Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:31 pm Posts: 2423 Location: White Hart Lane Gender: Male
Juvenal wrote:
Anfarwoldeb wrote:
Does anyone care?
In this forum? I doubt it.
Agreed, if it's not to do with the US no one will give a fuck.
Personally, I'm so completely disillusioned & bored with politics that I just can't quite bring myself to care or even vote. I just know that whoever gets in will be an evil, lying, money grabbing, self serving cunt. It's a real shame that nobody (at least nobody I know) will vote for the party they want to see win, but for the lesser evil. Voter apathy is a real problem and I'm not sure what we can do about it.
Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 4:37 am Posts: 3610 Location: London, UK Gender: Female
as a lib-dem supporter, I actually want a hung parliament. Also because I think the first-past-the post system is unfair (a government not chosen by more than half the vote) and that might push a change. Labour are doing my head in and I don't trust the 'new' tories .. because it's mostly the same old ones anyway.
not that my opinion matters because despite having been paying taxes here for the last 12 years and not needing a visa, unlike Canadians, South Africans, Australians, Zimbabweans, and half the bloody world, I'm not allowed to vote at general elections to decide how my money is spent
yeah I know I should get around to getting citizenship, but paying £735 (plus the "knowledge" test fee) JUST to get the right to vote (there's NOTHING else I can't do as a EU citizen) isn't at the top of my priorities and I keep on pushing it back (only found out in January I no longer have to first apply for permanent residency then wait a year.. but it was just too late by then to get it in time for the election).
funilly, I'll be in the US the day of the election (postal voting for the local one).. I bet I won't hear a word about it
_________________ 2009 was a great year for PJ gigs looking forward to 2010 and: Columbus, Noblesville, Cleveland, Buffalo, Dublin, Belfast, London, Nijmegen, Berlin, Arras, Werchter, Lisbon, some more US (wherever is the Anniversary show/a birthday show)
from what i've heard/seen/read, this particular british election will be (has been) incredibly boring, even by british standards. both parties are so similar that it's barely worth the effort.
in america at least you have the palins of the world to keep you entertained.
that said, i think it's pretty clear the tories will take it.
why don't the lib-dems get more support? they seem more sensible and "honest" than either of the other two right now.
Joined: Sat Jul 25, 2009 11:35 pm Posts: 1633 Location: Wales Gender: Male
Quote:
why don't the lib-dems get more support? they seem more sensible and "honest" than either of the other two right now.
I've generally been a Lib-Dem supporter but they always sound so much more logical because they know they'll never have to back up their, often very good, promises.
I'm grudgingly voting Labour this time around.
_________________ Speaking as a child of the 90s...
are there any really divisive issues in this election? to me it seems like cameron and brown differ only in details, and labour is likely to get kicked out because of it's just time, and because of gaffes.
Joined: Sat Jul 25, 2009 11:35 pm Posts: 1633 Location: Wales Gender: Male
I guess the main difference is the Conservatives want to rebuild by making large cuts, whereas Labour are planning a National Insurance increase and promise to maintain a decent level of public spending. Brown's image takes a lot of flack; he's not got great charisma. I'm not one who looks for charisma in politics however. Cameron knows how to work the PR better, but his policies are kind of empty, and even those who are gonna vote Tory can't trust them at all.
The gap between the parties is very minute. It is only regarding the economy that there is substantial policy differences. They're both so terrified of offending anyone that they end up being very liberal about most other aspects. I trust neither of them to do absolutely anything worthwhile regarding immigration for example.
_________________ Speaking as a child of the 90s...
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:40 am Posts: 2114 Location: Coventry
Reasons for opposing Cameron:
1. David Cameron's Conservatives are a party that acts in the interests of the wealthy, and against the interests of everyone else.
-David Cameron has pledged to make savage cuts to public spending as soon as he comes to power, of exactly the scale and type that Thatcher made in the early 1980s, which resulted in mass unemployment and civil unrest.
-Despite Cameron's warnings that we will have to suffer an "age of austerity" in public service cuts, pay freezes for public sector workers and benefit cuts to the poorest in the country, he still finds the money to give the wealthiest 3000 families in the country a tax cut worth £2 billion on their country estates. Coincidentally, one of the beneficiaries of this tax cut would be David Cameron himself, who would get a tax cut of around £520,000 on his £650,000 country estate (which he claims maximum expenses on, by the way, despite being extremely rich, valued at around £30,000,000, and could easily pay for it himself). William Hague, the millionaire Shadow Foreign Secretary and former Tory leader, and George Osborne, the millionaire Shadow Chancellor, would also benefit to around half a million pounds each. In fact, all 18 millionaires in Cameron's Shadow Cabinet would benefit from the tax cut, at a combined cost to the taxpayer of £7.1 million. 94% of the public would not benefit from this tax cut. But 56% of the Tory Shadow Cabinet would. And George Osborne has the audacity to say "we're all in this together" as he announces plans to cut incapacity benefit by £25 a week and give a huge tax cut to himself.
-David Cameron opposed the Minimum Wage introduced in 1998, describing it as a "burden on business" (incidentally, Cameron is a multi-millionaire from an extremely wealthy family, and so has never had to work in the kind of job that pays the Minimum Wage). Before the Minimum Wage, people were often paid as little as £1 or less. Every Tory MP, including William Hague (Cameron's "deputy in all but name") and Ken Clarke, his Shadow Business Secretary, voted against the Minimum Wage. William Hague was the leader of the Tory party at the time, when they unanimously opposed the Minimum Wage. In 2008, a bill was put forward in the Commons by Tory backbenchers proposing the effective abolition of the Minimum Wage, giving employers the option of refusing to hire those who refused to work below the Minimum Wage. One of the Tory MPs proposing this was Peter Bone, who once boasted in a speech to the Tory Conference that he only paid his employees 88p per hour.
-David Cameron also opposed the abolition of homophobic Section 28, along with every other Tory MP (except Shaun Woodward, who was promptly expelled from the Conservative Party by leader William Hague for his disobedience). Cameron described gay rights as a "fringe agenda" and said "Blair has moved heaven and earth to allow the promotion of homosexuality in schools".
-Cameron claims the Tory Party is no longer homophobic, but William Hague was the leader of the Tories when they viciously opposed the abolition of Section 28, and civil partnerships. Every one of his MPs who was there at the time voted to keep Section 28, and his Business Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, was actually in the Cabinet when it was first implemented. In 2009, Cameron allied his party with an extremist grouping of far-right politicians in the European parliament. Some of these new-found friends have described homosexuality as a "pathology", and the leader of the group, Michal Kaminski, whilst giving an interview supporting the banning of a gay pride parade, referred to homosexuals to "fags". Twice. He was also previously a member of the neo-Nazi National Revival of Poland movement. The Tories invited him to speak at their 2009 conference, causing Ben Summerskill, head of gay rights group Stonewall, to cancel his scheduled talk at the conference in protest. A variety of high-profile figures, such as Stephen Fry, Jo Brand and Patrick Stewart, called on the Tories to distance themselves from Mr Kaminski. They didn't.
-Since David Cameron entered the Commons, he has opposed all additional spending on the NHS, schools and the police.
- Cameron wants to take Britain out of the Social Chapter, the document in European law which guarantees certain working rights to workers. It was also one of the main problems Mrs Thatcher had about the European Union.
-Cameron voted against raising maternity pay, extending maternity leave, introducing two weeks' paid leave for fathers as well as leave for adoptive parents.
-Despite Cameron's claims that his party is "the party of the NHS" (despite the fact that his party viciously fought the establishment of the NHS in the first place and cut vast amounts of money from frontline services the last time they were in power) he recently met an extreme pressure group calling for the full privatisation of the health service, and which advocates a more American-style healthcare system. He invited the group, Nurses For Reform, which describes the NHS as a "dystopian, Soviet-style calamity", to meet him, and talked with them for an hour. Cameron also has a record of consistently opposing all extra spending on the health service. One of his leading MEPs, Dan Hannan, described the NHS as a "60 year mistake" on Fox News last year, and warned America not to "go down the road of socialism". It was also revealed that Andrew Lansley, Cameron's Shadow Health Secretary, is on the payroll of a private healthcare company. Margaret Thatcher said the NHS was "safe in her hands", and, like Cameron, promised to increase spending on it. She increased spending year on year, but most funds were diverted to creating a beaurocracy of highly-paid managers in the NHS (the same beaurocracy that Tories now decry as wasteful, and proof that the health service is inefficient) whilst cutting spending on frontline services-closing hundreds of hospitals. Which is why it is reasonable to be suspicious and skeptical of the Tories' new-found love for the NHS.
-A recent poll of Conservative parliamentary candidates shows that 90% didn't think that the UK's foreign aid budget (which spends money on life-saving aid, including medicine and food, for poor countries) should be a priority in spending, and would be happy to make cuts in it. Cameron hasn't ruled out financing climate change commitments from the aid budget, which would mean real cuts in aid.
-In 1989, David Cameron, then a researcher in the Conservative Research Department, went on an all-expenses paid visit to apartheid South Africa, funded by a pro-apartheid organisation that campaigned against sanctions on the racist regime. At a time when government officials were told not to visit the country , Cameron was wining and dining in restaurants black people weren't allowed in, paid for by a racist organisation, in a trip described by his boss at the time as "terribly relaxed, just a little treat, a perk of the job."
-Despite millionaires making up a mere 0.1% of the UK population, they make up 56% of Cameron's Shadow Cabinet. 14 of Cameron's front-bench spokesmen attended the highly-exclusive, aristocratic and expensive Eton school as children, one of the educational institutions that celebrates class, and where pupils are required to wear a coat and tails. Cameron, his Shadow Chancellor George Osborne and Boris Johnson all were members of the highly exclusive Bullingdon Club at Oxford University, a club open only to men, and only to those of sufficiently wealthy background and aristocratic heritage. The uniform, coat and tails, sometimes accompanied with a top-hat, cost around £3000. The members of the club reportedly engaged in regular drunken acts of vandalism, and were known for then paying off their victims. It seems that if someone from a council estate smashes a shop window, it's "anti-social behaviour" and a symptom of "Broken Britain", but when top-hatted Etonians do it, there's no problem, and to even mention it is "class war".
The Tories, and their friends in the media, would have you believe that to question whether the Tories are in touch with the average man on the street is "class war", a new post-modern form of bigotry which cannot be tolerated. Many on the right, including the right-wing press such as the Daily Mail, regularly campaign against "political correctness", and the right to insult people with racist, homophobic or otherwise derogatory language, but get very upset at the "intolerance" displayed when people mention the privileged background of Cameron's Shadow cabinet. If I were a moron, I would suggest that not being allowed to criticise a bunch of rich, privileged men who plan to cut tax for themselves whilst raising it for the rest of us, quite open about their plans to redistribute wealth from the bottom 94% to the top 6%, who want to cut inheritance tax for millionaires, corporation tax for banks and big business, and fund it through measures such as cutting incapacity benefit by £25 a week, is "political correctness gone mad".
It is not "class war" to suggest that a government full of millionaires might govern in the interests of millionaires, especially when their own inheritance and corporation tax policies (funded by slashing the public the public sector) confirm that this is the case. The only "class war" being waged is by the Tories against the poor, as it was the last time they were in power. If they want to know about "class war" they should talk to the miners who were viciously beaten by police, before having their livelihoods taken from them.
-Cameron left politics in the late '90s to become a spin doctor for Carlton. Clearly the skills he learned there have come in very handy as leader of the Conservative Party.
-One of Cameron's key policies is "recognising marriage in the tax system"-namely, giving a tax cut to married couples, which disproportionately benefits the middle and upper-class, and would cost billions, in a time when Cameron wants to cut spending. It would also effectively give a tax rise to those who committed the sin of divorce, and would lead to ludicrous situations such as women being punished in the tax system for divorcing their violent and abusive husband, and rewarding a man who leaves his long-term partner with children and marries his secretary who he's been having an affair with-all to appease the Tories' demented obsession with creating a 1950s style society where marriage is the only tolerable option.
-Cameron named Conservative council of Hammersmith and Fulham as an example of how he would govern. They have started charging disabled people who need home help £12.40 per hour, raising the price of meals on wheels for poor pensioners by 60% and closing down 12 homeless hostels-all to pay for tax cuts, needless to say. Stephen Greenhalgh, the council's leader, wants to abolish council housing and let rent rise to market levels. He describes council estates as "barracks for the poor", complaining that the poor residents are "hard to get rid of". If this is how Cameron would govern, he has no justification for accusing others of "class war".
-David Cameron has said he would be "very happy" to further restrict trade union law to prevent workers having their wages and working conditions attacked from going on strike.
-Despite the fact that Cameron is enormously wealthy (valued at £30,000,000 of mostly inherited wealth), he claims the maximum amount he possibly can in second home allowances on his expenses on his Oxfordshire country home, which cost over half a million pounds. Why is the taxpayer paying for a multi-millionaire's huge country house, when he could easily pay for it himself?
-The Institute of Fiscal Studies says that had the Tories been in power since 1997, following Tory benefit and tax plans, would by 2008 have propelled 2.1 million more children into poverty.
-One of David Cameron's super-rich Etonian parliamentary candidates, Zac Goldsmith, recently admitted that he had "non-dom" status, meaning that he didn't pay full tax in the UK, instead holding his money in offshore accounts to avoid paying tax (a practice that banks and large corporations are also prone to, costing the taxpayer billions).
-Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative Party's billionaire deputy chairman and largest financial donor, has also refused to answer questions about his tax status.
-Almost half of all financial donations to the Tory Party come from bankers in the City of London-including Tory Party co-treasurer and "godfather" of hedge funds, Stanley Fink and investment banker Ken Costa.
2.The last time the Conservative Party was in power (1979-1997):
-They slashed government spending on public services such as the NHS, schools, the police and welfare. They sacked cleaners, teachers and nurses, cut wages, and closed hundreds of hospitals and schools in order to fund their huge tax cuts for the wealthy.
-They tripled unemployment in their first two years of office, pushing it over well over 3 million, the highest levels since the 1930s Depression. They also doubled inflation to over 20% in the same period.
-They destroyed the mining industry, arguing that it was unprofitable and had to be subjected to "market forces", whilst they gave huge taxpayer-funded subsidies to British farmers to not produce food. It seems that a traditional base of Labour, socialist and trade union support, the mining industry, had to be subjected to "market forces" and decimated, but a traditional base of Tory support, the farms, should not be subject to "market forces" and instead should be bailed-out by the taxpayer, according to Tory logic. Destroying the mining industry left us totally reliant on foreign oil, and electricity produced by Chinese coal, while destroying whole working-class communities that relied on the mines, and condemning people to a lifetime of unemployment and poverty from which many still suffer.
-They pandered to the racism of the National Front and demonised immigrants. Thatcher claimed that British people were being "swamped by people of people of a different culture", complained privately that too many Asian immigrants were being allowed into Britain, but said she had "less objection to refugees such as Rhodesians, Poles and Hungarians, [white people] since they could more easily be assimilated into British society". She also wanted to make Northern Irish people subject to standard immigration procedures, whilst refusing to devolve any power to Northern Ireland.
-They decimated manufacturing industry in Britain, causing widespread unemployment and poverty, and destroying the strong elements of our economy, making us totally reliant on the dubious antics of the City of London's bankers, debt and the boom in the housing market.
-They legalised and encouraged the selling of council houses to their tenants, generally people who couldn't afford to buy houses (hence why they were living in council houses), by deregulating the housing market and allowing people to take out excessive loans and mortgages. This meant that many who had bought their council houses had the houses repossessed a few years later, as they inevitably couldn't keep up the payments. The house would then be sold on, and the council housing wouldn't be replaced, resulting in a skyrocketing in homelessness. This practice was the start of the housing bubble which collapsed in 2008, and Thatcher's obsession with creating a "property-owning democracy", and her tearing up of housing market and banking regulation, and her destruction of many other sound industries, was the start of the unsustainable housing boom on which our economy is totally reliant.
-They supported the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, with Thatcher describing Nelson Mandela and the ANC as "terrorists", and refusing to support sanctions against the regime.
-They supported Saddam Hussein, selling him billions of pounds worth of weapons illegally.
-They supported war criminal and murderer General Pinochet, who they also sold weapons to. Thatcher was a personal friend of his, and actually stood by his side, defending him, as he was arrested for war crimes, torture and murder in 1998.
-In the late 1980s,then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher introduced the Community Charge, or Poll Tax (the predecessor to Council Tax), which charged everyone, rich or poor, millionaire or unemployed, the exact same amount. This was, obviously, effectively a huge tax cut for the rich and a crippling tax rise for the poor, driving many into severe poverty or homelessness. It resulted in widespread rioting, particularly in London in 1990, causing Thatcher to fall as Prime Minister.
-They privatised, or sold off, a huge number of public utilities and services such as British Gas, British Airways, British Petroleum, the railways and the electricity companies, effectively handing over services which had been built-up with taxpayers' money to private companies to take the profits of this taxpayer investment, and to use as a money-spinning operation.
-They introduced the homophobic and bigoted Section 28, which stated that schools should not "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". This effectively meant that teachers could not imply that homosexuality was acceptable or normal. Thatcher justified this by saying that children "are being taught that it is OK to be gay."
-They introduced anti-trade union legislation, to prevent the workers whose wages and working conditions they were attacking from going on strike. They moved the balance of power from being in the hands of the unions to being in the hands of the employers. Britain now has some of the most repressive trade union laws in Europe, and Cameron has said he would be fully prepared to tighten them even more in order to stop strikes.
- The poorest 10% suffered a decrease in wages of 17% over 10 years, whilst the wages of the richest 10% skyrocketed.
- Pensions decreased enormously, due to the Tories breaking the link between pensions and earnings.
-Child benefit was cut by 21% in real terms.
-Child poverty tripled. By 1997 we had the highest child poverty rate in Europe, and one of the highest in the developed world.
-VAT, a tax that hits the poor hardest, rose from 8% to 15%, then again to 17.5%.
-Income tax on the wealthiest was cut by 40%. Many more tax loopholes were opened and there were huge cuts on corporation tax, funded by cuts in spending on public services.
-The pound fell to its lowest level ever, before or since, in 1985 under Thatcher.
-Millions of homes were repossessed in the early 1990s recession, as a result of the government entering into the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the government raising interest rates to 17% on Black Monday, when the UK had to pull out of the ERM. The Tory government's policy towards repossession, as well as to the accompanying unemployment, was to allow people to "sink or swim", and do nothing to help.
-Millions of people lost their jobs in the 1992 recession, and the then-Chancellor, Norman Lamont, responded to this by saying "unemployment is a price worth paying" to combat inflation. Standing by his side was his Chief Advisor-David Cameron.
3. Why the Tories are wrong about the economy:
-If you have watched the news in the past year, you will have seen news presenters telling you, "the public aren't stupid-they KNOW that there have to be huge spending cuts after the election in order to reduce the national debt/deficit", or words to that effect. They said it over and over until people started to believe it.
This is economic illiteracy, a Tory lie spun by Andy Coulson and other Tory spin doctors. The country is in recession. The private sector cannot support itself without state help at the moment. To withdraw that support by savagely cutting public spending when the country is only just coming out of recession would be disasterous. It would plunge the country back into a severe recession, and possibly a depression. It was this idiotic Thatcherite policy that caused the devastation of the economy in the early '80s.
At the risk of defending New Labour, the debt is NOT a result of mad, excessive socialist spending on welfare-scrounging spongers by Gordon Brown, as the Tories would like you to believe. In fact, debt was actually cut from 1997-2008. The debt we are in now is entirely a result of having to support a weakened economy, and is totally necessary and normal. This country's debt is completely in line with other developed countries, all of whom reject the notion that spending must be cut in 2010. Again, I'm not defending the government, but simply pointing out the entire basis for a Conservative government and their platform of cuts is nonsense. All political parties in the UK, except the Tories and possibly UKIP, reject Cameron's argument that brutal cuts must be made immediately-Labour, Lib Dems, Greens etc all agree that to cut spending this year, and by the amounts the Tories are proposing, would be economic suicide.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman also supports this view, saying that Cameron's policies would "definitely" make the recession worse, describing his approach as "pure Herbert Hoover" (the US president who cut spending in the early '30s, causing the economy to collapse and unemployment to rise to about 24%).
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz agrees.
Richard Koo, chief economist of Japan's Nomura Research Institute, who has been studying the depression in Japan for the past decade agrees.
Economists Anatole Kaletsky of the Times and Martin Wolf of the Financial Times both reject the Tory argument on slashing spending.
The Financial Times' economic commentator, Samuel Brittan says the country is facing a "largely imaginary budget crisis".
David Blanchflower CBE, one of the country's leading economists, economics professor, and member of the bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from 2006-2009, one of the few economists who saw the recession coming, says:
"George Osborne, in an interview in the Times, said that if the Tories were elected, they would cut public spending dramatically and quickly. This amounts to a declaration of class war. Such lessons from a bygone era show no understanding of basic economics, have little or no relevance in 2009 and are utterly irresponsible. Social unrest, here we come. Efficiency savings are one thing, but fiscal retrenchment now would be a disaster for ordinary people."
"I keep asking which economists agree that it is sensible to cut public spending in the depths of this recession. Not a politician, but someone who actually has a background and training - and probably even a doctorate - in economics. Perhaps even a distinguished professor or two. The Nobel Prize-winners Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz apparently agree that it is a dumb idea. This is a crisis that originated in the financial sector. Over-exuberance in lending has now been replaced with under-exuberance, and this is not going to be resolved any time soon. Credit is still not flowing in the economy and banks still have not fixed their balance sheets. This is completely different from what happened in all previous post-war recessions. Since the start of the recession in spring 2008, the public sector has been the solution, not the problem. Where we would be without the enormous government intervention hardly bears thinking about. The main reason that the public finances are in a mess is the huge fall in tax revenues that occurred when the recession hit."
"What is needed is a sensible plan to pay off the debt once we are on the road to recovery. Cutting spending now would surely worsen the UK's credit rating, as unemployment would head inexorably towards four million."
The only economists that support the idea of slashing spending now are the same extremist economists who said completely deregulating our banks was a good idea, and who failed dismally to predict the disasterous consequences of their policies.
When unemployment starts to fall, and people go back to work, they will stop claiming benefits off the government, and start paying tax to it. When businesses start being profitable again, they will pay the taxes that they deferred, as well as new ones. The longer we wait, the easier it will be to pay off the debt, because of a natural growth in the economy. To slash government spending now, when the economy is almost totally reliant on it, would drive unemployment up, ruin businesses and wipe out the job prospects of young potential workers.
The unemployment that would ensue would make it virtually impossible to cut spending overall, as a huge amount more would have to be spent on unemployment benefit, plus there would be a huge amount of lost tax revenue.
The Tory strategy would not only be disasterous in terms of deepening unemployment and recession, but it would actually make it much harder to cut the debt and deficit. Economic literacy is not defined by which party can inflict the most devastating damage on our public sector and who can drive up unemployment the most.
If you want to cut the debt and deficit-support the economy until it is growing and strong, wait until people are back at work and tax revenues are increasing, and the debt will be easily managable. This is the strategy that every other developed country in the world is pursuing. It is what every political party except the Tories believes. This country does not deserve the catastrophic consequences of George Osborne's lack of understanding about economics.
-Tory MEP Dan Hannan (who went on Fox News to attack the NHS), who hails racist Enoch Powell as his hero, said that: "Barack Obama has an exotic background and it would be odd if some people weren't unsettled by it. [He seems to] have family on every continent. It could hardly fail to leave a chunk of people feeling that Obama wasn't exactly a regular guy."
-William Hague as party leader said that due to increased immigration, a second term under Labour would leave Britain a "foreign land", where British people no longer felt at home.
-Mayor of London Boris Johnson said in 2005 that ""Gay marriage can only ever be a ludicrous parody of the real thing." This followed his comments in 2001 that ""We don't want our children being taught some rubbish about homosexual marriage being the same as normal marriage, and that is why I am more than happy to support Section 28." He also said in 2000, ""The essence of that Tory case is unchanged ... it is more sensitive to spare parents' anxieties than to allow leftwing local authorities to waste taxpayers' money on idiotic and irrelevant homosexual instruction."
-Last year the Tory Party almost unanimously opposed Clause 58-hate crime legislation to make homophobic hate crime an equal offence under the law as racist hate crime. David Cameron himself turned up and voted against it.
-Margaret Thatcher was one of only 44 MPs (most of them Conservatives) to oppose the Race Relations Act, which outlawed racist discrimination.
-Tory councillor Smith Benson said at a public meeting in 2009, said "The problem with Colne is that there are too many takeaways. And too many P***s, that’s why people don’t come to Colne.”
-In 2009, Gosport Conservative chairman Alan Scard says he would only pick a woman to stand in one of the party's safest seats if she was good looking. Asked if he was happy to support David Cameron's call to put more women in Parliament, he says: "If they are attractive, yeah, I would go for it."
-In February 2009, Bolton Conservative councillor Bob Allen apologised after taking criticism for posting a picture of a gorilla alongside a comment about an Asian colleague on a blog
-Brent North Conservatives were accused of racism by two black party members, who were stopped and searched and "treated like criminals" on their entry to a local Tory meeting.
-The Conservative Party allied with far-right politicians in Europe last year, including groups that have been accused of anti-semitism, racism, homophobia and having neo-Nazis among their ranks.
-A Tory parliamentary candidate, Ellenor Bland, was suspended in 2006 after sending a racist poem about illegal immigrants to friends. It was titled Illegal Immigrants Poem, and describes a migrant coming to Britain to live on benefits before inviting friends from his home country to join him, buying up the area after white residents move out and "breeding" large families. "Write to friends in motherland - Tell them 'come fast as you can'. They come in turbans and Ford trucks. I buy big house with welfare bucks," runs one verse. "Soon we own the neighbourhood ... We have hobby, it's called breeding. Welfare pay for baby feeding." It concludes: "We think UK darn good place. Too darn good for the white man race! If they no like us, they can scram. Got lots of room in Pakistan!" Beneath the poem appear the words "Please send this to every British taxpayer you know" and a cartoon of the white cliffs of Dover with the words "Piss off - we're full!" scrawled across them.
Bland denied being racist, saying she "has Asian friends", and "German in-laws."
-Baroness Warsi, Cameron's Shadow Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action, distributed election leaflets in 2005 that claimed Labour's lowering of the homosexual age of consent from 18 to 16 was "allowing schoolchildren to be propositioned for homosexual relationships".
-In March last year, Leicestershire Tory councillor Robert Fraser claims Romanians would "stick a knife in you as soon as look at you", at a public meeting, going on to say "they make the Irish look like complete amateurs".
-In 2009 Tory councillor Roger Walkden was accused of racism after posting a racist joke online. The joke, about a refugee who wants to be white, suggests the refugee would lose all the things he had been given by a wish-granting fairy if he was white and British.
-Oxford University Conservatives were embroiled in a racism row after members reportedly competed with each other to tell the most racist joke they knew. Nick Gallagher, who is running for Political Officer, a role that liaises with the national Conservative party, was asked to tell the most racist joke he knew as well as name his least favourite minority. Mr Gallagher, the current Publications Officer, reportedly said: "What do you say when you see a television moving around in the dark? Put it down you n****r or I'll shoot you!" Another member allegedly made a joke about a family of black people being lynched.
-In April 2009, a Conservative councillor in Essex, Chris Walker, apologises for saying British women should walk nude in the street to make Islamic men commit suicide because their religion forbids them from seeing any naked woman other than their wife.
-Ann Widecombe, who only a few years ago was the Tory Party's Shadow Home Secretary, said in a BBC interview with Andrew Neil in 2009 that she believed that "homosexual acts are morally wrong." She attributed her beliefs to her Christian faith.
-Last year, Tooting councillor Susan John-Richards quit the Conservative Party after claiming she endured three years of sexual discrimination from the Tory group.
-An Orpington councillor, Peter Hobbins, is suspended from the Conservative Party after sending emails ranting that Asian prospective parliamentary candidates do not have "normal sounding" English names.
"We have a lot to learn from George Bush's compassionate conservatism."-George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor, and close friend to Cameron.
"You know what some people call us: the nasty party."-Theresa May, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary.
"Rising unemployment and the recession have been the price that we have had to pay to get inflation down. That price is well worth paying."-Norman Lamont, former Tory Chancellor.
"A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself a failure" - Margaret Thatcher.
"I think I behaved, if I may say so, impeccably. I have done nothing criminal, that’s the most awful thing, and do you know what it is about? Jealousy. I have got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral, but it’s a merchant house of the 19th century...What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None."-Tory MP Antony Steen, responding to criticism that he had claimed nearly £90,000 in 4 years to spend on his country estate.
"The Blair government continues to be obsessed with their fringe agenda, including deeply unpopular moves like repealing Section 28 and allowing the promotion of homosexuality in schools."-David Cameron.
"Labour’s plans for minimum wages, the Social Chapter and large increases in spending and taxes would send unemployment straight back up."-David Cameron.
"The Labour Party opposed each and every one of our reforms. Even today they would burden business with the minimum wage, the Social Chapter, and trade union privileges."-David Cameron.
"I think David Cameron is a terrifying prospect...I get quite panicked at the notion that people are buying his rhetoric, because it seems very manipulative to me...It’s weird that you can work in the arts – which tends to be about empathy and understanding and, hopefully, feeling some kind of sympathy for your fellow man – and vote Tory."-David Tennant.
“No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.” - Nye Bevan (founder of the NHS).
"Everyone knows we need less regulation. Who is standing in our way? Gordon Brown, the great regulator."-David Cameron, 2 years before the banks collapsed due to lack of regulation.
"If gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog."-Boris Johnson.
"No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."-Boris Johnson, in 2002, on Tony Blair's visit to the Democratic of Republic of Congo.
"Right, let's go and look at some more piccaninnies."-Boris Johnson, while visiting Uganda, to Swedish Unicef workers and their black driver.
"She valued the price of everything and the value of nothing." (in reference to Margaret Thatcher)-Tony Benn.
"There is no such thing as society"-Margaret Thatcher.
"Unemployment doesn't matter."-Michael Howard, former Tory Employment Secretary and later Conservative Party leader.
“Just wear woolly hats and long johns"-Edwina Currie, Health Minister in the Thatcher government, giving advice to pensioners who couldn't afford to pay their heating bills due to pension and benefit cuts and the privatisation of energy companies.
"She (Margaret Thatcher) has no soul. She will burn in hell."-Elvis Costello.
"What a lightweight!"-Barrack Obama, in reference to David Cameron.
"Homosexual acts are morally wrong"-Ann Widecombe, former Shadow Home Secreatry.
Ian Hislop: "Do you claim for a second home Alan?" Alan Duncan: "Indeed I do." Ian Hislop: "Right, so you're claiming expenses on a second home when you have three and you've got an income coming in from it?" Alan Duncan: "Yes. Fabulous system isn't it?"
-Alan Duncan, millionaire Tory MP and Shadow Cabinet member at the time, who made his millions in the oil industry.
"Baiscally, we're [MPs] being nationalised, living on rations and treated like shit."-Alan Duncan, again.
"Homeless people are people you step over when you are coming out of the opera”.-Sir George Young, Tory MP, an Old Etonian.
PLEASE COULD EVERYONE INVITE TEN FRIENDS, OR THOSE WHO THEY THINK WILL BE INTERESTED, TO THIS GROUP, IN ORDER TO BOOST NUMBERS. THANK YOU.
Apparently the formula below allows you to invite all your friends at once, without having to click on everyone's name.
javascript:elms=document.getElementById('friends').getElementsByTagName('li');for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === 'object'){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}
Go to your event/group/page, click invite people and then paste this snippet in the URL field of your browser. Left-click the mouse in the URL field and hit Enter. Your invitations will not be sent yet, but all your friends will be selected. Click the “Invite” or “Send” button on the Facebook page to finally send the invites.
NOTE: Please feel free to use any of the images or information in this group-print them off, distribute them, use them as your display pic, etc. As long as you're spreading the message then it's fine!
If we want to stop Cameron, we have to vote against him. So make sure you all do! If you haven't registered to vote yet, here's the link to do it. Do it now!
ANY RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC, SEXIST, ANTISEMITIC OR JUST GENERALLY BIGOTED COMMENTS WILL BE DELETED, AS WILL TJOSE WHO MAKE THEM. IRRELEVANT spam TO COMPLETELY UNRELATED, NON-POLITICAL FACEBOOK GROUPS WILL BE DELETED. ADVERTISING spam WILL BE DELETED. OTHERWISE, ENJOY.
_________________ "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them" -Karl Popper
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:40 am Posts: 2114 Location: Coventry
unintended double post
_________________ "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them" -Karl Popper
Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 4:37 am Posts: 3610 Location: London, UK Gender: Female
Electromatic wrote:
I've been enjoying the campaign attack ads if that counts.
I don't like that kind of ads at all actually.. I even thought they weren't allowed here and it was a yank thing.
Tell me about what YOU're going to do right, not about what the other party might do wrong.
very interesting post Hallucination. as I said, even though I've only lived in the UK under Labour, I don't trust the Tories to have really changed.
_________________ 2009 was a great year for PJ gigs looking forward to 2010 and: Columbus, Noblesville, Cleveland, Buffalo, Dublin, Belfast, London, Nijmegen, Berlin, Arras, Werchter, Lisbon, some more US (wherever is the Anniversary show/a birthday show)
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:40 am Posts: 2114 Location: Coventry
Green Habit wrote:
Hallucination wrote:
unintended double post
Probably the worst time for a double post, due to the sheer size.
Hence the urgency with which it was edited! Cheers 1 and all for the replies, dinner calls and I don't fancy a night in the dog house!
_________________ "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them" -Karl Popper
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