Left or Right.. politically.

[andyofborg]

A railway line for example will provide a service for 100+ years while a company may only have the short term interests of its shareholders at heart.

 

 

the first railways were built by private investors

 

investment decisions today are taken against very short term goals, the longer term planning which would lead to real, sustainable growth in shareholder value generally isn't done anymore.

[andyofborg]

left or right does it really matter....they are all the same these days....no more skinners or benns coming through....just wanna be rich kids playing at it.....just like the student protesters....kids of rock stars causing mayhem....

 

the inequalities which drove the foundation of the unions and proper labour party no longer exist and so the need for the hard lefty types isn't there anymore.

 

while there are relatively poor people in this country today they have a far higher standard of living than the really poor of the early part of the last century and before.

[max]

Renting from the council was the only means and very expensive, it wasn't subsidised back then and the thought of renting from a private landlord was well beyond our means <snip>

 

Just this one part of your post shows how wrong you are. If your parents' council housing wasn't subsidised then why was the private sector so much more expensive? Given that you fail to understand this economic fact casts doubt on the other points you attempt to make.

[plekhanov]

Who pays the most for being left, the right? Do the left just rely on taxing the aspirational who make something of themselves to also get on themselves on the back of the inspirational who use their own money to fund advances that give the less inspirational the chance of a job that they will eventually throw it back in their face due to union intervention, who never lose a days pay even though its on average five times the workers pay they presume to represent with zero mortgage interest and bonuses. Not to mention the gilt edged pensions.... not very socialist like.

 

I mean, where does it all begin and end?

 

Are we grateful for people creating businesses that employ us at a financial risk to themselves or do we hate them for giving us a chance because they had the money to do it in the first place? Are we just content with taking the benefit handouts afforded by people who socialists hate but can't do without, a bit like Muslim extremists living on benefits (who else would employ them?) we give freely but we never question who actually pays for it.

 

Its not the average reader in real terms. I am set to pay 50p out of very £1.00 I earn.... I put myself through university twice and the state never subsidised me.... it didn't because I never took a student loan, I worked my way through it.... I was born on a council estate in poor condition but we all moved on.

 

The left wanted to give people like me social mobility but the moment I get it I become the green eyed envy of the left and the eneny.

 

You can attack me all you want but somehow you can't do without my money.

 

Socialism is so corrupt and hypocritical.

Unless you went to the University of Buckingham which is the only private University in the UK the state massively subsidised your University education, just as it has always provided or subsidised your previous education, your healthcare, your childhood housing...

 

You might like to think that you got where you are due to your own efforts with no help from the state and that consequently you owe society nothing and that anyone askign you contribute something is "hypocritical and corrupt" but that simply isn't the case. Everybody in our society business types included benefit massively from having a strong state which efficiently provides services healthcare, education, the rule of law, transport infrastructure... that businesses are utterly dependent upon. Socialism may well be hypocritical but no more so than you.

[plekhanov]

Which of these "services" would you have kept and why?

 

British Petroleum

British Aerospace

British Sugar

Cable and Wireless

Amersham International and National Freight Corporation

Britoil

Associated British Ports

Jaguar

British Telecom

the National Bus Company

British Gas

British Airways

the Royal Ordnance

Rolls-Royce

British Airports Authority

Rover Group

British Steel

Regional Water

Girobank

the National Grid

Personally I'd have kept the natural monopolies in state ownership for the obvious reason that the free market & all the benefits that can bring simply can't function in those areas.

[Very tasty]

You can tell who the loony right are - the ones who accuse the last Labour Government of being even the slightest bit "socialist"

 

They are socialist in regards to their social policies; certain Labour MP's position's on certain issues are way to the left of most Tories.

[marshlad]

You can tell who the loony right are - the ones who accuse the last Labour Government of being even the slightest bit "socialist"

 

You can tell who the loony left are - they are the ones who think the last Labour Government was right wing.

[epiphany]

What does left and right even mean?

 

It's just another form of concision. I mean, look at how people throw the terms around in debates on this forum.

 

If you're a "lefty" should I assume, by default, you advocate a large centralised state and a centrally planned economy? Should I assume you advocate the exact kind of system installed by the bankrolled Bolshevik elite in Soviet Russia?

 

You can see how helpful such labels are to serious political debate.

[handypandy]

I'm really sorry if it seems as though I am singling you out or picking on you

 

Not at all, I'm not making a personal attack and not taking anything personally. I am not an out and out socialst nor right wing. Like the majority of folk in this country, I'm about straight down the middle. The country should be run as a profitable enterprise but with a vigorous social conscience.

 

There will always be a small minority of people who cannot be trusted to get off their backsides and fend for themselves and clearly they are a problem that needs to be addressed. They are the cancer of society.

 

Then there are the people who may need some encouragement to fend for themselves, who may not have the education or the confidence that others enjoy and therefore get tarred with the same brush as the idlers.

 

Then of course there are genuine cases, for whom work is not immediately available or is impossible through no fault of their own. These people still need the dignity of an income, short or long term, as their circumstances necessitate.

 

Workers with families, at the bottom of the pay scale, for the foreseeable future, will require some form of subsidy because 'lead in' pay rates are not realistic when you set them against what it actually costs to live.

 

Other than the above, I have no problem at all with whatever pay the individual can negotiate. If a sportsman can make £10m a year....good luck to him.....If a businessman/ woman can make £100m a year then good luck to them. The only thing I ask, is that when they are earning these super incomes...... please dont begrudge the rest of us enough to live on.

[cressida]

There are many who believe the Lib/Dems shouldn't have accepted a coalition, they should just have voted on the issues they believed in, IMO they will be fortunate to end up with any council seats next election and the Tory ones will be greatly reduced - then in the next general election after the Tories have sorted out the mess they were left with the Labour Party will reap the benefit as they come to power

 

signed.......Mystic Peg