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geoffrey_prime 758 posts |
May 21, 2009, 00:30
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It does end here, because you will always disagree with my position. Q: Firstly, how do you square your position as a believer in democracy with your support for the most undemocratic institutions in the country? A: Quite simple, I value the traditional and historical position of the UK as a monarchy and feel the democratic requirements of governance have been achieved through the evolution of a constutional monarchy. Q2: Secondly, do you still maintain that David Cameron is not on the take A2: Yes Q3: that he's a principled person? A3: Yes Q4: Or do you agree that a millionaire who complains about the squandering of public funds is a weasel for taking 80 grand of public money? A4: No, its a perfectly valid expense claim for the running of a second home, in respect of mortgae interest etc. I am not aware of him switching second homes, profiting from 2nd home sales, failing to pay capital gains tax on sales, making extravegant claims for pools, tennis courts, gardens, etc etc. I can only think that your clear predjucice against Cameron is based on class and wealth. Q5: As Jim said, as long as there's one person on a hospital waiting list, how can you see any grey area there? A5: This is a tired old left-wing position...haven't you twigged yet that money is not the key factor in respect of hospital waiting lists..and providing effective public services in general - Labour have been throwing money at public services, like there is no tomorrow, hoping that things will improve.... I am tax'd out...and pissed off, because the government have been taking more and delivering less. Realistically, whether you like it or not, only the Tories can get us out of the current mess...and its going to be a long haul. Sorry to all my Leftie friends, but this will be 1979 all over again.
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CraigR 479 posts |
May 21, 2009, 01:58
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Base, childish and completely devoid of political opinion it may be, but I have to say it. You my friend, are an arse.
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geoffrey_prime 758 posts |
May 21, 2009, 02:44
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Well, I've never said that I wasn't! ..and it's clear to me what you are.
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited May 21, 2009, 09:08
May 21, 2009, 09:07
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geoffrey_prime wrote: Realistically, whether you like it or not, only the Tories can get us out of the current mess...and its going to be a long haul. Sorry to all my Leftie friends, but this will be 1979 all over again. Maybe so. Maybe so. But the Tories are not going to get us out of this mess. No experience of building anything. No experience of running anything. Just a decade of tearing down other people down. If they win it is because in political terms they are our tallest midgets not because of the dawn of a new era of Tory values (whatever they may be in this century). You could close the Commons, open a small office for rubber stamping European law and NOTHING would change in terms of the daily lives of ordinary Britons. The very many MPs we do have that are honest, decent, hard working and true would be better served (and better servants) standing as independents in local government. Blues. Reds. Donkeys. Elephants. It's over. Anyway - all this is very much like the debates about Kiss on the other board. Hard wired opinions thrown around like bricks. Though I would like to hear from Merrick on how his vision of society is to work.
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geoffrey_prime 758 posts |
May 21, 2009, 10:23
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The next year will be interesting. The thought of "independents" putting themselves forward for election, particularly in the gen. election, I think will be really healthy. In particular, I would hope this would "moderate" the politics of the major parties, whilst still driving differentiation of policies.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
May 21, 2009, 13:21
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geoffrey_prime wrote: It does end here, because you will always disagree with my position. I won't if you can satisfactorily explain why your position is justified. I will disagree with something I see as unjust or unsubstantiated, and I will explain why. I expect anyone else expressing an opinion to do the same. geoffrey_prime wrote: I value the traditional and historical position of the UK as a monarchy What does that mean? How has it been a good thing to have people given a position of wealth, power and influence based on who their parents are rather than any merit? geoffrey_prime wrote: the democratic requirements of governance have been achieved through the evolution of a constutional monarchy. Where we've achieved democracy it's been in spite of, not due to, those who believe in rule of the people's will rather than rule of those with most money. In what way has the monarchy assisted the evolution of democracy rather than been a bar (or, at best, an irrelevance) to it? geoffrey_prime wrote: its a perfectly valid expense claim for the running of a second home Surely the second home should belong to the job. instead, we buy a second home for the individual doing the job, then when they leave we buy another one for their successor. whilst this may be 'valid' in terms of the rules the MPs invented for themselves, it is clearly unjust. If you ran a company, would you be happy buying your travelling employees second homes to keep? Do you think the MPs of all parties who refused second home allowance on principle are wrong? geoffrey_prime wrote: I can only think that your clear predjucice against Cameron is based on class and wealth. In part, yes. I resent it more because he clearly doesn't need that money. Sat amidst his millions, he could set an example (or, more accurately, follow the example of a poorer backbencher of his own party) and not squeeze the public for what is, to him, a piffling amount of money. Do you really think there's no hypocrisy in saying public money is being squandered whilst taking money you don't need for your own personal benefit? geoffrey_prime wrote: haven't you twigged yet that money is not the key factor in respect of hospital waiting lists It is certainly a factor. But it's also clear that the hospital thing is a kind of short hand in this discussion. Whilst there are people suffering for want of paltry sums, is it not galling to have a millionaire taking tens of thousands of pounds of public money to buy him a second home to keep? geoffrey_prime wrote: Labour have been throwing money at public services, like there is no tomorrow, hoping that things will improve Dunno where you live, but it's not like that in a lot of places. They've been putting some PFI money in (our children won't have basic services as they'll have spent the NHS budget paying today's overpriced contract holders). geoffrey_prime wrote: Realistically, whether you like it or not, only the Tories can get us out of the current mess They still favour PFI for public services. That is a giveaway of inflated sums to private hands. But I think we've clearly bigger problems than MPs on the take or the economic crisis. Resource depletion and climate change tower over these. The Conservatives plan is to stick their fingers in their ears and go lalalala at those. Their plan is to keep accelerating toward the precipice.
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geoffrey_prime 758 posts |
May 21, 2009, 13:46
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I really dont understand the repeated view being expressed on this board, that a millionaire should not be entitled to claim expenses. Is this confined to politicians..or should it apply to all people in public service - the police, teachers etc? Should millionaires be asked to work for free? or work expense-free? Perhaps we should try an recruit more and more millionaires into public service, working for free, to help us get public sector spending back under control.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Edited May 21, 2009, 14:05
May 21, 2009, 13:56
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Ian, firstly let me deal with the most urgent point you raise. IanB wrote: did you know that Cliff was allegedly once robbed of a Eurovision title by the personal intervention of General Franco? Kinnell! I didn't know that! Not since seeing The Sound Of Music have I had such strong sympathies for fascists. IanB wrote: I am very interested in what kind of society you envisage and how it is to be achieved and how it is to be governed. Please forgive the delay in replying, but that is a really enormous question. I defy anyone of any ideological stripe to have a concise or complete answer to it. Several things strike me as essential if we're to have a just society. Firstly, we need to embrace a real definition of sustainability and live by it. That is, using resources to meet our needs in a way that doesn't deprive others elsewhere (or yet to come) of the ability to meet their needs. Anything that doesn't do that is, by definition, unjust. Anything that does it to supply themselves with throwaway tat that doesn't even make the user happy is insane. Consumer-capitalism is based on that insanity. This leads to a second essential point, the abandonment of the profit motive as the main purpose of interaction. At present, corporations are legally obliged to maximise shareholder dividends. All other considerations are secondary. When you make the dominant institution of the age less bothered about welfare, justice or sustainability than profit, you are on a suicidal path. I hear what you say with IanB wrote: my idea of solutions is to make solving the problems part of the lexicon of self-interest. I don't think we'll have everyone skipping round doing all the dirty jobs for no pay except the rosy glow of helping the greater good. But I do think that everyone does things for the greater good every day. We all help strangers for no reward on occasion. If the people helping frail relatives and neighbours were paid our social welfare spending would explode. As a social species, we have a deep hardwired feeling that our place is within the group, and that we get that security as a two-way process. So what we mean by 'self-interest' can readily include approval from our peers. This instinctive desire has become twisted into status based on material acquisition and the suffering of others, but it isn't like that everywhere and it isn't permanent. Indeed, once we get beyond a level of our basic needs being met, there is a correlation between increased wealth and rates of mental health problems. We need something more humane and less tangible than a bigger pile of stuff. Ask anybody what makes them truly happy, it's rarely their most expensive possessions. I think mass society presents problems for us. We simply cannot conceive of there being so many people. As such, it's easy to dismiss the suffering of those we don't interact with. Conversely, it's very easy to feel like we're insignificant. Also, those who wield power do not really feel that those under them are really human. So, on many levels, concentrations of power cause suffering. Beyond party politics, beyond capitalism or industrialisation, it seems to me that the root problem is concentrations of power. The solution is to devolve power wherever possible, to give people the real ability to affect the things that affect them, and to minimise their ability to affect the things that don't affect them. This engagement improves self-worth and makes for stronger community and more justice in decision making. Clearly, some things need to be centralised and co-ordinated. You can't have, say, every town making its own railway but no national overview. and where co-ordination occurs, so does the opportunity for power. And as, deep in our monkey brains, power means the security of being needed by the group, we love it. It's one of the many paradoxes of humanity, the need for the love of others and the desire to control others. We are, in the end, nature's experiment to prove that there is such a thing as being too clever. What other species has members who commit suicide? Our big brains can quite happily believe two contradictory ideas and act on them both simultaneously. It will, in all probability, be the death of us. We see climate change but we love flying to Barbados. But then, as I said, if we're all acting altruistically every day, there is always hope. And if we can see the end of the Cold War without the nuclear war that most people spent decades beleiveing they'd die in, there's hope. If we can see the bloodless end of apartheid, anything is possible. Those of us who remember the 80s, have a think about South Africa. nobody saw that coming or would've put any money on it ever happening. The scale of modern communications makes rapid change all the more possible. And if humanity can do an Apollo project or a Dig For Victory war effort on short notice, then it's definitely not over until we're dead, and always worth fighting on. Do I think we'll ever get there? No. But then, none of us think we'll ever have a society free of violence and robbery, yet we decry those things, we seek to move towards such a society. It's all about taking us towards something better, to keep us striving for improvement. I realise I started trying to be specific but have gone into very broad generalisations. That's not any attempt to deflect you, just the natural response to a very broad - one of the broadest imaginable - question. Sorry if it's too vague. The stuff we talk about here a lot - anti-war, growing your own veg, questioning authority, challenging capitalism, reducing consumption, using less fossil fuels - are all parts of that move towards justice, and part of what I'd envisage as steps along the way. The short version is: trying to ensure everyone's needs are met, whilst encouraging a reprioritising of values away from endless wealth and towards a relocalising of much of our lives. It's a massive task, but then you have to go for what's right, not what's easiest. No point fighting for something easy that isn't really any good. The scale of the change required is daunting, but then again it means we're also constantly presented with aspects of it that we can act upon.
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Edited May 21, 2009, 14:14
May 21, 2009, 14:12
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geoffrey_prime wrote: I really dont understand the repeated view being expressed on this board, that a millionaire should not be entitled to claim expenses. I can't speak for anyone else, but my problem is not with a millionaire claiming expenses, but with a millionaire claiming expenses out of the public purse while insisting that taxes are too high because inefficient public services are frittering away resources unnecessarily. Just before this expenses furore kicked off, the tory mantra was all about "expenditure restraint" when it comes to public money. George Osborne made a remarkable statement just over a month ago, for instance. He called for a reassessment of the pay deals that had been negotiated for teachers, nurses and police -- suggesting that it might have been OK for them to expect above-inflation increases during times of economic boom, but: "Public sector pay needs to reflect the prevailing economic conditions. We need to look at these three pay deals the government came up with. They may be very inflexible at a time when the economic conditions are changing very quickly." (source) I don't have an argument with that statement, taken at face value. If a nation sees a significant drop in available tax-income, then expenditure will eventually need to reflect this. But the same people preaching restraint for those paid £30k, are busy picking up £100k paycheques and wondering how best to flip their unnecessary second home in order to avoid capital gains tax. George Osborne, for instance, remortgaged his house (i.e. took a big lump sum from the bank in return for an increase in mortgage payments) then flipped the house so that the taxpayer paid the increased mortgage. That's known as milking the system. And milking the system while insisting that everyone else exercise restraint, is hypocrisy bordering on corruption.
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
May 21, 2009, 14:38
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geoffrey_prime wrote: Should millionaires be asked to work for free? or work expense-free?Perhaps we should try an recruit more and more millionaires into public service, working for free, to help us get public sector spending back under control. Sorry if people seem a bit irrational on the subject of MPs expenses Geoffrey. Maybe they've got too sensitive lately. They are so silly. It isn't as if an MP, knighted by her most gracious majesty and Chair and Director of banking, oil, hotels, textiles, pharmaceuticals and venture capital companies has just been exposed as having claimed and received £1,650 to buy a floating island for his fecking ducks!
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