To me, this all boils down to one salient fact - The Government gave our tax money to the banks to bail them out. When as tax payers we need help from the bank, they tell us to f**k off.
That is why Britain must be cleansed.
Are we still a democracy or a corptocracy? Page 5
I wouldn't agree at all. £66,000 is a hopeless salary and £185,000 at that level isn't very much at all. Pony Tony could have been a top flight lawyer and earned way more than he did as PM and not answered for it. The problem with our government is we got the sort of corporate drones who filled their expenses rather than ask for a pay raise.
The actual serious fraud thrown up by the investigation into expenses was small. As for bribes and bungs very few either (excpet Mandelson who may be one of the few truly skilled political operators).
The sad thing is from Thatcher to Clark to Blair to Brown. Most of our politicans are hardworking, commited and fairly honest. They're also out of their depth and underskilled.
I wouldn't agree at all. £66,000 is a hopeless salary and £185,000 at that level isn't very much at all. Pony Tony could have been a top flight lawyer and earned way more than he did as PM and not answered for it. The problem with our government is we got the sort of corporate drones who filled their expenses rather than ask for a pay raise.
The actual serious fraud thrown up by the investigation into expenses was small. As for bribes and bungs very few either (excpet Mandelson who may be one of the few truly skilled political operators).
The sad thing is from Thatcher to Clark to Blair to Brown. Most of our politicans are hardworking, commited and fairly honest. They're also out of their depth and underskilled.
Quote: Aaron @ September 18 2009, 1:21 PM BSTAs for democracy, we've barely resembled one for quite a while now. Ruled by unelected, breathtakingly corrupt imbeciles in Brussels whose ethics, decency, morality and honesty make the financial sector positively angelic in comparison.
Brussels is a gravy train, but the real problem with the eurocrats is that they are remote and doctrinaire. One-size fits all proposals, that sound sensible and fair in the abstract, translate into a bureaucratic straightjacket once transposed into national legislation.
The EU does do a lot of good, in pushing through reforms that would stall at a national level - nation states won't introduce reforms that they think could disadvantage them in an international market place. But it is excessively restrictive and controlling, and where sovereignty has been signed away it is unsympathetic to national circumstances.
As the poet e.e. cummings so eloquently put it, "A politician is an arse on which everything has sat, except a man".
Quote: Timbo @ September 18 2009, 1:47 PM BSTBrussels is a gravy trains but the real problem with the eurocrats is that they are remote and doctrinaire. One-size fits all proposals that sound sensible and fair in the abstract translate into a bureaucratic straightjacket once transposed into national legislation.
I agree - Up Yours Delors! Leave our Bangers alone!*
*We like eating sawdust and pig genitalia
Plus Brussells is the toilet of European democracy. For all the also rans, past their primes and plain insane politicians. People vote protest candidates in their and dump troublsome politicnas into comissioners seats. For what it's worth even then it does some good, e.g. The Human Rights Act.
But at the same time it is feeble and incompetent beyond belief. The question being how do we reform it? Or do we go back to invading Belgium at random intervals?
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ September 18 2009, 1:49 PM BSTI agree - Up Yours Delors! Leave our Bangers alone!*
*We like eating sawdust and pig genitalia
Quite. Hence the deeply pathetic, "we demand the right to call our chocolate, chocolate when it clearly isn't becuase it makes us feel good."
Quote: sootyj @ September 18 2009, 1:46 PM BSTThe sad thing is from Thatcher to Clark to Blair to Brown. Most of our politicans are hardworking, commited and fairly honest. They're also out of their depth and underskilled.
I think part of the problem is that our politicians have lost sight of what the job of a politician is. The New Labour philosophy was that the ideological arguments had been settled and that politics was about who could manage the country most efficiently. And since New Labour was stuffed full of the brightest and the best they could obviously run the country more efficiently than anyone else had ever done. (Despite the fact that most of them had never run anything.) And they had computers now - bright shiny magic boxes that could do anything. So instead of setting the policy direction and leaving it to the experts to decide what was possible and desirable and what was not, they micro-managed, trying to run your GP surgery and your primary school from Westminster. So of course they are out of their depth - anyone would be. It is not about how much they are paid - you do not make people more effective by paying them more, and you do not necessarily attract more effective people, as the truth is that there is not actually that much variation in the capacity of individual humans. There are no supermen waiting in the wings to come into rescue us if only we were prepared to stump up the dosh.
Curiously, while dismissive of the expertise of those they actually employ, New Labour are dazzled by the expertise of those in the commercial world, who seem able to wrap ministers around their little fingers, and as often as not, for all their fabulous salaries, turn out to be charlatans. The best example is the incompetence of Brown and Darling in handling the banks. The bankers persuaded the Government to deregulate them, so they could all get rich taking risks with our money, then when it all went tits up, they not only persuaded the Government to bail them out with more of our money, they also persuaded the Government to leave them alone on the grounds that only they had the expertise to be trusted with our money!
And for New Labour, also read anyone in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties under the age of about 50 - they are all cut from the same cloth.
What we need are politicians who are able to listen, able to delegate, able to bang heads together and above all with integrity. What we get are professional bullshitters and compulsive meddlers.
Seeing through a lie or a conceit – isn't that what makes for a lot of jokes? Classic set-up for a joke is to offer up bullshit as face-value fact, and undermine it with a punchline. But I don't find these lying bastards funny at all. Fighting over who can or will cut the most public services? Not funny. Fighting a war on 'Terror' (rather than terrorists)? Should be funny, but isn't. Gordon Brown trying to smile? Soooo not funny. Six climate protesters turning up outside Jeremy Clarkson's house to dump horse shit in the drive? Behold! The power of comedy!
Quote: sootyj @ September 18 2009, 9:26 AM BST1 The US health care debate. America has factually got the worst and the most expensive health care in the developed world. But the corporations that support
Our health care is very, very good. It's our insurance that's in need of fixing. Everyone knows that changes need to be made, but they're resisting the president's "OMG, we need to act immediately and I promise it won't cost you a dime or affect the quality of your care, so don't bother reading it because I wouldn't lie to you" approach when all indicators - especially the gold standard of them all, common sense - say otherwise.
Americans would welcome a change, but first of all they need to believe that the president is being honest about his claims. Right now, the majority of Americans are well-insured and don't believe what they're being told by Washington. And rightly so.
Quote: sootyj @ September 18 2009, 1:46 PM BSTI wouldn't agree at all. £66,000 is a hopeless salary and £185,000 at that level isn't very much at all. Pony Tony could have been a top flight lawyer and earned way more than he did as PM and not answered for it. The problem with our government is we got the sort of corporate drones who filled their expenses rather than ask for a pay raise.
The actual serious fraud thrown up by the investigation into expenses was small. As for bribes and bungs very few either (excpet Mandelson who may be one of the few truly skilled political operators).
The sad thing is from Thatcher to Clark to Blair to Brown. Most of our politicans are hardworking, commited and fairly honest. They're also out of their depth and underskilled.
If you don't agree, then why keep bleating on about them all being careerists? Anyway, as I said, it's not just money they're after, it's power, so your Tony argument is bullshit.
Quote: Timbo @ September 18 2009, 1:47 PM BSTBrussels is a gravy train, but the real problem with the eurocrats is that they are remote and doctrinaire. One-size fits all proposals, that sound sensible and fair in the abstract, translate into a bureaucratic straightjacket once transposed into national legislation.
The EU does do a lot of good, in pushing through reforms that would stall at a national level - nation states won't introduce reforms that they think could disadvantage them in an international market place. But it is excessively restrictive and controlling, and where sovereignty has been signed away it is unsympathetic to national circumstances.
Prezunctly. (Although I wouldn't go as far as saying that it does "a lot" of good.)
Quote: sootyj @ September 18 2009, 1:52 PM BSTPlus Brussells is the toilet of European democracy. For all the also rans, past their primes and plain insane politicians. People vote protest candidates in their and dump troublsome politicnas into comissioners seats. For what it's worth even then it does some good, e.g. The Human Rights Act.
But at the same time it is feeble and incompetent beyond belief. The question being how do we reform it? Or do we go back to invading Belgium at random intervals?
What we should do is remove the whole f**king money-draining thing. The ECSC was a trade body and that's all it should have ever been. Not this dangerous Nazi state.
And the HRA is, whilst I'm sure well-intentioned by most, one of the most restrictive, troublesome, dangerous, and backwards pieces of legislation we've had inflicted upon us. It cannot be scrapped soon enough. It's the embodient of these f**kers legislating common sense and responsibility. Same old Labour, not trusting the electorate and believing that they in power are better than the many and should control and 'mother' us. I call for death squads to be sent to the house of every Labour member, stat!
Quote: Timbo @ September 18 2009, 2:27 PM BSTI think part of the problem is that our politicians have lost sight of what the job of a politician is. The New Labour philosophy was that the ideological arguments had been settled and that politics was about who could manage the country most efficiently. And since New Labour was stuffed full of the brightest and the best they could obviously run the country more efficiently than anyone else had ever done. (Despite the fact that most of them had never run anything.) And they had computers now - bright shiny magic boxes that could do anything. So instead of setting the policy direction and leaving it to the experts to decide what was possible and desirable and what was not, they micro-managed, trying to run your GP surgery and your primary school from Westminster. So of course they are out of their depth - anyone would be. It is not about how much they are paid - you do not make people more effective by paying them more, and you do not necessarily attract more effective people, as the truth is that there is not actually that much variation in the capacity of individual humans. There are no supermen waiting in the wings to come into rescue us if only we were prepared to stump up the dosh.
Curiously, while dismissive of the expertise of those they actually employ...
What we need are politicians who are able to listen, able to delegate, able to bang heads together and above all with integrity. What we get are professional bullshitters and compulsive meddlers.
Well said that man! Timbo, bringing correctness, common sense, and ... stuff, to the BCG since May 2008. 
Quote: Timbo @ September 18 2009, 2:27 PM BSTWhat we get are professional bullshitters and compulsive meddlers.
Those may be the truest words ever spoken. Please submit them to the encyclopedia companies for inclusion in the definitions of the word "politician."
Quote: Aaron @ September 18 2009, 3:00 PM BSTI call for death squads to be sent to the house of every Labour member, stat!
Good luck with that Aaron, I've called the death squads out three times already this week and they still haven't showed. And don't even get me started about their telephone helpline.
And when they do finally get round to dealing out some death, they never do a proper job and you have administer the coup de grace yourself.
Say what you like about Hitler, but his death squads always ran on time.
The telegraph is a capitalist organ. Quite a big one, I grant you. But it hangs to the right. I don't believe the hype myself.
Quote: Rhubarb @ September 18 2009, 3:19 PM BSTThe telegraph is a capitalist organ. Quite a big one, I grant you. But it hangs to the right. I don't believe the hype myself.
By contrast, The Guardian is so left-wing it even manages to hate itself.