Who Admits To Being A Tory?

[Guest]

something along these lines would please most people of working class background i guess, some items may be tory, some more labour, but not the extremes we are currently seeing proposed;

 

taxation of the very high paid (ie the bankers) at more realistic levels. million pound bonuses taxed heavily

 

highest paid directors - how about a cap at £2m pa before taxing at say 75%?

 

lower paid jobs (ie under £15k) taxed less and an average living wage for a fair days work, with a contribution based pension available for all based on 65yrs age retirement

 

privatisation of the NHS by the back door stopped, but waste and excess trimmed without affecting services. savings of millions possible by stopping all political parties changing the setup of the NHS each time power changes hands, ie put a structure in place and leave it for good, not endless rounds of massive change. NHS management taken out of government hands and put into public domain with elected managers and policies decided by public vote?

 

ineficiencies in public services stopped by effective stringent management. greater public scrutiny of accounts of councils/police etc available to all.

 

public sector pensions capped at a max of £50k pa at 65 across the board to make it affordable so the highest earners (ie civil service) who might take £100+k pa pension are cut back, but the lower paid still get to keep a final salary scheme. 60-65yrs retirement age for all schemes.

 

benefits- anyone physically able but unemployed to carry out say max 16hrs a week community/public type work in their locality in addition to having to actively look for work for rest of working week, but not forced into taking work just to get them off the lists, until say 3yrs spent unemployed- giving them chance to gain work they can do in reasonable time.

 

max 26k benefits pa as proposed for any one family....seems a step in right direction.

 

child benefit- payable to first 2 kids only.

 

pensions- private sector forced to set up new company schemes that work, with tax rules changed if need be to assist. too many people are going to have to rely on state pension at 65-70yrs age as they have no company pension scheme available.

 

immigration- proper checks and rules in place but still allowing qualified workers to come, work, pay taxes and benefit society. no benefits payable to anyone with less than 5yrs NI and tax paid, and no benefits payable to any family members not in UK or who havent contributed as above.

 

Elderly- heating allowance and decent state pension for all who qualify with say min payments made thro life to NI and tax

 

phew- easy innit! surely a party could put together a mixture of all whats available now without the extremes?

 

That's not a bad manifesto!

[chem1st]

The tory bandwagon is a bit of a strange one. Some tories are downright evil and genetically tory to boot, believe it or not, a few of them, are capable of reasonable and sound thought.

 

In a democracy we should be ok in the long run, we can employ the tories to do the dirty work and elect a different crew after, the red tories for example.

[HeadingNorth]

One stat that stayed in my mind was:

 

Number below poverty line in 1979 10%

Number below poverty line in 1997 24%

 

 

If we take a sensible definition of "poverty," such as not being able to afford shelter, food and clothing, you'll find that the number below that line was zero in 1979, still zero and 1997 and still zero today.

 

If we're talking about a scale of relative poverty, then experience across a wide range of economies shows that the more people are below it, the better the country will be doing.

[HeadingNorth]

That, sums, you up. It AFFECTED ALL OF US.

 

 

Indeed, and greatly for the better. It's only a shame that the policies of the early 80s hadn't been pushed through in the early 50s, when they would have caused minimal pain; or the early 60s with pain; or the early 70s with considerably pain. Every time anyone tried they were forced to recant, until the early 80s - by which time it took agonising pain to put the country straight.

 

And even 25 years later there are STILL people who think the doctor is to blame because the medicine tastes bad.

[Guest]

If we take a sensible definition of "poverty," such as not being able to afford shelter, food and clothing, you'll find that the number below that line was zero in 1979, still zero and 1997 and still zero today.

 

If we're talking about a scale of relative poverty, then experience across a wide range of economies shows that the more people are below it, the better the country will be doing.

 

 

It's really easy to make a convincing argument if you can make up your own (sensible?) definitions as you go along.

 

There doesn't seem to be any evidence re: relative poverty in your argument - did you make that up too?

[studentbob]

If we take a sensible definition of "poverty," such as not being able to afford shelter, food and clothing, you'll find that the number below that line was zero in 1979, still zero and 1997 and still zero today.

 

If we're talking about a scale of relative poverty, then experience across a wide range of economies shows that the more people are below it, the better the country will be doing.

 

I think a more relevant interpretation would be that the more people are below it, the less equal the country will be.

[studentbob]

Indeed, and greatly for the better. It's only a shame that the policies of the early 80s hadn't been pushed through in the early 50s, when they would have caused minimal pain; or the early 60s with pain; or the early 70s with considerably pain. Every time anyone tried they were forced to recant, until the early 80s - by which time it took agonising pain to put the country straight.

 

And even 25 years later there are STILL people who think the doctor is to blame because the medicine tastes bad.

 

Some of us define "the country" as the whole of the people.

 

Am I right in assuming that your definition is merely restricted to the capitalist class?

[Guest]

Indeed, and greatly for the better. It's only a shame that the policies of the early 80s hadn't been pushed through in the early 50s, when they would have caused minimal pain; or the early 60s with pain; or the early 70s with considerably pain. Every time anyone tried they were forced to recant, until the early 80s - by which time it took agonising pain to put the country straight.

 

And even 25 years later there are STILL people who think the doctor is to blame because the medicine tastes bad.

 

I don't know if you were around and working in the 50's & 60's - I was, and I can assure you that this "minimal pain" you refer to would have shut down all Sheffield's Steelworks and other heavy industry and all the railway goods depots, stations etc.

All those industries, together with many more ran on COAL. The coal industry itself was a major source of work to numerous Sheffield companies.

We were also a big exporter of coal besides steel and other goods.

 

Where on earth do you get your arguments from.

 

The medicine was lethal and the doctor should have been shot.

[Rupert_Baehr]

...

All those industries, together with many more ran on COAL. The coal industry itself was a major source of work to numerous Sheffield companies.

We were also a big exporter of coal besides steel and other goods.

 

Where on earth do you get your arguments from.

 

The medicine was lethal and the doctor should have been shot.

 

Remind me again, Grinder.

 

Why did we stop digging COAL out of the ground?

 

Did we run out of COAL?

 

Did we run out of skilled people capable of digging COAL out of the ground?

 

Did the government ban COAL?

 

Or did KING COAL say "You have to do it on MY terms and if you don't - you can't have any."?

 

He lost. And he cost a lot of people their jobs. The Nation didn't elect Arthur Scargill (and I doubt that the NUM would've made him 'president for life' had they been given an informed vote.)

 

The person who killed coal (and cost many people their livelihoods) was Scargill. - He wasn't a 'hero '- he was a <REMOVED>.

[Vague_Boy]

Sorry if this thread being done before. Needs to be done again LOL! But who, is a genuine Tory on the SF? And I mean a hardcore TORY.

 

I must confess that I had to look up the definition in the dictionary first, just to be on the safe side.

 

To·ry (tôr, tr)

n. pl. To·ries

1.

a. A member of a British political party, founded in 1689, that was the opposition party to the Whigs and has been known as the Conservative Party since about 1832.

b. A member of a Conservative Party, as in Canada.

2. An American who, during the period of the American Revolution, favored the British side. Also called Loyalist.

3. often tory A supporter of traditional political and social institutions against the forces of democratization or reform; a political conservative.

 

 

To be honest, I don't fall into any of those categories (certainly not 2., I'm not that ancient).

 

If I had to describe myself it would be as a political atheist/libertarian.

 

lib·er·tar·i·an

[lib-er-tair-ee-uhn]

 

–noun

1. a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct.

2. a person who maintains the doctrine of free will (distinguished from necessitarian).

 

–adjective

3. advocating liberty or conforming to principles of liberty.

4. maintaining the doctrine of free will.

 

Add a dash of objectivism into the mix for good measure:

 

the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest, that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure laissez faire capitalism

 

By the way, if anyone thinks the we have laissez faire capitalism already, how do you explain the bailouts and stimulus packages? Those are inimical to the whole idea of laissez faire capitalism.

 

Our current system of private profits, socialized losses is the very antithesis of laissez faire capitalism.