Cameron's bloody awful too, isn't he?

[porcupine11]

Just saying.

(of course his Big Society means "you lot do the work for no pay". But progressive pomposity? He haz it)

I agree Big Society is a pompous progressive vacuous phrase. I fear he learnt that from the progressives.

I like this rapping idea!

Cameron is a shit,
check the NI paper bit
but now its hit the fan
the whole country goin daaan

HHLimbo, good one, but the rap must have resemblance to reality.

claig, sorry, but what you are saying is economic suicide. If the then Government had made massive cuts DURING THE CRASH we wouldn't have had a massive recession, we'd have had a huge depression. One thing you don't do is to cut in a recession, you have to return to growth.

Something the Tories are very reluctant to admit is that unless they manage to get some growth in the economy, they're deficit reduction plans are garbage, and the deficit will INCREASE. They are borrowing more now than they did a year ago. They should start being honest, it is a massive balancing act, and they have only looked at one side of the seesaw. They are missing every one of their deficit reduction targets.

LilyBolero, I think you may be right. I heard the economist Peter Jay on the radio yesterday and he said there should be an income tax holiday for a year in order to boost the economy. I believe that quantitative easing should have been given to the public, not the banks. The public would have spent it and the economy would have been boosted and the money would have ended up being deposited in banks anyway.

claig, you do talk rubbish, but it's nicely rhyming rubbish. I did enjoy it. Reminds me of Ivor Cutler - entertaining gibberish.

aliceliddell, please read it again. I think on a second reading you will find no rubbish in there, just pearls.

That does make some sense claig!
Income tax holiday for a year would be lovely, although they would never do that because it would be so horrible when it came back, and that is closer to the general election. I predict they will continue this path for another year or so, and then once the run up to the next election starts, they will cut the 50p rate of tax, cut business taxes, and possibly cut NI for individuals.

I do agree with Ed Balls that the VAT rise was a big mistake - it is a blanket rise, so affects lower incomes disproportionately, and really does make people think twice about spending. It is also CRIMINAL the way tax is applied to petrol - we are taxed twice, because every litre of fuel is priced in 2 parts - the cost of the fuel, and then the duty, and THEN VAT @ 20% is applied to the whole thing, so we pay 20% of the duty AGAIN in a 2nd tax.

Targeted cuts to keep the economy moving are essential, but Gideon has this bee in his bonnet about 'not being blown off course'.

And I just read my previous post back and am mortified at having written they're, not their. I do know the difference really!

I think the real solution would have been to write off the debts and start from a clean sheet. Then certain large investors and banks would have made losses and the people wouldn't have. But that is not the way the world works. It would have hit the powerful rather than the people and that can never happen.

Would be interesting to write off the whole world's debts and for everyone to start anew...

could never happen, but would be interesting to see what happened.

Apparently similar things have happened in the past on a smaller scale

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/jun/11/uk.g8

georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/07/economics-professor-well-have-never.html

But it's really about power and the powerful and they could not allow that to happen.

Aliceliddel. As you have seen by Claigs posts about posts being 'pearls', he/ she is truely a pearl among pebbles. Claig writes the pearls and others the pebbles!

ironman, I find myself in agreement with you once again

claig

I think the real solution would have been to write off the debts and start from a clean sheet. Then certain large investors and banks would have made losses and the people wouldn't have. But that is not the way the world works. It would have hit the powerful rather than the people and that can never happen.

Just when I had you figured for a mad Melanie Phillips type Daily Mail reactionary, you come out with this.

Please be consistent!

No, I am for the people and against powerful people who can bleed ordinary people dry. I was against most of the privatisations and am against the Royal Mail intended privatisations. I am for protecting people's jobs, against short-term profits and for investment in long-term viable industries that can employ people. They had Mandelson on Newsnight last week and he said that Labour got some of their industrial policy wrong because manufacturing declined under them even further than under Thatcher. They said that the Europeans were more protectionist. I think we do need some protectionism to save people's jobs and industries and to stop factories upping sticks and moving abroad.

ttosca - calm down. Berlusconi(sp) is of the people in that populist Schwarzenneggery type way. It will take more than that to convince me that dear claig (who I quite admire) is restored to sanity. Not liking Call me Dave - yy. Because he's not Conservative enough?

aliceliddell, I admire you and ttosca because you are both active in politics and stand up for what you believe. It is great to see committed people who want to make things better. Even though, I disagree with you both on some issues, on many issues we are on the same page.

I like Cameron. I think it was HHLimbo who mentioned the words honest and decent and edam who mentioned the word sincere with regards to Cameron. I am in total agreement with that, I also think he has those qualities.

Actually edam said "Love the idea that Cameron is sincere "

ie the idea is a joke...

Cameron may have good points - somewhere - but sincerity is not one of them. Unless he is genuinely as shallow as he appears.

I DO think he believes he is doing good. But he is very very incompetent - his 1st year of government has been a shambles - and I believe he is genuinely handicapped by his total lack of awareness of how regular people live. Perhaps he would have more success if, instead of his patronising 'We're all in this together' and flying EasyJet and RyanAir, he said 'I have been really privileged, I don't have the same pressures as the vast majority of this country, but I passionately want to make life easier for them'.

Whereas he says 'We're all in this together', before shafting the working families of the country yet again.

Claig, you know I am very fond of you, but Ponders is right - the idea that Cameron is sincere is v. funny. Smarm is his stock in trade.

This is the guy who said the Tories had to detoxify themselves on the NHS - yet as soon as his government takes power, they draw up plans to break up the NHS and start rationing on a massive scale. Tough shit if you have cataracts or need a hip replacement, you won't be getting surgery any time soon under Cameron's regime.

Cameron accused of breaking pledge on NHS, as health spending falls

Treasury figures show £800m drop in real terms in coalition's first year

David Cameron was accused of breaking his biggest pledge at the general election ? a guarantee that health spending will increase every year in real terms ? after Treasury figures showed a fall in spending in the coalition's first year in government.

Labour accused the government of burying figures in a Treasury document which show that spending on the NHS was cut in real terms to £101.9bn in the coalition's first year in office from £102.7bn in Labour's last year in government.

John Healey, the shadow health secretary, said: "David Cameron has broken his NHS pledge. He put up posters pledging to cut the deficit, not the NHS, but we see now that the Tory-led government has already cut spending on the NHS in its first year.

"On top of this cut, Cameron's reckless NHS reorganisation is set to cost £2bn, money which could be better spent treating patients. And there are more cuts forecast in future years. This proves again what people have seen before: that you can't trust the Tories with the NHS."

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/28/nhs-spending-fall-cameron

Cameron is part of the millionaire political elite. His politic's is right wing. He is an insult to the majority of working people in this country, when he talks about the Big Society working to-gether he means charities to work and fund all the services that he is cutting as if they weren't already doing this before he was elected. He is not interested in how the regular person/family will survive daily ie feeding their kids, keeping their rent/mortgage going, keeping their jobs, obtaining good education/health and so on...as long as he and his elite friends keep their healthy bank balances which includes the bankers that is about as far as his interests stretch.

I don't like David Cameron at all. I find him lacking intellectually.
If he believes that there should be hige cuts in public spending then he should stand by his convictions and just do it.

That said, I do wish the Labour party were spending this period taking a long ahrd look at themselves and what they want to be and where they want to go.
Despite the knee jerk reaction posts on here, the last labour administration did become ever more draconian vis a vis civil liberties. They did become absurdly North London centric. They did not tackle some of the huge issues looming (public sector pensions, de regulation of the financial sector, trade deficit, immigration).

What I would really like to see is a complete reassessment and rebirth in the Labour party. An acceptance of those tings that went wrong and some plan to move forward. But Ed Milliband, Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper are just part of the old guard and will never admit to any wrong doing so while they remain so influential the party will remain stagnant.