Political Crossfire Forums

[johnz]

I cant help but think David von Cameron is moving towards the middle with the recent new policies and u-turns of the conservatives.

Surely it cant come to a situation that come the next general election both labour and the conservatives have the same policies and goals as i dont remember this ever happening before?

[Ssushi]

And thus the political genious of New Labour's move to the centre becomes even more obvious. Now the public will see it as 'better the devil you know' and still the Tories are f****d!

[Lord Hargreaves]

Ssushi wrote: And thus the political genious of New Labour's move to the centre becomes even more obvious. Now the public will see it as 'better the devil you know' and still the Tories are f****d!

Why have the Tories playing as New Labour when you can have the real thing? Exactly.

However I suspect Cameron's strategy is just to copy the consensus and rely on the British public voting out Labour out of sheer fatigue with them, and then perhaps lull Labour into making the suicidal lurch leftwards to give themselves clear blue water between themselves and the Tories.

If that plan comes of, i'd imagine that it'll be successful - so we'd get a new Conservative government, but in the country nothing will change
:roll:

[Lord Hargreaves]

I think its also worth noting though that conservative criticism of the Tories even now seems a lot more substantial than left-wing criticism of New Labour was back-in-the-day. Already we've seen such opposition from The Sun earlier this week:


We've had murmurs from the Mail, and The Telegraph is close to nigh on opposition - Jeff Randal attacks Cameron's promise to "take on big business":

Quote: Business, especially when preceded by "big", will always be a convenient target for vote-starved politicians. Simply by saying the B word with the right kind of sneer on their faces, ministers can make it sound like an unsavoury activity. If all else fails (and for the Tories in the past three elections, all else did fail), tell the people that they are victims and then create culprits for them to blame. In the search for demons, successful free enterprise fits the bill nicely. Never mind the jobs it creates, the taxes it pays, the pensions it funds, all that money-making can't be right, can it? So let's stand up to big business. Better still, let's go the whole nine yards and stand up to big bad business. Hallelujah, brothers!

Unlike left wing discontents unhappy with New Labour's drift to the centre, I can definitely see right-wing discontent bringing down Cameron if he strays too far. Simon Heffer illustrates the scenario:

Quote: One day, some departure from orthodoxy will take place when restless MPs with a long history of scheming and plotting are all packed together in the fetid atmosphere of Westminster: then things will turn ugly,

Y'never know :?

[Lucky Luke]

Lord Hargreaves wrote: Ssushi wrote: And thus the political genious of New Labour's move to the centre becomes even more obvious. Now the public will see it as 'better the devil you know' and still the Tories are f****d!

Why have the Tories playing as New Labour when you can have the real thing? Exactly.

However I suspect Cameron's strategy is just to copy the consensus and rely on the British public voting out Labour out of sheer fatigue with them, and then perhaps lull Labour into making the suicidal lurch leftwards to give themselves clear blue water between themselves and the Tories.

If that plan comes of, i'd imagine that it'll be successful - so we'd get a new Conservative government, but in the country nothing will change
:roll:

This kind of politic is to be seen all over continental Europe and there is not a lot to separate between the different parties here in Scotland.

The message and the quality of the leader makes the difference not the policies anymore.

I remember a time when the voters here in the UK were complaining that the right and the left made a point to never agree, they have listened to the electorate they now do agree.......on everything!

:-D
:-D
:-D
:-D

[Lord Hargreaves]

Lucky Luke wrote:
I remember a time when the voters here in the UK were complaining that the right and the left made a point to never agree, they have listened to the electorate they now do agree.......on everything!


Yeah well the public know sh*t :lol:

[thefranzkafkafront]

So dose the middle way mean a complete abandoment of any politcal philosophy and a vauge smattering of policies based on what people seem to want and 'common sense' (that allmighty maxim that it is :roll:)

[Snow Patrol]

thefranzkafkafront wrote: So dose the middle way mean a complete abandoment of any politcal philosophy and a vauge smattering of policies based on what people seem to want and 'common sense' (that allmighty maxim that it is :roll:)
Ideology is all but dead in mainstream politics.

Loving the new compassionate conservatism.

Quote: Tories plan to keep student fees

The Conservative Party has announced a U-turn on student finance and proposes to keep student tuition fees.

Previously it had promised to scrap all fees, including top-ups being introduced from this autumn in England.

On Monday party leader David Cameron told sixth formers that if universities were to be well funded, the money had to come from somewhere.

In another change Mr Cameron also said he believed there should be no limit on student numbers.

Tuition fees were introduced by Labour and are due to rise to a maximum of £3,000 a year in England - there are different arrangements for students in and from different parts of the UK.

At the last election, the Conservatives said they would scrap all tuition fees while retaining Labour's reintroduced grants for poorer students.

You want to go to universities that are well-funded...and I want as many people who think they're going to benefit from university to be able to go
David Cameron

Instead they had said they would have bigger student loans at a commercial interest rate, rather than the effective zero rate that applies now.
Source

Charge students even more, give them bigger loans to make up for it then charge them interest on the loans, genius. :lol:

Where as in Scotland i have my tuition fees paid for me and recieved a small bursary to help towards cost of books, which combined with not being an idiot spending wise is why i'm in second year and comepletly loan and debt free. Ahh, it's good to have land. :-D

[Lord Hargreaves]

Snow Patrol wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: So dose the middle way mean a complete abandoment of any politcal philosophy and a vauge smattering of policies based on what people seem to want and 'common sense' (that allmighty maxim that it is :roll:)
Ideology is all but dead in mainstream politics.

Thats pretty much how I see it too.

Snow Patrol wrote:
Charge students even more, give them bigger loans to make up for it then charge them interest on the loans, genius. :lol:

Where as in Scotland i have my tuition fees paid for me and recieved a small bursary to help towards cost of books, which combined with not being an idiot spending wise is why i'm in second year and comepletly loan and debt free. Ahh, it's good to have land. :-D

Yeah, us English love paying for you Scots to get drunk and arse around at University. I'm at University now and living off the taxpayer (and my parents, and in recent desperate weeks Abbey National's generous overdraft), and I'm grateful for that - demanding even more from people I don't know is just plain selfish. Anyway, better for those who can't afford it but are actually getting the education to pay rather than those who can't afford it but aren't in my view - never mind "compassion", thats just common decency

[thundertaker]

Quote: Yeah, us English love paying for you Scots to get drunk and arse around at University. I'm at University now and living off the taxpayer (and my parents, and in recent desperate weeks Abbey National's generous overdraft), and I'm grateful for that - demanding even more from people I don't know is just plain selfish. Anyway, better for those who can't afford it but are actually getting the education to pay rather than those who can't afford it but aren't in my view - never mind "compassion", thats just common decency

And the irony is that anyone in the EU can come over to a scottish university and enjoy the same benefits, unless they're English, Welsh, or Northern Irish. Very nice, considering the English taxpayer is primarily responisble for footing the bill for scotland's considerably more generous welfare provisions.

I myself am a minority amongst students in that I don't mind having to pay back the loans. I am the one who will benefit the most from my degree, so it is only right that I should pay for it. The terms of the loan state that I have to be earning at least £10,000 a year before I start paying them back, and I'll still have more disposable income than I have now. Besides, it teaches me not to take my time at uni for granted. I'll still have to pay back those loans even if I fail, which is a big incentive to work hard to ensure that I don't!

[Lord Hargreaves]

thundertaker wrote: Quote: Yeah, us English love paying for you Scots to get drunk and arse around at University. I'm at University now and living off the taxpayer (and my parents, and in recent desperate weeks Abbey National's generous overdraft), and I'm grateful for that - demanding even more from people I don't know is just plain selfish. Anyway, better for those who can't afford it but are actually getting the education to pay rather than those who can't afford it but aren't in my view - never mind "compassion", thats just common decency

And the irony is that anyone in the EU can come over to a scottish university and enjoy the same benefits, unless they're English, Welsh, or Northern Irish. Very nice, considering the English taxpayer is primarily responisble for footing the bill for scotland's considerably more generous welfare provisions.

I myself am a minority amongst students in that I don't mind having to pay back the loans. I am the one who will benefit the most from my degree, so it is only right that I should pay for it. The terms of the loan state that I have to be earning at least £10,000 a year before I start paying them back, and I'll still have more disposable income than I have now. Besides, it teaches me not to take my time at uni for granted. I'll still have to pay back those loans even if I fail, which is a big incentive to work hard to ensure that I don't!

Exactly right

Besides, its not like we're paying up front - we merely have to pay the government back - a loan. In order for British universities to keep up with the rest of the world, especially America, they're obviously going to need the same scale of financial resources as they have to do so. Dave-o Cameron has been good at making U-turns as of late, but this has been by far his best.

[bury]

you have to commend Cameron for scraping that policy subsidizing people going private with NHS money.

I don't know what they were thinking with that one.

[Jajo]

bury wrote: you have to commend Cameron for scraping that policy subsidizing people going private with NHS money.

I don't know what they were thinking with that one.

I personaly thought that was the best policy they had but i do not think i am in the majority on that one and 'what they were thinking' is that as everyone pays for the NHS you should get some money from it if you want to go some where else, i felt that was a good idea.

[bury]

Quote: 'what they were thinking' is that as everyone pays for the NHS you should get some money from it if you want to go some where else

everyone pays in but not everyone can afford to go private. it was a silly policy.

"we'll take your money and give it to people richer than you so they can get better health care than you"

at what point did that seem like a vote winner for the Tories?

[Kal'thzar]

Quote: And the irony is that anyone in the EU can come over to a scottish university and enjoy the same benefits, unless they're English, Welsh, or Northern Irish. Very nice, considering the English taxpayer is primarily responisble for footing the bill for scotland's considerably more generous welfare provisions.

Are you sure? i can ask some people to see but i don't think so :-|


as far as i'm aware saas only provide burseries tuition fees etc for scottish people. Not everyone.

We still have to pay money back its not much mind something like £2000 to saas and the loans obviously have to repaid as well.

Second i think your main problem is that for some strange reason the english havn't had any power devolved to them, so your Education is still a matter of "national concern" so to speak. :p. I would have through it would have made sense to deveolve equal power to all of them, instead we got an untidy mess.

Third (not so serious) For scotland to maintain its iron grip on Britain in politics it was required to sink any prospective English students into heavy debt thus the people best suited for the job would be the Scottish with more experiance etc etc etc due to less time having to pay off debts :p

[thundertaker]

Quote: Third (not so serious) For scotland to maintain its iron grip on Britain in politics it was required to sink any prospective English students into heavy debt thus the people best suited for the job would be the Scottish with more experiance etc etc etc due to less time having to pay off debts :p

Don't laugh, that almost makes sense.......:shock:

[Kal'thzar]

Quote: Don't laugh, that almost makes sense.......

Hmmm

You see i was getting paid to throw people off the scent, best way to do this is to present it as something to be derided....

Damn.


:wink: