ok lefties....does that mean I'm not then?

[Heathcliffscathy]

because alongside social justice I really really really care about civil liberties? because they are not 'liberties schmiberties' to me, but rather, 'there but for the grace go I'? Do you think that really leftwing stalwarts like Roy Hattersley would agree with you that civil liberties didn't count for shit compared with keeping unemployment down at all costs, however fake the stats are in real terms?

because although I believe in state intervention, in the state as a mechanism of a drive to redistribution of wealth and drive to granting opportunity to all i ALSO believe fervently in the individual, in empowering individuals to make their own destinies.

I am so fucking disheartened by the tribalism, pettiness and bloodymindedness that I've been reading on the leftie thread.

New Labour wasn't really socialist at all, rode roughshod over the rights of (the most vulnerable) individuals, decreased social mobility in this country. they needed a kick up the arse and got one. they need to reinvent and regroup and godknows they won't if David Milliband gets the leadership.

Maybe, even as a leftie you can see that to continue to attempt to spend our way out of trouble is fucked...we're in much worse trouble than we would otherwise be (and we'd be in deep shit anyway) because of this ostrich like way of governing.

coalition govt is so humanising of politicians: they can't strut about declaring how it needs to be, they just don't have the mandate...collaborative govt if that's what we have a chance of is so hopeful.

party politics is killing this country, I hope for it's swift demise. No one is all right or all wrong are they?

So stay in your red bunker, spitting on anything new, decrying and ranting about doom befalling before anything has fucking happened...but count me out for now.

"...it is certainly true that the Lefties thread has become less accepting of anyone offering a different viewpoint that the grieving labour supporters the last few days."

Really?

I haven't been around much for the last couple of days, so have skim-read most of the posts in that time.

In what way is it less accepting?

I like your posts sophable, because you are very knowledgeable. But on this one, because you're a bit pissed off at the criticism of the LibDems, I think you are indulging in a bit of yah boo sucks politics. We all do at times, it's no big deal.

But I think we are all missing the big picture. We have all been had. This yah boo sucks is wrong because we have all been taken for a ride. I said all along that this thing had been staged and planned. Clegg was built up from nowhere to challenge Cameron and reduce his majority. All the press and media took part including the good old Guardian. Cameron contributed by running a crap campaign and missing open goals whenever presented. Even the Tories are starting to blame him for this. It's not because he and his advisors are stupid, that is underestimating them. It was deliberate. They wanted a coalition governmemt to push through what they want done. They want to marginalise the Euro-sceptic Tories and Clegg will help them with that. Even Reid popping up from nowhere and sabotaging Labour's chances of doing a deal was part of it. Three days ago the LibDems and Tories were at each others' throats over policies, then miraculously they leave the room and are united on everything that they hitherto disagreed on. Their new policies were not bashed out over 2 days, but have been worked on over time.

I thought that inheritance tax would be sacrificed for the LibDems sacrificing PR. The LibDems have got AV but that is all. I saw Peter Bottomley interviewed on Sky after the LibDems meeting to approve the deal. He said something very interesting. He said that all that there will be is AV. There won't be STV because nobody wants it. He said that AV would stop the BNP. Prolesworth was right that inheritance tax was indefensible all along and I now believe that the Tories created that duff policy on purpose just so that they could offer it to the LibDems in a deal. The Tories never really believed it and it was a vote loser. Why didn't they just keep quiet about it and introduce it when they got in, if they really wanted it, instead of offering the Johann Hari's of this world an easy target?

I just meant that while it was all anti-Tories together on the days running up to the election and the day or so after (and I really enjoyed reading and the odd bit of posting), as soon as the coalition was announced it went very anti LibDem. As a LibDem voter I have started to feel a bit out of place there, thats all.

I was a bit [shocked] at all the anti-Guardian stuff this morning too, I for one have read the Guardian for years precisely because it fits so well with my woolly liberal lefty libertarian outlook on life.

Sorry if I have offended anyone, really not intended [peace offering]

Oh I don't know, I think the lefties thread has been pretty welcoming and open to debate, actually.

We have had BeenBeta on there for ages, he is somewhat to the right of Norman Tebbit, and he has been welcomed wholheartedly.

Interesting conspiracy theory Claig. Gives us all something new to ruminate on

i think people are maybe being a bit over-sensitive

I read the Guardian, I still read the Guardian, one or two people are pissed off with the Guardian, fair enough that's their opinion...

Claig- are you big into conspiracy theories?

when you look at Cameron and Clegg together, it's all a bit too good to be true. They even live next door now, don't they?

Now I don't know where to post or where I'm welcome.

CatIsSleepy, I haven't read any of that anywhere else and I was predicting that before it had happened. I just use my head. I may be wrong, but at the moment that is the way I see it.

Something rather similar crossed my mind too claig

Think we may look back on Blair/Campbell media manipulation as absurdly amateur in comparison with what's coming.

seems a bit of a wide-ranging conspiracy to me, somehow

think there are lots of possible interpretations of why we had the election outcome we had

yes ZephirineDrouhin, I agree. We know we are in desperate times and therefore desperate measures such as the first coalition givernment for 50 odd years is now required. They know what they are going to do, there are no haphazard policy decisions, things are too desperate. This Big Society is not being talked about for no reason. We don't yet know what it is really all about, but we will start finding out soon.

It is perhaps a little^ elaborate.

I don't know anything any more. But I am very pessimistic about it.

I assumed the Big Society was a rather cheeky attempt to persuade people to make a virtue of necessity re socially catastrophic spending cuts.

Zeph, I think that's what it is, savage cuts and start helping yourself, it's your responsibility not theirs, all dressed up in the nice friendly Orwellian phrase of Big Society. But we will have to wait and see. But the Morecambe and Wise "Bring me Sunshine" act will soon start disappearing.

I think it was just about authoritarianism and a fear of your own populace.

Blair erected physical concrete barriers around Parliament, banned demonstrations within a mile (half mile ?) of Parliament, passed laws (who cares what they were called, anti-terrorism or not) that were used against many members of the population including illegally stopping anti-war and anti-arms trade protesters, introduced control orders which are so criminally disgusting it's untrue (yeah we don't have any evidence but...)

9-11 was used by almost every state in the world to attack it's own populations. Indonesia in Acheh, the US rounded up left wingers, anarchists, kids who wrote scary poems, China attacked the Turkmen, Israel waded into the Palestinians again, Russia raped and murdered more Chechens, the UK was no different...

Stop believing in politicians, they are scum. Believe in yourselves.

Yes quite.

Recollections of Cameron as media man

Jeff Randall, writing in The Daily Telegraph where he is a senior executive, said he would not trust Mr Cameron "with my daughter's pocket money".

"To describe Cameron's approach to corporate PR as unhelpful and evasive overstates by a widish margin the clarity and plain-speaking that he brought to the job of being Michael Green's mouthpiece," wrote the ex-BBC business editor.

"In my experience, Cameron never gave a straight answer when dissemblance was a plausible alternative, which probably makes him perfectly suited for the role he now seeks: the next Tony Blair," Mr Randall wrote.

Sun business editor Ian King, recalling the same era, described Mr Cameron as a "poisonous, slippery individual".

The "yes quite" was to Claig.

"Stop believing in politicians and believe in yourselves" sounds a bit Big Society to me.

But I agree about the rest and it's important to be reminded of it.

And the Guardian is a right wing newspaper, its editor conspires with the police against its own journalists...really awful place...gatekeepers...awful awful people...

What's this with the police and the Guardian, coolfonz?

claig - I don't think Cameron did run a bad campaign, and I fell a bit sorry for the campaign team having so much blame lumped on to them. The Tories underestimated how much people just don't like them - despite how sick other people were of Labour. They did well.

from wikipedia
"During his tenure, Hayman wrote a confidential letter to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger about two of the paper's reporters who were investigating police corruption:

In 2000, (award winning investigative journalists at the Guardian) Gillard and Flynn were working on freelance contracts for The Guardian investigating alleged police corruption. On 2 August, Hayman sent a "strictly confidential" letter to (Guardian editor) Rusbridger claiming that the actions of the pair could undermine an important case the Met was working on.

Gillard and Flynn were not shown the letter, taken off the police corruption story and subsequently did not have their Guardian contracts renewed.

The Guardian has always maintained that there was no connection between the letter and the dropping of the investigations, which it felt were going nowhere (the two later wrote a book on the police corruption they had been looking into). It also claims that the letter was received while Rusbridger had been holiday and was forgotten about and placed in a file."

That's about it...gatekeepers...

Andy Hayman, former head of the Metpolice anti corruption unit