We have a new Prime Minister

[ThaFlash]

Wait a minute, your conservatives actually execute the tasks of cutting spending? And they'll increase taxes to cut deficits?

 

Ideology aside, that's impressive, they should get together and write a book for our conservatives, proceeds can go towards your budget.

[Triggerhappychappy]

Reminds me of an episode of Bremner, Bird & Fortune a while back, with regards to military spending. Most of the equipment the MOD has currently is totally unfit/unsuitable for use in the middle east ( think: dust + airfilters ) , and is actually only much good for a conventional war fought in northern Europe- ie against the Russkis invading Germany. That, and the 2 new aircraft carriers will be filled with planes that dont have an effective range for anything other than coastal conflict zones ( new carriers or new planes, cant have both ). Kinda laughable really- whats needed for dessert conflicts are sandles and AKs, hence why the insurgents are still putting up a good fight several years after 'we won'...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pcePHasv5w army

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6h8i8wrajA navy

 

Laughable...

[Xaccers]

Wait a minute, your conservatives actually execute the tasks of cutting spending? And they'll increase taxes to cut deficits?

 

Ideology aside, that's impressive, they should get together and write a book for our conservatives, proceeds can go towards your budget.

 

 

That's something which I've always thought was interesting.

Over here the Tories traditionally come in to sort out the mess the previous Labour government have made of the economy, yet didn't both Bushes screw up the US economy, and under Clinton it was rather solvent?

[Stealthbomber]

That's something which I've always thought was interesting.

Over here the Tories traditionally come in to sort out the mess the previous Labour government have made of the economy, yet didn't both Bushes screw up the US economy, and under Clinton it was rather solvent?

To be fair, I think history will suggest that Blair and Brown sorted out the mess Thatcher and Major left behind.

Seems, to me, like it's almost just blind luck.

They take credit for anything that goes right and then deny responsibility when stuff goes wrong.

 

Course, whichever way you slice it the US deficit is driving the country toward inevitable bankrupcy but when you're about the only remaining superpower I guess they (the pol's) all figure they can sweep it under the rug for now.

[galactica]

Thatcher left the UK in a debt-free state. The deficit started to rise during the major years, then fell again to almost equilibrium and then was on the way out when Blair got in. You can't really have Brown & Blair take the prize for a deficit that was on the downswing in the curve before they got in office. The UK wasn't in anything like the state in 1997 that it was in 1979. The Major govt was thrown out due to "sleaze" (which would later be found an everyday occurence in the labour administration) and in-fighting in the Tory party. Cyclical stuff, egged on by the media. In 1979 in Britain, it really was a case of there being piles of rubbish in the streets and massive unemployment. Not so in 1997, then, the people were just fed up of them and the rest of England joined in on the kicking that the scots and the north wanted to give them for the mines, poll tax etc. etc.

 

Any NI increases you think you've heard about are news to me, the biggest part of the Con manifesto was an opposition to an employer-side NI raise that you may have heard as the "jobs tax". that's gone.

 

VAT rise was inevitable whichever way it got cooked. It's an extra tenner on the price of an iPad. Big whoop.

 

Military cuts, obviously you cannot comment on properly since the SDR hasn't been done yet - but if it's less submarines then good show. We don't need any more submarines. We don't even need the ones we have.

 

It's a myth that US economies do better under the Reps than the Dems....in the last century, it's done better under the Dems pretty much all the time.

[Stealthbomber]

Any NI increases you think you've heard about are news to me, the biggest part of the Con manifesto was an opposition to an employer-side NI raise that you may have heard as the "jobs tax". that's gone.

Must admit, I'm starting to wonder if I am mistaken myself.

As I got up this morning there was DEFINITELY some guy on telly talking about a rise to 20% for VAT and a penny on NI.

He was mentioning this along with the 5% pay cut for MPs so I got the impression he was talking about stuff they were planning on doing.

 

Beyond that, I don't really disagree with anything you've said.

It's all just business-as-usual politics.

Whoever's in power (and their supporters) will justify spending cuts while the opposition will criticise them for it.

The tories criticise Labour for raising taxes but then carry them through for themselves.

At the end of the day it's a similar thing with the economy in general.

There's no way to prove it but I doubt that having the tories in power 4 years ago would have averted the global recession that's affected us in the last couple of years.

 

It's just great to be able to blame "the other guy".

[galactica]

You're correct, that's pretty much exactly how it goes.

 

Except for one tasty little detail, and that's Vince Cable's warning in 2003 to Gordon Brown, which he tried to make as much fuss about as possible, about how the debt economy was going to go bonkers.

 

Here's Gord's response.

 

"The honourable gentleman has been writing articles in the newspapers, as reflected in his contribution, that spread alarm, without substance, about the state of the British economy."

 

Vince wrote the book on it, back in 2003. He had the advantage of actually having had a real job as an economist before being a politician, something of an anathema to the NuLabour bigwigs, who had groomed themselves for greatness after university.

 

Well that went well. My mate who worked in New York in banks 1998-2003 told me "there's a massive debt bubble blowing....it's going to break in the next five years, big time." He thought it was going to be effing horrible. He reckoned without the bailouts, I think.

 

We're lucky it was as gentle as it was. It could yet happen again. But with Vince in the mix, I think it might be a little safer. maybe. He's a good guy.

[Stealthbomber]

The main thing that worries me about the Tories is whether they actually care so much about the entire population.

I can't help thinking that, in the Thatcher years particuarly, they might have allowed a debt crisis to occur on the basis that it might generate a lot of opportunities for people who have the capital to take advantage of the situation.

 

I knwo that IS just paranoid speculation but we are now, effectively, relying in a more "capitalist" party to take care of things for us.

If the people involved are more moderate and realistic then things should be fine.

If they turn out to be the same as the Conservative party of old we could be in trouble.

 

I'm prepared to see how things go though.

As I think I said before, I do start to feel a bit uneasy when I see guys like Jeffrey Archer, Michael Heseltine and Douglas Hurd on telly again. I'd be happier if they were taken out and shot (yes, really) TBH, just to be on the safe side.

[snowman]

Thatcher left the economy in a debt free state? Well, that's debatable of course, but if so, it was only because she sold everything the country had to do so.

 

The woman was a disaster for this country (not to mention a Right Wing Bigot, bordering on Fascist - Pinochet is a nice man, Mandela's a Terrorist) and yet people still hold her up as a symbol of Tory greatness. Nothing made me more depressed than seeing the large photo of her in the office as Cameron came to talk to the press. Clearly the Tories still believe in her beliefs and that is a very, very bad thing for anyone except the super rich.

 

The TV is talking right now about how the 'middle income' group will suffer most under the Tories - Well, what a surprise, they always do... The Tories support the rich and con the middle income group into believing that under the Tories they can become rich too - Trouble is, it's not true...

 

Funnily I also saw a clip from the new Wall Street Film.

 

"Greed is good... Seems it's now legal"

 

Maybe I'll be proved wrong and Cameron has different spots or the LDs will somehow constrain the Tory's default "F You Jack, I'm alright" approach, but I wouldn't bet my pension (which probably won't be worth what I put into it when I retire) on it...

 

M.

[galactica]

Snowman, the value of your pension (or lack of it) is entirely down to Gordon, and the same goes for mine. He ruined the pensions.

 

I'm not in any way a thatcherite, I was merely stating the financial facts of how she left the country. She was an awful nazi, in my view. FWIW, I think Cameron may be a different kind of tory. Having a disabled child who died is surely going to make him slightly more human than the robots like Hurd, Archer etc. The rest of his party, particularly the likes of Osborne and Gove (who makes me shiver in a Michael Howard kind of way) not so much. Happily, the Lib Dems are there to try to curb their selfish instincts.

[DarkLite]

I think we're missing the big issue here. When will someone throw Peter Mandelson into a pit of firey chainsaw rape?

 

Whilst we're at it, toss Hazel Blears in there with him.

 

Then cover the pit with 5 feet of concrete.

[galactica]

It is my hope that now his purpose is exhausted on this plane of existence, Mandelson's corporeal form will turn to dust quite rapidly. I think Labour have the presence of him and war criminal Alastair Campbell to blame for a significant drop in popularity. Why was Mandelson so visible? Everyone hates him.

[creepingfear]

Peter Mandelson die and disappear? Never. We all know the un-dead can't die.

[Stealthbomber]

Genuine question:-

 

Is Mandelson still set to become King Of The Internet now that Labour are out of power?

I can't recall if it was a ministerial job (which'd mean he's done with it now) or a civil service job which means he's probably still drawing up his plans for world domination.

 

In other news, I see that the Con-Dems are so shocked by the way Brown was running the country in the last 12 months that he's asked for a complete audit to be carried out.

Highlights so far seem to be that top civil servants have received an average bonus of 75% of their yearly salary last year while the economy all went tits-up around them.

[galactica]

Mandy's days of influence in govt are over for now, but the damnable bill they left behind which was actually written by the BPI, is still there. Hopefully the coalition will repeal some of it as the LDs hoped to.

 

The behaviour of the labour ministers in the last weeks of the administration appears to be actually criminal in its irresponsibility.

[Xaccers]

Genuine question:-

 

Is Mandelson still set to become King Of The Internet now that Labour are out of power?

I can't recall if it was a ministerial job (which'd mean he's done with it now) or a civil service job which means he's probably still drawing up his plans for world domination.

 

In other news, I see that the Con-Dems are so shocked by the way Brown was running the country in the last 12 months that he's asked for a complete audit to be carried out.

Highlights so far seem to be that top civil servants have received an average bonus of 75% of their yearly salary last year while the economy all went tits-up around them.

 

Close, 75% of senior civil servants were given a bonus.

 

Spending levels were so dangerous that civil servants demanded written evidence to show what Labour were doing.

[mattmanic]

Genuine question:-

 

Is Mandelson still set to become King Of The Internet now that Labour are out of power?

 

Doesn't look like it: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1649300/minister-broadband

[Stealthbomber]

Mandy's days of influence in govt are over for now, but the damnable bill they left behind which was actually written by the BPI, is still there. Hopefully the coalition will repeal some of it as the LDs hoped to.

 

Doesn't look like it: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1649300/minister-broadband

 

S'funny but I'm not really worried about the parts of the bill that most people are upset by.

I don't download heaps of stuff and I'm pretty sure the government will simply back-heel responsibility for downloading to ISPs who'll continue to monitor it simply on the basis of who's downloading squillions of gigabytes of data every month.

 

It's the more nefarious bits of it that worry me.

From what I recall (I read it a couple of months ago) the department will have access to personal information sent over the interweb (all in the interests of national security donchaknow) and you just KNOW that Mandelson wouldn't have shown any interest in the job unless there was some serious opportunity to become "da man" as a result of it.

 

Course, I may be giving him too much credit and he simply thought "Oooh, the internet is the future so I'd better get involved with that".

Course, if the stories are true he didn't give a toss about the internet until after some music industy big-wigs (Sony?) paid for a holiday for him, after which he came back full of desire to stop all digital copyright theft.

 

What a guy!

[The Chef]

Personally I hope that this coalition actually works.

 

I'm a big believer in people, and not governments. I suppose I am conservative at heart, but I've not always been a conservative voter.

I don't believe that the state should rule our every day lives and I also don't believe that everyone has a god given right to make other people pay for them.

To get help first, first you've got to help yourself.

Having spent nearly a year in redundancy, I had to fight to secure another job (granted I don't like it, hence why I'm looking for something else). In that time I couldn't claim a penny because I'd saved whilst I was working.

The lack of 'work' in this country is depressing. I sympathise fully with anyone who is 'seeking' employment. It's a tough world out there at the moment. But to sit back, relax and let the working people of this country bear your burden is not right.

 

Everyone has to pull together in what ever capacity and do their bit.

 

I once went to a school and spoke to a young child (of about 8 years) and he said his aspiration for work was to, and I quote.... "go on the dole like my dad". Shocking!

 

 

 

Now, I firmly believe that all governments run the same race but under different colours.

None of them have the best intentions of the 'people' at heart, only the best intentions of the Party. After all, this is what keeps them on the gravy train (just look at Harriet 'the harridan' Harperson's face when they lost..... crying into her beans she was! poor little lamb) so why would they do anything to jeopardise that?

Hence all the blaming of the other guy and the inability to say 'yes or no' to an answer and not to accept glaringly obvious fact if it doesn't suit your argument.

Michael Gove is shocking at this.... saw him on an interview where he was bleating on about how the cons have been voted in by the majority, and when it was pointed out to him that about 66% of the populous (lab/lib/others combined) didn't vote for them, and that 66% is somewhat larger than the 33% the cons got (or what ever the figure was), he just looked at the interviewer like he had grown an extra head! The chap isn't fit to man a school crossing let alone run part of the country.

And more of the 'nest feathering' with the Libs jumping into bed with who ever would pay the most. Political whores.

Yes, they are the king makers now, and hold more power even though they are a minority. An absolute windfall for them and I can see why they grasped it. But is that with the best intentions of the public in mind?

 

But.... this session of government is saddled with some tough times. No matter who you blame, serious cuts are (and always were) on the cards. Even a plebeian could see that living on credit was not sustainable. The man asks for his money back at some point. The financial system became so complex that nobody actually knew where the money was, and then pseudo-money was created and it spiralled out of control (sub-prime debt and other such inventions). It was only a mater of time before it bit us all.

So yes, the banking system has some part of the blame.

But what burns my backside is that everyone else is completely oblivious to their own part of the blame in this mess. Everyone who has a credit card maxed out. All these loans, debts, IOU's for things they must have now (rather than save for them) are all to blame. I've been there myself, made that mistake, I accept my part, but I knuckled down and paid off my debts (which were considerable, we're talking 5 figures here). I now never use my credit card and buy everything outright. If I can't afford it, I go without.

 

So, some tough times are ahead. They (the government) will be blamed for it, they won't be popular for it and it may be the death knell for them, but it needs to happen. it's one big sh!t sandwich and we're all going to have to take a big bite!

 

But everything is cyclical. 1979 Labour handed a shot economy to the Cons. 1993, Cons gave it back in a similar state to which they found it.... Same happened now. Can you see the pattern? They all inherit a crock of pooh. They all blame the others, they deal with it for a bit, blaming the others, then when the going's good, the get full of themselves and proceed to ruin it all again. Ultimate power ultimately corrupts. It's the one certainty of government.

 

But hopefully....

The two sides (Lib/Con) will play off each other and temper each others fire. Hopefully we'll see things emerge that are in the country's best interest. Hopefully we will start to see home grown businesses being encouraged, a return to decent British manufacturing. More investment on becoming self sufficient in generating power (wind, solar, nuclear, wave) so we are not held over a barrel by foreign power companies or dependant on the Russians for gas. We'd be sunk if they turn the tap off.

Hopefully we'll see a shift in the welfare state whereby people think, and to quote JFK 'not what can my country do for me, but what can I do for my country'.

 

So whilst no-one got exactly what they wanted..... We ALL got what we wanted. We voted for a hung parliament.

 

A change is as good as a rest.

I hope it does this country some good.

[creepingfear]

Mandy's days of influence in govt are over for now, but the damnable bill they left behind which was actually written by the BPI, is still there. Hopefully the coalition will repeal some of it as the LDs hoped to.

 

The behaviour of the labour ministers in the last weeks of the administration appears to be actually criminal in its irresponsibility.

 

I think the BBC likened it to a sort of political/financial scorched earth policy.

[Stealthbomber]

I seem to recall (I'm sure Chimpy will be along to correct me) Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde (or some other wag) once said something like "Any young man who isn't a liberal is a callous beast and any man who isn't a conservative by the time they're 40 is a spineless dreamer".

I probably got that a bit wrong but I'm sure you can understand the sentiment.

 

Thing is, as that relates to party politics, is that it means that young conservatives probably ARE in it for the glory while it's more likely that young liberals probably DO want to change the world (for the better, I hope).

Trouble is that once you get down to the nitty-gritty there's always going to be tough decisions to make.

I guess the conservatives are one up on the liberals in that sense.

They've ALWAYS had their ideals and they can make tough decisions and still hold onto those ideals.

When a liberal starts having to make tough decisions it'll almost always compromise his ideals and then he has nothing left.

 

That's pretty deep for this time of the morning.

 

In other news, I thought it was kinda funny that Dave's first order of business seems to be to create fixed-term governments.

I guess he doesn't need a crystal ball to see that the liberals plan on threatening to force another election every time they don't get their own way.

 

Also, I saw something on the news saying that some comedian had left a note at the exchequer saying "Sorry, there's no money left".

Dunno if that's true.

[Azubi]

Haha oh yes it was true! Not a Comedian though, but the old Labour one left the note as a joke as he left.

[Triggerhappychappy]

Seems like MPs arent happy about the new expenses watchdog thingy; they dont like that they have to produce more/ actual receipts for their expenses, that they wont get full refunds for phonecalls, or that they wont get the expenses in advance for stuff they have to pay for. on balance, it looks like young Mr Cameron is cracking the whip big style to try and clean up the image of politics- no more gravy train....

[Stealthbomber]

Seems like MPs arent happy about the new expenses watchdog thingy; they dont like that they have to produce more/ actual receipts for their expenses, that they wont get full refunds for phonecalls, or that they wont get the expenses in advance for stuff they have to pay for. on balance, it looks like young Mr Cameron is cracking the whip big style to try and clean up the image of politics- no more gravy train....

Meh,

 

Corruption was one of the main reasons the tories got booted out in 1997.

Just goes to show they're as bad as each other IMO.

 

Always been baffled about expenses though.

IIRC, they have a system where they don't need to provide receipts for anything under summat like £50 and how anybody can fail to see the gaping hole in that system is beyond me.

 

I also don't buy the whole "It'd cost too much to chase every receipt" thing.

That is, quite frankly, utter b*llocks.

I've never worked for ANY private company that felt it wasn't worth checking employee expenses to the penny.

 

TBH, I can see where the MPs POV comes from.

As far as they're concerned they're doing us all a favour by running the country for us.

Well, that's fair enough.

Tell you what I'd do.

I'd buy a couple of travelodges close to Westminster and give every MP a room.

I'd issue each MP with meal vouchers that could be redeemed at a number of places around London.

I'd issue each MP with 2 uniforms (nice presentable ones) to be worn on official business.

I'd organise a deal between the railways (and/or airlines) to provide regular transport between the MPs home and Westminster.

Beyond that, I'd be happy to pay any additional expenses incurred upon production of a valid receipt.

 

TBH, I'd also be tempted to insist that EVERY MP was forced to travel everywhere using public transport but that'd be vindictive and I'm smart enough to realise that travelling by public transport is often totally impractical.

[galactica]

actually, it was "sleaze" that partly did for the tories in 1997. Not corruption on the scale we've seen recently, though of course it still went on, and perhaps more so. but that's what it was. affairs and all that, IIRC. Neil Hamilton etc. Mandelson did far worse, several times.