Lefties: What are you going to do on May 7 if the Tories get in?

[allegrageller]

because I think I am going to organise a mass black-clad march of teachers, nurses, mental health workers and all other good low-paid people of this earth to Downing Street chanting 'we who are about to be sacked salute you'

either that or I shall just follow my original plan as per the depressed lefties thread which was to tar and feather myself and go around the streets of SE London in a cart with a bell shouting 'bring out your dead public sector workers'.

Which do you prefer? Any ideas of your own?

I'm with you policywonk. If nothing else, this election has brought out the militant in me again. I am so angry that Labour haven't been shouting about all their successes over the last decade, I really feel as though they have capitulated. I was a party member through the late 80s/early 90s, then through political apathy I let it lapse. I really feel a need now to get more involved at constituency level.

Thanks Marion

Hab, you brought a tear to my eye there with the Viking reference. What a lovely woman you are. And a memory like an elephant. (It's two years this month!)

If you're feeling angry don't join the Labour party ffs! Do something else, do your own thing, do something with your neighbours, give money to people you really feel comfortable with, don't join a neo-liberal gang that has participated in the slaughter of innocent people. They aren't an answer, you are.

Because the right to vote isn't a privilege, it is the very bare minimum we are allowed by power. We don't have to be grateful on our fucking knees that we are allowed to put a cross on a bit of paper.

The UK is an oligarchy with a system of representative government, not a democracy. Voting in one gang or the other solves nothing, just look at recent history...Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown. If the principles laid down at Nuremberg after WW2 had been followed they would all have hung...

do you know what Coolfonz, you are talking sense to me now :D

Start looking for another job (DP and I both in a highly threatened field), worry about DS's ongoing long-term NHS treatment, and try and fight off hatred.

I'm sorry if I get angry (I had a big night out on Saturday ) but I hate war.

I hate state power that kills innocent kids. Kills innocent parents. That makes people's lives counters in a game of Risk. It is based on racism and on British foreign policy of the last 150 years, that our state is allowed to tame "uncivilised tribes" (Churchill) using force. Would we accept being tamed by the Saudi army? By Saddam? As a proportion of our population we would have seen around 3.5mn dead, millions more injured, were we to have suffered the same way as Iraqis. It isn't ok.

I hate neo-liberalism. Economics that are purely designed to move power away from ordinary people towards narrow private interests. In fact there is no such thing as economics, only politics. We've had 30 years of crazy right wing ideology posing as economics, where ultra-rich people have to be given loads of money/subsidies/handouts so they can give it to us. Trickle-down anyone? "Economically we are all Thatcherites now," Peter Mandelson.

And this country has moved so far, so so far, to the right in the last 30 years that people actually think Labour are leftys. So I'd urge everyone to fight power anyway you can, every day, not join it and validate it. Even if it's just arguing the toss...

oh I agree Coolfonz and am now minded to forgive you that rather nasty line about us all recycling Asda bags to forget about mangled flesh, or whatever it was

I'll never forget the war. I suspect there are others coming, although they'll have a harder time justifying them now. I wonder if even the Lib Dems would hold out against US pressure in the event of another ghastly offensive.... And Mandelson makes my flesh creep.

What I'm going to do is hide under the duvet with my laptop and read Mumsnet. It's cheered me up no end over the last few weeks as the best antidote ever to media spin. And thanks, Policywonk and MarionCole, you've given me the push I needed to get involved, despite living in a constituency where Labour will never get a look in.

the horrible thing is, LeninGrad, that they ALL seem willing to do that. I still don't quite understand why Blair HAD to do it. I think there was a deep personal fanaticism involved: he really believed he and George were clearing the world of evil and coincidentally bringing the Holy Open Market to Iraq. It's not as if the US cut off France and Germany economically for not participating in the Coalition: we didn't have to do it. Such a horrible, evil waste.

agree Policywonk, your mum's story is so inspiring. I have a particular interest in mental health services which I can see are going to be cut straight away by Tories leaving so many people in misery and unable to cope. I want to get involved in helping out with that somehow so need to see how it can be done.

Trying to see if I've actually got some abandoned property (in the form of shares from a former employer) to flog off to pay some debts here (after exchange and capital gains tax) so we can keep all our options open with regards to where we live or might chose to live.

DH found an old ISA, too. He's ringing about it after work to try to pull in a couple hundred quid.

And I've got some things to flog on Ebay.

If we can just halve the debt we can pay the other half off in a year hopefully.

By then we'll see what the Tories are really going to do and can chose to stay or go accordingly.

I seriously doubt all the Zac Goldsmith Tory non-doms are going to give up that status and start doing their bit to clean up the mess their cronies are responsible for, but they'll force us to do so.

Well, I don't think so.

yep expat I think you have the right idea...which country are you thinking of emigrating to?

don't know yet. EU or US. would have to think about it.

i speak French and Spanish.

COOLFONZ here!,here! Many have said we live in an elected dictatorship, do you agree?

Yeah, supppose Obama US is a far better bet than here expat (but for how long)

LeninGrad- oh for a LibLab coalition, so much better than the alternatives. I just fear it's going to be LibCon at best. Latest Ipsos Mori poll gives Tories a majority of 2.

I'm voting Lib Dem but we'll see how it goes.

[tries to stay hopeful]

Have a peaceful anniversary day when it comes, pol.

Re: Asda/flesh - I mean what does one do? Embark on the lifestyle politics so many on the wet left/centre right have embarked on? Where people lecture others abut their wheely bins and how they dislike single mothers while supporting terrible war crimes in Falluja and the massacre of thousands of Pashtuns by British, US and Northern Alliance forces in Mazar-I-Sharif...

Dictatorship? No, i think we live in an oligarchy. All countries in the world are oligarchies, just with differing systems. Our oligarchy includes power held by capital, career politicians, royalty and a few other groups...

I/we will likely be sleeping just after dropping dd at school

election day is dh's birthday and we will be up all night with cake and booze watching it unfold, then have a family dinner and explain the fine detail to dd

and I will start the process of naturalisation because I want to actually vote next time,and I want to get back to being more involved, then again this next mess will not be my fault

reall don't know what we will do. feel sad, probably become an alcoholic, like the idea of a march on downing street of all those who didn't vote Tory to do a big mass vomit.
Nice. Dignified. Understated.

Coolfonz- don't think you'd find many lefties dissing single mothers... many of us are them...