Hold me back from Anthony Steen: glad to see the Tories are scraping the barrel too

[LupusinaLlamasuit]

for fuck's sake

"What right do the public have to interfere in my private life...? It is just jealousy"

Wormy fucking slimeball. I do hope some local farmers find a new home for their spare sileage.

Classic:

"We have a wretched Government here which has completely mucked up the system and caused the resignation of me and many others, because it was this Government that introduced the Freedom of Information Act and it is this Government that insisted on the things which caught me on the wrong foot.

What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None."

Sounds like a criminal caught on CCTV blaming the people who installed the cameras.

yes i know edam...but human nature means some people will take take take...no matter how much money they have.....i don't care that a few MPs have fiddled their expenses tbh...

Anthony Steen - what a pillock.

This just goes to show how out of touch the Tories are with real life.

And Cameron paints a good picture of someone who is in touch, but he's actually just the same as the rest of them.

This profile of him in the Times is very enlightening:

Particularly the bit where he talks about Maggie Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society" speech. He says: "there is such thing as society, but it is not the same thing as the state". ie he thinks it's not the job of Government to provide welfare for the disadvantaged, as well.

He also claims his mother nurtered a community spirit in him - she was a magistrate and "very plugged into the community". Not enough to send her precious darling to the local school though - oh, no, Eton all the way for him.

Plugged into the community? I really don't think so.

I said nothing about sending your children to Eton being wrong. What I said was that someone who does so cannot be described as "plugged into the community", as Cameron claims his mother was, from whom he says he learnt his community-spiritedness.

That is my point.

In what sense is a failed comprehensive an outcome of lunatic left-wing policies?

smallwhitecat - the Daily Mail has suggested that David Milliband might have inherited something a bit more tangible than 'left-wing tendencies'.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1151892/New-questions-David-Milibands-prope rty-empire.html Milliband Property]]

That link again:

Milliband Property

You're not plugged into the community because you're not even taking part in it.

The local school is the primary focus for the community. If you don't use it, you are not taking part.

It can't be that hard to understand.

You can argue about loony left-wing policies, but those comprehensives wouldn't be failing if everyone was made to use them. At the moment we have many of the high-achieveing, supported middle class children creamed off by private schools, which doesn't leave much hope for the most vulnerable kids, many of whose parents/carers couldn't care less what sort of education they have - of course the schools dominated by those kids are going to fail.

Furthermore, at least the "loony left" is trying to make life better for those at the bottom. There is really no sign that the Tories feel the privileged in this country should have any responsibility whatsoever for the poorest and weakest members of our society.

That is what troubles me about Cameron. I do not trust that he has any particular empathy for people on the poverty line. And, yes, I do think his Etonian background contributes to that.

To qualify all this, I was privately educated at a very expensive girls' school in London and I have die-hard Tory-voting parents who live in an absurdly large house, own two other properties, and do not see why they should have to help anyone else ever. So I have not "inherited" any left-wing tendencies from anyone. I believe strongly in social cohesion, but I do not think the Tories could give a damn about it.

Is there anywhere we can find our own mps spending?

bronze - yes put your post code into the They Work for You website and your MP has his/her own page. Scroll down to see his/her voting record, ouside interests, gifts received and right at the bottom of the page the total expenses claimed but not yet the individual receipts.

thanks

oh swc, do put your brain in gear. Most comprehensives are not failed. Most children do get an education, and leave with qualifications. Do you mean to propose the whole comprehensive system is flawed?

Because for a minute there when you said failed comprehensives, I thought you meant those schools horribly underfunded with decades of 'middle-class flight' in boroughs with endemic social problems and complex populations struggling to recruit teachers. None of which are solely the result of Labour policy.

'I'm sure its no coincidence that the worst performing schools are in Labour LEAs'. Are they? They might well be, I'd still like to see the facts. But even if they are you're confusing correlation with causality.

The two things are connected, surely, by a third variable, which is that the least well off and most socially excluded populations both send their kids to those schools AND vote Labour.

Haven't read whole thread but - I have to admit to just a teeny bit of admiration, not for Steen's obvious graspingness but for his brazen style - "It's just jealousy" / "I have a very, very large house" "You have no right to interfere in my private life"

Basically "yes I do have my nose in the trough - what's it to you, peasant?"

Which is kind of refreshingly outrageous compared to all the blears-esque desperation to make out they're all so sparklingly honest and squeaky-clean really

Restrictive of whose liberty, SWC? Those rich enough to send their children to Eton?

What about the people who don't even have that "liberty" in the first place?

I don't think you have a very good grasp of the meaning of the word "prejudice". How is it that my beliefs are "prejudice"?

And yes, you are right that there is something wrong with our state education system. It's that not everyone has to take part in it.

A two-tier system has no hope of working for society as a whole, except for those with the riches to exercise their "liberties" - ie pay for private education and be very sure of maintaining a huge advantage over those less privileged.

No I cite Cameron's assertion that society and state are not the same thing. By saying that, he is declaring that he agrees with what Margaret Thatcher was saying - that it is not down to Government to support the weak and vulnerable, it is only down to individuals and families.

Read that profile I posted to get the context - he is clearly saying this.

I passionately believe it is wrong.

I do not dislike the rich at all. My family is rich, and many of my friends too seeing as I come from a very privileged background.

I believe that social cohesion is about a lot more than "making a contribution", as you put it.

You have to take part in society alongside everyone else - that means using the same schools and other public services as everyone else, to ensure that it all works as well as it can for everyone. Not just the privileged few who can afford to opt out.

Back to the issue of Davd Cameron, Eton and being 'plugged in to the comunity'.

Unless someone has lived the life of someone on benefits I do not think it is really possble to know the grinding misery of it. Unless you have been to a failing school I do not think it is possible to truely feel the personal effect on a child.

David Cameron does not truely know the life of someone on benefits or what it is like to attend failing school but he knows far better than me about the NHS, and how it feel to lose a chld. He knows something of life.

The fact he went to Eton does not blind hIm to what is going on arond him. He is educated and he has people like Ian Duncan Smith advsing him who has done a huge amount of work on the impact of the benefits system and education on people's life chances. They are both 'one nation' Tories. The Conservative Govt will try to make the lives of everyone better not just some people. They almost certainly will fail in some areas but I do think their heart is in it. I do think they want to give everyone a life chance.

I am not a Conservative party apologist or actvist by the way - but after seeing 11 years of Labour I do wonder what they have done to make the lives of poor people better why we have kids in sink schools still who cannot read or write. Could it be worse?.

I am prepared to give Cameron and the Conservative party a chance.

Do you think their hearts are in it, ABD?

I really hope so, but I am not convinced.

I think Labour have made a real hash of managing the welfare state in many respects, but at least Labour will always try to make life better for those at the bottom.

I am glad you believe the Tories will do this too, because I am worried there is a big backlash against welfare going on at the moment.

I am worried that the Tories are just pretending to care.

I agree that you can have compassion without experiencing pain and poverty. I'm just not sure that Cameron does. Of course he understands the NHS and what it is to lose a child. But to be desperately poor? Does he care about those who are?

I just don't know.