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The pound in your pocket
In Political Science 101 studies you learn that Dictatorship is the most efficient government. Now where do you find a nice dictator and secondly if you are a dictator, you don't care what the people think anyway!
Other words of wisdom is: when you keep looking back at what has happened, it is comparable to driving your auto looking through the rear window.
Somehow and somewhere everything gets fixed, not necessarily all at once or immediately.
Have a great Christmas and New Year.
Other words of wisdom is: when you keep looking back at what has happened, it is comparable to driving your auto looking through the rear window.
Somehow and somewhere everything gets fixed, not necessarily all at once or immediately.
Have a great Christmas and New Year.
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Ellie
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I agree with that one Hoser!Hoser wrote:
Other words of wisdom is: when you keep looking back at what has happened, it is comparable to driving your auto looking through the rear window.
Would you have said Cromwell was a dictator? He became very ruthless (& in my opinion, not a very Christian man) and the people had no fun under his 'rule'.....
many escaped to the new world.
Merry Christmas to you & yours and wish you a good 2009
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HampshireRich
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However, if you don't look back, how can you learn from history. After all, we would not want to forget the Holocaust no matter how horrific it was. Nor the recent wars in Europe, or in the future Mugabwe and his like. History is there to remind us of our errors, our follies, our downright stupidity as the human race. It should also remind us that we are good as well - the beauty we can create, the courage we show against all odds and continually striving for a better world (as least some of us strive!).
It only becomes dangerous or futile if you become stuck in it.
As far as the UK's recent history goes, the Thatcher era did do some tremendous good for our country but also showed cruelty and brutality to the extreme. When Blair came along, he was seen as a breath of fresh air and the country seemed to be uplifted. However, his government's economic policies have proven to be lacking in the present time. Let's not forget either the war in Iraq and Afganistan - wars to suit the foreign policy of the Bush administration to which Blair clung to like a lovesick puppy.
To me it always seems that governments in the UK run out of ideas and go stale after 2 terms. I have said before that the US idea of a 2 term maximum seems like a good idea. Both Thatcher and Blair would have gone with their reputations less damaged than they are now. In fact, if all the senior cabinet members were to leave it would have give their own parties a chance to plan for new ideas and refresh themselves rather than the usual rushed election.
Just a thought - bit of a long post though - sorry
It only becomes dangerous or futile if you become stuck in it.
As far as the UK's recent history goes, the Thatcher era did do some tremendous good for our country but also showed cruelty and brutality to the extreme. When Blair came along, he was seen as a breath of fresh air and the country seemed to be uplifted. However, his government's economic policies have proven to be lacking in the present time. Let's not forget either the war in Iraq and Afganistan - wars to suit the foreign policy of the Bush administration to which Blair clung to like a lovesick puppy.
To me it always seems that governments in the UK run out of ideas and go stale after 2 terms. I have said before that the US idea of a 2 term maximum seems like a good idea. Both Thatcher and Blair would have gone with their reputations less damaged than they are now. In fact, if all the senior cabinet members were to leave it would have give their own parties a chance to plan for new ideas and refresh themselves rather than the usual rushed election.
Just a thought - bit of a long post though - sorry
You are right in your theory that UK politcal parties run out of ideas after 7-8 years as they always find that the endemic problems in our economy resurface.
We did have a new approach from Blair and who knows what might have happened inf we had not been dragged along by Bush into his personal agendas.
However what ever anyone may think of Brown ( he is not responsible for the global economic situation ) can anyone ( even the most die hard Tory ) come up with 3 workable ideas that Cameron has come up with that stand a chance of making any difference.
We did have a new approach from Blair and who knows what might have happened inf we had not been dragged along by Bush into his personal agendas.
However what ever anyone may think of Brown ( he is not responsible for the global economic situation ) can anyone ( even the most die hard Tory ) come up with 3 workable ideas that Cameron has come up with that stand a chance of making any difference.
HampshireRich , you say " if you don't look back, how can you learn from history". Now tell me what have we learned from history that we do not do again. Wars are repeated, The Holocust has taught us nothing with ethnic cleansing in Africa still going on. Even the financial problems we are in now is a repeat of previous occurences. The Ponzi scheme which is the latest financial fraud occurred in early 1900's and was outlawed. Lo and behold it was allowed to to be legal a few years ago by the U.S. government. We still bring back lousy governments; Bush got voted in for a second term just like Tony Blair. And look what we learnt from history. Nothing positive, we just keep on making the same mistakes.
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HampshireRich
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EMM - Brown may not have been the cause of the world's current economic problems but he has been a position of influence for many years and has done nothing to soften the blow - except over-borrowing. It's certainly not the fault of you or me - financial irregularites can only be dealt with by the powers that be, and Brown was one of them.
Hoser - yes we do still fight wars, and excludong the latest fiasco most of them are to fight aggression. Are you suggesting we should draw a discreet veil over the horrors of the past and pretend they did not happen. If that was the case, I firmly believe there would have been a nuclear war by now, and racism and religious intolerence would be at a far greater level than it is now.
Hoser - yes we do still fight wars, and excludong the latest fiasco most of them are to fight aggression. Are you suggesting we should draw a discreet veil over the horrors of the past and pretend they did not happen. If that was the case, I firmly believe there would have been a nuclear war by now, and racism and religious intolerence would be at a far greater level than it is now.
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Bruce Wallis
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Rich is totally right about 2 term government.
There is a thing called the sine wave of politics, which, if you buck it, as we did in the 90's and Blair did last year, it's almost a pre-curser for 10 years in the political wilderness, as we discovered when Blair had his landslide, and Brown will discover, hopefully early next year.
Any government, and originally Thatchers Tories were incredibly popular, in spite of some of the selective memories that get exercised on this forum, after 2 terms will run out of original ideas, popularity, and steam.
The Tories did, and, whatever version of "New" Labour we are on, has now.
Historically, the cycle is that the Tories build up the economy, and reduce personal taxation, leaving an incoming labour government a healthy and balanced set of books.
The labour party come in....have a surge of socialist zeal, raise taxes and create inflation to do do it, running the economy down in the process.....and there you have the cycle.
Brown, as chancellor inherited a really strong set of books and a relatively low personal taxation environment. Brown managed this quite well for a while, by the simple expedient of not trying to mend what wasnt broken. but slowly and surely he started pushing up taxes to todays un-precedented levels. Raided pension schemes, foolishly sold off the gold reserves at its basement price.
Had our economy been genuinely strong, we would obviously been hurt by this current world wide downturn, but we would have had the basic blocks in place to be strong and stable in the face of adversity.
Take away the foundations....and the house starts to rock when the wind blows.
Brown and his policies over the last 10 years cannot avoid the blame for this....and looking back now 15 years to the wicked Thatcher as a source for a scapegoat, is frankly pathetic.
There is a thing called the sine wave of politics, which, if you buck it, as we did in the 90's and Blair did last year, it's almost a pre-curser for 10 years in the political wilderness, as we discovered when Blair had his landslide, and Brown will discover, hopefully early next year.
Any government, and originally Thatchers Tories were incredibly popular, in spite of some of the selective memories that get exercised on this forum, after 2 terms will run out of original ideas, popularity, and steam.
The Tories did, and, whatever version of "New" Labour we are on, has now.
Historically, the cycle is that the Tories build up the economy, and reduce personal taxation, leaving an incoming labour government a healthy and balanced set of books.
The labour party come in....have a surge of socialist zeal, raise taxes and create inflation to do do it, running the economy down in the process.....and there you have the cycle.
Brown, as chancellor inherited a really strong set of books and a relatively low personal taxation environment. Brown managed this quite well for a while, by the simple expedient of not trying to mend what wasnt broken. but slowly and surely he started pushing up taxes to todays un-precedented levels. Raided pension schemes, foolishly sold off the gold reserves at its basement price.
Had our economy been genuinely strong, we would obviously been hurt by this current world wide downturn, but we would have had the basic blocks in place to be strong and stable in the face of adversity.
Take away the foundations....and the house starts to rock when the wind blows.
Brown and his policies over the last 10 years cannot avoid the blame for this....and looking back now 15 years to the wicked Thatcher as a source for a scapegoat, is frankly pathetic.
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Ellie
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Hi Rich 
I wouldn't dream of answering for Hoser, but I think maybe he mean't our being 'stuck in the past'?
As for wars. I think they will always be with us...it seems to be in man's nature (& woman's with the Falklands/Thatcher)
Of course we should never forget the Holocaust, probably one of the worst events in mankind's history if not the worst. But it was repeated in Bosnia where we saw once again concentration camps & people starving.
....(the British invented the concentration camp/South Africa)
and the genocide in some African countries. Only recently the perpetrators
of the attrocities in Rwanda have been bought to trial, some of those victims were burnt in churches.......and you don't believe in Satan?
I do despair when I see these things constantly repeated and as I said in a post a few months back, I see the book of revelations unfolding.
The religious wars in the past had nothing to do with God but mankind.
I watched a docu a week or so ago about the crusades( by Boris Johnson) and the crusaders (supposedly Christian) often swam in the blood of their victims...
But I try to have faith that one day people will be kinder & caring to one another......but I sometimes think its a vain hope.
Merry Christmas folks
p.s. I think the 2 terms policy for government like the US is a good idea.
I wouldn't dream of answering for Hoser, but I think maybe he mean't our being 'stuck in the past'?
As for wars. I think they will always be with us...it seems to be in man's nature (& woman's with the Falklands/Thatcher)
Of course we should never forget the Holocaust, probably one of the worst events in mankind's history if not the worst. But it was repeated in Bosnia where we saw once again concentration camps & people starving.
....(the British invented the concentration camp/South Africa)
and the genocide in some African countries. Only recently the perpetrators
of the attrocities in Rwanda have been bought to trial, some of those victims were burnt in churches.......and you don't believe in Satan?
I do despair when I see these things constantly repeated and as I said in a post a few months back, I see the book of revelations unfolding.
The religious wars in the past had nothing to do with God but mankind.
I watched a docu a week or so ago about the crusades( by Boris Johnson) and the crusaders (supposedly Christian) often swam in the blood of their victims...
But I try to have faith that one day people will be kinder & caring to one another......but I sometimes think its a vain hope.
Merry Christmas folks
p.s. I think the 2 terms policy for government like the US is a good idea.
Well said, Bruce.Bruce Wallis wrote:Rich is totally right about 2 term government.
There is a thing called the sine wave of politics, which, if you buck it, as we did in the 90's and Blair did last year, it's almost a pre-curser for 10 years in the political wilderness, as we discovered when Blair had his landslide, and Brown will discover, hopefully early next year.
Any government, and originally Thatchers Tories were incredibly popular, in spite of some of the selective memories that get exercised on this forum, after 2 terms will run out of original ideas, popularity, and steam.
The Tories did, and, whatever version of "New" Labour we are on, has now.
Historically, the cycle is that the Tories build up the economy, and reduce personal taxation, leaving an incoming labour government a healthy and balanced set of books.
The labour party come in....have a surge of socialist zeal, raise taxes and create inflation to do do it, running the economy down in the process.....and there you have the cycle.
Brown, as chancellor inherited a really strong set of books and a relatively low personal taxation environment. Brown managed this quite well for a while, by the simple expedient of not trying to mend what wasnt broken. but slowly and surely he started pushing up taxes to todays un-precedented levels. Raided pension schemes, foolishly sold off the gold reserves at its basement price.
Had our economy been genuinely strong, we would obviously been hurt by this current world wide downturn, but we would have had the basic blocks in place to be strong and stable in the face of adversity.
Take away the foundations....and the house starts to rock when the wind blows.
Brown and his policies over the last 10 years cannot avoid the blame for this....and looking back now 15 years to the wicked Thatcher as a source for a scapegoat, is frankly pathetic.
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mindthepond
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The real problem is that what we need to sort the present situation is another Margeret Thatcher or at least someone with her vision and foresight, unfortunately all we have is a load of Tony Blair think alikes and scaredy cats afraid to buck trends and public opinion. Its going to be tough but somebody has to get a grip and start tightening things up, try to buy our way out of a recession like Brown is doing is madness and is piling up debt for the future but he dosent care as long as he stays in power!! is there nobody out there who has the guts to make the right decisions.. what will become a real problem soon is the BNP they make all the right noises to appeal to the lowest common denominator there could yet be 'rivers of blood in the streets'.
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In-Spectre
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How many of the Tories policies have been copied by Labour ? From revising Inheritance Tax to the latest bribes to employers to hire the long term unemployed. Granted there have not been many Tory policies but this is the reason why! There will be ample time for policies in the manifesto for the next election whenever that may be for that is when we will make a decision.
Yes there is a global recession but the UK is one of the countries which will suffer most due to Browns incompetence - it doesnt matter how many time he says "Global" - the fact is he has messed up badly and is now just making things worse. The first thing is to get an election called where Brown can finally face a vote and then all parties can issue their manifestos upon which the electorate can decide - that is when Camerons policies will be important.
At the moment Brown is taking huge decisions on the UKs future although he has never faced a vote !! - he has no mandate to be taking these decisions of huge borrowing.
Yes there is a global recession but the UK is one of the countries which will suffer most due to Browns incompetence - it doesnt matter how many time he says "Global" - the fact is he has messed up badly and is now just making things worse. The first thing is to get an election called where Brown can finally face a vote and then all parties can issue their manifestos upon which the electorate can decide - that is when Camerons policies will be important.
At the moment Brown is taking huge decisions on the UKs future although he has never faced a vote !! - he has no mandate to be taking these decisions of huge borrowing.
So we elect Cameron because he is not Brown, we have no idea what his policies are. ( neither does he ) and any thoughts of this recession coming to an end in 2-3 years go up in smoke.
The real problem with UK politics today is that we have a generation of so called leaders ( All parties ) who have not done a real days work in their lives.
They go from University into " research " , fast track into one of the parties and then join the political gravy train.
At least with the old style Tories or union based labour MP,s you new what you were getting.
The real problem with UK politics today is that we have a generation of so called leaders ( All parties ) who have not done a real days work in their lives.
They go from University into " research " , fast track into one of the parties and then join the political gravy train.
At least with the old style Tories or union based labour MP,s you new what you were getting.
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Bruce Wallis
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Ok....valid point.....so what do you recommend we do?EMM wrote:So we elect Cameron because he is not Brown, we have no idea what his policies are. ( neither does he ) and any thoughts of this recession coming to an end in 2-3 years go up in smoke.
The real problem with UK politics today is that we have a generation of so called leaders ( All parties ) who have not done a real days work in their lives.
They go from University into " research " , fast track into one of the parties and then join the political gravy train.
At least with the old style Tories or union based labour MP,s you new what you were getting.
One thing is for sure...we need to get this incompetant oaf out as soon as possible before he raids even more of our pensions, imposes even more taxes and drives us even deeper into debt.