The thing I like about partisan idiots like you is the safe knowledge that you’ve got another four years of Blair and Brown to wind you up. I really think you should be have reached the frothing at the mouth stage by then.
Even funnier will be when a conservative government eventually gets in, and uses exactly the same policies as New Labour have been pushing - and you’ll still rave about how much better it is. You’re so fucking hooked on party names you can’t even tell that they’re pushing nigh identical policies.
As for the dig at Ireland, I give up - what’s wrong with Ireland?
I reached the frothing stage with this gang of wankers some time ago - another four years will require a straight jacket and largactyl.
I would seriously hope that when we eventually get a Conservative governement it will be able to pursue conservative policies. However I am afraid that by that time Blair et al will have linked us so strongly to the sclerotic euro-state that we won’t have the freedom to govern ourselves.
There’s nothiong wrong with Ireland. They’ve done well. How have they done well? By adopting broadly conservative (small c) policies fiscally which have made them more coompetitive than us.
They’re doing well under conservative policies. We’re fucking-up under labour. That’s pretty much all you need to know. Innit?
I may be fiscally conservative, but I know a wild oversimplification when I see one. Come on; Ireland has undergone a huge economic change of late in joining the Euro, whereby it received a massive stimulus from the sudden drop in its effective interest rates. To infer from Ireland’s recent boom that “conservative=good, socialist=bad” is pushing it, to put it mildly.
So when do you think they’ll stop cravenly opposing the very policies they ought to support? Witness: tuition fees, gambling deregulation, yada yada yada. Howard’s reflexive need to diametrically oppose every government proposal has led him to a sclerotic platform that seems to be statist both fiscally and socially. It’s quite bizarre. I’m with you inasmuch as I believe conservative fiscal policy is preferable, but I have yet to see the Conservative party espouse any of it. Should we just assume that they’re lying to win votes? How is the electorate expected to react to that sort of cynicism?
Yes the Ireland thing is a simplification. However it is also true. Yes there are other factors at work, however I think we can safely say that the benefits that ROI got from the Euro beanfast wouldn’t have gone as far if they didn’t deliberately set out a fiscally conservative agenda.
I am also at the point of dispair with Howard. Blair’s government is an open goal and he keeps missing it.
It should be reasonably easy to come up with a conservative agenda that covers most bases:
Students should pay tuition fees. It’s an investment - let them pay for it.
Let people buy RSL stock - use the money to build new RSL housing thereby creating a whole new raft of homeowners
Get the governement out of the bedroom - let gays have their partnerships - why should anyone else give a toss.
Spend what is required on the Forces
Promise to cut 30% of the public payroll.
Double the number of police
Tell Europe to fuck right off.
Be honest about immigration - we need immigrants - stop criminalising them. However also insist that immigrants integrate and learn the language.
Let people smoke
Let people annoy foxes
Let people discover just how fast you can lose money in a casino.
Get rid of employers NI (a particular bugbear of mine)
One of those policies seems to be at odds with the other two. Especially when vague promises about tax cuts are thrown in. The old mantra of cutting waste in beaurocracy is a panacea that will always be trotted out and will always fail to deliver. I would trust a party far more if it was specific about which services it plans to cut and why.
The Liberals have at least been up front as to where they will get the money for their proposed agenda: raising taxes. The conservatives need a similar clear fiscal policy if they wish to regain trust that they will not be destroying public services to pay for their policies. Or if that is their policy, they should explain how it will benefit us.
Happily so, and recently a diversionary amendment by some twonk in the Lords was rejected, so it looks like plain sailing from here on in. Interesting to see that the spoiling tactic was the “what about cohabiting family members” canard so regularly trotted out in the gay marriage debate in the US. I do find it weird, though, that there’s been little public debate on it. Given the lack of opposition to the civil partnerships, you’d think full marriage rights wouldn’t have been hard to pass. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be much fuss coming from the gay community about the distinction between the partnerships and full marriage. It’s strange how differently it’s proceeding in comparison to the States.
I’m not even convinced Ireland has followed what you would consider to be conservative fiscal policies. One former Taoiseach certainly disagrees with you (quote from a subscription only Economist article):
here’s a right wing take on the Irish “miracle” (it’s from the speccie which is a registration site if you want to see all of it - but this gives a flavour)
>>>>>>>
And if any individual can claim to be the progenitor of the mythical Celtic tiger, it is Mr McCreevy, who went against the advice of his departmental mandarins and proved that cutting corporation tax would actually increase the yield for the exchequer.
The Republic of Ireland has a corporation tax rate of 12.5 per cent; it is 30 per cent in the UK. The Industrial Development Authority (IDA), Ireland’s job-creating agency, says that the tax regime is not the most important factor in persuading multinational companies to invest — a flexible, young, well-educated, English-speaking workforce is the number one lure — but a low corporation tax comes a close second. The IDA says that a stable political environment, where the mainstream Fine Gael and Labour parties support the current coalition government’s corporation tax policy, is the third reason they believe Ireland has attracted so many foreign companies. The Green party, Sinn Fein, and other adolescent and ancient socialists have suggested increasing corporation tax, but few take them seriously and they are unlikely in the foreseeable future to be in a position to influence taxation policy.
Some 20 per cent of the multinational companies seeking to set up shop in Europe come to Ireland. Software, pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of health-care products, the service industries that now provide many more high-paying jobs than manufacturing, have been streaming into Ireland over the past 15 years. The IDA also says it has been streamlining its approach to cut out the bureaucracy that has hampered the UK and other older, larger countries in attracting the multinationals.>>>>>>
Well done the Paddies!
That is precisely the sort of detail that is needed from the Conservatives and is currently lacking. To generate say £10billion, you need to identify about a 1/2 million jobs for elimination (ignoring the associated cost of an extra 1/2 million people on social security). Then you can have a debate about the value of those jobs, or lack thereof.
Right, but the corporation tax is about it as far as fiscal conservatism goes. Personal tax rates hit 42% above earnings of about £20k for singles, £25k for a married couple - significantly higher than in the UK. They have a 10% employers’ NI equivalent, and a similar employees’ rate. VAT hits 21% at the top rate.
If you still want to argue that that’s conservatism, fine, but it’s a pretty odd kind. If anything, one could argue that Ireland have invested their EU handouts wisely by lowering the specific tax conducive to attracting business, while maintaining the other trappings of a socialist fiscal policy. If nothing else, the above figures quite comprehensively prove that to state that Ireland is “conservative” and the UK “socialist” is absurd, particularly when one considers that Blair’s Labour are hardly the unreconstructed socialists you make out. I also think that at a time when the UK is fairly comfortably outperforming most of the comparable European economies, to say that we’re “fucked up” is a little bit of a stretch.
Well, be fair - they can hardly be expected to publish a list of 500,000 specific jobs that they’d cut. It’d be a waste of effort at this point in the electoral cycle, and wouldn’t exactly make for a snappy soundbite. There wasn’t a public debate on the value of those specific jobs when they were created; why the difference in scrutiny?
The Government could save piles of money with just a few simple steps. All Tony has to do is:
Stop rearranging the entire civil service every two years. The government is not your living room. Restructuring costs a lot of money, wastes a lot of time, and rarely accomplishes anything.
Stop hiring so many consultants. Departments that do cut jobs often turn around and hire lots of consultants to fill the gaps at many times the rate of the lost employees. And of course every restructuring requires an army of consultants as well. Bring them in-house if you must, which would at least allow costs to be controlled, but stop thinking they’re good value for money.
Stop changing your mind about what you want. The amount of work wasted when I was at the SRA because the Government blew hot and cold about various ideas was mindblowing. If you want proper long-term planning, you have to stick to it for the long term.
Stop using devolution as an accounting trick. Shuffling costs off to Scotland and Wales does not actually save money, it just records the costs in a different column.
Portcullis House. WTF were you people thinking? This is not fiscal responsibility. Don’t do it again.
And that all applies to the Conservatives as well.
You’re assuming that the average cost of these posts is around £20,000. Bear in mind a public sector job that pays £20,000 actually costs more like £30-35,000 (pensions Employers NI, sickies etc). so the actual number is lower to get to the same effect - also a lot of the posts I would remove are the ones that simply take in one another’s washing - ie middle managers.
Whatever political stripe you may be, you would surely accept that there is some room for savings here - we may not agree on the level, but surely you don’t think that EVERY public sector worker is indispensible? It’s not a panacea - but it’s a start.
Also I would have tax incentives to encourage people to use private schools and hospitals (and possibly even social security). This would also reduce the burden on the state - and probably improve most people’s lot. (I for one am fed up paying twice for and education system my kids don’t use).
