Ed Miliband pitches for social responsibility

Cuffleyburgers

The speciousness of this idiotic argument is shown up rather well by the fact that the first thing milliband refers to is market towns - how the heck are they supposed to have evolved if not via... er... market forces?

And the idea that intervention from central government is required is quite absurd - planning permission including for strip joints and casinos should be granted at a local level - provided there is adequate transparency and suitable procedures for local scrutiny and public discussion that will always be a superior solution to having things decided by some socialist halfwit in whitehall.

ANyway, what's wrong with casinos and strip clubs? More interesting than charity shops or estate agents!

boulay

so social democratic politics means the government deciding what shops can and cannot exist??

Perhaps the people of the south will be thrilled to have high steers consisting of left wing bookshops, fair trade organic coffeehouse and food halls only selling approved foods?

Same old labour nanny state - take away the democratic from "social democratic"and add "ism"

Captain Christy

It was the cretin Brown who was the driving force behind allowing these places to open (particularly betting shops - and the gaming machines inside). For every pound gross profit, he took 10p tax. He would have taxed his Mother if he could.

Marcher Baron

This is a bit rich! A complaint about gambling and late night drinking from a man who was sitting on the government side of the House when that government deregulated both the licensing laws and gambling!

TrevorsDen

Absurd comments by Ed M. And he is the sane one!
It just shows how impossible it is for Labour to detach themselves from their baggage and face up to what real people want.
Labour have been in power for 13 years; if our town centres have changed in that time - well it was on their watch.

Labour of course continue to misrepresent 'free market' conservatism. Implying it is a 'free-for-all'.
Rubbish.
Markets, where and what ever they are, are regulated. It is of course the massive failure of Browns regulation regime which gave us the financial crisis and the deficit.

David Lindsay

There cannot be a “free” market generally but not in alcohol, gambling, drugs, prostitution or pornography. There cannot be unrestricted global movement of goods, services or capital but not of labour. The economic decadence of the 1980s is no more acceptable that the social decadence of the 1960s.

So, Cuffleyburgers, you can be a conservative, or you can be a capitalist, but your cannot be both. Ed Miliband is not really either. But he is far closer to the former than to the latter. No Party Leader has been since John Smith.

TrevorsDen

Lindsey - you talk gibberish.

most drugs are illegal so ypour argument falls flat.

All enterprises operate within the law, you cannot sell drink or tobacco to under age people - you cannot smoke indoors and you cannot drink (very often) outside.

Businesses operate within laWS AND PLANNING LAWS.

TrevorsDen

Lindsey - you talk gibberish.

Most 'drugs' are illegal so your argument falls flat.

All enterprises operate within the law, you cannot sell drink or tobacco to under age people - you cannot smoke indoors and you cannot drink (very often) outside.

Businesses operate within laws and regulations. Capitalism is not a free-for all and 'Conservsatism' is not regressive.

As ever with lefties, indeed as with Ed M's silly diatribe, you set up a bogus aunt sally to then knock down.

local local

So who set the planning policies that allowed the creation of these ghettoes of iniquity? Who pushed the development of endless swathes of one and two bedroom flats?

Oh, I remember now - the L A B O U R Party.

John Prescott's legacy - a discarded condom and a pool of vomit!

yank

When he was first elected, Obama's verbal diarrhea got the better of him, and he let slip that Las Vegas was evil and should be shunned.

Well.

He was quickly disavowed of that notion, to say no more. I'd submit that this was the first crack in his messianic facade, although historians would have to confirm.

I'd say Mr. Miliband's statement is a death rattle. If this is the best he's got, he's cooked.

Yow Min Lye

After having foisted upon us thirteen years of the greatest mass immigration that this country has ever seen I would have thought that Labour ex-ministers are the last people who should be moaning about "how our towns have changed".

David Lindsay

TrevorsDen, in a "free" market, drugs would not be illegal. As the most ardent proponents of that system would be the first to tell you. That is a very good example of why there must not be such a system.

Read over most of the comments here, including your own, and ask yourself, "conservative? conservative of what, exactly?"

Beer Moth

Yow Min Lye

You beat me to it.

David Bouvier

Are the Lindsay stream-of-conscious school of political economy by rant.

Can we have a generally free markets while products are banned - "Yes We Can!"

Can we have free movement of capital and goods without free movement of labour - "Yes We Can!"

(Free movement of services and of labour obviously have some interconnection)

As for the rest of your weird post, I struggle to get past the premises.

David Lindsay

Yes, David Bouvier, I expect that you do.

Simon Mennie

Hmmm...truly beyond parody.Thus according to Wristband Minor's latest insight Brown.Balls,Prescott et al were in actual fact imposters,in reality agents of a ruthless freemarket conservatism which has defaced Southern England's town centres with 24 hour drinking warehouses,betting shops and seedy nightclubs.

He was a minister when much of this happened did he not notice at the time that something was maybe amiss?Mind you John Prescott was very convincing as the bloody minded tell- it- how- it- is conscience of the party.How on earth did he learn to mangle syntax in that inimitable man of the people fashion? He certainly had me fooled for 13 years.

Along with the other front runner contenders for the job of captain of the beached hulk that is the labour party,Miliband junior may not appear as much an accomplice after the fact as his elder sibling or Balls,Brown's sorcerer's apprentice and now disinherited heir apparent,but he will have to do much better than this.A good start would be to discard the obstinate look of childish disbelief that Nulab has lost its divine right to rule.

Fergus Pickering

Betting shops? Well, I'm no judge, but if I were you, Ed Millipede, I wouldn't attack betting shops. Or is it only SOUTHERN betting shops that are anathema. Gradely NORTHERN etting shops are OK. Oh, one thing. Have you, Ed my love, ever been INTO a betting shop? Have you ever placed a bet? Go on. Go out and do it now. There.That wasn't so hard, was it? And what odds did you get on yourself?

Alan Douglas

My market town is dominated by shoe shops, building socs/banks, and charity shops. There are 2 nightclubs and perhaps 3 betting shops, but dominated ? Sure, by the charity shops - don't suppose that had anyothing to do with 13 years of superb financial leadership by Ed's party, does it ?

Alan Douglas

libertarian

Dear Ed,

As a member of a market town economic development committee perhaps you would like to tell us what part of the free market bought this situation about.

I guess it wasn't Labours central planning restrictions ordering cars and parking to be removed from Town centre? Or the destruction of retail space to be converted into starter flats ( the majority of which in my town are still empty) or Labours huge rise in business rates whilst cutting services to business.

Osred

'our communities'? Who is this 'our'?. I thought the great Labour imposed multicultural morass (btw hello Fraser and Neathergate) was meant to eradicate any sense of 'our'. Does he mean Government Engineered Communities?