Forward to the past with post-Blairism

Roy

What a missed opportunity Britain has had if only the Conservatives could have brought into being a new thrust to this fine country, now dwindling into mindlessness. What a pity the blinkers have been firmly set. Nothing left but to fight over the small print in a repetitiously squabbling, narrow shrunken scope of ideas. The only Party of fresh thinking standing for Queen and country, fighting for its life in the courts. Unable to present its case. A case were even the judge seems obliged to keep moving the goal posts. A case were costs are sprung on to the defendant. The Crown with unlimited funds sees itself justified in drowning free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of association. Is there not a morsel of common sense left?

Kiwi

Or as Sir Winston Churchill once observed, "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
Succinct.

rudolph camillo

melanie, it is communism by another name. in australia we had an mp who called socialism "creeping communism".

elixelx

I recently moved into my brand new £1million home...imagine my chagrin (we poor people suffer "chagrin" rather than "heart-ache"!) when I discovered that my next-door neighbour's house cost £2million...and that he was on welfare!
Realtyve poverty indeed!
Walt Rostow, call home!
Mr. Purnell, sort out my neighbour!

just Louise

In view of a current news report that a (hijabed) single mother of many children is raking in £100,000 in welfare benefits and lives in a £2million house so thoughtfully provided for her I think it's high time something was done for the common-or-garden rest of us, clearly the true disadvantaged.

W. Smith

"‘Child poverty’ is merely an emotionally manipulative way of talking about poverty."

Perfectly put. The term never fails to conjure up images of half-naked, chronically malnourished African children with flies clustering around their eyes. The problem in Britain is not poverty but the combination of immorality, state-fostered irresponsibility and the squalid lifestyles that inevitably arise therefrom.

"Since ‘absolute’ poverty, or destitution, no longer exists under the welfare state, ‘poverty’ is defined as ‘relative’. Since poverty is relative, it is impossible to abolish it since it will always exist relative to other income levels."

Oh, but they are trying: what was it that Lenin said? “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” The former is the one people tend to focus on, but the recent £200 billion of "quantitative easing" would have pleased Lenin no end. The West's monetary systems may be popular with credit-hungry consumers and capitalists, but in the long term they favour the communists (and of course, favour bankers at all times). Both Marxists and those infamous "fat cats" behind the banks (and no, I'm not talking about some global Jewish banking conspiracy) have a shared interest in the printing of money.

When our currency collapses (the ultimate destiny of all pretend money, once the confidence it floats precariously upon evaporates), the pound will be replaced by something else (à la Weimar Republic) and we'll all start again money-wise from pretty much zero (a favoured option of Leftists the world over).

The government could then issue a totally new pretend currency, and dole out what it thinks each person should have, in order to make us completely equal --- thus eliminating "relative poverty" at a stroke. A socialist's dream! perfect equality for all!

EDDIE

Forward to a Trabant society?

Danko

Melanie, despite being a Tory I do not always agree with your views, however you have hit the nail on the head here. Labour have spent the past 15 years telling everyone about Child Poverty and, as you say, it is enormously misleading.

Poverty does exist in Britain, but nowhere to the same extent that it does in Zimbabwe or Uganda. Frankly, I find it offensive that politicians, of any ilk, should use this term as it is totally misunderstood by the public (thanks to Labour). British society has a problem with just that, society. We have malcontents who refuse to work, we have children who run wild and we have drunks who are paid to drink by the state. What we do not have is mass poverty and starvation of our population; for the Left wingers among us, please see U.N. reports on Uganda, Rwanda, India, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, China and Burma for a point of reference as to what poverty actually looks like. Before you bite back, ask yourself this question; when was the last time you saw a Child in Bradford or Cardiff or Aberdeen eating the stomach lining of a cow butchered three weeks previously to stay alive, or boiling the skin of a horse to try and make a broth to feed their baby siblings after both mum and dad had died of aids?

gareth

thanks Kiwi

Simon

"Yup, that should go down a right treat with Middle Britain"

You sound resigned to our fate and I don't blame you. We are a dying nation that has been in decline for a while now, but the process has been sped up in the last 12 years by this hideous government

Chris Wood

Two errors here I'm afraid - One of the measures of child poverty used by the Government is in fact an absolute measure, because of course it would make no sense to try to get rid of 'relative' poverty.

Also, there are different types of equality as I'm sure you well know - Purnell was not arguing for equality of outcome or stopping people becoming active. Indeed the main thread of his argument has been about empowerment.

Augustus

While the hard Marxists of the Soviet Union, with their intercontinental nuclear missiles, may have been buried in the dustbin of history, the soft Marxists who talk about tolerance may seem less threatening, but their goal of overthrowing the evil capitalist
West remains the same. These progressive ideologues have taken up the baton from the Cold War and champion the rule of undemocratic enlightened
'experts' over the ignorant masses who are too stupid to make important decisions without supervision. It is nothing less than a frontal attack on all basic principles of freedom and democracy, but disguised under a benevolent facade. Where it becomes particularly dangerous is when it takes on an unelected and unaccountable make-up, such as in the EU. Such organizations, which often conduct their affairs in elite groups and out of the public view, are an increasingly unacceptable throwback to the pre-democratic
age.