:tories: Tories in trouble?

Reasonably serious discussion
822

I’ve seen this show before, thirty years ago, so the current treatment of the poor, and all of the lying in the manifesto and now by Jeremy Hunt is no surprise.

(But this is not a party attack, Tony Blair was just as detestable.)

This time I’m getting on a bit and I’m doing okay, in all honesty, attacks on the poor don’t hit me like they did back then.

So this time I feel like I’m sat in the grandstand watching a very nasty party absolutely rape the fuck out of the vulnerable.

I cannot see justification for some of the attacks on the worst off in our society.

My advice to the young is don’t get poor, don’t get ill, don’t get old, never trust a politician from any party who promises you ANYTHING and above all, if you reach an age where you are doing okay, make sure you still care about the unfair treatment of the weak.

And if anyone wants to defend what is being done, don’t waste your time, it cannot be defended, just tell me if you honestly believe 100% in the dismantling of the NHS, the reduction in policing, closures to vital health services, and even the sacking of school crossing staff - all the stuff you voted for.

Because I think a lot of people who voted for all this are suddenly realising that on polling day they were naive in the extreme and happily gave Cameron the power to do whatever he wants in their name.

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823

Ah, the necessary scintilla of doubt that frees right wingers from any further consideration of the issues.*

* see earlier post.

824

Originally posted by @Rallyboy

Because I think a lot of people who voted for all this are suddenly realising that on polling day they were naive in the extreme and happily gave Cameron the power to do whatever he wants in their name.

If only. Most people who vote Tory don’t give a shit about anyone else less fortunate than themselves - they knew exactly what they were voting for and now they’ve got it. Which is fine…they can reflect on a life-lived-fearful when they’re lying on their death bed.

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825

That was why I didn’t moan about the Tory landslide too much, it’s democracy and the majority wanted cuts to key services.

But I’m not sure they realsed that they were voting for the end of the NHS and to have no police presence in their town.

826

I reckon most of those people did know but didn’t care and the rest were too stupid to realise. What can you do with stupid people?

827

I guess it’s less embarrassing to pretend to be heartless than to admit that you were conned out of your vote.

828

I’m less sure. I think a large amount of people really didn’t expect quite what they were getting.

Getting people to vote against their own interest is what people like the Conservatives have been doing for years. It helps massively when you are backed by the media who can easily sway people. Slap a picture of the opposition leader looking strange whilst eating a bacon sandwich on the front page of a paper next to a pair of boobs. You aren’t trying to convince them of the merits of either party, just that Miliband was weird, and that Labour, apparently, are responsible entirely for the _ GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS. _

I’m sure this attack was in no way at all related to those that actually did wreck the economy cosying up to these folks. None at all. Definitely not.

Had an interesting exchange on FB recently with an old family friend who happily posted smug, and sanctimonious crap about why are people so upset about the Tories, then moaning about her local library being closed. Pointing out that this is quite literally what you voted for, I was met with a response of:

Vote Labour, that’s why we’ve got no money!!

This is the state of what political discourse has gotten too. Lies are repeated so often that it becomes fact, even if it is utter nonsense. Just look at the reaction to Corbyn for crying out loud. You would think the guy is literally the reincarnation of Lenin judging on the reaction in some quarters of the country.

I know I have said this before, on this thread, but the most glaring symptom of the society with live in is the indifference to hearing that 62 people own half the world’s wealth, yet the indignation at the idea of a refugee owning a smart phone. This Capitalist neo-liberal place we are in now works for the 1%. That is it. The odds are severely stacked against anyone else.

This is why the Tories want to scrap teaching kids creativity, or problem solving skills, or analytical thinking and just teach them to memorise dates and rote learn ‘facts’. So you don’t question society. So you don’t question why power and money is restricted amongst such a tiny percentage of people.

The system is fucked, and far too many people just sleepwalk their way through it. It’s sad, and infuriating.

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829

Originally posted by @KRG

Had an interesting exchange on FB recently with an old family friend who happily posted smug, and sanctimonious crap about why are people so upset about the Tories, then moaning about her local library being closed. Pointing out that this is quite literally what you voted for, I was met with a response of:

Vote Labour, that’s why we’ve got no money!!

Thinking about this bit.

It seems David Cameron, and his own Mum don’t really appreciate entirely what a Tory government means. Upset at the local cuts themselves.

What chance do people that get all their information from a headline (they don’t read the articles ffs) of The Sc*m have?

830

Originally posted by @KRG

Originally posted by @KRG

Had an interesting exchange on FB recently with an old family friend who happily posted smug, and sanctimonious crap about why are people so upset about the Tories, then moaning about her local library being closed. Pointing out that this is quite literally what you voted for, I was met with a response of:

Vote Labour, that’s why we’ve got no money!!

Thinking about this bit.

It seems David Cameron, and his own Mum don’t really appreciate entirely what a Tory government means. Upset at the local cuts themselves.

What chance do people that get all their information from a headline (they don’t read the articles ffs) of The Sc*m have?

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg are the reasons why people hate politics, they were all educated the same, come from the same comfortable classes so they are paper thin apart, Cameron is the most left wing tory leader there has ever been, people are duped as this is exactly what Labour would have done if it were Miliband, sure a bit here and there but nothing major.

They are all the same and that’s the great illusion.

831

Originally posted by @Barry-Sanchez

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg are the reasons why people hate politics, they were all educated the same, come from the same comfortable classes so they are paper thin apart, Cameron is the most left wing tory leader there has ever been, people are duped as this is exactly what Labour would have done if it were Miliband, sure a bit here and there but nothing major. They are all the same and that’s the great illusion.

There’s some truth to that. But I wouldn’t say it’s as cut and dry as you are presenting it.

Yes, both went to Oxford. But if you look how they spent their time there, you can see a marked difference.

David Cameron was a member of various uber-elitist groups, that went around fucking dead animals, smashing up restaurants and throwing money around for fun.

Ed Miliband organised a rent strike amongst students against large rent increases.

So yeah, they were both raised in comofrtable familes (though one is far more wealthy and much more of an aristocratic heritage than the other) and went to the same university, you can still see the differences in their priorities and outlooks.

I don’t think Labour would have been the saame, but it was their undoing to be too weak to stand against ‘austerity’. I also doubt we’d see the NHS being ripped up and sold off at the rate it is under the Tories (to their backers, naturally) as we are now either.

And no, I’m not a Labour supporter, and never voted Labour in my life.

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832

Originally posted by @KRG

Originally posted by @Barry-Sanchez

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg are the reasons why people hate politics, they were all educated the same, come from the same comfortable classes so they are paper thin apart, Cameron is the most left wing tory leader there has ever been, people are duped as this is exactly what Labour would have done if it were Miliband, sure a bit here and there but nothing major. They are all the same and that’s the great illusion.

There’s some truth to that. But I would say it’s as cut and dry as you are presenting it.

Yes, both went to Oxford. But if you look how they spent their time there, you can see a marked difference.

David Cameron was a member of various uber-elitist groups, that went around fucking dead animals, smashing up restaurants and throwing money around for fun.

Ed Miliband organised a rent strike amongst students against large rent increases.

So yeah, they were both raised in comofrtable familes (though one is far more wealthy and much more of an aristocratic heritage than the other) and went to the same university, you can still see the differences in their priorities and outlooks.

I don’t think Labour would have been the saame, but it was their undoing to be too weak to stand against ‘austerity’. I also doubt we’d see the NHS being ripped up and sold off at the rate it is under the Tories (to their backers, naturally) as we are now either.

And no, I’m not a Labour supporter, and never voted Labour in my life.

I’m a Labour supporter and I fucking hate them, middle class elitists who have forgotten their working class roots, should fuck off to the centre ground liberals who are tories with a conscience, the tories are liberals as well.

I go back to my statement some weeks ago saying the parties are only appealing to a small segment to get them elected, as it stands its middle England and they are middle of the road liberal/ small c tory.

Bollocks to the rest, at least the Labour party has a conviction politician leader, it wont save him when they nail him to the mast but fair play all the same, the party similar to the tory one needs to split.

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833

Originally posted by @Barry-Sanchez

I’m a Labour supporter and I fucking hate them, middle class elitists who have forgotten their working class roots, should fuck off to the centre ground liberals who are tories with a conscience, the tories are liberals as well. I go back to my statement some weeks ago saying the parties are only appealing to a small segment to get them elected, as it stands its middle England and they are middle of the road liberal/ small c tory. Bollocks to the rest, at least the Labour party has a conviction politician leader, it wont save him when they nail him to the mast but fair play all the same, the party similar to the tory one needs to split.

I’d say a lot of that is fair.

I think the part about shooting at a narrow group is also true. In my opinion, this is linked to what I said above about the attacks on personality, or how someone looks eating a sandwich - as if that has any 'kin bearing on a persons ability to run a country.

It puts people off politics, especially younger folk. And it stops people talking about politics, or in particular, policy. Put side by side, what Labour would plan to do, or what the Tories would do. Without spin, without personality, I think perceptions would be very different.

It keeps the voter base limited, and disinterested. It means you get the same people voting, and that is generally, older folk who often tend to lean more conservative.

What is interesting, is that both here (Corbyn) and across the pond (Sanders) you are seeing a rise in conviction politicians who are advocating an alternative view. The reason that ‘the establishment’ (sorry, I hate that phrase too, but it does feel appropriate here) are so shit scared, and attempting to throw so much mud their way is because huge swathes of their supporters are younger folks. It is leading to more people taking an interest, which spells bad news for the (small c) conservative parties. The right leaning parties (Tory/GOP) generally perform better with low voter turnout.

Again, digging up something else I qutoed recently:

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - Noam Chomsky

Sanders & Corbyn both fall outside of the Neo-Liberal status quo, hence the the petrified mudslinging you seen thrown at both of them. The playbook for both is almost identical.

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834

They do but they are also liberal elites, the same as Benn and the like, politics is a closed shop now.
It will never be open again to the masses as it was after the war.
Chomsky was I suspect aiming that at the fascist left as much as the right.
The right to be offended and offend is dying by political correctness, fear of being labelled shuts down debate and opinion, the irony is the people spouting the lack of freedoms are then ones who are over zealous in policing it.
Intent, meaning and context are things the extreme left have never taken to as it doesn’t fit their agenda.

835

There’s a reason that Blair introduced the “presidential style” of cabinet government, a nice euphemism for a small cabal of people pushing various agenda items through. Cameron seems to have continued the practice, giving a very real sense of being governed by a few people that have never had to endure the day to day problems of the average Brit.

This isn’t strictly a criticism levelled at the Conservatives, because the defunct New Labour were just as happy to pursue a neo-liberal agenda indifferent to its effects, even if they did manage to spin much of it as reforms that looked good for the public. I know I have complained about the tax credit cuts, but that is largely because they exist now and people would be worse off without them, but a proper Labour government would never have subsidised big business by topping up wages that people can’t live on. The original Labour movers and shakers would have targeted the employers, and rightfully so.

836

Cameron is more left wing than Balir, how fucking embarrarssing for the Labour movement, Labour 13 years were wasted through self righteous political correctness and celebrating diversity, this simply meant we were allowed to remain seperate and live parallel lives, Straw warned the cabinet of this and was dismissed by the Southern elites as being out of date.

Time will tell but history I believe will judge Blair to less humane than Thatcher, his Christian crusade into the middle East should see him up for war crimes at the very least nevermind murder enquiries, cronyism and many many other things, a real shame as I believed him at the start and I’m sure he believed himself but he turned out to be a Western tyran.

837

On what basis do you put Cameron to the left of Blair?

838

He wouldn’t have gone to war with a Christian conviction, he is even more of a devout EU follower than Blair, Blair dropped Clause IV which underpinned the fundamental nature of the Labour Party akin to Cameron dropping the Unionist name from the tory party, I don’t know if you know but they are great friends not that its said much.

839

I disagree - the only people to the right of Cameron’s policies at the moment are Thatcher and Attila the Hun.

This Tory government would burn pensioners and foreigners in power stations if it made a profit for their friends.

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840

I think you mean Osbourne, Hunt and May?

Cameron is the face but isn’t that right wing all along, most of his party distrust him or outright dislike him, the presentable face of a shower of bastards.

841

what? Is this serious? Cameron more left wing than Blair? If you’re being genuine then there really is no point in you ever saying anything again or anyone ever responding to any of the strange noises that come from you.