ferrarilover wrote:
The far right always comes to the fore during tough economic times. It's a self preservation thing. If you can convince people to pick on someone else, they're much less likely to pick on you. In the modern age, that someone else is people who look or sound a bit different. Hence foreigners and Muslims. They're easily identifiable at a glance and they're usually not minded to fight back.
Steve is quite right, we had many years of perfectly good Government under the Tories, then along came Labour and within 10 years we were back in the Stoneage.
The upsetting thing is that it's the Tories, with their financially sound ideas who are seen as demonising the poor. What they're actually doing is making the poor slightly more poor on the basis that they were generously treated by the last administration.
We're all in the sh*t together, so we all have to work together to get out of it. Leftists want to do this by forcing everyone onto the lowest rung of the ladder, so we're all nice and equal. It is a socialists dream. The right want to attempt to force those on the lowest rung to be better than that and, for those willing to put in the effort, the rewards are there. I'm afraid I can have no sympathy with those who either can't or won't try harder, that is Darwinism and my life should not be affected because someone else can't manage. I don't hold back Stephen Fry, so why should some idiot loser hold me back?
The NHS and this weekend's mascot are a prime example. The NHS is a wonderful thing, free health care for all really is a great theory. Sadly, it is holding us back so far you cannot imagine. Why do all the really sick people have to beg for retweets on Twitter to raise money for little Isabella to go to America for life saving treatment? Is it because only Americans know how to use the machines? No, it's because only a heath system funded properly by an insurance system can afford the equipment in the first place.
The NHS: free, but crap*
Matt.
*I should point out that, on the rare occasions that I've made use of the NHS, it's been excellent and that, by and large, the staff do an excellent job under impossible circumstances. Sadly 'the NHS:free, but could do better if it was privately funded' wasn't quite such a catchy way to end.
Oh dear, Matt, going to have to straighten you out (if that’s the right expression) on a few things:
First, while there’s a degree of truth in your first paragraph it would be wrong to imply (if that’s what you’re doing) that UKIP is a far right racist party. It is not. Indeed, a demographical survey of its members indicated that they represent a broad cross-section of society. UKIP’s anti-EU stance is based on economic priciples and a desire to maintain democracy, political freedom and independence for the UK. Its opposition to unlimited cross-border movement within the EU and its desire for greater immigration control (which is echoed by other parties) is due to the simple fact that the UK is over-populated: if the UK did not import food it would have to introduce rationing or it’s population would slowly begin to starve. And it is surely madness for the EU to require free access for all EU citizens however unqualified and whether or not they speak English, whilst placing severe restrictions on qualified people from the rest of the world.
Secondly, you refer to ‘good government under the Tories’. Sorry to have to disillusion you on this, but they have been just as bad as Labour givernments, for example, helping to destroy the UK manufacturing base, creating a house price bubble which left thousands in negative equity debt, and slowly and systematically dismantling the NHS in preparation for privatisiation, something for which Labour, to its shame, was equally culpable. But worst of all, since the present coalition government was elected it has borrowed more money than the previous Labour administrations did in all their thirteen years of power:
http://info.moneyweek.com/urgent-bullet ... f-britain/ Any recent upturn in the economy is due solely to this and it is unsustainable.
I am no lover of New Labour. In office they behaved so much like a Conservative government you could hardly tell the difference. Even so, both they and the Conservatives gave away too much in benefits (particularly for such things as child care: I happen to agree with Jeremy Kyle, whom I normally cannot stand: if people cannot afford to have kids they should not have kids). So I happen to agree with you to a great extent on benefits, but certainly not with your general attitude towards the less fortunate in society, which attitude I find unacceptable. The mark of a civilised sociey is the degree to which it looks after its less fortunate members. If it will not do this, it cannot be called civilised and the law of the jungle prevails.
As to the NHS, private healthcare is fine for those who can afford the insurance. But why do you think that the US private healthcare sytem is the most expensive in the world, and why so many people in the USA have little or no access to it? The NHS, like other nationally run healthcare systems in Europe and worldwide, is far more cost-effective than any private service run for profit, this despite not being properly funded and being interfered with by politicians who place greater importance on policial ideology (usually capitalism in this case) or on their own careers.
I’m afraid your comments display an unfortunate blinkered and somewhat egocentric view of the world. Unless, of course, you know better...
