scotty9000

I do not agree with your last sentence - the problem is that it is a very shallow democracy - you only get to vote every 5 years or so and then they just do what they want. If we had more referendums then you could blame the public for the policies.

IvanM

I blame political correctness, foreigners and Guardianistas.

Amazulu

Then the people of the UK should have booted them out at the last election.

scotty9000

It doesn't make any difference - there is no ongoing democratic process. For example, the war in Iraq was supported by both Tories & Labour, but if there had been a public referendum it would not have been supported by the public.

Immigration policy, Education Policy, whatever - no democratic process except a very blunt tripartite choice at the General Election.

Amazulu

I don't think that we can have a referendum about going to war. Governments need to make that decision - and live or die by their decision. In our democracies we still have the ultimate say in whether a government stays in power or not.

scotty9000

Maybe, but I think it is very inefficient to keep trying out different governments until you find one that matches all your policy aspirations. Of course it will never happen - you may agree with some policies from one party, some from another etc. Far better if you could vote for policies at times other then General Elections.
UK MP's rarely canvass their constituents before they vote in Parliament, they represent their party first, themselves second and their constituents last. For example in a "free vote" they vote according to their own conscience or personal beliefs.

paulry

Well... He really socked it to him! After all that Gordon & Co. have done to mess up this country, it was great to watch him squirm!

Wol

OK then I will.

the seeds of much of this were sewn by the Thatcher government.

"Sewn"? Are you saying the present government was stitched up by Mrs T? She lost power in 1990 - nineteen years ago. Long germination..........

there was massive deregulation and relaxing of credit controls and an evangelical push to encourage property ownership as an 'investment'...it was seen as a way to ensure personal wealth which would then relieve the state of responsibility for social care in the future.

I can't agree that property ownership was seen as "investment" - that's more an Australian attitude. Owning one's own home was promoted, yes, as one way to elevate personal responsibility. It's interesting that you say "...relieve the state of responsibility.." - that *does* rather show a statist inclination.

Greed was also seen as a desirable quality

Rubbish.

add that to the virtual destruction of the UK's manufacturing base and you have a recipe for disaster.

The UK's manufacturing base had been on life support for years, sadly. Not only by union actions and inactions but from lack of innovative thinking by managements and governments of all colour. Something had to give at some stage but there was only one person man enough for the job at the time.

I lived and worked through Thatcher's reign and the language of greed was everywhere.

I lived and worked through Churchill, MacMillan, Wilson, Heath et al - and the state of British industry was dreadful for decades. It was not the fault of one section, it was just the British Disease, and it would have been terminal if it had continued into this century.

spsspence

Of course, Mrs. T has only been gone for 19 years and Labour have now been in power for about 12 years... How on earth could it possibly be any thing to do with them.

moneypenny20

I think you are 'Junius'

Brilliant speech, more so because of the totally calm and rational way in which he spoke. As for that stupid smirk from Brown :curse:

sonlymewalter

I've been reading a book by Thatcher whilst she was in power. When you understand why she privatised British industry you can see exactly why she had no choice. The country was *propping up* private enterprise for years with constant threat that if the government didn't continue bailing them out, people would be out of work.

Thatcher bailed these companies out for years whilst telling them they needed to get their act together, be more innovative, more productive, more accountable & less *slack* in their approach to business. Added to this the UK had it's hand forced as manufacturing was cheaper outside of UK, manufacturing had seen it's day and the Asian countries had service sector sewn up. So what were we left with? Union power crippling the country with all manufacturing sectors driven into submission through poor management.

Whether we like it or not, Thatcher had no choice but to stop bailing out companies and disembowel the unions if we had any chance to improve. Those companies who couldn't compete fell by the sword. The alternative was to prop them up year after year, generation after generation. Paternalistic management.

Then came New labour and "let's not make many waves" Blair, who from the start played it safe so as to make sure he had a great job whenever he decided to leave. Brown scratched Blair's back with the proviso Brown would get top dog position once Blair decided to leave. How else was a wet blanket, no charisma politician like Brown ever going to obtain a job far above his capabilities if it wasn't for it being passed down. So between them they did what they had to to make the UK seem hunky dorey until Blair, who is marginally more smarter than Brown and far more sneaky, realised what shit was about to hit the fan, and so left. He left Brown to sit in the shit they had both created, wandered off into the sunset to make himself far richer than he could being Priminister. And so Brown get's the blame.

Whilst Thatcher was a cow and a lot of her policies were unpopular, at least she had the balls to see long term what needed to be done. The problem was she started to belive her own propaganda, lost the plot alongside the vote of confidence and popularity.

At the end of the day Labour has crippled the country through it's idealistic and unrealistic dream, Brown has been taken for the fall guy and the mentality of "think global, not local" has meant when USA coughs the rest of the world gets flu. Maybe self preservation and localisation is the way to go?

Regardless, we need to face reality and change the cause rather than the effect. Blame doesn't solve anything.

shafanm

I think the biggest culprit responsible for the global financial mess or what ever is G.Bush. what a wonderful world we were in 2000, all the world economies were doing well, until this fellow came with his idea of new world order, axis of devil, and weapons of mass destruction crap. today US has pumped one trillion dollars in to iraq, yet achieved nothing but misery for the iraq and rest of the world. the beauty is after all their blunders yet they go into peaceful retirement, is this democracy.
I feel sorry for Gordon Brown, he is paying the price for Tony Blair dancing to the tune of George Bush . Wish Blair was still the prime minister so he could taste his own shit, I guess he is living happly everafter just like Bush.

BadgeIsBack

Interesting Wol. I often think the obsession of wealth has come about slowly since the end of WW2, rationing, the consumer developments of the 1950s. The book The Affluent Society was published in 1958.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluent_society

Thatcher and Reagan were just the 1980s episode. But you only have to watch 1970s sitcoms and see that life in 1980s Britain in someways was a far cry from the 1970s. Also people forget that it was only the last few years of the 1980s that gave rise to deregulation (86/87)and the yuppie and 'loadsofmoney'. The early 80s were typified by a recession etc.

And the period 1997-200? saw a boom almost unprecedented with everyone in the UK benefiting culturally and financially in some shape or form...which has come back to bite some.

JAJ

How it all fell apart for PM Michael Howard:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/c...el-Howard.html

bridie

not actually fair cos a lot of us didnt vote for them at all but got lumbered

cant stand krudd but i'd rather have him any day than tony blair or gordon brown