Caleb

Thankyou for noticing.

It is the responsibility of every MP to ensure that civil servants are not leaking irresponsibly. Just as it is your responsibility to report a crime that you see etc.
This is especially true with the relationship between MPs and civil servants.
If a civil servant makes a slip or accidentally says something, then this is one thing. However if they are deliberately saying things that they shouldn't then a good MP should be reporting it - if they are leaking this sort of stuff to you, who knows who else they are leaking info to?

The government was policing its staff - it eventually did a thorough leak enquiry and found the culprit. I think that they needed evidence from the MP relating to the information for the prosecution, although I seem to remember that in the end a prosecution wasn't held.

It is illegal, on so many levels.
If it is even remotely secret, then the official secrets act applies - I suspect that some of the stuff that he leaked may well have been covered under this act.
Even if it is very domestic, then it still breaks the confidentiality agreement that you sign up to with a job like that.
Either way, illegal.

The party in the majority has control over the government. Control over MPs is much more abstract. Sure the government has more MPs in its camp, and thus more control, but this is not absolute - nor would we want it to be. The key point here is that there is little difference between the culture and behaviour of Tory, Labour, Liberal or most other MPs.

I don't excuse the Labour Government. As I said, they are partly culpable for not pushing back benchers, as they wanted their support on various bills etc.

If not dirty tricks and lies, then certainly 'character' and personality. That is why we see so much about crying and the background of the main candidates. But dirty tricks and lies are often easier.

The problem is that no party can win an election without including the centre. That much has always been true. In the past winning parties have forged coalitions between their key supporters and the centre. I think that the problem now is that most people are much more close to the centre than they were, so it is much more sensible for the parties to aim at dead centre, rather than skewed centre.

To a large degree, the middle ground is our measure of success. I am not saying that we have a classless society, or that we have no problems in terms of mobility, but we clearly have a much more equal group in the middle than we have ever had.

A hung parliament will mean lots of squabbles - it would be interesting to see who was blamed for the squabbles. It would also be interesting to see how the LDs and others operate...

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

The whole governmental secrecy thing is a huge topic...

Do the civil service work for all MPs or do they work for 'the government'?

If it is the latter then you are expecting an opposition MP to police people that work for their opponents.

There must also, surely, be a line between what is illegal for a CS person to leak vs. what is merely inconvenient and against their terms of employment. I would expect any MP to report an illegal leak but not the second type.

How about if the leak is of a whistle blowing nature - some totally illegal act carried out by the government?

All opposition parties use leaks to embarrass their foes, all governments use leaks to disseminate information they are not officially allowed to disseminate. We haven't seen a lot of investigation of any of the pro-Labour leaks have we?

And... while it is my civil duty to report you if you were to sell drugs or stab someone it would not be my civil duty to report you to your employer for telling me an embarrassing secret. Just because it would be a breach of your employers terms with you does not legally bind me to those terms unless it is also a criminal act in itself.

I agree there is little between the main parties (and how long have I been waiting for you to agree???).

I sort of accept the point about control of MPs abut you can't in one sentence blame the Tory party for what happened when they were the majority and then in the next excuse Labour for what happens in their terms. I am open to debate about how much blame lies with the majority party of the day but the conclusion must apply to both to be worthwhile.

The problem, for me, is that the centre ground can also turn out to be the mediocre ground where everything is sort of OK but nothing is really great.

We can agree that current society pretty much gives most people the things they need to live some sort of reasonable life - but with our technology and resources and a will to make life better for all we should be capable of so much more.

As long as we sit tamely in the centre then stupid and illicit wars will still happen, poverty will carry on, the rich will still live like medieval royalty through no great merit of their own, politicians will carry on lying, the media will distort the world and we stay merely average.

Perhaps the mistake is to see politics a single dimension between left & right or even as 2d between any of the various scales you can find on questionnaires. Some policies need to stay in the centre because that is where they are best... others need to be more liberal (small L), some more conservative (small C), some more left, some more right, some more socialist, some more neo-con (heaven forfend!) and so on... it's why I often resist being labelled politically because I do not consider myself to be trapped in such an artificial scale... except at election time of course when you are forced back to choose just one approach.

Maybe a coalition is what we need for a while - if nothing else it should make it harder for the really silly laws to get on the books.

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

Who do the civil service work for? Its a very good question.
There are a number of potential answers: -
- the government
- the people (possibly through the MPs)
- the crown

My personal view is that the CS work for themselves, and if it has to be anyone from the list above, then probably the crown.

They certainly do not work for the government - although they should carry out government policy, they often seek to subvert it, and often generate government policy themselves. I have sat in meetings at which civil servants have subverted government policy without a thought. I have also sat in meetings at which civil servants have had open discussions about what they thought should happen.
They certainly do not work for the people. They see themselves as being above the people - they do things that affect the people, and they often genuinely believe that this effect is positive, however they don't want the people involved in the process at all.

Yes Minister and Yes PM got it about right in their analysis of civil servants - they are a class who just wish that they could be left alone to run the country without politicians or other influences.

The line about what a CS can and cannot leak is very indistinct. Certainly they cannot leak tittle-tattle. Certainly they can leak direct illegal acts carried out by ministers. In between there is a lot of grey, partially obscured by security.
If you take the ponting example of the greenham common missiles. There is a good discussion about how useful this information was to the enemy - surely they would have known anyway, although the confirmation would have been useful. However the existence of USA missiles on UK soil was clearly an issue that should have been raised.
The other oft quoted example is the Belgrano affair - whilst what the government did in not telling the truth was not illegal, it was clearly deceiving parliament, and it was clearly a major acceptable story.

I think that there is a responsibility on those who receive leaks (whether in the press or opposition) to determine whether or not this is a justifyable leak, and if not they should either ignore or advise the CS that there is a mole.

I always find the definition of governments 'leaking' an odd one - I can understand the concept of them releasing information that should be secret, and this is clearly wrong - however other information, I cannot understand why it is called a leak.

Personally I think that all of this dovetails into both of our wishes for a better functioning political system.

Having thought about this a little overnight btw, I agree that the Tory MP should not necessarily have reported the CS - however they should not necessarily use the info that they have been given.

I would not say that there is little difference between the main parties, and I don't think that I said this below. There is certainly less difference than there was, but there is still discernable differences. The Tories will restore fox hunting, give tax incentives to the rich and sell off RBS shares as with British Gas. Labour will try to push the minimum wage up, try to maintain high employment and try to improve the life of people in the worse areas of this country.
I think that is a lot of difference.

I am not sure to what degree the government has actually intervened in the affairs of MPs. I think that the current government is guilty by not acting, but I am not sure that they have acted definitively.
The Tories also did not often act definitively - however the story about Thatch getting the pay through as expenses is a known one.
I agree that all governments are pretty much the same on this one. They all want to coddle their backbenchers for the day that they need their support.

The centre ground is also the place where no-one loses out by too much. If we go too far in either direction, then one section does better, but the maximum worse increases. Overall I think that this is better.

Not sure how we can justify being capable of so much more. Sure I agree that in a perfect world we could do much more, but we live in a democracy and not a perfect world.
To give an example - I was in a queue to get through a train barrier the other day. This was a fairly orderly queue until some people came late and decided to bypass the queue and go straight for the barrier. The queue then disintegrated and people who had been waiting for longer did not get through first. Also those who were less able (such as the old and disabled) got pushed further back.
Now the point is that queueing is like democracy. It is fine as long as everyone behaves, but once everyone starts acting in their own interests it disintegrates with the stronger doing better - also interestingly the actual average speed of people getting through tends to be reduced.
Now the alternative is an organised queue - a station official who forces people to queue up - however the equivalent in democracy is a dictatorship, which no-one seems to want.
Democracies are not designed for people to determine what is best for society - they are designed for people to determine what is best for them. As long as we have them, then we will never be as efficient as we could be.

The left/right thing works if you are considering it as the rich/poor spectrum. Where it fails is where people have started to apply it to other social issues such as homosexuality etc - the reasons for this are historic, but they are not helpful.

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

My godfather was deputy head of the treasury for the CS some years ago and although it preceded my interest in politics I can vaguely remember one of his bugbears being the way ministers made decisions based on party political reasons and I think he may have seen his job almost as mitigating the effect of their selfish decisions. This may be me colouring my memories based on current knowledge though...

I suppose if I had to choose from your list I would hope the CS ultimately work for us but more directly for their department's and the elected head of that department. I suspect they see it somewhere between the 3 with a somewhat overblown sense of their own choices being more informed than those of politcians.

On what they should or should not leak...

- Tittle-tattle they probably should not although I doubt it would be illegal just not the done thing.
- Illegal acts by government make sense as no-one should be expected to collude in illegal acts.
- In the grey areas that seems, to me, to be where it is all about the employment contract... there are things they could say that might be inappropriate for them to leak that are at the same time not in any way criminal. They shuld be dealty with by internal disciplinary action not by the police. This is where I see most of the leaks we were discussing around the Tory bloke.

As for government leaks - there are many many thihgs government should not leak, some of which they are being crminal if they do leak. Others should not be leaked until they have been through proper parliamentary process. Others are information that is not true that they 'leak' so they can tell flat out lies with plausible deniability.

I think some of the info he used was simply in poor taste and to an observer revealed more about the Tory mindset than about the subjects of the leaked info. Others were revealing of government problems and double speak.

I think my point would be the differences are increasingly on single issues that are often fairly minor in their overall effect.

I think you have a jaundiced (although perhaps accurate) view of democracy - in general what is good for everyone is also good for me. If everyone eats then no-one needs to steal my food, if everyone has all the basisc then I don';t need to pay private guards to watch my stuff, if everyone who can works then society as a whole has more wealth. The only peopl who beneift from the current inequality are those who have the most - a very small percentage indeed.

So really the middle ground is the status quo where the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich.

Your queue example is a perfect example of our mediocre centre where everyone agrees to abide by certain rules and then the rich decide to break them... they benefit, everyone else loses including society and no-one bothers to enforce the agreed rules. Your implication that someone enforcing the agreed rules is a dictator is like saying that the police are acting like dictators if the arrest a wealthy criminal. We have voted for the oprganised queue option and it is politcians and the wealthy who have decided that they are above the rules that we have all agreed. In reality they should be forced to the back of the queue because that is the rule we have all voted for.

In this case it is the ignoring of the democratic rules that is the problem... just a bit concerned that you seem to see the enforcement of democratic rules as 'dictatorship' - spending too much time with directors and politicians again methinks.

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

There has, for a long time, been a split in government. The CS will always say that ministers are driving policy for short term political and personal reasons. Ministers will always say that they are the elected representatives and they are therefore expressing the will of the people.
The typical line in YM and YPM from CSs is "I just wish they would let us get on with running the country".

The Ministers (and others) will always say that CS are not in touch with the people. They are arrogant, assuming that they know best. They are also isolated, as they generally have had fairly safe upbringings and good earnings etc - so they don't really understand how the rest of the world thinks. They don't have any cause to mix with the general public (as ministers do) and so they are aloof.

If I were to guess the real order of priorities for the CS it would be something like: -
- CSs
- People like senior CS people and their friends and acquaintances (i.e. the establishment).
- Politicians
- Public

Of course this is a little cynical. I have worked with some very conscientious CSs at the lower levels, but in my dealings with the CS the higher up the chain you get the more this list plays out.

In terms of informed, this is not important to CSs Often the more information you have the worse you are regarded. When I did a job at the old DfES I mentioned to my senior that this would be good as I have some education experience through my family, and through being a govenror. I was brusquely told to keep quiet as they would not appreciate anyone with any outside information.
They generally like to control the information that goes to a minister - so anyone with experience is generally not regarded. It is a well known principle that ministers rarely get portfolios that reflect their area of expertise - Estelle Morris was possibly the last recognisable one - and this is no accident.
But that does not mean that CSs are informed - they view the information that they have to be more important than the plebs.

Leaks
Illegal acts - there is a difference between acts that would make them break the law, and acts that they know about, but are not directly involved in.
In general illegal acts are often difficult to define, especially in government which is not easily defined in terms of law.
What is usually used as a benchmark is public interest - however this is also a very loaded term.
Employment contract stuff can make you illegal - but especially where that contract includes the official secrets act.

Jaundiced possibly, but I would argue accurate. The problem is that people cannot see in generalities. Also there is a difficulty in getting a group of people to understand collectively that actions that they may take impacts the group as a whole.
If we have community then this tends to be less of an issue - in a community everyone can see their own impact and everyone tends to be more aware of what others will think of them if they act selfishly.
However we do not live in a community, and so people generally think "why should I make the sacrifice" etc. This ranges from things like paying tax to not taking cars on school runs and setting up gated housing etc.
To use your example, people often say - well I want more food - I don't think that anyone will starve if I have an extra portion of bison (or whatever cavemen ate).
One very important thing in all of this is the 'perception' of justice. This is why cutting back on benefit cheats is so important - even though it does not necessarily make back the money that it costs. If people perceive the system to be unfair then they will tend to adopt the 'why should I contribute' approach.

I would disagree totally that the middle ground is the status quo where the rich and poor retain their areas.
Firstly on the positive side, the middle ground is the area where people do have some ability to move up and down - albeit not as much as they might like. If we support either high or low, then mobility will tend to be restricted to those areas.
Secondly supporting either side too much tends to end up with a massive imbalance after a short while. So we either end up with the rampant capitalism and separating societies (if we support the high end) or we end up with totalitarianistic communism (if we support the low end). Neither of these is sustainable in the long term.
For both of these reasons supporting some flavour of middle is the best.

With the queue example - you can get too hung up on this - however you are partially correct. We don't vote for a dictator, but we allow some of our freedom to be taken away for the greater good. So we allow police and so on to tell us what to do as we generally know that this will make us all better.
Two problems arise, generally when the queue breaks down.
Either someone breaks the rules on their own account, in which case the cohesion of the queue can break down in the old "well if they're doing it" way.
The other option is that the queue is deliberately skewed by someone - say the police allowing disabled people to jump the queue. This can appear obvious, however it can also quickly break down if people who are not disabled appear to be getting the benefit etc.
Also I am not sure whether or not you are saying that an ordered queue is the middle ground or not. You seem to want it all ways saying that the centre is where the rich can ignore the rules?

Look - the overall situation is this - to allow a queue to be organised by someone then either everyone in that queue needs to sign up to the concept of someone doing it, or someone needs to enforce some form of other authority.
The second is clearly dictatorship. The first is democracy.
However the problem comes in the detail. It is fine in principle for everyone to say that they will allow someone to organise them in the queue - but if anyone disagrees then the whole situation can break down, as others could dislike people breaking rules. Also if the person who you have 'elected' to run the queue ultimately has a different view to you (such as who to allow to jump the queue) then this can also break down.
In a small queue in an orderly situation where there is no great pressure and everyone is calm, then this works fine. However in a train station in rush hour...
The situations can jump to each other as well - you can have someone who exerts their authority and gets the queue to line up - however the people can ultimately revolt and overthrow the person organising the queue.
Or you can have someone selected by the queuers who then turns out to start to exert authority and lets his mates push in, and the queuees don't do anything about it...

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

Not really seeing a lot to disagree in the top chunk.

Leaks:

Employment law is an area where one can breach contract (which is illegal but not criminal) or one can commit acts that are both criminal and breach of contract (i.e. injecting heroin while at work).

We need to be clear about what type of 'illegal' we mean as only one type generally ends in jail time.


Are people really incapable of seeing generalities & consequences, it tends to seem quite straight forward to me that the best society is one where everyone is treated with fairness and respect until they cross the lines we communally draw and call laws. I find it hard to grasp that this is not understandable to most people of average intelligence, it is not rocket science!

It is because of the self-evidence of these truths that I find politicians so frustrating when they run away from making such basic points.

It is also why I feel that those in power and those with wealth, who are often of above average intelligence, are consciously malicious in how they twist society for their own reasons surely knowing full well that their gain involves the suffering of others. I don't buy the idea that they inflict it in innocent ignorance.

We are, by your own words, in the middle ground and just look around - people in general seem to be becoming coarser and less considerate of others. Politicians, media and the well off have their insular little world where they skate above the laws that bind us normal folks. No political party seems to want to help the poorest and weakest among us - except the extremists who want to leverage their misery for their own agendas (and don't try saying that I should like extremism if I don't like the centre - because I set my position out several posts above in such clear terms even a civil servant or a project manager, the CS of the private sector, should be able to grasp).

The middle ground is by it's nature mediocre... it's the 'well it's not too bad' option... and while that may be better than 500 years ago is it really acceptable to give up and stay in the same mediocre place for the next 500?

I'm not sure an ordered queue that enforces that order is about the middle or not - what I was trying to say, and will now try again, is that the queue is the agreed structure of democracy, the enforcer is the law that those queuing have agreed at election time.

You, on the other hand, appeared to be saying that trying to enforce democratic law was equivalent to dictatorship.

What we have now is the position you described - one where normal people form a queue (i.e. follow the law) and those at the top jump the queue (i.e. break or skirt the law). To my mind law breakers should be dealt with even if they are rich - again you seemed to be implying that dealing with them under the law was somehow tyrannical.

Doesn't sound like the thoughts of an old socialist to me...

In your last line have you considered that the queuees know that if they try to do something they will be shot or beaten or hauled off to be 'questioned' and may end up in some less civilised nation being tortured for daring to question the queue jumpers? And if they were to meet up and try an organise anything more co-ordinated they would almost certainly be surveilled leading to much the same outcome?

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

The point is not whether or not people are capable of understanding the generalities. The point is whether or not people think that they should hold up their end of the bargain.

My view is that this has very much to do with the group size. In a small group there is a lot of pressure to conform. However once you get to a reasonable size (even below nation size) there is a good chance that people will start to say, let someone else bear the pain - I want to be greedy.
Its not that these people do not understand the concept of the group need. It is that they don't think that their contribution is necessary, or fair.

I agree that a lot of people who fail to make a contribution know to some degree the impact that they have - there is an argument that my avoiding paying 10k in tax is not going to make a difference in the wider scheme of things, however this argument is only one that someone may use to salve a guilty conscience.

I would not agree that we are becoming coarser and less considerate - although there are some areas where we may be. If you look at things like charity and so on, we are certainly more generous now than we ever used to be I suspect. I think that there is a general belief that those who have suffered for no fault of their own should be supported - although those who are partially complicit get less sympathy.
The political parties will try to support what the middle supports, and the middle will generally support itself, whilst trying to salve their own conscience that no-one is getting left behind. So there is some benefit in claiming to be good to those at the bottom, as long as it is the deserving poor and those who have suffered through no fault of their own, and not benefit cheats etc.

I disagree with your view of the middle ground as being mediocre. The middle ground is the area of good compromise. I think you are being overly negative.

I think that the problem with the queue is the same as the problem with democracy. It is not entirely clear what we have 'voted for' or what we have allowed the person running the queue to do. Take a direct example like the congestion charge - the whole principle of which was to manage the queue within London to ensure that everyone did better - the reaction to that in a lot of quarters was distinctly hostile.

I don't say that enforcing a queue at the behest of the queuers is necessarily dictatorial - however I do say that it is less easy than many suppose.

Whilst I can see that you want to equate the queue to rich and poor, I think that there are many interpretations - not necessarily rich and poor.
The other point to make is that the managed queue only works if everyone signs up to the concept of the management. What if the people who want to jump the queue don't agree in this management - it should be everyone for themselves.
I am not trying to say whether or not this is right or wrong - I am merely to to provide an analogy for how society works.
You may find that some people in a queue actually want a queue to be managed to let through those who are really in a rush - who is to decide who is really in a rush etc? The problem is that it is not so simple as asking someone to manage.

The other main problem is that this all supposes that the queuers can think as a group to obtain or allow management. The reality is that in most situations the queue cannot even agree on that. Democracy is the same. There is no common agreement about what government is for or what it should be allowed to do. There is no simple person who can be asked to come in and manage our queue.
The better alternative is often for someone with authority to just come in and do it for us, but that is dictatorship.

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

Not sure if 'bargain' is what you mean - but if it is then I would say that wanting to wriggle out of your bargain makes you a less decent person and as a society we should look at such people and do what we brits do best... make a tut-tut sound and refuse to invite the rotters round for tea.

In the next few paras you make a lot of the excuses that those who want to reap the benefits of society without paying the costs often make... but the truth is no reasonably mature adult can fail to understand these things.

You point to the guilty conscience behind such excuses yourself.

I think we are less considerate and more eager to search for a reason, however spurious, to make the disadvantaged complicit in their weakness... bless the Mail for allowing us to blame single mothers, gypsies, refugees and those raised on sink estates, the extra disposable is lovely... the feeling of moral superiority in our comfort is even better!!

The middle can be the area of best compromise and sometimes it is, but it is also the area where we surrender to the average because the moment for something better is not yet quite there - so just accepting the middle ground as it exists is never going to be enough. We need to continually work to be better as communities, societies and so on up... by now you should be waving a lighter in the air... change you can believe it...

Representative democracy is a bitca... no-one really knows what has been agreed by who... we vote for parties based on media profile and maybe manifesto... they pretty much shred the inconvenient bits the day after the votes are cast and we see what happens from there... but when something, however dumb, gets to be law we are supposed to follow it or repeal it... not just ignore it if the person involved knows the right people...

So back to the eternal q... it doesn't need to be rich and poor, although that is a big factor in our society... could be any kind of have & have not... many interpretations is the whole point and why we should be able to move beyond single dimensional politics.

But in a functional democracy the point should be that if the vote has determined that a first q'd first in policy is what we have then it should be enforced, even if those with the most disagree. After all if those with least disagree then they tend to get punished - lets just see some balance.

I have already offered my services as benevolent dictator.. or Papa Tom... you can feel safe in my caring hands... vote Tom for UK Dictator in 2010!

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

If, as you say, everyone is intelligent and understands the impact that their actions have on the wider community, then breaking the bargain is a good form of words.
I am not sure that it is that simple - I don't think that everyone understands the bargain, and anyway, not everyone would necessarily agree - you quickly end up with the hypothecation issue - 'I am happy to pay taxes to support education and health, but not to pay people who scrounge on the dole' etc.

To a lot of the people in the upper echelons of society, they don't see themselves as gaining from society at all. In general they see themselves as almost total contributors and not beneficiaries.
I think that it is far from clear to show that they benefit from the current societies norms.
Sure they benefit from being in a well ordered functioning society, but they would claim that this could exist without funding of unemployment benefit etc.
The fear often stated is that if we are not careful, those at the top drift so far away that even the very basic things they get from society (like health, education and security) can all be obtained elsewhere for money, so they withdraw more and more.
To give the queue analogy again, its like those rides that you now get at some amusement parks where you can pay more money to get a ticket that lets you bypass most of the queueing. If you do this, then you become less bothered about the orderliness of the other queue.

What you therefore end up with is an appeal to those at the top based on altruism - which can work to some degree, but only so far. We need to develop a dialogue of a shared society, and avoid trying to elaborate on specific benefits that they get.

We have blamed single mothers, Gypsies, refugees and the like since the dawn of time. OK so some of the categories have changed, but the concept has remained the same for years.
Back in the 60s it was the Carribeans. Then it was the Asians. Now it is the Poles. We always look for scapegoats.

I think if you start using phrases like "surrender to the average" then you are predjudicing your argument.
The avereage centre is the only place to be in a functioning society. That does not mean, and has never meant that we should ignore the outliers, however neither does that mean that we take too much notice of them either.

Representative democracy is just about the only show in town. The only alternative is direct democracy - where people vote on every aspect of every policy and law. Personally I think that this would be a total disaster. People would happily vote for increased spending and lower taxation for example.
The idea of a representative democracy is that you do get some coherence.
Of course you are right, that the problem is that few people really know who represents them, or what they stand for. Elections are always painful exercises when people who are good MPs or councillors get dumped because their party is not popular. No matter what people say about how good or bad an MP or councillor is, the impact is only +/- 5% ish.
There is now a chance for this to be put right - the info on what your MP does and says has never been greater through the internet.
Guess what - no-one really cares to look it up. (pause before saying I told you so).

Rich and poor is just about the best dimension. Almost any other distinction in society can be altered by the judicious application of money.

Again with the queue analogy and democracy - it is not so simple. We can all vote for someone to manage the queue, but unless we can also vote for every single possibility then we will always have dissent. There are so many possible situations that could occur - someone arrives with seconds to spare for a train - should they get priority? Someone arrives with a few babies who are crying - should they get priority? Someone pays more money for their ticket - should they get priority?
What about my perennial favourite - the person in front of you takes pity and lets someone in in front of them. Its fine for them to do this, but what about everyone behind them?

Also what about those who disagreed with the vote to set up queue management - or those who change their minds later on. Are their views no longer important?

The reality of the queues, with or without them being organised enough to ask someone to manage them does mirror society. Although we all agree to a rough idea of management by an 'elected' group, we all have different ideas as to what this means - what the limits of their authority are - what we should be allowed to do around the edges. As all humans are different, it is impossible to get any firm agreement, and so we have to have a variable model that flops around in the middle - as much as you dislike it. This model has to reflect the general overall opinion as that opinion moves around - and so we end up with our current versions of the model in the UK and other countries.

One final point - people often differentiate between dictatorships and democracies. This only works to a point. If everyone decides to ignore someone who has decided to organise a queue, then they are dictator in name only. Sure the dictator may make it difficult to unseat them (by use of security guards etc) however if the people are determine, then they can always do it - and the safest way to stay safe as dictator is to give most of the people what they want - from that perspective even dictatorships tend to move around a centre - although not necessarily the representative centre that a democracy might have.
It is for this reason that I often say that even in a dictatorship, people have the ultimate say.

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

I think the bargain is that for some services & some votes you obey the rules - I know there are cavetas around it but without that basic understanding then sooner or later society would cease functioning.

Those with wealth in some ways get more than anyone esle from society - they get police and military to guard their wealth, they get and educated workforce, they get a healthy workforce, they get roads & railways to move their products around, they get government funding when they cock up, they get government support when they trade abroad and so on... in any quantative way they benefit far more than those with very little. The weekly contribution to their wealth creation afforded by a stable and healthy society pales in comparison to the £50 per week some dole cheat gets.

So I would comtest it is a clear & simple task to show they gain hugely from being based in the UK vs. being based in some lawless third world nation. The crying shame is that government is too weak to make such a basic case because they are in the pockets of business as is the media in most cases - thus this silly view that the rich don't benfit becomes something that even smart people get taken in by. Even if the rich pay for their own health & education (paying doctors & teachers mostly trained by tax funded education I might add) they still get the benefits of not having to train their workforce to read etc.

Popular revolts and the damage caused by widespread civil unrest in history demonstrate pretty clearly what happens to the rich if there are too many going poor and hungry - maybe it's about time they relearnt that lesson??

I despise the idea of queue jumping tickets BTW - it seems directly opposite to the kind of values that a decent society would want to promote.

It really doesn't need to be about altruism it needs to be about intelligent self interest... I'm not expecting people to be saints but a clear explanation of what happens to the rich in a lawless society might work on those that aren't totally inbred.

I still don't really thnk you have grasped my point that I am not talking about a single continuum of politics from left to right (or rich to poor). You are defending the status quo against improvements coming from anywhere which is very much a surrender, especially for someone who would probably consider themselves progressive. As I said above the centre is sometimes the best place to be, other times it is wrong... and on same issues there is no middle ground merely right and wrong.

I'd also argue that our current 'centre' is only central when it suits the establishment i.e. I would think that the centre of voter opinion would currently want some sort of tough regulation around banking and some punitive measures for politicians who fiddled their expoenses - however this is not reflected in government action which is way off towards the rich side of that scale busily working to leave bankers alone and to duck any expenses related fallout apart from a handful of sacrificial lambs.

If it helps I track my MP but he is an evil Tory and I have yet to see any particular saving grace that would make me consider voting for him.

The point about quesing, and we are getting into too much detail at this point, is that there is an accepted rule. The rule can stand a certain ammount to tweaking such as letting in the mother with the pushchair or the guy with only one item in his basket when the relevant queue allows. But when you get people who ignore the system with no agreement from the others in that system is when it starts to break down - when those breaches go unremarked and unpunished by those in charge because of who has done the breaching is when it really does break down totally.

And yes, in a representative democracy the views of those who decide they don't like the law do have less value when it come to allowing themselves free rein to break the law. They also have an equal right to vote for a party who will change that rule if they wish and if they get the law changed then everyone can fight for their place and those that prefer to queue will have to live with that. That is how laws work.

Take the point in the final para but when all is said and done if the dictator and their guards have weapons then the people are get to get filled with lead if they protest. In a democracy that is not really supposed to happen except in the most extreme circumstances.

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

I don't think that is a useful way of saying what the wealthy get from society.
I think that what the wealthy get from society is the ability to be wealthy. Without society creating people to sell their goods and services to, or having people to pay rent on property then the wealthy would not have wealth. Without society having people who are poor enough to provide the basic services that show that the wealthy are different from the rest (i.e. cooks and cleaners etc) then they would not be any different.
To a certain degree a lot of this os commoditised - for example instead of people paying rent, or buying our services, we work for organisations that take in rent and sell services on our behalf and then pay us a contribution.
Also instead of people providing us directly with goods and services, we often get them from other organisations - for example we don't get a cook, but we may buy in a pre-cooked meal.

The problem is that it is very difficult to explain this model to people - and it is not really that clear to them. People can see the direct things that people get from society - benefits and services from government - but it is much more difficult to see the other things that they get from wider society.

In terms of the other things that you highlight, it is difficult to say that these are only beneficial to the wealthy. We all get police and military to guard us and our wealth - albeit to greater or lesser degrees. Not all the rich have a workforce to benefit from their education and health. We all get roads and railways - and indeed it can be argued (although not by me) that the cost of moving goods around is much more expensive than moving people around.
I think that it would be an interesting calculation to determine the difference in input to the rich and poor, but it would be far from a clear calculation and would depend on a lot of assumptions that would not apply to all of the wealthy.

The problem here, btw, is not the wealthy anyway. It is the less well off. It is the less well off who are in general not dissatisfied with their lot - who doff the cap and tug the forelock and go away and vote Tory. As I speak there is a poster outside our office featuring a working man saying that the economy is broken and it is time to give the Tories a chance. The level of people in this country who vote for a party whose first act will be to cut inheritance tax for the very wealthy, and whose second act will be to slash business rates is mind blowing.
I know that you would like the wealthy to come clean and pay up - but unless the poorer in society start demanding such things, it ain't going to happen.

I am not sure that I am calling for civil unrest to show the rich what their impact really is. One very good reason for this is the fact that civil unrest tends to leave rich areas alone and target other poor people - hardly a wake up call to the rich.
Similarly increase in street crime which may also result also impacts disproportionately in poorer areas.

I have no problem with improvements coming in. These quite often help people in the lower half as well as others. For example the invention and mass production of washing machines and other labour saving devices has massively benefitted those below the average as they now have more time to spend on other things.
I only defend the status quo from the basis that the direct alternative is to shoot towards one side or another. This may well help that side, and if done for the poorer side it could be fairer, however this could also destablise society and ruin things for all.

Whilst we may not like the imbalance in society, often an imbalance can be worse, as it could easily lead to anarchy or some other disruption, and in those cases both rich and poor will lose out.

I think that the 'establishment' is a difficult thing to define. My closest comes in the form of the civil service - their friends and relatives, and those who they think are like them. I agree that they probably do better than worse out of the current arrangement - for quite a few reasons.
The principle reason comes from our representative democracy. It is always difficult to get the public to understand every level of detail, so it is easy to hide lots of detailed things that are beneficial to the establishment. The public can see the high level things (such as overall salary etc) however they cannot see the detail and they cannot see how such situations occurred in the first place.
There is no easy way around this. As we have discussed before, a direct democracy may remove some of these unfair details, however there would still be a lot of detail lost, and there would be even more unfairnesses as many things are unfairly held up - for example if everyone decided that teachers were paid too much etc.

I think that it is good that you track your MP - most don't. If you pick up on anything particularly bad, write a letter to your local paper spelling it out.

I agree that there is some detail in queueing, but I find it fascinating. I suspect that all of the behaviours that you see in queues mirror wider governance within society.
There is no simple accepted rule, but there is an accepted cultural norm. But the devil is in the detail - different people will have different definitions of those norms. So we see that what to some people is cheating the system, to others is acceptable behaviour.

I disagree with your view on how laws work. Again I think the reality is much more compex. Firstly we don't vote for laws directly, but we vote for people who will enact laws. Mostly this is the same, but it can be different - e.g. poll tax.
Take something like fox hunting. If you are generally left wing, but you want fox hunting back, what are you supposed to do? Vote Tory for fox hunting - even though you may despise them?
Also the devil is in the detail. We can vote for laws that ban drugs - but who defines what a drug is? Who defines what the punishment should be? Who defines the guidelines around which the police should chase, and the courts should prosecute?
You will find a lot of discussion (particularly in the Express/Mail etc) of laws which they see as hitting the middle class - for example speed cameras etc. There was a big fuss a few years ago when a couple went to prison for pretending that the other was driving to avoid a driving ban. I'm sure that Express/Mail etc readers did not intend that when they voted for tough laws.
The reality is that we have some laws that acheive far more than they were ever intended to, and other laws that get totally ignored. None of this is necessarily what the people want, but that is the way our system works.

You would be surprised about dictatorships - they are not always as solid as they appear. Generally you need to at least keep the guards and army happy at least. Guards and the army have families, and if they are unhappy then...
There have been many instances of dictatorships that have ultimately failed due to the inability to maintain the order needed - ceacescu springs to mind, amongst others. Again the people have more of a say than is often credited.

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

You seem to be saying much what I said in slightly different language, so I can only agree. What I fail to see is why it is so hard for people to grasp.

My feeling is that the smart rich people are well aware of their dependency on having a solid society 'beneath' them but they are also well aware that governments will scramble to make their life easier if they pretend not to grasp it. They are playing a game which ouir elected reps are too dumb to play. For example one threat they wheel out is to leave for another society... government tends to roll over on these when they could possibly play a better game by using the media to paint these guys as traitors who we shouldn't buy from if they threaten such unpatriotioc measures or by simply removing all their tax breaks both personal and corporate. It should not all be one way traffic.

I did not say these things ONLY benefit the well off but I suspect one could make a case that in our existing capitalist style set up the value of most people's work is considerably more than what they are paid and that extra value mostly goes to those at the top of the tree. So their contribution to the education and health of their workforce, which that workforce also funds, reaps huge gains for them.

Like a good New Labour man you blame the victims. Remind me again how you are not a Tory?

I was suggesting more of a French Revolution style affair - I don't remember the nobility doing too well out of that one.

I don't get why you again circle right back to a choice between left & right which is a choice that simply does not touch on the complexity of real world politics. A move from the status quo does not have to be a move towards some extreme or other - but I get how it is a nice comfoprtable position for the defenders of the status quo, what we call conservatives, to take.. remind me again how you are not a Tory?

I think the establishment is more than just the CS, it includes political parties, media, corporate top dogs etc - generally all those who have an interest in maintaining their positions often to the detriment of others. The same groups that get to sit in unaccountable meetings and make decisions that we will rarely hear about.

Again your response seem to be that we should just accept it (and tug our forelaocks as well?) - remind me again in what way you are not a Tory?

I track mine on a couple of these sites, even get emails when the lazy good for nothing actually bothers to respond to a question or get up and say something in the house etc. Maybe I need to take that next step... tomorrow a letter, next year a new political party!!

Yes the reality is more complex but the principle is simple - representative democracy means we are forced to vote for a selection of policies rather than individual laws. That is one way were the US seems to work, the option that major policy changes get voted on alongside the candidate elections so you could vote Labour but vote against one of their key policies - potentially a nice balance between representative and direct democracy.

The system is far from perfect around laws, for example how a government once elected can start to push for laws that no-one ever voted for or even considered might be enacted. We hope that such things are balanced out as parties with differeing views come to power but now all the parties inhabit very similar political space on many many issues that natural balance is no longer protecting us. What we now end up with is a situation where the main parties represent the voters in some areas and in other areas the majority are powerless because all the voting options agree with a view that the people do not - i.e. how all parties ultimately act to protect the privileged few even though it is clear that the electorate would like to see a bit less of that. And that is why the centre is not the best for all because it is often not really the centre, it is just the establishment centre.

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

What I fail to see is why you fail to see that this is complex to most people.
To most people benefits from society are in terms of money that is given to you or services that you receive. The concept of the ability to make wealth coming from society is a far from easy concept.

Government does not always roll over on the rich. I have seen a number of examples where bluff has been called.
In terms of corporations, the issue is not so much with the people, but it is with the roles. The fear is not that some of our top bankers may move overseas, but that banks may move their operations overseas. Something that does need to be watched.

We are not going to get into the true value of someones work argument again are we???

Not sure what you mean by blaming the victims. But if you are referring to my comment that the poor seem to vote Tory then I'm not sure what your complaint is. They do - I wish it weren't the case, but they do.

No-one did well out of the French Revolution. Sure the aristocracy mostly lost their heads, however so did a lot of other people. The terror was well named.

Left and right may be a little simplistic, but the principle is fairly easy - either you do more for the poorer, which helps them but costs more for the richer, or you do the opposite.
Personally I think that there is space to move to the left, but I refer you back to the comment about poor people voting Tory.

As I said the establishment is difficult to define. I think that it is largely CS, with some people like press barons and some senior industrialists. But at the end of the day it is more of a concept than a fixed group.

My view is not that we should just accept it, but it is very difficult to tackle. You tend to find that such decisions are buried in detail, and people get quickly bored of detail.
There is a difference between the correct right moral answer and the answer which will engage the public - as Dukakis found out when asked the question about what he would do if his wife were raped.

Not sure where in the USA that happens - of course it can happen here with referenda, however there are always problems - for example people voting for more public spending and less tax.

There is an argument that our current arrangement with most parties in the centre actually makes for a better arrangement as we will get less tooing and froing between different laws - the situation where one set is constantly coming in and overturning the other lot is hardly useful.


I just wish this statement were true - again refer you to the comment about the poor voting Tory - also the poor in the USA voting Republiecan, even though they want to remove healthcare and other benefits for the poor.
Your view that this is 'clear' from the electorate is just plain wrong. Of course this whole situation is not helped by the press (who have an undeclared interest) supporting the top people.
What is also not clear is that the majority in the UK want the poorest to be helped more. Most in the UK are fairly 'conservative' when it comes to those at the bottom, and believe that some of them don't deserve it, and are fiddling etc.

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

I don't know - I am not super smart or anything but it just seems very obvious... so why it should not be obvious to others, especially those smart enough to get to the top of their relevant trees, sometimes baffles and frustrates me.

OK, so not always but if you had to bet your months salary on which way they'd go on any issue between rich & poor you'd be well advised to go rich based on the spread.

As I say I feel if banks were to threaten to go there are any numkber of things that a government could use as leverage from rallying the mob via the media through removing and exacting repayment for tax breaks through to nationalising their asses. Obviously not good options but unchecked corporations are already proving a danger to national interests and with the mood of the people in many western nations angry about bail outs etc it does seem an ideal moment to put some limitations on these entities before we lose the chance for another decade or two... by which time it may be too late.

We don't need to get into the true vaue in detail as long as we can acknowledge that the difference between what I am paid to produce good A and what the company then sells good A for feeds into how much profit they make. The relationship is more complex, naturally, but it is the root of capitalism.

But... you blame the voter for not grasping complex ideas you have just spanked me for treating as obvious - couldn't the blame also be laid at the feet of politcians who fail to even attempt to communicate these ideas to the voters? Maybe if they could understand how taxes etc fit into having a workable society they might vote differently?

Armed revolution is rarely good - but sometimes it gets the job done. It certainly ended the reign of Louis even if it didn't lead to the perfect world a lot of it's foot soldiers hoped for.

Dukkakis' problem was about not being able to express himself in a way that appealed to both wings of his audience - he was talking as a dry legalist not as a man running for office. I'm sure he could have hit both points if he'd been better prepared.

For the centre to be better you have to assume that the laws we have are the best ones - if you can honestly look around and say that we have the best of all possible situations right now then fair enough.

A lot of the reason the poor vote right is because the parties on the right are just better at getting a message across and at appealing to people's worst natures... i.e. 'Don't pay tax keep it for yourself and don't fund the (foreigners/single mums/gypsies/weirdos insert scapegoat of week)'.

What the left need to do, and don't, is frame and make better cases for what they want to do and why paying tax is both good for you and good for others. Make the case for why some level of socialism is actually to the benefit of 100% of people in the UK. I feel that the likes of our current government have been scared to make a case for the good things they do while being bold about making right wing arguements, they have allowed the mild right to become the centre.

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

There are lots of things that are obvious to me and not others - never ceases to baffle and frustrate.
One thing to bear in mind is the fact that most people don't care to think about things in the same way that we do.

The best thing that a government can do is to sort out international deals to prevent anything that would encourage them to move away - such as reducing tax havens.

I don't think that the concept of Tories being for the better off is that complex.

There are a lot of arguments that say that armed revolution actually leads to worse situations. Certainly in the short term, but even in the middle to longer term, it is likely that things would have improved anyway.

Dukakis' problem was that such concepts are alien to most of the voters. It wasn't just the way that he expressed them. His concepts are much more complex and moral, however that means that the general public did not take to them.

I think that there are places where we could tinker with the laws to make them better. I also think that we should be slightly to the left of where we are at the moment. Apart from that, we are in a fairly good place.
The problem in the UK is not the law and governance - it is the culture.

A lot of the reason the poor vote for the right is because they are stupid - which is not to say that other groups are also not stupid, however...

I agree - however I don't think that it is as easy as you think.

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

A fair point, I suppose if you never consider the subject why would you ever come up with any kind of opinion obvious or otherwise.

That is what we should be doing now, seizing the opportunity when there is a US leader who would actually support a weakening of the wilder side of capitalism. Instead Brown faffs around and the chance is wasted... unlike Blair you can't helo feeling he'll rue the day he did nothing.

Tories for the rich is, to us, obvious - but the right do a good job of implying that somehow most of us are rich or can reasonably aspire to be so... thus they can cream enough to win an election when the memories of their last time in office grow dim. They are also great at painting such anti-rich policies as anti-freedom... how can we stifle success? Shouldn't we' be allowed to keep what we earn? Wanting to tax the rich is all about envy rather than fairness and besides is £x really rich, hard working families will suffer to pay benefits for shiftless insert weekly scapegoat here.

The arguments are all deeply flawed and not at all moral, but while the right forcefully makes it's case for selfishness the left stands mute and seems frightened to state it's case - even now when their seems little to lose Labour look to go down without ever coming out for the things they sometimes seem to want to believe in. i.e. Social justice within a competitive but sane economy.

The case should not be hard to make if we assume your previous contention that when it comes down to it most people are decent and well meaning.

Armed revolt seems to normally be a lousy option, but if you are stuck with a corrupt and greedy government who allow little freedom what choice do you have that is not equally bad? (Not saying this is the UK in 2010)

I think Dukkakis might have been better off saying that he'd want to torture the guy and then string the son of a bitca up but that he hoped that he'd be stopped and that US justice would be followed... his mistake was to try and go solely for the intellectual response.

Are they stupid or just badly educated? If we truly are a stupid people then we are somewhat screwed if better education is the key then not so much...

I am not saying it's really easy - the right have a long head start where they have had uncontested time to make their case, that's why we are where we are... if they can find their voice again and temper it with sanity then they could start to work for it. If not they really risk becoming irrelevant... if they stand for nothing except election then they will truly become the Tory-lite that they get accuse of being...

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

I don't think that Obama is as solid as we like to think. There is a serious danger that he will become a bit of a lame duck, like Clinton. We cannot have the view that he will give us everything we want.

Fine - you get the Tory message - but you seem to think that everyone should be able to rise above it. The truth is that they cannot - my point is that you cannot assume the public is intelligent enough to see through such things.

I disagree that the left stays mute. We have introduced a minimum wage. We led the discussions on cancelling debt - to give but 2 examples. I agree that we might have done more, but we have not done nothing.

The case is hard to make because, whilst people may be decent and well meaning, they are not necesarily intelligent, or politically savvy, or bothered to find out.

I think that you also underestimate the tendency of people to pull up the ladder they have climbed up - as mentioned before, they often see those below them as undeserving, as they have not managed to help themselves.
I am currently part way though a podcast on the USA tea party - a frighting organisation - however one thing that struck me was the comment that someone made on healthcare - people should pay for their own health insurance - it is empowering for them to do so. If you leave it to the government, then all you get is a poor service. Now whilst I dont necessarily agree with these sentiments, I can see that they resonate throughout a lot of the population.

There are alternatives to armed revolt - Romania and East Germany were changed without armed revolt, as was India. Armed revolt is often the easy way out - long term action and patience is the better route.

Dukakis mistake was not so much to go for the intellectual response - it was to be out of tune with the people. Most people in the USA believe that there should be no justice to stop you having a go at the person who has raped and killed your wife.

Look - you and I often fall into the trap of thinking that people who disagree with us are either stupid or badly educated (as I do above). To some degree this is correct - but we also have to accept that to some degree people do want what they want. Like I said, I think that some people do vote Tory in the knowledge that it will not benefit them directly, and in the knowledge of what the likely outcome will be - but they still vote Tory because they feel that it is right. To a degree this is stupidity, but to a degree it is also free will and democracy.

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

I don't think he is either but there is a lot more chance to get good things done with him than there ever was with Bush..

I do think people should be able to see through it... maybe not the 18 year olds voting for the first time but anyone over 30 will have had some experience of both parties and should by now have a healthy distrust of both,

The left implemented a minimum wage but they never really trumpetted the reasons why it was good for the economy, they sort of snuck it in quietly seeming almost ashamed of such socialist behaviour... which not only allows the right the space to make their case but makes it look like there is something off about the policy because even it's owners are reticent to stand up and be counted. So while good things have been done they have not been robustly sold to the electorate.

And yes the case is not easy but the longer you guys avoid making it the harder it will get.

I'm not sure I underestimate people's selfishness but once again - the reason such arguments against left leaning policies work is because the left seems scared to take a stand and make their case.

Lets face it the whole of the New Labour case for election was 'hey we're not like those old socialist types, we like business and rich people and we won't take your money for redistribution like Kinnock or Foot would have done'.

They ran away from the left and have been shy about any lefty type decisions they have made. And as a result we will end up being run by a Tory party who have not been forced to make many real changes since the last time they were in power because while Labour may have won power they never even tried to win the politcial arguments that shift the tone of politics.

Yes there are alternatives... but if a population is being opressed and killed patience is not always an option.

Thing is do they want things because they do not have a good view on the implications or do they want themn because they have thought them through and decided that kicking the poor is in fact the correct and moral approach to take?

If it is the latter than we're stuffed but if it is lack of knowledge then we can change peope by giving them the knowledge.

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

I really don't see what your argument is.
You wish that Labour was more like Foot and Kinnock and stated a redistribution policy - and yet you do seem to acknowledge that this DIDNT WORK!!!!

And this was not for want of trying to discuss things with the electorate. The electorate was not interested.
That is why in 92 so many of them lied about who they voted for. They knew damn well what the impact was, but they didn't care.

Again I disagree that Labour has not tried to shift the axis - they may not have tried as much as we would want, and may not have succeeded, however they did try to shift the axis - hence minimum wage etc.

I think that they want things because they are 'conservative'. They see themselves fitting into a place in society, and don't see the point in overturning that view. They are generally happy with their lot - don't want to pay any more tax or reduce their position - but neither do they expect a whole lot more - except they want someone to govern well.
To a certain degree I think that some like the idea of some form of aristocricy who can look after them.
The old view of the Tory party is to some extent returning. They were always the ruling party - with no clear dogma or policy, other than what they thought was good government - moving things along slowly, and generally trying to keep government out of peoples lives.

There is a point that says that it is arrogant of us to decide that they must only think like that because they are stupid or ignorant. There is also a case to be made for them just being plain wrong.

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

If not arrogant we certainly risk being patronising by assuming that all these poor people would agree with us if only they were able to get what we meant - I think that must be a risk for any government and anyone with a political opinion. BUT there are also areas where people believe something a politician says and vote against their interests and areas where they will vote to the detriment of society as a whole which in the long term will also most likely be against their own interests.

What I think is that New Labour very cleverly planned to gain power by looking somewhat like a second Tory party that had not been tarnished by 18 years of scandal while keeping some of their core values as well... under Smith I think this would have delivered something closer to what we both seem to want i.e. a balance of socialism, liberalism and capitalism (or free marketism).

Sadly Blair forgot he was only pretending to be a bit of a Tory.

I very much don't want the style of comu-socialism of the older left but it would have been nice to have had something a little more like what was expected, if not promised.

In some ways I like the idea of a government that governs well and keeps itself out of our private lives except where absolutely needed - I just don't see the Tory party as being the people to deliver that and Labour have proven that, beyond a doubt, it's not them either.

The current Tory party is a party of the rich for the rich but they are so much better at getting across their message - partly because it is simpler and does appeal to a certain mindset but also because Labour will not make their won case.

And you can bring up minimum wage all you want, great policy - but try asking people about it and they will know Labour created it but I'm willing to bet most will not remember any Labour figure stumping for it before or after... the result is that to many it is just some stealth tax that Labour have levied on hard working brits to bring up the wages of immigrants... and they think that because that is the message the Tories have given out with little from labour to counter it. If the Tories were to repeal it they would probably be met with applause from the very people who will see their income drop as a result simply because no-one from Labour has bothered to step up and explain why it is a good idea worth implementing & how it actually benefits society as a whole.

That is my argument... Labour have not represented themselves well because they have been too busy trying to look like Tories to avoid spooking the voters.

I'd contend that they are the ultimate arrogant fools because they do not trust the people to get their case and thus don't even bother to make it. When the few good things they have done get reversed as a result the only mark they will have left is a huge expansion of surveillance and unchecked police power that will make superb soundbites for the incumbent party for the next 15-20 years of Tory rule.

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Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

I disagree that Labour wanted to look like the Tories - they wanted to look like a good centerist party. By 97, the Tories were not centerist, and were looking very dodgy.

The thing you have to remember about Labour was that previous Labour governments had been derailed by fears that they would be too harsh to business, and too easy on the Unions. What Blair and brown set out to do was to calm all of these fears, by being tough on the unions and being easy on business.

You can argue (and you will) that we were too easy on Business, and I would largely agree with that. However you cannot coherently argue that we were or are a Tory party. No Tory party would have introduced the minimum wage - spent millions on education and the NHS - banned fox hunting etc etc etc.

Its hard to tell what was expected. Bigger spending on health and the NHS? Better support for the poorer paid workers? All achieved. I'm not really sure what people expected other than these things and didn't get.


The problem is that you cannot have your cake and eat it. You cannot have government that tries to incentivise people to reduce waste, and then say that they cannot put chips in bins to allow them to do this. You cannot have a government that tries to pay for better services - and then say that they cannot intrude into your private life by asking for tax to pay for it all.

I think that Labour have fallen foul of a very disruptive press which insists on wanting things that are impossible to achieve - and then calls it all common sense. In this weeks local paper the headline was about how appalling it was that a few graves in a local cemetary were flooded. Now whilst I can see the point of view of the parents of the children buried there, this is a natural thing that cannot be prevented, and I am not convinced that it is worth the tax-payers money to rectify it - unless it is something that is obvious (for example if the cemetary was next to a river or something (which it isn't)). The problem is that the press presses for intervention, and then complains when it happens. Whilst we might agree that the government should be tougher against the press, it is very difficult to do and remain any credibility as democratically accountable - especially as the press will not report any argument about why you are not doing these things.

The thing that you miss is the fact that the people like the rich to some degree - whilst they may dislike some of the more gaudy bonuses, they do respect people who have money. There is a general human view that people with money must have earned it to some greater or lesser degree - and therefore they should be respected and listened to. Of course we know this is tosh, but the general public don't.

The reason you don't see much discussion on the minimum wage, is that the Tories never really opposed it before or since. There was some talk of it leading to job losses, but this was impossible to sustain as employment rose. The Tories are no-where near being able to remove it at this stage - perhaps in 5-10 years of Tory government it could come on the agenda, however it would be very difficult to repeal - the only possible argument would come if there was high scale unemployment, and the argument could go that cutting the minimum wage would reduce the cost of employment and encourage job creation - however the Tories are no-where near saying that at the moment.

I agree that Labour could and should have argued for slightly more, but I think that you are being far too harsh on what they have achieved.

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(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

But your description of how the Tories are perceived IS as a good centrist party... so in deference to you not wanting Labour to be Tories lets agree that they wanted to appear to have sopme characteristics that people normally had associated with the Tories?

I will argue thta they have been too good for business - but even that is not accurate, they have really been to willing to listen to how business would like to be helped rather than perhaps looking for their own style of solutions. i.e. they did look to remove regulations that business wanted removed and there seemed to be little review process around this & they have tended to allow business to self govern which is an abdication of their duty to us.

I think, and 15 years ago I'd never have expected to say this, that they have been too harsh to unions who really do serve a purpose. Part of that is the unions fault but sometimes it seems they oppose unions merely to look like they oppose unions even when the union has a fair point to make.

I think everyone obviously expected different things but ultimately they thought they were voting for an improved and modernised but still Labour party not another centrist clone.

I think you are dead wrong on the next bit - I don't think anyone expected Labour to incentivise wasted disposal and I very much doubt anyone expected to be treated like a criminal for putting the wrong sort of rubbish in the wrong coloured bin or have their rotting waste baking in the sun attracting flies for an extra week. And there are other ways the incentivising could have been done - for example by monitoring the ammount of recycled waste collected from an area and rewarding a community if it went up... thus stopping the invasions of privacy anbd misuse of powers but still encouarging communities to do better. By taking this approach they could also have encouraged communities to work together to achieve goals.

But positive methods of encouragement are not Labour's style they are all about the stick and very little about the carrot - and over their time in office they have time and again demonstrated their hostility to the ordinary people of this nation.

And despite your attamepts to re-frame a governemtn does not need to spy on me to know what my income is, my company declares it just as it did before Labour decided that they wanted to snoop on everyone.

The snooping is the thing they have really failed at - their constant drive to know every tiny insignificant personal detail of where you go and what you do with little control over access to such sensitive information & allowing it to be abused by any petty minded official with a grudge. They have created the tools for a truly oppressive state and frankly that puts their few genuinely good policies in the shade.

And I am going to ignore the usual 'don't blame on the government because life is sooo tough for the poor little innocents' para. They wanted to be in charge and now they are they just seek excuses as to why they have failed... if they can't do the job resignation is a welcome alternative...

I, myself, have little against the well off who have earned their money through hard, honest work.

My issue is with the ones that have inherited wealth they have not earned and those that have gained it by dishonesty or backstabbing - they are a blight on the nation and prevent us from being as prosperous as we should be.

I really don't think I am being that harsh because they have not acheived that much compared to the damage I believe they have done in many areas (fracturing communities, laws that allow and encourage state abuse of power, financial chaos, unaccountable politics, shielding of corporate criminals, weakening of innocent until proven guilty etc.) - and even where they have suceeded the financial mess Brown has enabled is going to lead to some of them being rolled back... so we are left with a state that has all the tools to watch us but will not be able to afford any of the good things you claim the snooping will enable.

It does seem somehow appropriate that as this government draws towards it's likely demise that a 1.5% rise for politcians is agreed at the same time as all the far lower paid government workerts are expected to stomache a pay freeze... a suitable epitaph to a party who have failed on almost every front.

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6

Caleb

I disagree - I don't think that the Tories are necessarily perceived as a centerist party - I think that they are mainly perceived as a party of the right (or richer) who offer benefits for some of those who are below them.

The interesting thing regarding unions is not around government legislation. Actually this government has relaxed legislation towards unions so they should have a better chance to do the right thing. The problem with the unions is that they have often not had public support for their actions.
I agree that the government has often sided with business when it should not have done, but this has been verbal support and not legal - the unions have seldom made their case stick with the public.

I understand about your point about waste removal - however people cannot ask their government to be more green one week, and then complain when they are not the week after.
Rewarding a 'community' will hardly work, for the same reason that national or local tax does not totally work - it is fine for those who want to behave in the queue, but for the others...

Snooping is what you get from wishing for an interventionist government. If you want a Tory stand back government, then vote for them - again...

__________________
(Its amazing that a country which is so keen on the benefits of competition seems to want no competitors)

THP

I would have thought you'd be more likely to vote Conservative being the one constantly defending the privileges of the wealthy political and business classes against any kind of social justice - I'm sure it must be a bitter thing to recognise in yourself but these acts of attempted transference onto me are not going to help your mental health. Embrace your right wing authoritarianism and come out of the Tory closet, you'll feel less conflicted.

Smaller communities are more likely to self police if allowed - indeed historically the concept of local communities taking care of their own bad apples was accepted and widespread... although perhaps sometimes in ways we'd no longer approve of. But this is where Labour's silly little laws around minor issues that prevent or impede people's involvement in their own communities have made things much harder. People have been forced to leave things to the councils or the police because they themselves will get punished if they dare to intervene... Labour has talked a lot about wanting communities but it has done a lot to harm them.

Many times we see figures about how the UK has become the most watched people in the world and yet we are far from having the most pro-active and helpful government so your point just has no basis in reality.

The snooping is rarely around the provision of services but more about the increasingly stringent and bizarre decisions by Labour's leaders about what we should or shouldn't be allowed to do. Decisions that often have little to do with people committing acts that harm anyone or anything but has become about enforcing Labour's views on morality on people who should have a right to follow their won except when it damages others.

If it all came with good services and sensible well targeted benefits it might be acceptable in some areas but it does not because hat is not what it is designed to achieve.

Why does it have to be all or nothing in your book? Why can't we have a government that watches the city streets outside pubs to prevent drunken violence but stays out of the bedroom? Why can't we have information gathered and given to the small group that needs to see it instead of being accessible to anyone in government from the top to the lowest functionary regardless of how damaging it could be to individuals? Why can't we look at sensible considered ways to do these things instead of rushing something stupid and blatantly flawed just to appease Rupert frigging Murdoch?

I'll tell you why - because both main parties are full of people who have no interest in anything except defending the increasingly stupid and indefensible acts of their respective leaderships beyond any level of rationality that any sensible person seeking a middle ground has no place to go when he wishes to cast his vote.

Either way we get a party that favours the rich and unregulated business - on one side the poor get largely ignored beyond getting their daily bowl of soup, on the other the poor can have a small bite of bread too to eat as long as they don't mind be treated like serial killers as they jump through the hoops to get their daily bowl of soup.

Why would a sane person vote for either party based on that definition that insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result?

And vaguely on the subject at hand - Brown lying his way through the enquiry was just painful to watch as was the lack of any questioning or pressing of his non-answers. Did he really expect commanders who'd had troops die because of well publicised shortages of equipment to stay silent while he lied in such a blatant fashion, the only possible way he knew nothing is if actually has a standing order with the CS not to tell him about any military requests that were denied.

This is the man the Labour party feels is fit to lead this nation? Of all the people in the UK you seriously feel that I should cast my vote for this mockery of a man?

__________________
Tom
Wielder of the Holy Foxfire & Board Executioner - Sorcerer

I am not a f***ing pin!

Be a Government Informer. Betray your Family and Friends. Fabulous prizes to be won. - Red Dwarf 5.6