Vote the conservatives out

[Consent2trix]

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/a-vote-of-no-confidence-in-the-conservative-party-running-the-uk?source=facebook-share-button&time=1434571593

[kinkytoes]

[caroldecker]

You do all realise the majority of property price inflation was under the Labour party. The Left destroy people's lives by poverty of ambition and destruction of wealth and leave others to take the blame.
There has never been a successful socialist government in the world - and those countries which have tried end up with a worse standard of living for all.

[wigglylines]

Got distracted from posting about TiSA as woman screaming outside as her DH had just kicked the shit out of her, she'd run out of her house screaming.

She had swelling to the head and said she dizzy and sick. We called the police and ambulance and waited with her.

Police have just given up waiting for the ambulance as it is still at least half an hour away and taken her in.

They were having to keep her awake, she was fading fast.

The Policeman said "the ambulance service is in am even worse state than us".

This is the effect of the cuts. People dying on the streets because there are no fucking ambulances. Or going back to abusive husbands because the refuges are desperately underfunded.

I can't post any more right now I am too sad and angry.

[wigglylines]

We were waiting for the ambulance for the best part of an hour and it was still nowhere near.

[BigChocFrenzy]

Wiggly I expect the trade agreement you are thinking of is TTIP, being negotiated by the EU with the USA.
The Tories and even Labour seem in favour of it, but it would give multinationals, especially from the USA, frightening power to sue governments and effectively prevent legislation they don't like.

USA companies are expected to sue to prevent e.g. plain packaging anti-smoking legislation, current EU law labelling food containing GMOs, meat containing hormones.
EU startup companies, especially in the IT field, expect to be sued to death, to stop them becoming rivals to established US firms.

If the EU Trade reps agree to current TTIP proposals, they are either the dumbest fuckers alive or the most heavily bribed. I hope the EU Parliament vetoes TTIP, but their snouts are usually deep in the trough too.

[wigglylines]

bigchoc TTIP is incredibly worrying, I agree.

I was talking about TiSA though, the Trade in Services Agreement

[wigglylines]

An excerpt from that article ^^

"The deal would liberalize global trade of services, an expansive definition that encompasses air and maritime transport, package delivery, e-commerce, telecommunications, accountancy, engineering, consulting, health care, private education, financial services and more, covering close to 80 percent of the U.S. economy. Though member parties insist that the agreement would simply stop discrimination against foreign service providers, the text shows that TiSA would restrict how governments can manage their public laws through an effective regulatory cap. It could also dismantle and privatize state-owned enterprises, and turn those services over to the private sector. You begin to sound like the guy hanging out in front of the local food co-op passing around leaflets about One World Government when you talk about TiSA, but it really would clear the way for further corporate domination over sovereign countries and their citizens"

[wigglylines]

And

"It may make sense to some to open service sectors up to competition. But under [TiSA] governments may not be able to regulate staff to patient ratios in hospitals, or ban fracking, or tighten safety controls on airlines, or refuse accreditation to schools and universities.

Foreign corporations must receive the same "national treatment" as domestic ones, and could argue that such regulations violate their ability to provide the service. Allowable regulations could not be “more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service,” according to TiSA’s domestic regulation annex.

No restrictions could be placed on foreign investment—corporations could control entire sectors."

[caroldecker]

Of course countries with nationalised industries do so well - name a nationalised industry that has developed any new product or is a world leader in its field?

[ListenToYourHeart]

Marking place.

Will sign tomorrow. There's a few good petitions regarding the Tories on 38 degrees site about the cuts to child tax and disability benefits that I've signed but I hadn't seen this one

[wigglylines]

NASA is part of the US government.

I'd say they're a world leader, wouldn't you? Responsible for more innovation than you could shake a stick at.

Closer to home, the NHS is a world leader in its field (although for how much longer, who knows). Responsible for innovation and inventions also.

The now defunct UK independent forensic labs were world-leading. Before this government got rid of them.

The nationalised railways were in their time world leading.

Shall I go on ...

Sorry, your point was?

[ShellyBoobs]

Shelly

Yes, cunts do want a right leaning government and child poverty.
i hope you are ashamed, but doubt it.

Awww, you've got such a lovely way with words.

[Gemauve]

The nationalised railways were in their time world leading.

You have got to be joking. What "time" did you have in mind? What form did this leading take?

The Modernisation Plan was probably the single greatest disaster for UK transport policy in at least the last 100 years, as it meant that the Treasury were not willing to let the railway industry near sharp objects for a generation; its failure almost inevitably brought about Beeching, which was another disaster. The Modernisation Plan and its failure were the inevitable consequence of confused, sclerotic central planning by short-term government interests; I hold no brief for the post-war ex-LMS management of BR, and their respective memoirs are self-serving hindsight, but had the railways remained in private hands after the war (ie, the "Big Four") they are highly unlikely to have fucked things up on the monumental scale BR managed 1955 to 1968. They had a good history of long-term planning, and it's telling that BR did nothing in its first thirty years that the LMS hadn't managed to squeeze into the period May 1945 to 1 Jan 1948.

That the Research Arm in Derby did some interesting work on tilt (arguments about BR almost always degenerate into wild claims about the wonders of APT-E) are undermined by the fact that tilt is a dead-end: Shinkansen doesn't need it, TGV doesn't need it, HS2 won't need it, not even ECML needed it. A fantastically complex and expensive solution to a problem you shouldn't need to solve ("how do we make trains run faster when we don't have the political will to fix a few tight corners on WCML around Rugby") brings to mind the old quote about c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre: c'est de la folie. British railways (with a small r) were blighted all through the period 1850 to 1947 by stupid compromises brought about by a refusal to fix civil engineering issues, and APT-E is just the same ludicrous internecine squabbling within the industry with more state money to squander. So the Italians took tilt over and then sold it back to us: that's two countries whose rail policy has been completely fucked for fifty years.

[caroldecker]

Nasa - budget of c$20 billion a year since 1960 - output Teflon

[TheCraicDealer]

I'm really finding it hilarious that Liz might discount a General Election which resulted in a clear majority because of a petition. Not only do those powers exist almost purely in theory (much to the delight of the republicans on here) but she's also well known for her staunch desire to be "above" the political system. Look how ragin she was when Cameron inferred she was against Scottish independence! Now, with Charles you might have more of a chance of some meddling, but "Monarch overrules election result"? Really? On the basis of an unmonitored petition, with one "vote" per email address (I have four personally)? In the UK in 2015? If that's the kind of thing you want happening you need your head felt once you leave sixth form.

Also- NASA? The biggest ever cock measuring project featuring the U.S. and the USSR? Please. I think there were other issues at play there rather than simply academic endeavours.

[Gemauve]

Nasa - budget of c$20 billion a year since 1960 - output Teflon

It's a myth. It was discovered in 1938 (rather before the space programme) by the annoyingly private DuPont company.

Not even NASA claim it.

[wigglylines]

Teflon?!

I waa thinking more about things like the spacecraft and the entire new technology of space exploration.

Space travel is essential for the survival of the species.

At some point this planet will become hostile to human life. It could be so long into the future that humans have evolved into something else, or it could be quite soon (e.g. a meteor or massive climate change).

Yes of course the USA and USSR had ulterior motives for wanting to be in space - but long term, the technology it will develop into is essential for the survival of our decendents.

[wigglylines]

Caroldecker i'm still unsure as to what your point was, care to Elora rate?

[wigglylines]

Elora rate?! Elaborate!

[caroldecker]

My point was the uselessness of nationalised industries compared to imporvements driven by private enterprise. Some people on this thread appear to despise private companies and international competition, whilst not realising that nearly all the things we enjoy in our life, would not exist in a socialist utopia.

[Gemauve]

My point was the uselessness of nationalised industries compared to imporvements driven by private enterprise

One might point to, for example, the nationalised British computer industry (ICL). And the nationalised (for all practical purposes) British micro electronics industry (Inmos).

And then look at the fantastic success of the wholly private ARM.

What happened to British nationalised industries was that they were forced by government to do things that were commercially suicidal, and in the end the government's willing to underwrite losses was less than the government's desire to impose loss-making strategies. The best example is air liners. The VC10 was a potentially world-class design. But a combination of nationalised BOAC and nationalised (for practical purposes) Vickers were forced to modify the design to handle commercial basket-case "hot and high" routes that BOAC wouldn't have operated given the choice and Vickers wouldn't have built an aircraft for given the choice.

The VC10 ended up as a massively noisy, complex, expensive design which could operate from hot and high rough airstrips in the former Empire (the reason for the government's insistence on the capability) but was so noisy and expensive it wasn't viable for profitable routes. It lasted as a military transport until a few years ago precisely because of this capability, but airlines ran screaming for their nearest Boeing salesman, even though it meant paying in dollars.

The same argument applies to the computers. Was ICL there to build competitive computers, or to provide jobs in Manchester? No-one knew, but a circular firing squad arose so that British universities were hobbled by being forced to buy obsolescent, labour-intensive designs (1900s? In the late 1970s? Seriously?) which meant that the whole British science and engineering community suffered in exchange for a few hundred jobs in West Gorton. The moment they could buy something else, they did, and the whole scheme unravelled.

Nationalised industries built products no-one really wanted to sell to customers who weren't given a choice. It could have been better (the US poured vast amounts of money into IBM and Boeing via defence contracts, but let them use the profit to build commercially viable products) but Britain micro-managed these companies into the ground.

[niceguy2]

Christ, aren't the left a right bunch of sore losers!?!?!

[squidzin]

Sorry to introduce the real world to you, MrNiceGuy, where people don't give up in what they believe in so easily just because of a few elections. Thankfully.

[niceguy2]

It's not about giving up what you believe. It's about accepting the results of a democratic election based on rules we were given a chance to change a few years ago and decided overwhelmingly not to.

Had Labour had won, what would you think of a bunch of right wingers trying to organise a petition? Pathetic right?

For the record I didn't vote for the Tories either. I'm just not whining about it like a bunch of girly schoolkids.

[squidzin]

No revolution was won on a majority vote.

Labour can go the same way as Tory as far as i care btw.