????

Parkdrive Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ???? Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Irons...... > > > > > > > > I'm joking of course, Chelsea will blow up > > Not bad quids 3 out of 4 Thanks. I had a small bet on it too :)

red devil Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Better give the ferry a miss this summer then... The Beatrix is no more :)

"We're all going on a european tour"

The tuition fees only have to be paid back to those that earn above a certain amount, progressive taxation in essence. Labour was going to scrap them just to get a load of privileged middle class lefty students votes whilst the poor workers pay for it - regressive.

Like

lostcat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This is so sad. Apart from a few exceptions, I > seem to have found myself among a sea of tory > voices. Is this representative of east dulwich or > is it just representative of this forum? Labour in only wanting to talk to Labour shocker - that's the party's problem. Never voted Tory in my life, nearly voted LD this time but I would have possibly voted Tory this time if it was a labour/Tory marginal. Didn't vote. Snorks, talk us through how scrapping tuition fees for the richest graduates was anything but regressive?

Don't start insulting the left wing, middle class, white, Guardianistas with your common sense there DaSilva

Free schools scrapped.Anti-academy rhetoric. Less choice, all run by our 'betters'

Better than plot 4447256adc23 chosen for me by some soulless Marxist bureaucrat in a sea of cheap, grey municipal granite

Yup, succoured and midi lodged by the state too long, all spirit gone just feed them with cheap booze, crap food and drugs

Alcohol and bitterness will do for you before the revolution takes me snorks

Don't worry snorks you can soon fook off back to the Stalinist paradise your chippy comrades from SNP will no doubt build, we'll miss you

The bashing the 'rich, thing was tedious and dangerous too - when I can be arsed I'll go and check but the top 30,000 earners in the UK contribute a staggering % of our overall income tax ( something like 10%) so the fallacy that they aren't somehow pulling their weight that Red Ed was bandying around is just that. Populist nonsense.

Grabot I agree with the trade thing generally - it's a red herring, the French and Germans will trade with us whatever we do as we are a massive market to them. The argument about trade is from the economic illiterate. But, where I agree with Loz is on the inward investment thing. This is a significant contributor of high end employment to London especially but not just in banking etc but also in high end manufacturing think Airbus, Honda, Nissan, etc. For the OP try not to live your life believing the propaganda on social media. The state will still be massive by the next GE, the NHS will still exist and my suspicion is that we'll still have a budget defeceit. Wouldn't have been much different under Labour but they'd have stalled investment with their populist anti-business nonsense and done very little to balance our books. They would have also restricted our choice as parents on education because, you know, they know best what,s good for my kids. Personally I wish the coalition had carried on but I,m glad useless Labour aren't in.

TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I was drunk when I started this thread You and the other 80% of thread starters

All the obvious ones - Pixar etc but have been reading Diary of a Wimpy kid with my boy and genuienly laughing out loud at some points and look forward to it (once we've done his school book reading of course) "Shall we do another chapter?"

bodsier Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-soci > al-conservatism-racism.html A U.S. Study that looks at 'social conservatism' in the U.S. had what relevance to the UK General Election exactly?

whilst I am sure there are some decent ones I've yet to find one I like. Still cheaper to drink at home and given I like to enjoy myself in a pub then no thanks, not my bag. Plus feels soooooo chainy

As a kid powercuts of 3 day week were brilliant - school shut down when it was too cold, candles and oil lamps, toast for tea toasted on a real fire

northdulmum Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Exactly #winterofdiscontent Sorry to be a political pedant but Powercuts/ 3 day week were under Heath in the miners strike 73/74 Winter of discontent wsa under Callaghan and was 'dead not being buried.rubbish not being collected' raher than powecuts

Even over at the Guardian there are signs of some reflection.... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/14/working-class-tories-are-not-just-turkeys-voting-for-christmas

I think the biggest problem for Labour is that old and unsolvable schism between the left and right in that the left has proper old school socialists, followed by pretty heavy state interventionists. Neither of these two really believes the deficit narrative and will be pointing to the Greens and the SNP as the way Labour should be going. These include McClusky, proper old school unions but also alot of the Merto Guardianistas and anyone who votes under 25 . Then you have the old Blairites (still a strong Caucaus in the PLP) plus a lot of aspirational workers plus a significant chunk of middleclass labour voters ? these believe in the values of labour but are a bit more right economically and do believe in the general politics around the deficit(this is also where a whole bunch of ex-Labour voters sit, not all). The difference on defeceit politics looks pretty unresolvable to me. Of course the schism exist in other parties. The conservatives is largely on Europe (and also a side one on the sane versus the insane ? social liberal and metropolitan vs the reactionaries0) but in general terms this can hold together a bit easier. In the Liberal democrats between proper lasiseez faire liberals (afraid of state/business having too much power) and the ex-hippy Greens bit (but this has now largely gone) Personally I?d now welcome PR now as I?d like to vote next time or the time after and it feels in the medium term with PR we may get some realignment around the middle ground that I?d feel comfortable with and Liberal Democrats ?nearly? represent ? socially liberal, economically rightish, a touch libertarian but more empathetic than the Tories. Not too much to ask for.

Green Goose you may like my political analysis but I do not share your views on immigration at all, just to make that very clear.

Oh Ok a bit of flaming. Reasons to cheer up if you're a labour supporter - a Conservative Majority is actually far better for your potential for the next election than a coalition with the LDs would have been without the Liberal Democrats to tone the nasty bits down - there's a huge rump of idealogues/near UKIPers on the right side of the Party that will cause both trouble and embarrassment to the leadership - not many tory voters love them - I think Boris Johnson isn't PM material...not the same gig as the Mayor at all - you've no longer got Ed

Dear old Millwall supporting once of these parishes Rod And so now we have to suffer the epic delusions, temper tantrums and hissy fits of the metro-left. They simply cannot believe how you scumbags could have got it so wrong last Thursday, you morons. You vindictive, selfish morons. That has been the general response from all of the people, the liberal middle-class lefties, who have cheerfully contributed towards making the once-great Labour party effectively unelectable. You lot voted Tory out of fear ? because you are stupid, stupid people. The Conservatives ran a ?negative? campaign and, because you are either simply horrible human beings, or just thick, you fell for it. That?s been the subtext of most of the bien-pensants, when they?re not out screaming with fury in the streets, stamping their little feet and daubing ?Tory scum? on war memorials. It was the subtext of Ed Miliband?s magnificently patronising and deluded analysis that Labour (i.e. Ed Miliband) lost the election but ?did not lose the argument?. No Ed, you lost both. You lost the election because you lost the argument. And also because lots of people, including members of your family, thought you were a ludicrous creature increasingly resembling one of those confections in a Dr Seuss book for kiddies. My favourite little temper strop, though, came from a woman called ? Rebecca Roache, who is a lecturer at Royal Holloway. Tory voters are akin to racists, sexists and homophobes, she asserted on her blog, before adding that she had ?defriended? people on Facebook who had posted links to pro-Tory pages. ?I?m tired of reasoned debate,? she added. In what subject does Becca bestow upon her students the fruits of her incalculable wisdom? Remember, she?s tired of reasoned debate. Yep, of course ? Philosophy. Better give up your job then, you fatuous cow. If you want to know more about this woman?s research pedigree, here?s an excerpt from her webpage: ?In my MPhil thesis I argued that objects are composed of temporal parts. In my PhD thesis I considered the conceptual possibility of beings that (like us) have rich mental lives, can self-refer, and are self-conscious and self concerned, but (unlike us) are not persons.? What are these strange beings, then ? Tories? The sad thing for me is that aside from a handful of northern MPs and some embittered Blairites in the south, Labour really does not think that it lost the argument. They are in a state of complete denial. Occasionally one hears a platitude from someone or other about how the party needs to ?reconnect? with voters, but there is no conception of how this reconnection might occur. Of course, it most certainly does need to ?reconnect? with voters. But equally, it also needs to estrange voters like Rebecca Roache as soon as is humanly possible. If Labour is to make a comeback then it will be as a party for which Rebecca could not possibly bring herself to vote, not even if hell froze over. If Ed Miliband, too, could not bring himself to vote for it, so much the better. Because otherwise Labour will be left as a party of the affluent, secular, achingly liberal London middle classes ? plus all those minorities (ethnic, gender, transgendered and so on) who have not yet decided to vote Green. Deconstruct last Thursday?s poll and you see a party that does very well in the capital, but has a rapidly diminishing appeal elsewhere. Look at the Ukip vote north of the Home Counties. Massive and growing. Just imagine if Ukip were as credible as the SNP ? Labour would be down to 80 or 90 seats, if that. It is all very well for Labour supporters to console themselves with the fact that much more than half of all Scottish people voted for a supposedly ?progressive? party, even if it wasn?t their party. But that is not entirely why Sturgeon et al did so well ? the clue is in the name. Scottish National Party. Aside from the economic leftism, the SNP succeeded because it tapped into a feeling of pride and history and nationhood, as well as a visceral dislike for London. But talk about a sense of national pride and history to the London left and they will tell you it?s all a case of false consciousness and, like religion, to be ignored or derided. More fool them. According to the pollster Peter Kellner, Ukip?s support base is 61 per cent working class ? way more than Labour, the party that was set up to represent the working-class. This is a very recent development; according to the same set of statistics, ex-Labour voters migrating to Ukip trebled over the last couple of years. Bear that in mind when you look at the polling results in such constituencies as Nuneaton, Stockton South, the Vale of Clwyd, Sunderland and countless, countless others. If Labour is to continue to exist as a major force, rather than as a gradually deliquescing rump, it needs to adopt policies which bring those people back. The Blairites are correct that Miliband alienated the aspirational working class ? largely, I think, because he felt no liking or empathy for them. But that is not the half of it. A clear understanding that there is a deserving poor and an undeserving poor is crucial; people who do the right thing, but are nonetheless impoverished, and watch others who do not do the right thing thrive on benefits, dislike Labour?s lazy and ignorant amalgamation of the two groups. A strong policy on immigration is vital ? nothing has adversely affected the working class to quite the same degree as the enormous importing of cheap labour. So, too, a robust line against radical Islam ? you think it?s left-wing to support such a creed? ? and a disavowal of multiculturalism might win back a few votes, too. A respect for Britain?s history and pride in its place in the world, support for the traditional family unit and the admission that there are places beyond the North Circular which are important too ? ah, but I?m going too far. People voted Tory, or Ukip, because they were stupid. Let?s leave it at that, huh?