To think that being Tory doesn't make you thick?

[RainbowSheep]

Ok, my family are all very liberal (I mean my parents, aunts & uncles, who incidently have all had lots of money & opportunities throughout their lives). Their parents (who were poor working class) were more conservative as are me and my brother, who are both pretty poor. We recently had a family get together where I was told by my uncle (university lecturer) that Tories were unitelligent and I was beginning to sound like an idiot for having conservative views... I don't think I am particularly right wing.

The stupid and selfish are those who want and expect something for nothing.

Many frothing lefties seem to be motivated by envy and greed. They demonise Tories without even really thinking about realistic and practial policies... the stupid ones are those people who are actually reasonably comfortable yet complain about every cut and scream for the government to "take the money from the rich". They are naive.

Ahem.

I may be a frothing, benefit-claiming, loser these days. Shit happens. I paid half a million in taxes before I got sick. And I had insurances, investments, and stuffs. I'm 56, for god's sake, I didn't emerge from my selctive grammar with a claims form in my unwashed mitts.

But I am still being treated like a thief.
Read my post for goodness sake! What makes you so sure it couldn't be you?

HuntyCat - how does the 'sink estate' school get away with paying less? Is it just because poor retention means fewer teachers are higher up on the pay scale?

It's where we're going with academies , but I don't get how it's happening already given national pay & conditions...?

i think many voters were swayed by thatcher, it was not really supporting the tory party and this is where that idea comes from

most tory voters i know lack compassion

Yes Im afraid you have to be a bit misguided to vote tory. If you are very rich, it is also possible that you are just selfish and nasty. Sorry about that.

Try reading some more about their policies, and how it affects the people involved. The Cuts threads are good, and take a look at the blog too. :)

Because the 'sink estate' school was FORCED to become an Academy in the first wave thingy. So no need to follow the national pay and conditions.

Ah OK. Not good. .

We're going Cackademy too. Staff & parents fighting it all the way, but no chance.

& we're a 'good/outstanding' leafy Comp., but the Head's retiring & grabbing the cash. 'Tis shite.

So, after 13 years of Labour, how were things better? More inequality of income and horrendous borrowing leaving things in the state they now are.
Torys tend to be more realistic about human nature.
On China, now second largest economy overall, but per head lower than Belize en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

It's thick for anyone to follow every policy a party tries to adopt forgoing their own free will in the process.
That'll be every MP in every political party.

I think we all need to take a step back & actually have a think about what government means & what we want from it, we're all arguing & bickering as though we have no volition here - we do vote for these fuckers.

Or did you forget that?

Tory? Stupid or pragmatic?

Labour - bleeding heart fool?

Cherie Blair - humanitarian?

Cherie Blair - grim faced grabby cunt?

David Cameron - Eton School boy?

David Cameron - Human bloke, tries his best.

???????????

Although I accept we didn't vote for Cherie - we just got her.

Saw a picture of her & Tone steppin' out last week - saving the world - lovely.

Huntycat. That is then down to the headteacher. Perssonally I think academies are a shit idea but they dont have less money than other schools. The head of the academy could in fact choose to pay his or her staff more more as academies have larger budgets and many academies do pay more

Academies DON'T have larger budgets. Those earlier to convert had cash incentives, but this has finished now.

Many schools that have converted are, in fact, finding that their outgoings including insurances, have increased considerably.

Many academies do have worse pay, terms and conditions for staff - this is one of the reason that the NUT is campaigning against them.

China owns 25% of US treasury bonds and is the largest creditor in the world.

www.china-mike.com/facts-about-china/economy-investment-business-statistics/

I don't know why Merkel and Cameron are still bickering over who is going to run the financial sector in Europe as it will be insignificant when China launches its global currency.

Excuse the doom and gloom of a Sunday morning but I do think we in the west are living in cloud cuckoo land. We are fortunately educated and can debate and discuss but unfortunately it doesn't produce anything but hot air (and that's not good for the environment). I think the Chinese economy is being underestimated because of the amount of money that workers save. Only 20% of them have credit cards, most of them save and send money to their poor relatives in the countryside (the ones living on two dollars a day according to the statistics).

academy blues - They do have larger budgets that they control by dint of the fact that much of the funding that was delegated to LAs comes under the schools control when they become an academy. The fact that many LAs offered good services for insurance etc due to economies of scale is the reason many academies feel poorer. Hunty also indicated the school she was talking about was one of the first to turn and therefore would have received incentives. As I said I think it's a shit idea but not because teachers will get paid less.

IME academies tend to have better pay but much worse T&C!

I think that should have been on the Euro thread - they are merging dangerously.

What's academies got to do with anything?

read the thread

Is it true that excluded pupils can only be redistributed (bad word but heyho) into Local Authority schools and that academies can refuse them?

No time to read threads I have to use my time for productive labour.

Proudfoot - care to explain this a little more?

"Many frothing lefties seem to be motivated by envy and greed. They demonise Tories without even really thinking about realistic and practial policies... the stupid ones are those people who are actually reasonably comfortable yet complain about every cut and scream for the government to "take the money from the rich". They are naive"

I am a frothing leftie. I am not motivated by envy and greed. That is such a fatuous and presumptuous thing to say. I am motivated to froth by anger at what is being done to people in this country who are the hard-done-by. And it can happen to anybody - you don't have to have been born into a poor family. Anybody can get sick, lose their job, fall on hard times.

I am frothing about the cuts being made because it impacts most on those who can ill afford them. Why shouldn't those who are richer pay more to help out? What on earth is wrong with that? And in what way is this 'naive' as you put it? Why should those who earn hundreds of thousands in a salary or bonuses just take a little less, so that those who need it can have more?

Greed, BIWI, greed.

It would mean them maybe foregoing their second skiing trip so that someone like me can turn the heating on in December. Because it is still fucking freezing despite the dressing gown, fluffy socks and gloves we are all wearing. Food was more important that heat this week. Heat or eat for those of us on the lowest rungs of the ladder, Moet or Dom Perignon for those on the highest rungs of the ladder.

How can that be right in a 21st Century Society?

I think it is a real problem that left wing views have become associated with education. I think people who want to appear educated and intelligent will espouse left wing views and denigrate those who hold other views as stupid even though they don't really know any more about the issues. I taught law students and their smugness in believing that they knew more than right wing plebs (in their opinion) on issues to do with the economy, immigration, climate etc was astounding. I pointed out once that all they really knew about these issues was what they had read in the paper, same as everyone else, and they were furious with me.

Anyhoo, I am intelligent and increasingly conservative. I work in a university and keep my opinions to myself because I know that if people realize just how conservative I am they won't take my work seriously.

Agree with Tryingtoleave.

I am not unintelligent, DH is not unintelligent; neither are we unacaring - in fact I suspect we have quietly done more compassionate things quietly than most people we know.

I am from a comfortable background; DH is from a working class background and went to the local comp. DH is extremely successful.

The financial services sector in the UK produces 20% of the UK's GDP. As such it needs to be valued and nurtured because it needs to be allowed to grow to help lead the UK out of what appears to be a depression.

Let's not forget that in 1979 the Conservative Government inherited an economy that was almost destroyed by left wing policies; between 1979 and 1997 the Conservative Government handed over to Labour an econony that had been repaired, was healthy and poised for growth. Between 1997 and 2007 Labour increased debt in a growing economy leaving a debt ratio that was unsustainable regardless of the banking crisis. It spawned a have now and pay later mentality which has brought many families to the brink.

In 2010 the coalition government inherited an economy that yet again Labour had brought to the brink of destruction. The times we are now suffering are a direct result of the Blair/Brown catastrophe of economic mismanagement. Yet again the Conservatives are being blamed because they are the one who are having to take the tough measures required to again repair an economy that labour has managed to destroy in spite of being in power during an acknowledged boom cycle.

I have no problems with things like: starting a family when one is secure enough to do so; working for what one has, managing one's personal finances carefully and not buying extravagant things that one doesn't need, keeping a secure family unit together, having an education systems that underpins self reliance and personal responsibility and where there are consequences for anti-social behaviour; a criminal justice system where the punishment fits the crime; and lastly where there is a safety net for those who find themselves unable to work through illness or genuine unemployment.

Oh yes, and I have voted Conservative at every election since 1979 both local and general. DH didn't in 2010 and 2005 - he voted UKIP because he fundamentally disagrees with the Conservative Party's present stance on Europe. David Cameron in his opinion has inched up a notch over the last few days.

Lefties are all so compassionate until it comes to bombing the fuck out of someone elses country and then to put the cherry on top we have Bush's little lap dog Blair making millons under the heading of being a "peace" envoy.