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On Wed 6 Jun at 3:33pm Southover Queen wrote:
Forgive me for nothing that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more and the poor will work harder if we give them less.
E. J. Dionne Jr.
Discuss.
(Biographical note: Dionne is s an American journalist and political commentator, and a long-time op-ed columnist for The Washington Post. He is also a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown Public Policy Institute, a Senior Research Fellow at Saint Anselm College, and an NPR Commentator.)
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On Wed 6 Jun at 3:45pm Pete wrote:
...haven't we been here before SQ ?
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On Wed 6 Jun at 3:54pm Southover Queen wrote:
Oh, countless times Pete! I just thought it was a pleasingly pithy summary.
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On Wed 6 Jun at 3:55pm Southover Queen wrote:
Obviously it should be "noting" not "nothing". Doh.
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On Wed 6 Jun at 7:07pm C wrote:
SQ - I think you might enjoy reading "the spirit level"
I always laugh at the "taxation stifles growth and innovation" argument that conservatives use. They'd be hard pressed to argue that the marginal tax rates in the 1960s stifled growth. The problem with baby-boomers is they want it both ways. Their parents paid into a more progressive tax system so they could have a more progressive social system and now they do not want to return the favour in kind. sigh.
Check it out here »
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On Wed 6 Jun at 8:13pm Morrigan wrote:
Rich industrialisits threaten to withdraw their labour by leaving the country and we desperately need their skills. The poorly paid threaten to withdraw their labour by going on strike and they are irresponsibly holding the country to ransom.
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On Thu 7 Jun at 12:47am AYATOLLAH HOGMANNY wrote:
Bring back Thatcher, men have no idea how to run a budget. She dragged this country kicking and screaming by its balls from being the sick man of Europe to being the world class economy we had before Blair etc got hold of it and run it into the ground again. Now we have to start from scratch with nothing not even our gold reserves which Blair sold to his mates at bargain prices, now look where they are, who is making money here and who gives a monkeys now hes sunning himself in Sharm el Shiek, Egypt!!!!!!
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On Thu 7 Jun at 1:53am Expat two wrote:
Sorry to break it to you but that's factually incorrect. Thatcher was only fortunate to be in power throughout the years the world economy mushroomed. Britain's gdp ranking actually fell during her tenure, and dropped even further with Major. But I like your criticism of Blair, he really is/was a nasty little Thatcherite quisling.
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On Thu 7 Jun at 8:26am Pete wrote:
Yeah, and she stopped our milk !!
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On Thu 7 Jun at 8:33am Southover Queen wrote:
Ah yes, Thatcher. Thatcher, whose premiership was notable for many things, and a very important part of that was - as a previous Conservative PM said of her in the House of Lords - selling off the family silver. She also presided over our fossil fuels boom, previous little of which was invested in the country but was instead given away as tax breaks.
Take away North Sea oil and gas and prevent the sale of our utilities and you'd remember a very different regime indeed. Instead what we had was unfettered greed wrapped up in a cloak of "free enterprise" - I'm all right Jack and the devil take the hindmost. He did and the children of those disenfranchised by Thatcher now form the unemployable underclass of this country. Thanks very much.
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On Thu 7 Jun at 8:45am Sceptic wrote:
I Could not have put it better myself. Bravo!
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On Thu 7 Jun at 11:10am It's Called Democracy wrote:
Terrible women, won three straight general elections, what were the people of this country thinking?
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On Thu 7 Jun at 11:58am Clifford wrote:
It's Called Democracy - obviously the 43.9%, 42.4% and 42.4% who voted Tory in the 1979, 1983 and 1987 elections weren't thinking.
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On Thu 7 Jun at 12:32pm Southover Queen wrote:
Tony Blair won three straight general elections too: your point is what, exactly?
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On Thu 7 Jun at 3:00pm Sussex Jim wrote:
Most of the school milk got poured down the drain, as most kids would not drink it. That's why the Education Minister (Margaret Thatcher) abolished it.
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On Thu 7 Jun at 3:25pm Short on words wrote:
Balderdash
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On Thu 7 Jun at 8:05pm bastian wrote:
rubbish, I remember teachers standing over you making you drink it and getting scratches on the roof of your mouth off those wax coated straws. We drank it all.
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On Thu 7 Jun at 11:41pm Local wrote:
If Thatcher sold off the family silver, the one-eyed Jock incompetent obviously gave away the family gold then!
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On Fri 8 Jun at 12:24am Expat two wrote:
So you hate capitalist greed too then Local? Not that I'm sure of what national treasures he sold off to his friends, but I'm sure he would have were there any left. Help me here.
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On Fri 8 Jun at 12:52am Local wrote:
One of his typically poor decisions - selling the UK's reserves of gold at the very very bottom of the market.
But there were also plenty of privatisations under Labour - Air Traffic Control, etc etc
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On Fri 8 Jun at 1:11am expat two wrote:
Ah, I see what Local did there now.
I reckon most of the decisions made by either of the conservative parties in the last 3 or 4 decades were pretty poor.