Rochester and Strood Latest

[WetAugust]

The white van has been transformed to a Harrods van and the England flag is now a Hammer and Sickle so Mrs Hyacinth Bouquet, Labour MP feels more at home

'I just don't recognise this 'ordinary man' that you keep referring to. To me he certainly isn't a non voter who hangs flags out his window. '

Here is the brilliant Peter Hitchens from his article on Rochester and Strood again

"But the polls can’t really cope with the kind of people I talked to in Strood. These are the great unmoved, the people who neither speak nor vote – the biggest political party in Britain , if anyone could mobilise them. I am surprised that they remain unstirred."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2836143/Anger-apathy-glory-old-England-vote-change-forever-Modern-England-comes-shock-Westminster-persons-writes-PETER-HITCHENS.html

The non-voters, the disaffected, the pissed off are possibly the majority and one day they are going to end up voting and they won't vote for Establishment parties. The academics have been telling us that UKIP's real appeal is to "left behind Britain" but they are wrong, UKIP's appeal os everywhere as Rochester, which is apparently demographically and politically typical of England, has shown.

Hitchens again

"If the Tories can’t hold Rochester, politics in this country will change deeply and forever. If they do hold it, politics in this country will remain the same. That’s quite an incentive to vote – whatever way you feel."

"you talk about Oxford elite etc and you know, I actually want the people trusted with running the country to be as well educated and knowledgeable as possible."

But I don't mention Oxford because I am against education or clever people. I have a Master's Degree too. But I want people who understand, respect and listen to ordinary people and don't sneer at them or call them "Little Englanders" for complaining and having their views. As the woman in the street interviewed by the BBC said

"Just because we think differently to them, they look down on us. But in a democracy, everyone should have a right to have a view".

I want clever people who respect the public, and I don't think we have that now in spite of Miliband saying "I feel respect" when he sees a white van on a drive with England flags.

I don't want a clever Oxbridge elite which is out of touch with ordinary people because that leads to disaffection and apathy and eventually that may be dangerous for the whole country if the elite are out of touch with the people.

There's no 'if' about it. The political elite are out of touch with their voters. watching Skinner today celebrating the multi-cultural ness of his heart operation I am left thinking "could we as a nation not produce sufficient heart specialists?", and "are we not depriving these nations of their best health care professionals?", which are probably old-fashioned views, but the sort of questions that old Labour would have asked itself a few decades ago.

You musn't look down on people who don't vote. There are reasons they don't vote. Because they think it is pointless, that they are "all the same", that "nothing will change", that "they are all crooks", or that they feel powerless or have not been made aware that an election is even on (as this man appears to not even have heard of the byelection that could change Britain forever as Cameron faced his High Noon).

All citizens are part of our society and they often have good reasons not to vote or it is the fault of the political parties for not involving them in the process and for not giving them any hope.

Hitchens again

"Almost everyone I talked to in Strood (I took up station close to KFC and not far from Morrisons) was disillusioned to the point of cynicism."

That is absolutely terrifying because it cannot continue like that forever with bad consequences, and I don't blame the people. I blame the entire political class.

"could we as a nation not produce sufficient heart specialists?"

Exactly, and the real question is why the hell aren't we doing so. And Skinner was grandstanding and playing to the gallery which is all that clown ever does. The country is in a serious state, there are serious problems, our entire political system is experiencing an earthquake and the 2 party system will not survive it. We need some politicians who care and who respect the people, not clowns who act and play to the gallery for laughs.

I have been warning on Mumsnet that the POLITICAL RISKS of UKIP, will add to the UK’s economic and financial risks adding to our financial problems as both domestic and foreign investors in the UK capital markets will start ‘pricing in’ that risk to our markets – the following article not only agrees with me on the prospect, the markets are seeing it already.

(Nov 21st) “Europe’s Season of Political Discontent Rung In by UKIP Victory”
www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-21/europe-s-season-of-political-discontent-rung-in-by-ukip-victory.html

”Victory by the anti-EU U.K. Independence Party in a British parliamentary contest was fueled by the same sense of economic injustice and antagonism to politics-as-usual that will unsettle Europe in coming months. It also gave a flavor of the potential fallout, as the pound fell against most of its 16 major peers.”

”Early elections are beckoning in Greece, Catalonia, Italy and Austria, and that’s before scheduled ballots including in the U.K. in May, Portugal in September or October and in Spain at year’s end. The re-emergence of political risk in Europe is cited by Royal Bank of Scotland Plc analysts including Alberto Gallo as among the “top trades” for 2015.”

“Britain’s relative economic health has failed to quell the UKIP insurgency. British growth of 3.1 percent in 2014 will top the euro area’s 0.8 percent, putting the U.K. ahead for the third year, the EU forecasts. Britain’s unemployment rate is 6 percent, compared to 11.5 percent in the euro area.”

Jason Cowley, editor of the leftwing New Statesman, has chosen to write in today's Daily Mail about Miliband and the metropolitan elite.

"Miliband leads a party that purports to speak for and aspires to represent, in his own awkward phrase, ‘everyday people’. But many in Labour have a problem with these very same ‘everyday people’, especially if they do not share their liberalism or metropolitan prejudices.

The snooty metropolitan Labourite doesn’t like these people’s patriotism. They don’t understand why they might be attracted to the populist rhetoric of Nigel Farage’s Ukip. They dismiss legitimate concerns about immigration and the fracturing of social cohesion as bigotry.
...
Nor does the snooty metropolitan elite seem to grasp that swathes of society do not work in the public sector and that two-thirds of private-sector workers do not even have pensions.

I’ve mocked Miliband for being a Hampstead socialist who does not understand lower-middle-class aspiration. Like Emily Thornberry, he lives in a grand house in North London. He studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, the obligatory degree for our out-of-touch political class, and then, because he was considered ‘Labour aristocracy’, went straight to work for Gordon Brown at the Treasury.
...
Draw a metaphorical line from the Wash estuary in Norfolk to the River Severn. South of the Severn-Wash line, excluding London, there are 197 seats, of which Labour holds ten. In the aspirational English south the party is hugely unpopular — and becoming more so.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2844865/Ed-s-snooty-elite-hates-patriotism-says-editor-left-wing-journal-triggered-Labour-leadership-crisis.html

I will not be voting again decided in the last two years

noddyholder, I know you don't like UKIP, so why don't you vote Green? That will contribute to the process of change of ending this sham democracy of a two party system that ignores everybody and lets a tiny metopolitan elite con the people.

We need a PR voting system. That is what the Greens and UKIP want. The more votes they get, the sooner the people can get real democracy and finish the Tories off.

Why is only the south considered aspirational? My DH grew up in Easterhouse, Glasgow, which is one of the most deprived estates in Europe. He is also a lawyer educated at Oxford. I live in Cheshire which is probably one of the most aspirational counties in the uk. Chocked full of people who come from more deprived areas of gt manc and made good so move out to Cheshire. Aspiration isn't the preserve of southerners.

Not that other parts of Gtr Manchester aren't also aspirational but Cheshire is renowned for it.

Good article that mentions the type of double standards in this country over flags and Christmas lights that noddyholder mentioned earlier.

"From 1997, this group [the Labour metropolitan elite] became the ruling political class, who lived smug existences so different from the working classes they affected to champion. Islington may be only 30 miles from Rochester as the crow flies but Thornberry’s lifestyle is a million miles from that of the voters who form Labour’s core support.

It is different, too, from that of the thousands who live in the council estates that form much of Islington’s housing stock. The borough has one of the highest proportions of council-owned buildings in the country.

You can often see St George’s flags in the windows of the council estates. But the Labour elite rarely see them. Even if they did, they would sneeringly assume they were flown by Right-wing extremists.

These metropolitan liberals are allergic to the ideals of patriotism and the self-reliant family.

Meanwhile, politicians such as Emily Thornberry live a gilded life, utterly segregated from hard-working, working-class voters. The same double standards existed in the Nineties, particularly when it came to education.

The children of the council-house poor had no choice but to go to sub-standard state schools, wrecked by the Labour-controlled council. The Labour elite had the money to send their own children to private schools; or they used their power and ‘sharp elbows’ to secure the few places at superior, selective, church-run schools — as did the Blairs."
...
In 1845, the great Tory Benjamin Disraeli wrote about: ‘Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.’

Disraeli was writing about the rich and the poor. Today, his words apply to Labour politicians and the working classes — the people whom they cynically claim to represent.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2844839/Emily-home-Islington-luvvie-land-metropolitan-liberal-allergic-ideals-patriotism-self-reliant-family.html

"Why is only the south considered aspirational? "

They say that because the people here in general don't like Labour. They were the aspirational working class of Essex etc who voted for Thatcher. They were independent and wanted to advance with low taxes and they wanted government and rules and regulations off their backs. Apparently, Essex has the most self-employed people in the country.

The white van man, Dan Ware, is an example of an independent person not particularly interested in politics, has never voted Labour, probably just wants them all off his back and wants low taxes so that he can make a living and advance.

The fact that the North still votes Labour in such high numbers highlights a difference with the South. On the whole the South believes that Labour holds people back, keeps them down with the dead hand of socialism.

But being a socialist doesn't make you less aspirational! The north is full of working men's clubs housing men in the 60s+ who re very politically aware and feel quite passionate about true socialist ideals and hopes which include their children and grandchildren having more than they had and doing better educationally.
They made not have voted for Thatcher but it doesn't make them less aspirational.
Aspiration for a fair and just society (as these men and women see it not EM) is not a lesser aspiration than buying your own council house and sticking down some laminate and a 60" tv. They are just different and UKIP would do well not to assume that the latter is the only one that counts.

You are probably right, but that is what they mean when they say "aspirational" for the South. The working class people in Basildon etc voted Thatcher, not Kinnock because they felt Labour and Kinnock etc would choke their success, choke their aspiration, choke their advancement and tax them and waste their hard-earned money.

They welcomed Thatcher because with her they saw a way out, a way up, a respect for thrift, enterprise, business, not a bloated public sector wasting millions of the people's hard-earned money and a partty that would tax their hard-earned income to waste it on foreign aid or climate funds etc etc.

When they use aspirational for the South, it is almost synonymous with Thatcherism, which liberated the working class and created working class millionaires and entrepreneurs.

"The lesson for Lib Dems is that Thatcher understood that the less well off are just as aspirational as those born to wealth."

www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-liberals-must-learn-the-lessons-of-thatcher-32591.html

The modern Tories, the modernisers, are useless, they are just like Blair, and now the aspirational working classes are switching to UKIP.

'Aspiration for a fair and just society (as these men and women see it not EM) is not a lesser aspiration than buying your own council house and sticking down some laminate and a 60" tv'

I think that is probably the difference. If you want "a fair and just society" then vote Clegg or Miliband because that is what they always say (but never do).

If you wanted to make money, then you voted Thatcher, or at least in the South you did.

In the South, on the whole, people want to be left alone and allowed to succeed by earning more and keeping more of their money (above being fair to the planet or fair to the polar bear or by spending on foreign aid) and getting big government and all the Islington barristers and Oxbridge elites, who preach "fairness" off their backs.

It comes down to trust. I think down South there is far less trust of big government. We don't believe their spin about "a fair society", we think they will just screw us over and tax us and hand our money over to a Climate Fund or an aristocrat to erect a windfarm. All we want is from them is to leave us alone, stop preaching to us and get off our backs so that we can rise up and keep and spend our money as we please.

We don't like being told what to do by a government of barristers.

They showed an 85 year old woman on Sky, who lives half-way up a tower block in Islington in Emily Thornberry's ward, and this woman has always flown a couple of England flags on her balcony a mile up in the air. Then she said one of her friends came up to her and said "you are not allowed to do that", and she said "why not?", "they won't stop me".

We just want them off our backs telling us what to do, preaching to us about "fairness" and polar bears and choking our aspirations while pocketing expenses and flipping their homes.

And this 85 year old woman said

"I've always liked Emily, but after this, I'm thinking of voting for that UKIP"

Claig .... "If you wanted to make money, then you voted Thatcher, or at least in the South you did."

Do you actually live in this country with your pathetic generalizations?

What is the point of having aspiration or as you call it "making money", if a honking great inefficient state taxes it, often several times, even now?

When Thatcher came in the basic income tax rate was 32%, the higher rate in the 60%s, any income on investment was taxed in the 90% - and if any company managed to make any money within a price/income upward spiral economy, with in inflation around 20%, company Corporate Tax was 50%.

The UK economy was then pan-holing, so then as now, governments have a choice of raising taxes higher and higher to compensate for a weak, uncompetitive economy, to maintain spending on public services etc.

A STRONG ECONOMY IS THEREFORE KEY, as they have found in Portugal, Spain and Greece, who have seen their Health Care budgets slashed by up to 17% a year.

A strong, competitive, low tax, aspirational economy is KEY to a nations prosperity NO MATTER WHO IS IN POWER, as you can not pay for a Public Sector and other social spending UNLESS the nation goes further into debt - which is no longer a UK option as we already have £1,500,000,000,000 of it.

The UK has a two main party system, and the party that usually delivers that competitive low tax economy is heading a coalition DELIVERING it; the other option will be a race to the bottom with EUROPE.

'Do you actually live in this country with your pathetic generalizations?'

No, I live on Mars. I get my news from BBC Mars.

Do you actually work for a living?

I ran my own business when Thatcher was in charge and she slashed corporation tax. She rewarded enterprise, people in Essex and Mars had hope and thought that if they tried hard and worked hard that their money would not be taken from them by a bunch of Islingtoin barristers and wasted on Climate Funds or any other rubbish.

And now they think exactly the same about UKIP and not your moderniser from Eton with a PPE, Cameron.

Claig ... you have spent far too long 'lumping' together all parties for your UKIP propaganda, you seem very confused with which political party has which ideology and the main policy differences between Thatcher Conservatives and Cameron's Conservative led coalition - with sprinklings of Lib Dem's, thanks to UKIP voters in 2010.

Below are the CORE Conservatives beliefs on how an economy should be run, please tell me the difference in those policies/record, between Thatcher and Cameron???

• The size/cost of government should be as big and lean as it NEEDs to be, not a way of 'creating employment at the taxpayer expense.

• The size/cost of UK taxation on companies creating jobs and the citizens in employment should be as high as the need to be, not FUNDING an enlarged, inefficient state/government.

• Governments that understand business and offering competitive tax rates to companies CREATES jobs, governments with no clue how to create a vibrant Private Sector just attack them with threats/taxes/red tape, and so job growth stalls, then falls, and unemployment rises.

• A government should provide the best public services they can but also trust their citizens to keep and spend their own money better than any government can - as their are too few global examples of efficient governance balancing non penal taxation with excellent services, cradle to grave.

UKIP full of rejected, failed, and defective (or is it defected?) Conservatives with a leader 'modernizing' the UKIP manifesto on the hoof every year, offers what major difference worth massive UK political, economic, financial risks in 2015 to the current coalition that has started the recovery needed for salary growth to follow?

A UKIP increasing the budget deficit with hollow promises, and no significant plan to better BALANCE taxes/government spending,budget reduction than the Conservatives, offers what - to teach their Conservative grandmothers to better suck tax reduction eggs??

As voting UKIP ensures without a Conservative majority in parliament there will not be an informed EU debate and a democratic EU Referendum for the people to decide - these dumb little 'modernizing' points you raise on Cameron that gets on your goat, seems a small price to pay to sacrifice what we are currently achieving - just so UKIP can place a few 'home grown fruits' in Westminster and have a Labour minority government, taking us back to the 1970's.

Do you actually work for a living with all your patronising platitudes?

I am afraid I am not going to explain to you how Thatcher or Farage differ from Call Me Dave. You can research that yourself.

Claig ..... wot, run out of your head-up-bum propaganda, anti establishment, anti politics lies, faced with the facts?

Oh dear.
Mr reckless isn't happy with nige :)
That didn't last long....
Reckless was voted in by people who voted him in before.
It's hardly a shock result claig...no matter how much you want it to be!

I think it's insulting to claim aspiration as a purely southern trait. Or that it belongs solely to those who voted Thatcher and are self employed. We have lived all over the SE, not inc Essex, and there is a massive misconception held by Southerners that people live in the North because they lack drive and aspiration or because they are stuck there with no choice. They also assume it's cheap and cold up here and often find it incredulous that there could be affluence north of Luton. The worst 2 couples we knew for this were from Basildon and St Albans. So really this doesn't speak to me as ordinary man who understands the needs of other ordinary men/women.

Also, could my Oxford educated husband not be considered aspirational since he grew up here?

Or does he not count because he's a lawyer. His mother was the sort of massively aspirational people I was referring to earlier. Her aspiration is life was that her kids got a good education and hot out of the slum. But because she would have died rather than vote Thatcher her aspirations weren't really aspirational?