil servant, and is doing an absolutely necessary job, and earning about 100k per year less than she would in the private sector (and she does have the choice of switching). She does this because she wants to do some good for the country.
I too used to be a civil servant for a while. I eventually decided to multiply my salary by a factor of fifteen, and leave, as I wasn't willing to make the same sacrifice as my wife does.
Despite the good work, she gets nothing from grief by the great public, unaware of just what sort of work goes on in whitehall. The civil service is constantly being streamlined, cut back, and forced to make efficiencies, to the point where it has trouble functioning. If you really think that it could be done cheaper in the private sector, you're living in cloud cuckoo land.
Matt (plotloss) - 
Bit of a rant, but I'm glad you liked it!
northernboy - I'm in investment management, specifically mutual funds. And yourself?
As for comps dragging people down, my sister went to the local comp (her choice), and found that the more...er...intellectually-challenged members of her class not only took up massively disproportionate amounts of the teachers' time, but also tended to pick on the brighter kids for being 'swots', with the result that some of them deliberately 'hid their light'. In my sister's O-level year, one teacher was assaulted by a pupil and was off work for a while, resulting in her classes being taught by an inexperienced supply teacher. No way would any of that have happened at my school.
I take my hat off to you for coming from a comprehensive and doing so well, but I think you're the exception. IMHO "one size fits all" education is a failed social experiment, and we desperately need a return to State grammar schools.
nemery - Thanks for your first contribution to PH, but the usual level of debate on here is somewhat higher than calling people "*ankers". Please try harder.
Bit of a rant, but I'm glad you liked it! northernboy - I'm in investment management, specifically mutual funds. And yourself?
As for comps dragging people down, my sister went to the local comp (her choice), and found that the more...er...intellectually-challenged members of her class not only took up massively disproportionate amounts of the teachers' time, but also tended to pick on the brighter kids for being 'swots', with the result that some of them deliberately 'hid their light'. In my sister's O-level year, one teacher was assaulted by a pupil and was off work for a while, resulting in her classes being taught by an inexperienced supply teacher. No way would any of that have happened at my school.
I take my hat off to you for coming from a comprehensive and doing so well, but I think you're the exception. IMHO "one size fits all" education is a failed social experiment, and we desperately need a return to State grammar schools.
nemery - Thanks for your first contribution to PH, but the usual level of debate on here is somewhat higher than calling people "*ankers". Please try harder.
Gassing Station | Motoring News | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff