The great TP election thread

Phil V said:
So 36 years of governments attacking the public sector and you think that 'criminal' amounts of waste are still a common occurrence?

I've worked for National government departments, the Local Authority, small and large private sector companies. Where I've met some awesome people, people who work very hard for little reward. I've also seen stupid things and met lazy bastards who are overpaid. But the media fed idea that any of that is a public / private sector divide is ridiculous to the point of laughable.

And ask any 'right thinking' person to really think about how human beings operate and they'd realise that. But just keep repeating the mantra 'private good - public bad' and they can get away with giving all out taxes away to their mates in the city.

BTW I'm not suggesting that there's no waste to be tackled, I'm suggesting we've spent 30 odd years going about it the wrong way. IMHO nothing creates more waste than pretending we can run a public sector organisation the way the private sector is run. Again, it's illogical but it's taken as a universal truth.
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er, Phil... so any cut in funds or criticism is an attack?

When I worked in public sector establishments waste was endemic, criminal and inexcusable and actually deliberate, yup, deliberate, I saw it and it was sickening and although I've been out of that world for some time I'd bet my life that nothing has changed. Wasting public money is in no way acceptable or the right or socialist thing to do and I do think that government departments should be run efficiently. Why not? It's not impossible and it is not some evil capitalist idea just an idea that we should do things correctly and stop wasting money which could be used to do good in the world.

Maybe you think it's ok to squander tax payers money (and these days it's as likely to be borrowed) and deprive those in need of resources and help? I don't think that any public sector should be allowed to be inefficient or wasteful just because it's the public sector and therefore untouchable. The nations wealth isn't there to be pi$$ed away by those who should do better.

Of course there are good people working in the public sector but you have to separate the good people from the incompetent or just bad and any singular or endemic bad practices. We need the good people and we should root out the incompetent and bad and ensure that all that we can do is done to help those who need help. Waste a £1m here and £100m there and you're taking money from single parents, food from the mouths of underprivileged children and you're postponing the medical treatment of those in pain and need. Hide from it, ignore it or deny it but that's the sickening reality if unfettered waste is allowed.
 
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Blank_Canvas said:
Agree strongly, I think the public sector staff work extremely hard both ion the NHS, local Government and Emergencey Services. They have been stripped back to the bone and it's in danger of imploding. There is not much more left to strip away. I'm fed up with hearing the mantra 'work smarter not harder'but that's just a smokescreen people are still working bloody hard ! - they have to as their are less people doing the same jobs, covering the shifts etc.
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Yes, they work hard but what if their department management team wastes £100m?

Is this just to be allowed to pass unchallenged because the public sector is untouchable because good people work there? Or can we have the temerity to suggest that they should do better with public money?
 
rjbell said:
We've been in debt since 1692 I would image we always will be. Or are you talking about the deficit?
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I'm talking about the legacy we'll leave to future generations. It wont be a good one will it?
 
big soft moose said:
Personally i'd have kept them and run them as profitable enterprises, while whacking a large import tax on imported goods to level the playing field - if it was cheaper to buy british coal than it was to import it from poland/india etc then the business consumers would buy it and the british coal industry would run on its own profits

for coal also read steel and various other stuff we don't make any more.

I'd also then have saved a shed load in benefits, and in policing and health care because we'd have considerably more employment and not have created sink estates full of crime and drug addiction.

Same thing with the NHS , yes it definitely needs to be more efficient , but a Phil explained earlier you don't get efficiency by outsourcing services - what the NHS needs is to bin the internal market structure , lose the layers of bureaucracy and get back to what it was doing pre the thatcher years - ie treating patients. By doing that you could have a smaller budget but better paitent care, and wile you would create some unemployment unlike the miners the bureaucrats can readily go to other jobs or even retrain to do something useful like teaching shortage subjects

theres no way a right wing govt will take those steps (and personally i doubt labour have the balls either)
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And I'd agree, I've always thought that the UK government should be as interventionist as our competitor governments are but we have a very open economy. There seems to be a belief that there's a level playing field, there isn't.
 
Rapscallion said:
Which countries are you referring to (apart from the obvious Greece?)
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If you'd care to call up your web browser and use you typing finger/fingers you might be able to find details of which nations are in financial trouble and which have cut their health care.

Go on, try it.
 
woof woof said:
I'm talking about the legacy we'll leave to future generations. It wont be a good one will it?
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Your right like saddling our kids with over £30,000 of debt before they even start work we wouldn't want to do that now, would we ;)
 
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Rapscallion said:
Quick question. If the election goes to the current forecast - con winning the most seats, but lab taking power with a number of other parties, would anyone question the validity of the government?
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People questioned the validity of the current coalition, so yes they will. And they'll be morons.
 
Rapscallion said:
Quick question. If the election goes to the current forecast - con winning the most seats, but lab taking power with a number of other parties, would anyone question the validity of the government?
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There was an excellent article on the BBC News the other day entitled 'The Politics Of Legitimacy'. Short version: just about every plausible outcome of the election may lead to questions about the legitimacy of the government.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32382328
 
Steep said:
To say that poverty is just a form of inequality shows a total lack of understanding of what poverty actually means.
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Nobody here is saying that, I think. You're confusing relative poverty (which is just another phrase for inequality, and is inevitable) with absolute poverty (which isn't, and isn't).
 
woof woof said:
I'm talking about the legacy we'll leave to future generations. It wont be a good one will it?
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I'm not advocating that we should just borrow more and more but this is the result of the propaganda machine that's focussed on 'financial prudence' and is based on simple lies.

The outgoing administration borrowed more money than every Labour government we've ever had combined. They did this just to pay off debts, and whilst doing so made cuts that damaged the economy which held up the recovery. So for anyone to suggest that more of the same is a winning formula makes me want to cry. We're borrowing money to prop up the status quo which is a declining economy.

If my little business cuts costs like web hosting and gear servicing, it's not 'saving money' it's 'running down', eventually to the point of collapse. An influx of borrowed cash, spent wisely would probably mark a large growth. It's simple economics, investment is necessary in business.
 
big soft moose said:
Personally i'd have kept them and run them as profitable enterprises, while whacking a large import tax on imported goods to level the playing field - if it was cheaper to buy british coal than it was to import it from poland/india etc then the business consumers would buy it and the british coal industry would run on its own profits

for coal also read steel and various other stuff we don't make any more.
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So by implication (import taxes on product from Poland), you favour leaving the EU and the single market? I just want to clear that one up.

The problem with import taxes is it makes exporting that much more difficult as product produced here then becomes more expensive that that produced overseas using cheaper coal / whatever. Plus, if we are taxing imports, what's to stop other countries imposing import tax on our exports?

Isolation helps no-one. The small company that I work for makes probably half its sales in exports, the majority of that being into the EU. Losing access to the single market, or our customers having to pay import taxes to buy from us if the UK leaves the single market would be catastrophic.
 
Llamaman said:
People questioned the validity of the current coalition, so yes they will. And they'll be morons.
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Ah! Name calling!
Have you considered becoming a politician?
 
woof woof said:
If you'd care to call up your web browser and use you typing finger/fingers you might be able to find details of which nations are in financial trouble and which have cut their health care.

Go on, try it.
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Alan, please humour me and tell me which countries you were referring to, it makes for a better discussion than telling me to google something, me ask you are these the countries you are referring to, and a lengthy to and fro.
 
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Llamaman said:
People questioned the validity of the current coalition, so yes they will. And they'll be morons.
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They have, but the level of criticism by the newspapers following the election of a labour led government wil be unprecedented I believe. It has already started in the daily mail.
 
viv1969 said:
Ah! Name calling!
Have you considered becoming a politician?
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Nah, the hours are crap, the salary mediocre and you have to suck up to voters you can't stand.

I stand by my 'moron' comment though. It's how our parliamentary system works - if you can command a majority, you can form a government. All this nonsense about "mandates" irritates the hell out of me. The only mandate is a straight majority of both seats and votes, and they're as rare as hen's teeth. The Conservatives will win the most seats, but if no-one wants to work with them, why the hell should they get to form a government in favour of a coalition/pact that can command a majority? It's barmy.
Plenty of other countries manage with a multi-party system and coalitions. The ultimate two-party system - the US - is a car-crash of democracy.

I think we may have seen the end of the two-party system in the UK and I, for one, welcome it.
 
woof woof said:
And I'd agree, I've always thought that the UK government should be as interventionist as our competitor governments are but we have a very open economy. There seems to be a belief that there's a level playing field, there isn't.
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But isn't the UK economy supposed to be doing better than everyone else? Why should we copy something that's been shown not to work?

Right-wingers really do tie themselves into logical knots don't they? :)
 
woof woof said:
I'm talking about the legacy we'll leave to future generations. It wont be a good one will it?
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Two wrongs don't make a right however the national debt was likely per GDP larger when you were born or even when your parents were born (not sure how old you are) than the generation born today.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the debt we have is nothing new its been worse it been better.
 
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Steve Smith said:
Me too. I would prefer proper proportional representation, but this is a step in the right direction.
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I think as the two party-system fragments into something messier, the electorate will start to realise FPTP is a terrible way to represent diverse political views.
I think we're a way off PR (alas) as there is little appetite for electoral reform in this country. But the mess Labour made of devolution, the West Lothian issue, and a number of hung parliaments might change that. Hopefully, before Scotland leaves the UK.

Personally, I'm increasingly coming round to the idea of a federalised UK, with regional governments not just for Wales, Scotland and NI, but also for England - perhaps divided into NE,NW, Midlands & Anglia, SW, SE, and London. These could replace County Councils (which are starting to pool resources anyway). Westminster would remain as a national chamber, in charge of non-devolved issues and legislating the framework within which the regional governments operate.
 
Llamaman said:
I think as the two party-system fragments into something messier, the electorate will start to realise FPTP is a terrible way to represent diverse political views.
I think we're a way off PR (alas) as there is little appetite for electoral reform in this country. But the mess Labour made of devolution, the West Lothian issue, and a number of hung parliaments might change that. Hopefully, before Scotland leaves the UK.
.
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Couldn't agree more. FPTP hasn't done Labour any favours with SNP predicted to win almost every seat with as little as 50% of the vote. If we have a labour SNP coalition the reform maybe be on the agenda again.
 
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Llamaman said:
I think we're a way off PR (alas) as there is little appetite for electoral reform in this country.
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We had a referendum on electoral reform and it was firmly rejected by the population - even AV was rejected and that is the least contentious form as it retails the direct constituency link which STV doesn't.

The only electoral reform I want to see is "none of the above", then if that wins in a particular seat, they have to do it all again with different candidates in a couple of weeks (or however long it takes to arrange a by-election).
 
What worries me is that if there is a coalition between two parties one of those may only represent one part of the country, yet will be able to make the rules so to speak for the rest of us. This party clearly doesn't give a toss about the rest of us to the extent they wanted to go it alone (I wonder how many referendums Scotland will have until the SNP get their own way :thinking: ), yet they could have a massive influence on budgets etc over the rest of the UK.
 
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ST4 said:
But they've still taken the most seats.
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And? They've still got not got a majority, so cannot pass any bills.

If one party got 40% of the seats, and two other parties each got 30%, the 40% party should form a minority government and be unable to pass any bills for 5 years? As opposed to having a coalition representing 60% of the electorate? How does that make any sense to you? We're electing a government, not choosing goal of the month.

The only possibly explanation for this nonsense is that you think there is something noble about having a single party in government - not only is this far from the norm in developed democracies, it is also a fiction :- most parties are themselves a coalition of various groups and leanings under a common banner. It is no secret that the Conservative party has hardliners (May, Gove) alongside more moderates (Clark, Heseltine) and likewise Labour is a collection of centrist NewLabour and the old guard Unionists. There's nothing special about majority government, except perhaps that it gives disproportionate power to the shadowy hand of the three-line whip.
 
ST4 said:
But they've still taken the most seats.
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And yet lost the election by not being able to command a functioning majority, and the majority of the country voting to sack him.

The fact is people casting their vote for Labour, Plaid, SNP or Green Party know that their parties are going to form a government with the labour party and that their MP's will vote for Milliband as prime minister and the sacking of Cameron.

The Conservative party and their fiends in the press are going to do their damned worst to discredit the government despite it being wholly legitimate with precedent. The right wing press are currently peeing their pants in fear of the above group of parties coming together to form a government, yelling that Sturgeon is the most dangerous woman in Britain, and worse, some morons are falling for it.

Anybody remember the discredited story the torygraph wrote on Sturgeons conversation with the French Ambassador? Left all journalistic standards behind and nothing but gutter journalism, and it is going to get a lot worse than that in the coming week. Indeed Cameron has facilitated this by delaying the return of parliament until the 18th, leaves a lot of agendas to be rewritten by the newspaper headlines.
 
onomatopoeia said:
We had a referendum on electoral reform and it was firmly rejected by the population - even AV was rejected and that is the least contentious form as it retails the direct constituency link which STV doesn't.
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True, but that vote took place shortly after the tuition fees debacle, and was even labeled as a referendum on Clegg/the Lib Dems by the opponents of electoral reform.

The fact that these opponents include the Conservative Party should not be lost on the eagle-eyed. The Lib Dems got stitched up right and proper on that one - I was surprised they were so naiive.
 
Raptor Mike said:
What worries me is that if there is a coalition between two parties one of those may only represent one part of the country, yet will be able to make the rules so to speak for the rest of us. This party clearly doesn't give a toss about the rest of us to the extent they wanted to go it alone (I wonder how many referendums Scotland will have until the SNP get their own way :thinking: ), yet they could have a massive influence on budgets etc over the rest of the UK.
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If it happens, and EM has strongly denied it (I know what thats worth) the those MP's will have exactly the same rights as any other in the UK. Although I think you're right about another referendum
 
ST4 said:
I would. The largest number of seats should decide
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And if it was the other way round with Labour winning the most seats, but Conservatives taking power with a number of other parties, would you still question the validity of the government?


Steve.
 
It's great the way Scotland is an important and integral part of the United Kingdom right up until they decide that they may? democratically elect a large number of SNP MP's and then it's just


fracster said:
Also, the SNP should not be allowed to stand for Westminster, they had their try at Independance, they failed. That door should be closed firmly and forever.


Let the SNP campaign for the Scottish Parliament. Not ours.
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Raptor Mike said:
What worries me is that if there is a coalition between two parties one of those may only represent one part of the country, yet will be able to make the rules so to speak for the rest of us. This party clearly doesn't give a toss about the rest of us to the extent they wanted to go it alone (I wonder how many referendums Scotland will have until the SNP get their own way
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), yet they could have a massive influence on budgets etc over the rest of the UK.
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nice to be loved and wanted.
 
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