GS, aren't you the first to criticise Labour MPs when they send their kids to private school?
Theresa May's Conservatives
Jeremy Corbyn's Labour
Tim Farron's Liberal Democrats
Paul Nuttall's UKIP
2 people's Greens
Nicholas Durgeon's Scottish Nationalists
Satan's Sinn Fein
Dr Ian Paisley's DUP
Some other bunch of nonces
I'm foreign, but I wish I were an Englishman
GS, aren't you the first to criticise Labour MPs when they send their kids to private school?
I think that only applies to the ones who want to stop other people doing likewise. Tim Farron doesn't want to ban bumming.
Only when they lecture everybody else about the evils of selective education and demand that the proles send their kids to the local comprehensive no matter how much of a dump it is.Originally Posted by Yevrah
I don't think this is trying to disbar Christians from public life. There are lots of Christians who have decided that homosexuality isn't a sin, or they join parties which have policies that accommodate the view that it is. The problem here is the absolute hypocrisy of thinking one thing and doing another.
If you have that view, we're probably three years away from reviving the Test Act in a different guise.
Demanding everybody think and do the same as you on religious matters has been out of fashion for quite some time now.
You're the only one talking about a demand that people believe the same thing as Farron. The demand is that Farron believe the same thing as Farron - and not engage in a kind of cognitive dissonance borne out of special pleading for religion.
That's making windows into men's souls.
His voting record is what it matters, not whether he personally wouldn't do it.
I don't really care if people that aren't comfortable with homosexuals are politicians (as there will always be people who aren't and we shouldn't police thought), I just don't understand how someone who is liberal in all other areas and constantly bangs the drum about how we all should be too isn't comfortable with homosexuals. It's as if his principles only go so far and then his religion takes over.
It's the same as when Sarah Teather voted against gay marriage and came out with an absolutely nonsensical rationale afterwards.
I'd admit that's it's probably been made more of an issue than it needed to be, but let's not pretend that if it was a tory who held those views they wouldn't be being ripped apart as we type.
And this is where he dropped the ball. He should have made more of his voting record rather than getting into a question dodging shit-off.
Farron handled it very poorly, which made it much more of an issue.
Again, I think much of it is that people don't understand Christianity.
Particularly Christians.
Perhaps, but then not all Christians feel the same way he does so is it any wonder. What's the official line on this one?
The official line from who?
The Old Testament says stuff like "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." Christians say that that the death penalty no longer applies due to some doctrinal contortions, although their New Testament however still says that it's "shameful" and such.
If Tim Farron thinks that it's shameful, then he deserves to be hounded about that.
What would it matter if he's not legislating against it? He's not imposing his view on anyone.
It's windows into men's souls again, and it's the sort of thing we did away with when the Test Act was repealed. In 1828.
Good luck with that.
As a leftie, I think it should be all religion all the time but only if it's Sharia or I'm out. None of the Jew stuff either.
It doesn't really make much PR sense for him to be the leader of a progressive party when he holds views that seem to contradict everything that he publicly stands for. I mean, really. Whether or not it's 'possible' in a not-being-a-hypocrite kind of way, it's a pretty stupid thing to do really unless there is literally nobody else available.
Remember when Tony Blair said God told him to invade Iraq? Good times.
He publicly stands for not telling people what to do with their bumholes. By definition, any personal opinion he might have would contradict that. That people are having so much trouble with this goes a long way to explaining the state of political discussion in this country.
Tee hee.
Jeremy Corbyn will be speaking on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury next weekend, then 'introducing' Run The Jewels.
I think the one lesson to take from this is that there's no point being 'honest' with the electorate - they won't reward you for it, and will buy HOPE and MORE FREE STUFF from the other bloke because they think that there's always going to be some way of paying for it that doesn't impact them.
This point cannot be driven home enough, and should be emblazoned on the mind of everyone who gets near a contribution to the next Tory manifesto.
Only one of the two main parties released a costed manifesto. You can disagree with the costing but it was the Conservatives that promised spending without saying where it would come from.
It's a very serious stretch to say Labour costed the manifesto. They put numbers in, certainly, but it doesn't represent a properly costed document because they know they can't provide one which would demonstrate clearly how they were going to fund the promises they made.
Which is fine, by the way - the electorate bought it.
It was 'costed' in the same way that I can buy a Porsche if somebody gives me a hundred grand for my trainers.
Honest.
Forget the manifesto. In just over a week Jeremy Corbyn is going to be introducing this.
It'll be deeply absurd.
They told people where the cuts were going to fall and that there wasn't going to be a huge raft of free stuff funded by air. Whatever the merits of the policies themselves, it was at least honest about what they were going to do.Honest.
I didn't like the social care policy, by the way - but we ended up in the quite remarkable position of the hard left defending the sanctity of inheritance for wealthy homeowners. Not only that, but telling them that they'd continue to have their social care funded for them by poorer tax-payers.
Unless they live in Kensington, of course, at which point they should expect to have their home requisitioned on them.
RTJ!
dots
Free stuff funded by air.
Do you mean the free stuff they are already getting funded in the same way it is currently funded? Sounds to me that you are being a bit dishonest with your description.
I understand not liking left wing policies. If you want to think that increasing government spending is bad, that is fine. But it seems to me that you're way more invested in parties and in the circus that is politics that in actual policies and/or ideas. You come of as a bit of a fanboy tbh.
I'm not sure I fully understand your point.Free stuff funded by air.
Do you mean the free stuff they are already getting funded in the same way it is currently funded? Sounds to me that you are being a bit dishonest with your description.
I understand not liking left wing policies. If you want to think that increasing government spending is bad, that is fine. But it seems to me that you're way more invested in parties and in the circus that is politics that in actual policies and/or ideas. You come of as a bit of a fanboy tbh.
I didn't like the Tory policy of booting deficit reduction into the middle of the next decade either. It suggested a lack of seriousness in tackling the issue, but it also 'decommissioned' a key attack line against Labour - it's hard to argue that they can't be trusted when you're saying you're not going to bother sorting it yourself for another eight years.
If you read the Labour manifesto (I wouldn't bother, but you can if you want) and look at the costing element, you can see that that it's clearly a cursory exercise to avoid any suggestion that it's 'uncosted'. There's no way their revenue generation schemes bring in what they think, but they're still going to make massive spending commitments which they'd end up borrowing to fund (including nationalising things again, which we all thought we'd moved on from over 20 years ago).
I didn't read the manifesto, but I did see some highlights. As I commented earlier, it is basically 'spend more, tax the rich to pay for it.' I know nothing about Labour, don't give a rats arse about them or Corbyn. As with most programs, it is bollocks. But I don't think it is any more dishonest than the good old 'we can't afford it' that always comes from the right. Point is, painting the mainstream party you support as 'poor them, they are being shunned for being honest' is nonsense. People that don't want to vote for them don't want to do it because they don't like what they offer. Also, when you suggest that the next bunch should consider how being honest doesn't get 'rewarded' you're suggesting they should do more lying in the name of winning. You don't see an issue with that?
The Tory manifesto itself was shit - in my view, it's the single biggest reason they lost their majority - not necessarily because the policies were inherently unfair (they weren't) but the presentation and 'groundwork' for advancing them slowly into the public conscience was completely absent. There was also no serious 'positive' policies that could be sold to anyone, meaning the media vacuum was filled with negativity and the subsequent defence. You could see the social care policy defence almost retreating trench by trench as various cabinet ministers sent out on TV basically drowned under questioning.
You can't advocate a major social care policy change out of the blue, fail to explain it properly, and expect the other side won't weaponise it to scare people (which they did very easily). That said, there was at least some effort to be honest with people, particularly pensioners, that they can't seriously expect to get a winter fuel payment if they're sitting in a home worth £2m. That you can't expect, in the face of a social care CRISIS (as it was painted in the spring) that you can sit in a £2m house and expect the poor to work harder to fund your social care. Or that if you're a student, you should really be paying your own tuition fees.
So it was then not an issue of them being honest and being punished for it, but rather one of poor presentation. A program run on cuts should in principle be a hard sell. On the other hand, that's what's winning elections in most places, so it is not like you can just claim the people are so stupid and they just want free stuff.
There were too many problems, frankly. The presentation was a problem. The lack of roll-out was a problem. The failure to defend it properly as a socially just measure to address the social care CRISIS and instead just u-turn when the scale of the backlash became obvious was a problem.
None of that, however, lessens the fact that the Tory manifesto spelt out a range of specific cost cutting measures. That the Tories didn't campaign on economic management (and thus undermine Jez's fantasy economics) is another problem.
Anyway, the point remains that the Labour manifesto is undeliverable - it's a pick and mix of populist policies which promise people universal benefits without any of the consequences of paying for it.
The Tory manifesto can be attacked from numerous angles - and it deserves to be - but it at least had the merit of not basically being a work of fiction.
I am not sure you can categorically say it is undeliverable. I know you believe that, and you're far from alone there. However, I think it would be entirely possible to keep benefits and offer free tuition or whatever it was he was offering without having to raise taxes for, say, the bottom 50%. Now I know you believe it would bring chaos, what with the increased deficit, but I remain unconvinced frankly (I did read the stuff you linked me to about deficit.) There are also economists out there who suggest increased spending and increased deficits are viable (granted, they suggest the increased spending should go towards productive endeavours.) So, while I'm sure the manifesto is extremely rose tinted, I don't think it is any more fiction than claiming cuts and austerity policies are the only way forward and an absolute necessity to avoid a complete country-wide meltdown.
Opinions, of course.
Anyone with a different opinion to GS is by his definition, unreasonable and ignorant of what they're talking about.
You should know that by now.
We should mean test old people and act surprised when they freeze to death because capita failed to deliver.
Still cuts are important.
I always thought the universal pensioner benefits were done on the basis that it is simply cheaper to give it to all of them than to have to run a staff of 78,000 civil servants (half of whom are permanently signed off due to stress) to means test it. What is the rationale that justifies it otherwise?
The rationale is / was that it's a vote winner, frankly, because people like handouts and you can trust old people to go down and vote.
My nan and grandad thought the DEMENTIA TAX was a good policy, albeit with some kinks that needed sorting, but they had already spoiled their postal votes.
People do love handouts, which is why the left is governing in every single country.
My folks absolutely HATED it. I tried to talk them round but it wasn't happening.
They'll all come crawling back when the NHS starts getting its £350 million a week.
Yeah but they have a four million pound house.
Where's that magic money tree? People have to get to work and make something of themselves. The state has no business in helping people.
Winter fuel costs two billion quid a year as a universal pay-out.
Even Red Ed was going to means test the fucking thing if he got in. It's entirely reasonable to expect that people who can afford to pay for it should do so.
And I'm entirely sure we will have grannies dying of the cold because capita or some other shit house company botching up their claim to hit a contracted target.
So you would make all payouts universal?
That's the logical end point.
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