The Conservatives

[MammaBrussels]

I cannot believe someone, even someone in the Conservative Party, would say this.

How can anyone support them?

Is Xenia representative of Tories? Do they equate the "Left" with Korea? wonders if that DM story about right wingers being thick is true

The thing that gets me is the wonder that is capitalism (which has been followed by our governments for decades) means that banks are bailed out to the tune of billions without a blink of an eye. Yet people are left starving (India, with piles of food being wasted) and disabled have their money cut "because there's no money left". What fucked up thinking sees institutions as being more important than human beings?

And yes Xenia we are still waiting for facts to back up your statement yesterday that the Conservatives are better caring for the poor.

And your views on income inequality being a good thing, why the poor do better when the rich get richer, how the poor are actually better off now -despite every indicator pointing the other way among others.

The reason is that you don't actually understand the arguments that you're making.

You present your opinions as if they were facts. You ignore the facts that are put to you.

Xenia will have a great deal of trouble finding the facts unless she is prepared to rewrite history.

Once again we await the facts on the right. While we wait this 21stcenturysocialism.com/article/sovereign_debt_is_a_capitalist_issue_02079.html is worth a read and sets out very clearly how "small" government shrinks the economy.

"Sovereign debt is a capitalist issue
The claim that ?big government? or ?state overspending? is the cause of our ills puts on a mask of truth by reference to the worsening problem of sovereign debt, which threatens not only the Eurozone but the global economy. The reality, however, is at odds with the right wing explanation"

"It was then that what could be decribed as ?big government? was established in peacetime conditions. The utilities and much of industry was nationalised (with compensation paid to previous owners), and the main institutions of the welfare state were set up and expanded- to the extent that by the mid-1970s, government-managed expenditure (including transfers, ie benefit payments and interest) was almost half of national production, and state spending on investment and services- ie, excluding transfers- had risen to 27% of GDP by 1975- compared to between 10% and 12.5% during most of the years between WW1 and WW2.

Yet at the same time as this huge growth in ?government?, the sovereign debt was reduced so rapidly that between 1946 and 1975 it fell from 252% to 45% of GDP

A similar story emerges when the combined national debt levels of the G7 major capitalist countries are considered; their gross sovereign debt fell from 80% of GDP in 1950 to 35% in 1974, although the state was increasingly involved in owning or otherwise directing the economy, and overall state spending rose very steeply during that period"

The facts speak for themselves, keeping people employed, providing public services, improving wages and tackling inequality, improving social mobility and nationalisation of both PROFIT and not just risk, is the way forward.

When Thatcher came to town, started to deregulate labour and sell off national assets our debt as a percentage of GDP shot up and has remained high there ever after.

I watched the TED clip, not at all surprised by the facts but it's good to get those facts, have shared on facebook, twitter

The thing that struck me was the stats on mental health and how relative poverty effects the social relations between people thus causing stress. The capitalist class are happy with this, this exploits the poor as consumers again. The rise in depression and the alleviation of it with drugs is worth billions of £$.

Most people are not repulsed by the good work the Coalition is putting into this country. Instead they are grateful for them. How can you say that when Labour are increasing their lead over the Tories Reuters

We always have mid term swings, look at those there were under labour.
It is always the Conservatives who get the economy back on track and Labour ruin it. Look at the mess their spend, spend, spend got us into and who is suffering now for that.

Banana, those on the right always waive around terms like dirty communists and loonies lefties, they have no argument so resort to put downs.

I don't believe capitalism has the capacity to feed the world, 600 years of it and we have huge levels of poverty and inequality. Everything we see before us now has happened dozens of times before, the 19th century saw starvations following massive bank debts, bank collapses and bail outs.

I'll have a look, I did have a date line of crisis, basically we suffer a crisis every couple of years but major crisis less often. We have bailed out the banks not a few times but dozens. Of course the crisis in south america isn't always reported here etc,,

Xenia please read the link I have posted, if you read it you will find that "spending" cuts debt in relation to GDP and that is historically proven, a material incontrovertible fact.

Xenia

It is always the Conservatives who get the economy back on track and Labour ruin it. Look at the mess their spend, spend, spend got us into and who is suffering now for that.

Facts please. Graphs, numbers, even links to the Daily Mail will help. Otherwise you're not making a point. If you're not intellectually capable of adding something to the debate admit it.

List of financial crisis

20th century

Panic of 1907, a U.S. economic recession with bank failures
(forgotten) Depression of 1920-21, whose recovery lead to the roaring 20s and major technological innovations (mises.org/daily/3788)
Wall Street Crash of 1929 and Great Depression (1929?1939) the worst depression of modern history
OPEC oil price shock
Secondary banking crisis of 1973?1975 in the UK
Japanese asset price bubble (1986?2003)
Bank stock crisis (Israel 1983)
Black Monday (1987)
Savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S.
1991 India economic crisis
Finnish banking crisis (1990s)
Swedish banking crisis (1990s)
1994 economic crisis in Mexico
1997 Asian financial crisis
1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management
1998 Russian financial crisis
Argentine economic crisis (1999?2002)

21st century

Late-2000s Financial Crisis or the Late-2000s recession, including:
2000s energy crisis
Automotive industry crisis of 2008?2010
European sovereign debt crisis
Subprime mortgage crisis
United States housing bubble and United States housing market correction
2008?2012 Icelandic financial crisis
2008?2010 Irish banking crisis
Russian financial crisis of 2008?2009

As you can see from the list, crisis is unavoidable and happens frequently, on each turn more people are thrown into poverty and dispossessed of property and work.

To all of those calling for facts from the trolls tory supporters I say don't waste your breath. In the meantime, just for the terminally dull Novack, who maintains that no disabled people will lose benefits:-

Cold hard FACT proving your lie

Labour caused the recession according to the right w(h)ingers:-

Bullshit, it was globalised unfettered capitalist greed.

Now do come back with something factual. Anything. Even if it's a Daily Heil link. I'll disable Tea & Kittens, just for you, so instead of getting a lovely relaxing picture of a kitten and a cup of tea I get a bilious hate filled rant from yet another right wing bigot. Please, just once. One fact to prove your point.

I know you won't, because you can't. All you can do is bluster and bullshit. That would be fine, but people are going to die because of the lies you insist on repeating.

Er ok Xenia. I can see that there's no point debating with you as those blinkers are super glued on.

If the Tories on this thread would say I support the party because I do better uner a Conservative government and the fact that a lot of people will lose out is OK with me because I am putting me and my family first then I think I would almost have more respect for that as much as I would despise the sentiment. To state that the poor do better under the Tories with not one fact and figure to back this statement up is a joke!

That would be under not uner

?Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.?
― John Stuart Mill

I think bashing of Novack on this thread is highly justified, but there also seems to be unjustified bashing of the Daily Mail - a paper that Novack often tells us she does not like, which is possibly where she is going wrong.

Of course the Tories are not better for the poor, which is why the majority of poor people don't vote for them. But, people vote for many reasons other than economic, and that includes poor people. How do the Tories win any elections when there are only two right wing papers - the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, ranked against left wing BBC, Guardian , Independent, Daily Mirror, and teh Murdoch papers which switch sides and backed Blair and Brown for the best part of 13 years?

There are other reasons that people vote Tory, and that includes poor people, and that is what enables the Bullingdonians to win elections with teh backing of a large part of the public, who may think that a Bullingdonian is some type of dog.

I'd just like to add I don't think all Conservatives are stupid, I just love that quote!

Most Daily Mail readers are not well off. They also have children and grandchildren with disabilities, there are also disabled Daily Mail readers. They don't earn the salaries of New Labour types and their spin doctors. They don't earn what Cherie Blair earns, they can't afford to send their children to private schools like New Labour's Diane Abbott could. They are ordinary people, the "squeezed middle", just like everyone else. They are unemployed too or about to lose their jobs. They are teachers and work in councils too, and their pensions are cut and they also suffer the effects of the cuts.

What wins elections is far more subtle than which party is the best for the poor.

Claig

I have to say I was surprised by this.

Sarge pensioners are the group most vulnerable to poverty but the debate always focuses on the "feckless, workshy scroungers". I wish someone would tell me what proportion of the population they make up.

And yet most elderly people vote Conservative, and we had that Scottish Labour candidate dismissing some of his elderly constituents as "coffin dodgers". New Labour disrespects teh elderly and then implies they are stupid for voting Tory. Those arrogant charlatans with their expense accounts, pagers and pages full of spin disrespect the public and think they are uncapable of making up their minds. They think they are swayed by newspaper articles, they don't believe that they have valid concerns and beliefs and are capable of making up their own minds.

There is a reason that the left wing liars and their spin doctors most often lose elections, and that is because they do not appeal to the public and carry out their wishes.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/05/why-working-class-people-vote-conservative

incapable not uncapable

Interesting circulation statistics, Mamma.
Something like 38% of Mail readers are above 65. They aren't all well off. They will be people in care homes as well. Not sure what ABC1 class means but that is a high proportion and and approx 70% of Mail readers are C1, C2 and DE.

That's why the progressives hate the Mail. It represents the ordinary people and the elderly, groups so often despised by the privileged Labour litterati with their high-finance stle legal salaries in Chambers and their PPEs from Oxford.