2015 UK General Election

[Alan H]

Latest post of the previous page:

Sorry, Alan. I had to post in 2 bursts, hence odd quote tags.

Want to try again?

Done.

Fixed again.

[Alan H]

The NHS should be run for the benefits of patients, not just those who work in it.

I'd join you in the frame shop, Alan, if Nick would add, "or those who just want to profit from it."

But there's hope for you yet, Nick!

[Nick]

Fixed again.

Oh! I thought I had it right, but thanks anyway.

[stevenw888]

Well there we are. After nearly five months of politicians electioneering, we finally have a result. And what a result! Unbelievable! I have to tell you I slept badly on Wednesday night. At that point it seemed very likely that we were going to have some form of Labour minority government, loosely supported by the SNP. A left leaning party, being pulled to the left by an even more left leaning party. A party opposed to austerity, in fact not just opposed to austerity but anti-austerity! It was a forthcoming nightmare! A spend, spend, spend Ed Miliband, being encouraged to spend even more by Nicola Sturgeon. Jesus - we would be in debt until all my grandkids had retired!
Luckily for all of us, common sense prevailed in the ballot box and all those (embarrassed secret) Tory voters voted for the party they trusted the most to give us five years of economic growth, no increase in taxes and a general improvement in their standard of living.
I stayed up on Thursday night, and, like most of us, couldn't believe the exit poll that the BBC published at 10.01 pm. By 4pm it was apparent that the exit poll was largely accurate, and, much as I wanted to see Paddy Ashdown eat his hat, I retired to bed feeling happier, safer and more contented than I had the night before.

So, anyway, what's all this about anti-austerity? I don't get it. I wracked my brains to remember anything, just one little thing that pointed to any form of austerity in the past five years, and I could only come up with one. The streetlights on the motorway nearby have been turned off every night at 11pm, instead of being left on all night. What a good idea!
Everything else is the same as it was five years ago. No, I stand corrected - my library is now open 13 hours a day, every day, seven days a week. It used to be open for 8 hours, 6 days a week. Progress! No austerity there. My bins are still emptied on alternative weeks (landfill, week 1, recycling week 2). I'm sure I can cope with 5 more years of austerity. As long as it means that we don't have to keep borrowing more and more money and then spend a fortune in interest charges. I received a letter last year from HMRC, telling me that one quarter of my tax payments had been used to pay the interest on the national debt. I'm sure that our government could have put it to better use.
I'll keep campaigning for cuts in our military/defence spending (why is it we have to have nuclear weapons but that 180 countries, including Spain and Italy don't have any?) but apart from that I'm relatively happy. I realise Cameron has some formidable hurdles to overcome but he has my full support.

[Alan H]

So, anyway, what's all this about anti-austerity? I don't get it. I wracked my brains to remember anything, just one little thing that pointed to any form of austerity in the past five years, and I could only come up with one. The streetlights on the motorway nearby have been turned off every night at 11pm, instead of being left on all night. What a good idea!
Everything else is the same as it was five years ago. No, I stand corrected - my library is now open 13 hours a day, every day, seven days a week. It used to be open for 8 hours, 6 days a week. Progress! No austerity there. My bins are still emptied on alternative weeks (landfill, week 1, recycling week 2). I'm sure I can cope with 5 more years of austerity. As long as it means that we don't have to keep borrowing more and more money and then spend a fortune in interest charges. I received a letter last year from HMRC, telling me that one quarter of my tax payments had been used to pay the interest on the national debt. I'm sure that our government could have put it to better use.
I'll keep campaigning for cuts in our military/defence spending (why is it we have to have nuclear weapons but that 180 countries, including Spain and Italy don't have any?) but apart from that I'm relatively happy. I realise Cameron has some formidable hurdles to overcome but he has my full support.

Oh, I'm sure I'm better off financially as well. Pity about those less fortunate, though, particularly when many leading economists are saying that austerity was never needed.

[Alan H]

Human Rights Act must stay

Current legislation protects most vulnerable in society.

Responding to media speculation today on a possible repeal of the European Human Rights legislation, Community Safety and Legal Affairs Minister Roseanna Cunningham today said the Scottish Government was ‘strongly opposed’ to such a move, which she warned would have serious consequences both at home and abroad.

[stevenw888]

Oh, I'm sure I'm better off financially as well. Pity about those less fortunate, though, particularly when many leading economists are saying that austerity was never needed.

Ok, but I can't vote for them - they have to vote for themselves. Surely the results of the election prove that more people are feeling better off, and less people are feeling worse off. I don't expect poor people to vote from my perspective - do you think it's right that I should vote from theirs?

[Alan H]

Surely the results of the election prove that more people are feeling better off, and less people are feeling worse off.

No. Many will vote in what they think might be their own self-interests, but the reasons people vote for the parties they do is a lot more complicated than that.

I don't expect poor people to vote from my perspective - do you think it's right that I should vote from theirs?

That's what I did.

[Dave B]

Surely the results of the election prove that more people are feeling better off, and less people are feeling worse off.

No. Many will vote in what they think might be their own self-interests, but the reasons people vote for the parties they do is a lot more complicated than that.

I don't expect poor people to vote from my perspective - do you think it's right that I should vote from theirs?

That's what I did.

I can support your pov, Alan.

The "poor" may be true victims, those better off, who can miss the odd few quid, have a moral duty to be charitable. Voting in such a many as to give them a better chance, whilst not sriously endangering one's own situation could be seen as an act of charity.

[animist]

Surely the results of the election prove that more people are feeling better off, and less people are feeling worse off.

No. Many will vote in what they think might be their own self-interests, but the reasons people vote for the parties they do is a lot more complicated than that.

I don't expect poor people to vote from my perspective - do you think it's right that I should vote from theirs?

That's what I did.

me too. Steven, do you ever imagine yourself poor and suffering from spending cuts which actually affect you seriously? But at least you don't support nuclear weapons (which Labour does)

[stevenw888]

me too. Steven, do you ever imagine yourself poor and suffering from spending cuts which actually affect you seriously?

No.

Do poor people ever imagine themselves rich, and earning so much that they put themselves in the top tax bracket? If they did, they'd probably vote Tory.

Do I understand correctly? Well off people should vote Labour to protect the under privilieged. But the poor underprivilieged shouldn't vote Tory even if they aspire to be wealthy? sounds like nonsense.

And yes - I despise nuclear weapons and arms selling generally.

[Alan H]

me too. Steven, do you ever imagine yourself poor and suffering from spending cuts which actually affect you seriously?

No.

Do poor people ever imagine themselves rich, and earning so much that they put themselves in the top tax bracket? If they did, they'd probably vote Tory.

What a bizarre statement.

[stevenw888]

Nick, help! I'm surrounded by socialists!

[Alan H]

[Nick]

Nick, help! I'm surrounded by socialists!

I know! It's been lonely on my own!!

KBO!!

[Nick]

Oh FFS! This must take the biscuit for one of the most inane petitions ever, even by the abysmally low standards of 38 degrees. Summary: Dear Queenie, make them have another eleciton now because I don't know many people who voted Tory so how did they get in?

I agree, people are going insane - or perhaps they are just having a joke. A pity if this discredits serious petitions

Not too many of those on 38 Degrees, though...

[Nick]

The NHS should be run for the benefits of patients, not just those who work in it.

I'd join you in the frame shop, Alan, if Nick would add, "or those who just want to profit from it."

In one half sentence, Dave, you have encapsulated the problem. You think that it matters more that the word "profit" is banished from health-care, rather than that services are improved. Ever doctor and nurse "profits" from the NHS. And do you really think that bandage manufacturers should be nationalised, or barred from making profits? It's right up there with Ed Miliband's stone pledges.

[Nick]

And here we see the ex-Tory Minister of State for Faith and Communities, Sayeeda Warsi, referring to MPs as being 'less pale':

And your point is? Are you saying that we should be more concerned with the calibre of candidates than how PC they are? Are you departing from lefty lunacy at last?

[stevenw888]

Thanks Nick! I second that!

[Alan H]

And here we see the ex-Tory Minister of State for Faith and Communities, Sayeeda Warsi, referring to MPs as being 'less pale':

And your point is? Are you saying that we should be more concerned with the calibre of candidates than how PC they are? Are you departing from lefty lunacy at last?

WTF are you on about?

[Lord Muck oGentry]

I'm not sure that socialism comes into it. Take Karl Popper, for instance. Hardly a socialist; a friend of Hayek and of Mises and a founding member of the Mont Pélerin Society, which was dedicated to the ideas of classical liberalism.

https://www.montpelerin.org/montpelerin/mpsAbout.html


Here is what he had to say in The Open Society and its Enemies:

"I believe that there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure. Both the greatest happiness principle of the Utilitarians and Kant's principle, "Promote other people's happiness...", seem to me (at least in their formulations) fundamentally wrong in this point, which is, however, not one for rational argument....In my opinion...human suffering makes a direct moral appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway."

And elsewhere:

Popper thus calls for a public policy that aims at reducing and, hopefully, eliminating such readily identifiable and universally agreed upon sources of suffering as “poverty, unemployment, national oppression, war, and disease” (Conjectures and Refutations, 361).

Of course, there's plenty of room for disagreement about what constitutes suffering. But that's a story for another day...