This is brilliant. Tory minister preaching about the big society is asked what volunteer work he does:
There will be serious social unrest in Britain in the next few years.
True. They have a more organised populace there and they have prominent left-wing newspapers. We have neither.
Cameron has impressed so far, Nick Clegg has become something of a clown, dare I say it John Prescott type joke figure. Ed Miliband is slowly but surely learning his trade as oppisition leader and should not be under-estimated, donât forget this is the guy who knifed his own brother in the back to get the gig.
Newsnight had a piece on tonight where some Milton Friedman type professor from the US was basically advocating slave labour - saying that people should be forced to work or not get their 60 quid a week in dole money, also that any child benefits should be taken away from mothers who donât work. Yeah, recipe for delinquent youth right there. Sure why employ anybody if youâre in business in that case, just employ slaves who are paid a pittance by the state, then the social welfare bill goes up and the Tories get to screw the poor even more.
They had one Tory chap on with him afterwards for a studio piece who pretty much agreed with everything he said. Paxman went very easy too.
Lawrence Mead was the professorâs name.
Iâd say the likes of Vardkar, Creighton and Hayes were wet with the thought of bringing something like that here if they were watching - probably had it set to record.
In all seriousness Milton Friedman should have been shot for crimes against humanity. Thereâs a great article called âPutting Uncle Milton to Bedâ which debunks the bizarre ideology that emerged around him.
On numerous levels the right wing economic ideologies of the British and the Americans are totally unsuited here. For starters they both have massive domestic markets, as well as a history of heavy industry and industrial development which is not possible here. It is utterly ludicrous to apply the same economic theories to a tiny island with a population circa 4 million. The best examples for us lie in our fellow Northern European small nations, where crackpots like Milton Friedman are largely ignored as social philosophers. They have infinitely more desirable societies, greater innovation in industry. and more sustainable economies. Of course they also make rich people pay tax, a notion that is all too controversial here.
I have yet to see the evidence for this notion that rich people donât pay tax.
OECD would beg to differ: Income tax rates
Before the last budget, the top 4% of earners payed 48% of all Income tax, and 50% of PAYE workers payed no Income tax.
The distribution curve for our Income tax take is staggeringly lop-sided.
Karl Whelan debunks the myth of top earners getting away with paying no tax here
This is Ronan Lyonsâ take on our tax base
Some of the underlying assumptions are now outdated due to the past budgets, but itâs still highly instructive to see the impact of marginal rate increases and the proportion of our workforce that effectively contribute very little in tax.
By all means abolish the property breaks. Pension reliefs arenât a bad idea so long as you tax them when drawn down.
Shift the tax base away from VAT and Stamps. Property tax, Water tax, all good ideas.
Doesnât change the fact that itâs Joe Soap and the guys on average and lower wages that will have to pay more.
There is no pot of gold out there.
Was referring to the comfortable middle classes rather than the super-rich TE. The prevailing philosophy in this country is that too much is being spent on public services and the middle income earner is over burdened with taxation. Ronan Lyonâs research demonstrates this to be utter nonsense as it clearly couldnât be further from the truth. As I said elsewhere FGâs commitment to this fairytale is a large part of their impending electoral success, sustaining it as they are though an ideological lens of analysis which reflects notions popular in the UK and US, but marginalised in the European states we would be better advised too model ourselves on.
Always find it ironic how Fine Gael and Fianna Fail say they want to be part of Europe while adopting the worst excesses of American neo-liberalism.
Interesting point just made on the radio by Mark Hennessy about the method by which David Cameron was elected Tory leader and the method by which every Tory candidate in every constituency is selected.
Yes, youâve guessed it, AV.
And theyâre campaigning against it.
And it looks like AV will be beaten handily. On the face of it this seems a bit like the Australian referendum on becoming a republic in 1999. Because it caused divisions in the âyesâ camp between radical reformists and people who only wanted a small change it was defeated. The fact theyâre not voting for full PR is hardly helping the yes campaign in this referendum.
Added to that Nick Clegg was on yes campaign. He had has a terrible time as Deputy PM and his involvement with yes side looked particularly careless with talk of it (the campaign) being a politician free zone and all. Idiotic notion that politicians couldnât involve themselves in a referendum in first place.
Lib Dems will be destroyed at the next election most likely.
Huge losses for the Lib Dems so far. Theyâve lost over 200 seats already from one third of the results (down 15% overall). Neither Labour nor Conservatives changed that much - Labour did well in England and better in Wales but lost out heavily to SNP in Scotland and Tories were pretty stable.
Cleggâs leadership must be under question now. Went from a non-entity to a superstar before the last election but then proved to be something of a lightweight as the election neared and now he seems reviled by a large portion of the country. Lib Dems are certainly going to have to put a distance between themselves and the Tories to recover any sort of support but they may be a long time recovering from this damage. People will feel they gave them a chance and theyâve blown it completely with a subservient role in government.
It was inevitable that this was going to happen to the Lib dems. Clegg will probably end up going to Brussels as European commissonner before the next election. Interesting now if some of the lib dems jump ship and join labour. With the defeat of the the AV vote i think the UK is back to two party politics for some time. Good results for SNP, I see Alex Salmond is on about having a referendum on independence. That will be interesting given that Scotland is the third most state dependent country in the world, after Cuba and Iraq. Not sure how they will fund themselves.
Their oil resources would go a long way to making up the shortfall. I think 90% of UK North Sea oil is in âScottishâ territory so theyâd be very close to breaking even fiscally if they cut ties and took that oil revenue for themselves. There are loads more complexities involved but if they got a good settlement on the oil they may be as sound financially as the rest of the UK.
An interesting article on this very subject
It gets better as it goes along buy pretending HBoS are Scottish is a silly beginning. The banking crisis canât be just devolved to Scotland it wasnt their problem alone.
Of course not, it is a Tory point of view. But the funding of Scotland in the future is the key issue for independence.
Who is David Cameron talking about?
âIrresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Reward without effort. Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Some of the worst aspects of human nature tolerated, indulged â sometimes even incentivised â by a state and its agencies that in parts have become literally de-moralisedâ.
âSo do we have the determination to confront all this and turn it around? I have the very strong sense that the responsible majority of people in this country not only have that determination; they are crying out for their government to act upon it. And I can assure you, I will not be found wanting.â
"People showing indifference to right and wrong. People with a twisted moral code. People with a complete absence of self-restraint.
âNow I know as soon as I use words like âbehaviourâ and âmoralâ people will say â what gives politicians the right to lecture us? Of course weâre not perfect. But politicians shying away from speaking the truth about behaviour, about morality. This has actually helped to cause the problems we see around us.â