[furball]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

1. Actually we rarely talk about Cameron, we are civil servants, our main enemy's are the public and the media. We let the party's fight amonst themselves. Furthermore I refer you to my many rants referring to the Prime Minister as a murderous war criminal. I am not inclined towards any of the main parties in my political outlook, for a variety of reasons articulated in many of my 5,000 posts and in my blog. I also refer you to Dante's posts.

Ok. It's not for me to further contest the nature of your own job, so I'll leave this alone.

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

3. Well I think that band wagon is called memory, but I was merely reacting to your Bush bashing, hardly a bravely original standpoint on your part.

Bush bashing? Where has this even come from?!!

There was nothing in my post that was anti-George Bush. He provides a crutch for about a third of Americans to lean on in their times of need. He reassures them about their own moral views. He has one of the greatest 'fanbases' of any American president of the 20th century (while in office), and this fact is only muted by the number of people equally hostile to him. I don't bash George Bush, even if I object to most of his views.

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

4. There are so many things wrong with this statement that I don't know where to start. Firstly the miners strike was not about higher pay but about the closing of profitable pits and the removal of job security from the work force, a work force who subsequently got significantly poorer, especially since Thatchers economic policies were mainly concerend with transferring large amounts of money from the poor to the rich, policies which have now been adopted by the Labour and Conservative parties as truisms. Furthermore we still have strikes in this country and can expect more. Despite allegedly invoking these policies to make Britiash industry competitive even casual observers will note that there is no such thing as British industry as factory after factory closes down and the workers are left powerless to do anything about it.

Somehow I didn't see you agreeing with me on this

1. I didn't say that the miners' strike was about extra pay - it was a French example.
2. Yes, the industrial working class suffered, especially in mining regions. Agriculture was fattened up by the CAP, as evil as it may be.
3. I don't believe that Thatcher's policies were as overtly redistributive as you claim, but this depends on your political viewpoint and how much emphasis it puts on redistribution of wealth.
4. The only truly successful strikes that we have are those of the Tube drivers (RMT), because London cannot survive without the Tube. The fire service strikes started out popular but the public generally turned against them as time went on.
5. The failure of Western industry is a global phenomenon, not one kept to the UK. Yes, jobs are lost. We simply can't compete with China, Malaysia et al where workers struggle to be paid a dollar a day. What's your solution to this?
6. At present the UK's financial services industry is superb, and a lot of this is to do with Thatcher's policies in the late 1980s.

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

5. Oh i am sure the issue is faith based, but I assure you that if you look at polls in America, abortion isn't the issue, its just the only issue that politicians want to talk about. They don't want to talk about a National Health Service, a decent welfare system or proper public education, but those are the real issues in American politics.

A universal healthcare system has been continually derided in America, labelled with the tag of socialism which inspires in Americans a knee-jerk reaction similar to that of the word 'liberal'. Welfare reform has no chance of ever passing a House which is elected every two years, where representatives are continually thinking about their re-election prospects and how certain issues will harm them. America has few, if any, public servants left.

Furthermore, federalism in America has been a failure because of the three issues which you identified.

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

6. Well perhaps but unless ministers have suddenly become policy geniuses with the ability to do a several PHDs worth of background work in the time it takes to walk to their office, then I fail to see what brilliant new ideas they are going to produce.

I'm not asking for in-depth knowledge, I'm asking for an ability to inject new thinking into issues where a weak status quo has been arrived at. I'm hoping that a minister can attempt to balance the two sides of a policy debate, not write papers on each of them.