How miserable are you that the Tories are in power?

[sundayrose10]

I feel tense and twitchy. I used to enjoy reading the politic section/ other political forums, but I fear if I keep on going there and reading more and more about Tory plans, I will give myself a heart attack.

I loath them but worst I fear them. I am anxious for this country and the ordinary man and woman.

Dave makes me feel insane with hatred.

I have a colleague who is in love with the Tories. I don't share biscuits with him any more.

Dave makes me itch. All over.

Oh Millie.......

Like retrohousewife says, you are an absolute scream!

I see what you did there, with the poor spelling and grammar; it's such sophisticated, biting satire that I almost for a minute believed you actually were really poor, because as we all know the lower classes all so terribly stupid and grasping.

Hilarious stuff.

I've just realised I never really addressed the OP

tbh I'm not miserable the Tories are in power I'm miserable that the people currently calling themselves Tories are such a shower of lightweight no marks. I'm miserable that we used to know where we stood in our choice between the three major parties but there seems to be precious little to choose from the vacuous middle ground grasping charisma free PR nob jockeys that seem to have taken over westminster in all three parties.

I'm naturally left leaning and have a fairly deeply ingrained mistrust of the Tories but was hoping for a coalition government after the NuLab experiment finally imploded, I think the Labour party need a few years in the wilderness to regroup, do some soul searching and come back with a new sense of purpose and a clear sense of identity.

Unfortunately in the mean time the Tories are led by a wet lettuce PR snake oil salesman who's had his entire life handed to him on a silver platter and a oily tick who's never had a job outside the westminster bubble has his totally unqualified hands on the treasury. Pretty depressing.

Anyone who bleats on that at least they're not NuLabour is missing the point by a million miles, the world is a incredibly unstable place right now and we need to hold these twats to a higher standard than that.

So I'm not miserable because they're Tories, I'm miserable because we deserve better.

Ishani

My 75 year old nana takes care of her 48 year old DS son whos is in bad health. They come from a generation where people looked after their own and people with disabilities were not expected to acheive much. Didnt help them much.

She needs a double hip replacement, her husband died last August and there is absolutely no chance my DS uncle can go into a home. He just would not cope with it. He will be going to to live with my other uncle when my nana is too ill to look after him.

Had he been born into a different generation he would have an education and be pushed to live independently.

What your saying is that the poor shouldnt be allowed to have children unless they can save up vast sums of money before they do.

I could afford kids hence i had them, if i was in the situation i am in now i would not have had them. Someone who works hard for 40 hrs in a takeaway or as a barmaid, should they not have kids even though they cant afford to save.

As for going to uni, most people i know who have got steady jobs and a trade went on to do an apprenticeship after school. They are the ones who seem to stil be in work. My brother 22 is a HGV mechanic, has his own car and is saving for a house. His friend who finished uni a year ago has nothing, his mam supports him. Working in a shop in beneath him so he is waiting for his big break. realistically it probably wont come.

Sorry for any typos, multitasking

I'm not miserable as it was obvious that the country couldn't go on like it was.

I agree with you, xenia, when you say, "What we need is more wealth generation so those of us prepared to work hard can generate the profits which keep those who rely on us for support."

Brink Lindsey summed up some of the issues being debated here when he spoke about the paradox of conservatism ebracing economic change but hating its social consequence and liberalism loving the social consequence but hating the economic source of the wealth.

I'm not with the 'don't bite the hand that feeds you' gang but there seems little acceptance (by some) that capitalism generates the wealth which enables positive social consequence.

As always Xenia is right - I'm very happy they're in power but wish we had Thatcher rather than the wet drivel anti-Conservatism of Cameron

No moves to abolish the very unpopular top 52% tax/NI rate.

No real cuts. Labour wanted 20% and the Toriew 25% so not much between them.

No plans to reduce the next 42% tax/NI rate. (We now have just about the highest personal income tax in Europe without the cheap childcare the high tax nations provide)

A Tory plan to make us all pay a huge heap more tax once we are over 65 (unless we save nothing and have no pension in which case we pay nothing), to fund the pension and care payments of the poor and those who chose to spend as they lived.

Supposedly getting rid of quangos and red tape but so far achieved nothing. The bonfier of the quangos and Great Repeal will not getting anywhere.

Making supposed changes when many sectors need no change just stability (like education and the NHS)

No simplification except perhaps getting rid of pointless vetting and some health and safety but nothing at all major so far - live in hope. Business above all wants simplication.

A bit of suggestion very small businesses which amazingly is where most people work i the uK might be moved outside a lot of red tape, discrimination laws etc but I will wait to see that actually happen.

of course their hands are tied by previous labour debt and the financial crisis

Stupid new taxes on North Sea oil etc which were so bad they have had to climb down over. At this rate they will be the party of high taxation.

Universal credit but where you only keep a small % if you go to work off benefits, nothing like as much as needed to be an incentive and the plan is years away.

God yes, Chubasuarus.
If ever she was needed, it's now.

It's all very depressing. I work for the Tories and had higher hopes - we need severe tax cuts, especially on inheritance tax and NI, coupled with the bonfire of the Quangos. The cuts don't go nearly far enough. Very, very depressing.

I agree wholeheartedly, chubasaurus.

You can't keep hitting people in the pocket and expect them to endlessly work harder and cough up more and more when there are those who sit back and take endlessly.

On another forum recently people were expressing their concerns about how tight money was and most of the posters were in lower paid working families and were struggling. A single mother with three kids all on DLA because of various ADHD's or Oppositional defiance disorders had so much disposable income she ate out most nights. She also had social worker support that took her kids for this that and the other.

No one, no one should be better off not working than working. And that is the great underlying obscenity in what Labour has done to this country. it has impoverished decent hardworking people and indulged and encouraged the idle and the feckless and the useless.

Is it any wonder that people get so bloody angry when they can't afford treats for their kids but women like this who've never done a day's work are eating out with theirs most nights?
Rant over. Bring back Thatch, all is forgiven.

What your saying is that the poor shouldnt be allowed to have children unless they can save up vast sums of money before they do.

No the poor can have children of course they can but with that they have to accept their quality of life will be poorer for every child they have. Even with vast amount of savings behind you the quality of life you and the child can have reduces for every person within that family the money is split between why should it be any different for those who started off without a pot to piss in ?

Why do people insist on talking about having to save up for university? Under thenew system noone will pay a penny until they have graduated and are earning over £21k per year. I don't know anyone whose parents paid for their degrees.

Do you know anyone who has paid tution fees ? I don't we all had a free education and maybe people don't want their child to leave university with up to £50k of debt if they enter the professions.

Then don't go to uni, Ishani.

50K of debt is nowt compared to most people's mortgages.

claig I can only assume you were living in a different Britain to me in the 80s with you unadulterated adoration for Thatcher

Well I don't know any other way they will become Dr's is there a correspondence course i'm not aware of ? Or do we just want rich but not that especially clever dr's/dentists/solicitors like in the 1800's ?

Ishani, if they become a Dr and they have to pay back £50 a month once they start earning 21k, I really don't think they are going to worry too much, do you?

Why are you talking about rich? I have a few kids, we are well off. All of ours will pay their own way through uni. Their student loan is far cheaper than us flogging our house or business to pay their way.

I really struggle to see what teh furore is all about. If you graduate with 50K of debt and never work or earn above 21K, you never have to worry. If you do then you pay it back a very low monthly rate of about £50 a month which is less than people were paying under the old system.

CurrySpice, we were both in the same Britain but saw things with different eyes. At that time, the majority did support Thatcher and voted her in again and again. They thought that she stood for sense and sanity and Foot and Kinnock didn't. She was stopped by Brutus at al. in her own party.

The majority did not vote her in claig.

1979: 43.9% of the vote
1983: 42.4%
1987: 42.2%

HTH

What percentage voted Labour?

Dunno. But that's not what you said. You said "the majority did support Thatcher and voted her in again and again". You are wrong. The majority actively voted against her.

Mrs Thatcher rescued this country from the depths of despair

i think you needed to live through the 70's to truly appreciate Thatcher :)

and talking of low-level voting mandates, the last Blair elction the conseratives got a higher total percentage, but because of the way the constituencies are devised...still a labour majority retuned.

Thatcher was not for turning; she said "U turn if you want to" and Kinnock had a funny turn. He waffled and shuffled, was baffled and bemused, and naturally the public were not amused. They told him be gone, in to power you'll never get, and that he has never forgot to this day yet.