10 most evil Tory deeds of 2012 explained in 130 words.

[ttosca]

• Homelessness is up 31% under the Tories (evidence).
  
  
  
• Gas Prices are up 31% under the Tories & 40% of families are on the brink of fuel poverty (evidence, evidence).
  
  
  
• 400 Sure Start Centres have been shut under the Tories (evidence).
  
  
• 11,000 Hospital Beds have been axed & 7,000+ Nurses sacked under the Tories (evidence).
  
  
  
• 95 Academy & Free School bosses now earn more than MPs & up to £300,000 a year (evidence, evidence).
  
  
  
• 250,000 Disabled People have been forced onto Unpaid Workfare with a 2% success rate (evidence).
  
  
  
• £7 billion worth of NHS Services have been privatised under the Tories (evidence, evidence, evidence).
  
  
  
• The Tories announced a total of 25% cuts Tax on Profit & scrapped the 50p Rate (evidence).
  
  
  
• Cameron has spent the year bullying, mocking & insulting women, disabled & the elderly (evidence).
  
  
  www.greenbenchesuk.com/2012/12/10-most-evil-tory-deeds-of-2012.html

[grimbletart]

TBH - I have never minded that there are many with more than me. Envy is destructive. If people are prepared to work all hours - bloody good luck to them, especially as they are providing jobs for other people who may not be quite so entrepreneurial.

I do believe in trying as far as possible to make life an equal playing field with opportunities for all, but opportunity is not everything.

Attitude is hugely important. A personal anecdote. My father, like millions in the Great Depression lost his job and was down to his beam ends. His work colleagues (electricians) lost their jobs too and were involved in marches, protests, pamphleting etc. and generally being pissed off at the unfairness of it all.

My father and a friend decided it was pointless. So, they sold the only things they had - their motorbikes for under £50 each. With these they bought tools and set up on their own (both had just completed training and were 18 years old). They worked their socks off - 100 hours a week and went anywhere they could do a bit of work, no matter how small. Every penny beyond their rent and food they ploughed back. After 3 years they had just enough to employ a third person. Fast forward 10 years and they had nearly 100 employees and they were still ploughing every spare penny back. In another 20 years the business had tripled.

Among their employees were some who had been soapboxing and generally whinging a decade before: most had either not worked or had only odd jobs.

The point of this is not to say how special my father and his friend were, but to illustrate that all those guys had the same opportunities (or lack of them) but my Dad and his friend hauled themselves out of the mire when others hadn't. It was nothing to do with opportunity or luck in their case. It was attitude.

I've also never forgotten his attitude to money, which was only ever live to the level of the pay rise before last - something British Governments have singularly failed to do and accounts for a large part of the unholy mess we are now in.

[Xenia]

We will remain in the EU in the sense of the common market as it was set up - free trade etc. I am not overly concerned about that. I doubt we will leave nor that we will be on the inner track in the euro.

[Saltycopporn]

While you are back OP... Two of us have asked you what academies and gas prices have to do with the Tories? Genuinely interested.

[ttosca]

No, the Human Rights laws are the best parts of the EU. At least it prevents the UK from descending back to Victorian living and working conditions.

For example the City of London may decide to decamp and set up in an EU country. Same for other multinationals who want a HQ within the EU. We may end up losing a lot of major business and be poorer for it.

This is one of the dumbest things I've read in a long time. Well done!

The City of London is still a law unto itself. The companies based there wouldn't be able to do the wheeling and dealing, quasi-legal activity based anywhere in the EU. The City of London is a not a 'person' or 'company'. It cannot just 'pick up' and settle elsewhere. The businesses which are based there theoretically could, but they wouldn't, since they enjoy the special privileges the region brings, such as its own police force, lax tax laws, the corrupt voting mechanisms, and lack of transparency.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corporation-london-city-medieval

[niceguy2]

I doubt we will ever join the Euro and I think the EU countries have accepted that.

But I think it would be worse for us to leave the EU. I think the problem is that as a nation we focus on the bits we dislike. For example we moan about the human rights laws. Or the fact companies like Amazon are using EU laws to reduce their taxes. Or the fact that eastern europeans have flocked to our shores in search of work.

What we don't appreciate though are the benefits of being in the EU. The biggest being free access to the largest single market in the world. Our companies can freely trade with any EU country.

And I'm actually very worried that we will stumble out of the EU without realising the long term implications. For example the City of London may decide to decamp and set up in an EU country. Same for other multinationals who want a HQ within the EU. We may end up losing a lot of major business and be poorer for it.

[Oblomov]

I think still being on the EU is very damaging for GB. And the idea of joining the Euro, I think would cause alot more damage.
I too fear that this will happen with little say from us.

[NonnoMum]

This thread has reminded me why I like MN...

[Xenia]

I don't think aristocrats really have that much power these days and in the UK there are not really very many of them.

Some people will always rise and some fall and in all cultures from jungles to towns you will have a few people in charge who tend to be the best or strongest or luckiest ones. 30% of the Amazon tribesmen have killed a man - usually over women. There was never a gorgeous time of peaceful harmony and equality on this planet. That does not mean I am against equal pay laws etc but I don't think we need to sweat too much because some people have more money than others as it doesn't really matter. It doesn't make them happier so let them keep it.

[claig]

Many hippies and environmentalists have been duped by the rich elite. The elitist Club of Rome commissioned the 1970s Limits to Growth report which has influenced most environmental and green movements worldwide. Conservation groups and environmental groups are often headed by or were founded by aristocrats. The agenda to stop the growth and development of the world population, to slow the industrial growth of third world countries and the economic prosperity of western nations via the "carbon footprint" and "climate catastrophe" stories are driven by leading politicians of most nations on earth, not by hippies. And we know that politicians depend on funding from backers and donors and hippies don't have those kind of funds.

Unfortunately, your narrow and limited socialist revolutionary misunderstanding of the world has caused you to fail to understand that the "socialists" are also tools of the plutocrats, who fund them and use them to advance their agenda.

[ttosca]

Jesus Christ, you're a mentalist Claig. You still think the main groups causing social deprivation, inequality, and social injustice are... environmentalists?!

Yes, man. Open your eyes. Big money is the problem. Not hippies and environmentalists.

[claig]

We can't wait yet more centuries before a just meritocratic system finally becomes a reality. The clock is being turned back right now. People are beginning to lose rights fought for over decades. We mustn't be taken in by lies and the low-growth lobbyists and think tanks, we have to open our eyes.

Good night.

[perceptionInaPearTree]

It's depressing...........

[Xenia]

But the smashing through is simply the new best people getting on who may be women who may be working class or black or whatever and as those rise others fall. It is just how it is. There will never be a socialist nirvana where everyone has exactly the same and it doesn't matter as you can be perfectly happy on a low income at the bottom.

Anyway i must get to bed. I need loads of sleep always.

[claig]

'the superior always prevail.'

Patriarchal systems kept women down for centuries and denied them an education and opportunities, and in many countries it still happens today. The ruling elite said they were not capable and didn't have what it took. But it was all lies and women surpass men in many fields today.

Break down the barriers, smash through the lies, don't let them grind us down.

[claig]

'That's the answer - due to how our species is the superior always prevail.'

This again is more elitist propaganda to fool the people.

Look at the First World War when we had lions led by donkeys, when men who were more capable were led to slaughter by their superiors, who were not superior in talent, just in rank.

I remember seeing a documentary years ago on fighter pilots in the Second World War in the Battle of Britain. They said teh top ace was a Cockney, but the upper class officers gave him a worse plane than they gave themselves as they were jealous of his skills and his position as ace.

The superior do not always prevail. That is just the lie that hereditary elites spread to justify their position above ordinary people who are often more skilled and worthy than themselves.

I believe in democracy and a meritocracy, with true social mobility, where true talent is given a chance to shine. Yet again, these are not things that the elite believe in because they know it will spell curtains for their green low-growth austerity regimes which keep them at the top of the pile.

[claig]

'We were probably made to sit around, run after a few animals, pick fruit off trees and chat in jungle huts really.'

No we were made to think and feel. We are the most intelligent species on the planet which is why the elite's green message of why do we count compared to ants and the planet is flawed.

We build skyscrapers and rockets that reach the moon and beyond, we fly through the air and travek undersea.

There is nothing like human beings and our potential is limitless.

'In the 60s the white heat of technology was expected to mean most of us would just have to work about 5 hours a day - that was the nirvana presented to the UK population as the future.'

That was a lie sold to us by elite wasters who work only 4 hours a day. They were already planning to lay people off and replace them with machines that could work 24 hours a day. Knowledge is exponential, the more you know, the less you know. The journey never ends. Education, progress and growth is what people want and is what the elite want to stifle with their green low-growth austerity regimes.

[Xenia]

I am not sure labour is always the route to joy, though. They are really interesting issues. We were probably made to sit around, run after a few animals, pick fruit off trees and chat in jungle huts really. In the 60s the white heat of technology was expected to mean most of us would just have to work about 5 hours a day - that was the nirvana presented to the UK population as the future.

[claig]

'The fact some people succeeed and most don't is wonderful - it's our species'

More like specious.

The fact that most don't succeed is not wonderful. It is wonderful if most do succeed. That is what we want. We want everybody to succeed so that the whole country succeeds, not just a small portion of it. And in order to ensure that we have a state that educates us and heals us when we are sick. We don't want millions of people to be idle with not much money in their pockets - that is a waste of potential. We want everyone to have possibilities to grow and prosper with training and real jobs. That is what creates wealth, when everyone is working to improve their situation and the situation of the whole country.

There is huge wasted potential in this country and education holds the key to unlock it, together with investment to create employment.

We need a national investment bank which funnels money into new ideas that will create future industries (and I am not talking about green baloney).

We need to create a land of opportunity. There are many people who have qualities and talents that outshine those of some privileged people, but they do not receive the same opportunities.

Invest in people, invest in Britain, invest in education and the NHS and divest a few bankers.

[Abra1d]

I don't think it's envy, so much. I think it's fear. My fear is that my savings, built up sometimes rather painfully over 28 years' work, will not be enough to keep me at a modest level of comfort in retirement. I am 49. I might only have lived half my life.

I agree with Claig about windfarms. Knock them down and stop taxing people so that landowners benefit. And stop defacing the countryside too.

[Xenia]

That's the answer - due to how our species is the superior always prevail. So in one generation the Xenias or the Camerons may do well and someone else badly and then the successful often then have their day and social mobility moves them down and we all have fairly equal chances. My great grandfather worked in the mines. So did that of the Catherine Middleton's family, probably the same mine.

The fact some people succeeed and most don't is wonderful - it's our species, it's how we have been for 2 million years. It is not a bad, but a good. As happiness does not flow from money it matters not a jot if one person is pretty, one is thin, one is tall, one is ugly, one clever or one successful. So what if someone else earns £100k and you earn £20k? Why does it matter so much? It is not for no reason that most religions make a sin of jealousy and envy.

[claig]

Some elite families take drugs and become dissolute and may well wipe themsleves out, but there is always an elite to take their place. We are not all equal, there is a hierarchy and the super rich are at the top of the pyramid and they want to stay there and they think they are born to rule. The hoi polloi cannot join their dining clubs, I am afraid they are not welcome.

'The progress of humanity - well why is the planet better off if humans are on it than say gases or other life forms?'

That is what the elites say and they have set up environmental parties and paid for puppets to sell that message to the people. But the elite don't think gases and ants are more important than them.


'NHS etc It is these days spent on the people to a much greater extent than ever in our history and at a level we just cannot afford'

The NHS saves people's lives and makes them healthy in order that they can carry on working and helping society. The NHS is not just a cost, as thge elite try to proclaim, it is an institution that gets people back on their feet, fit and working again. We need to spend more on the NHS and cut out the green crap, cut the subsidies to aristocratic landowners erecting windfarms and spend it on the nations' health, that will increase teh wealth of the nation and reduce taxpayer subsidies that fill rich landowners' pockets.

The system is not too generous. Nobody is living the life of Riley on benefits. But some BBC payouts and salaries and expenses paid for out of cleaners' pockets are certainly excessive and could possibly be described as taking the piss. It's not just the BBC. Start looking at all teh people's money that is wasted and what it is wasted on. Look at some of the regimes that we pay foreign aid to and look at their human rights.

If we want to save money, then let's cut in the right place, not cut poor people's benefits and health treatment, because in a rich country such as ours, that is a disgrace.

[Xenia]

I don't believe in The Elite. People and families' fortunes are made and lost. Some families manage to retain wealth for a few generations and sometimes longer. Some individuals will always do better than others. It is how we are made for the fittest to survive best. It is inherent in our species.

The progress of humanity - well why is the planet better off if humans are on it than say gases or other life forms?

I don't think windfarms and opera subsidies have much to do with anything. They are pretty de minimis. You just have to look at where our spending goes to see where much of it is headed - state pensions, NHS etc It is these days spent on the people to a much greater extent than ever in our history and at a level we just cannot afford,. We are massively far far too socialist and spending money we don't have propping up a system which is straining at the edges it is so far too generous.

[claig]

We may well one day be forced to join the Euro and I wouldn't be surprised if an economic disaster for this country is what will force this to happen, so that a powerful rich elite has its way. We can't see the future. But rest assured that these things are not just accidents, they follow a well-thought out plan.

The elite are consolidating centralised control of European finances as a result of the Euro crisis which has countries on their knees desperate to be bailed out.

It is possible that the same may one day happen to us. I hope not. But if it happens, don't be deceived by the rich elite saying that it is all the benefit claimants' fault and that old people should work till they drop and have their pensions slashed. It will have nothing tio do with that, and everything to do with power, puppets and plutocrats.

[claig]

We need to change our laws so that corporations turning over billions and paying just a few millions (if that) in tax, never again have to volunteer to offer up some tax.