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.

amazing, that sounds very petty, management nutcases. Stupid policy, puts all the teachers backs up rather than getting them on side

yes good point. I don't know enough about it, but I can understand your concerns.

Coolfonz - I don't care what Labour did or did not do - you list a load of things that you don't like, some of which are certainly bad things, and then label them 'right wing' when in fact most of them are not ON the left right spectrum. You are defining 'right wing' as 'things I don't like'. This is unfair. Having then parcelled up all the evil of the world in a package marked 'right wing' you accuse everyone who expresses a right wing view of sharing all those views. This is also unfair.

claig - I don't think it's much of a smokescreen, I think it's generally thought this will be the plan. It's not necesserily a bad one.

I am a bit of a capitalist in that sense. I think that if an incentive is offered to companies and people then they will try harder and do a better job. If there is enough profit and incentive available then people can do anything. Where there's a will there's a way. Money is a great incentive.

ooojimaflip you may be right, I haven't read their proposals in detail. I don't know how many parents would really be able to manage large schools. I think it will need a lot of professionals and managers, but I don't know enoigh about it.

LeninGrad - no not necessarily. It's worth a try though isn't it.
Claig - I think the idea is that parents will say they want a school and will then have to find someone to run it. That will likely be a private firm. For the moment they will be non-profit though.

I saw a programme about Gove's policy and he said it would be non-profit making, which I don't agree with. The Swedish free schools can make a profit. But I think they are run by companies rather than parents. I can't see why any company would bother with the idea if there was no profit in it. Maybe Gove wants parents to do it for free a la Big Society. But I can't see that working. If the tax payer gets good value for money out of these schools, if their standards are higher than state schools, then I think they should be rewarded by some sort of profit.

ok.

sorry proles and onebat (and anyone else) for offending with my tone or by starting a new thread, and onebat fair point about my OP being the same tone as I objected to: it's a fair cop guv.

I do think that this thread has been generally a really interesting one.

I am really gobsmacked that anyone who claimed any kind of socialist principle would in the same breath excuse the Iraq war in any way shape or form or claim that civil liberties weren't that important/weren't high on their priority list.

I totally and utterly disagree with that and find it at best puzzling in the extreme and at worst abhorrent.

if socialism claims to have the interests of the common man at heart, then i'm afraid that coolfonz is right: you can't claim socialist principles and then fuck over the common man albeit in another country in the worst possible way.

HIGNFY has been superb tonight btw...and I happen to agree that you don't congratulate a barnacle that has hung on for dear life for doing the right thing when they finally let go of the rock (ref gordon brown).

sophable, I don't think you can blame people for not realising how important civil liberties are. If they really understood it then they would treat it very seriously. It's not their fault they don't understand, and think that it's just a piece of ID or a database etc.

soph, um, actually I said that the tone of your OP was the same as the tone of your anti-Labour comments on the Leftie threads.
I did that to put my own (ill-advised and uncouth) anti-LD comments into context.

HOWEVER, to everyone else here that is the talk of nutters, and I'm sorry that I've made you feel crap.

god proles...sorry what is wrong with you? are you SO defensively sore about labour losing that you think you can just have a go at me indefinitely? what exactly was shit about my apology. i apologised for offending you, for the tone of my original post which I acknowledged was aggressive and for starting a thread about a thread.

why are you taking everything I say totally personally proles? is that your attitude that i'm criticising? i didn't think it was.

Ahh, sweet irony. Supporters of New Labour talking about being misrepresented.

I don't think Proles is taking anything personally. At all. She's being quite clear that it's the generalisations that are making her cross, and the fact of this threat-about-a-thread.

THREAD! I SWEAR to god that was a freudian slip