Politics

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else, and is NON CH related - chat about the weather, or anything else that takes your fancy.

Moderator: Moderators

rockfreak
Grecian
Posts: 972
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2014 8:31 pm
Real Name: David Redshaw
Location: Saltdean, East Sussex

Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

Thanks for your support Ann. I think we war babies and baby boomers are perhaps more aware than some that it wasn't just the good education that we were privileged to get from Christ's Hospital, it was also the building blocks put in place by the 1945 Labour government that built a better society - welfare state, NHS, slum clearances, housebuilding, and expansion of grammar schools and the redbrick universities. Perhaps younger people aren't aware of all this. We saw the gradual erosion of the class system, the breaking through of the glass ceiling, women's rights, workers' rights, gay rights and a general belief that everyone was entitled to a fair shot at life. That all went into reverse with the Friedmanite, neo-liberal Chicago School agenda, imposed here by Thatcher - which is designed to destroy the public realm and to put everyone in hoc to the shareholders of private interests. I'm a bit dismayed by the vitriol from Ed Bell (Avon calling) but also by the lordly, smug, apolitical apathy of ex-senior boys at CH, educated classics scholars perhaps, but maybe uncaring about modern history. I'll swap their Latin quotations for my and your anger any day. Good luck with your protest group and a big kiss. David Redshaw xxx.
rockfreak
Grecian
Posts: 972
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2014 8:31 pm
Real Name: David Redshaw
Location: Saltdean, East Sussex

Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

Let's boot up the Politics thread again. OK folks, what do we make of Steve Hilton, the black sheep of the CH family - or should one say the blue sheep? I submit that he's a classic case of Ayn Rand Syndrome (ARS). Ayn Rand's family were rich in Russia under the Tsars and then clobbered by the Bolsheviks. They fled to America where Ayn overcompensated by embracing the most laissez-faire, winner-takes-all style of capitalism she could think of, which she promoted in her long-winded novels. The theme was that the so-called wealth creators were being hobbled by government and that if they didn't get everything they wanted they would go on strike and the commercial world would collapse. This is nonsense. Atlas has never shrugged. There have always been businessmen, whatever the rules and the tax rates. But the boy Hilto seems to have trodden the same path. Family are refugees from the Soviet system and even Cameron jokingly described him as our Hungarian fascist. This itself is not strictly true since fascism has generally featured more state intervention rather than less. Hilto's real agenda is a shrinking of the state to cartoonish Nigel Farrago style levels. You would have thought that Cameron would have been wary, given Steve's complete cocking up of the attempt by the Sun to stop the Blair bandwagon in early 1997, but no, there he was again, the "blue sky thinker" in No.10, hatching a ploy to present Cameron as compassionate Conservative before winning the election and then ripping off the cloak and baring the slavering fangs of the unreconstructed Thatcherite. Except that Dave didn't quite win the election and it needed the treacherous Lib Dems to help out and get into bed with him. Meanwhile, Hilto flees to California. Is Hilto an example of ARS or is he merely a chancer who would have just as willingly worked for the Daily Mirror and the Labour Party had the money been right? Answers on a postcard please.
By the way, Ayn Rand, the self-reliant frontierswoman, ended her days on welfare and Medicaire.
User avatar
Mid A 15
Button Grecian
Posts: 3172
Joined: Thu May 19, 2005 1:38 pm
Real Name: Claude Rains
Location: The Patio Of England (Kent)

Re: Politics

Post by Mid A 15 »

rockfreak wrote:Let's boot up the Politics thread again. OK folks, what do we make of Steve Hilton, the black sheep of the CH family - or should one say the blue sheep? I submit that he's a classic case of Ayn Rand Syndrome (ARS). Ayn Rand's family were rich in Russia under the Tsars and then clobbered by the Bolsheviks. They fled to America where Ayn overcompensated by embracing the most laissez-faire, winner-takes-all style of capitalism she could think of, which she promoted in her long-winded novels. The theme was that the so-called wealth creators were being hobbled by government and that if they didn't get everything they wanted they would go on strike and the commercial world would collapse. This is nonsense. Atlas has never shrugged. There have always been businessmen, whatever the rules and the tax rates. But the boy Hilto seems to have trodden the same path. Family are refugees from the Soviet system and even Cameron jokingly described him as our Hungarian fascist. This itself is not strictly true since fascism has generally featured more state intervention rather than less. Hilto's real agenda is a shrinking of the state to cartoonish Nigel Farrago style levels. You would have thought that Cameron would have been wary, given Steve's complete cocking up of the attempt by the Sun to stop the Blair bandwagon in early 1997, but no, there he was again, the "blue sky thinker" in No.10, hatching a ploy to present Cameron as compassionate Conservative before winning the election and then ripping off the cloak and baring the slavering fangs of the unreconstructed Thatcherite. Except that Dave didn't quite win the election and it needed the treacherous Lib Dems to help out and get into bed with him. Meanwhile, Hilto flees to California. Is Hilto an example of ARS or is he merely a chancer who would have just as willingly worked for the Daily Mirror and the Labour Party had the money been right? Answers on a postcard please.
By the way, Ayn Rand, the self-reliant frontierswoman, ended her days on welfare and Medicaire.

Steve Hilton was way after my time at CH so I have no personal knowledge of him whatsoever.

However he is apparently a close personal friend of David Cameron so I would surmise that he is in all likelihood an unprincipled chameleon saying whatever is expedient at the time and giving "cast iron" guarantees whilst so doing.
Ma A, Mid A 65 -72
User avatar
Mid A 15
Button Grecian
Posts: 3172
Joined: Thu May 19, 2005 1:38 pm
Real Name: Claude Rains
Location: The Patio Of England (Kent)

Re: Politics

Post by Mid A 15 »

So what about UKIP's performance in the recent European and Local elections?

Much ado about nothing

A well deserved kicking for the LibLabCon

Something else
Ma A, Mid A 65 -72
User avatar
J.R.
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15835
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2005 4:53 pm
Real Name: John Rutley
Location: Dorking, Surrey

Re: Politics

Post by J.R. »

Mid A 15 wrote: So what about UKIP's performance in the recent European and Local elections ?

Much ado about nothing

A well deserved kicking for the LibLabCon

Something else

ABSOLUTELY SUPERB, and about time too !!
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
rockfreak
Grecian
Posts: 972
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2014 8:31 pm
Real Name: David Redshaw
Location: Saltdean, East Sussex

Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

Much as we are unhappy with the main parties, please be a bit careful about Nigel Farrago. An ex-commodities trader, he has his own personal agenda which puts him right out there on the farthermost free market right of the Tory party along with figures like Bill Cash 'n' Carry, Peter Bonehead and Douglas Casi. He doesn't want to see the power of the City diluted by Europe (I imagine the rest of us do), he wants the final slashing of the social chapter ('flexible working laws', etc), a 20% cut in teachers and a 40% upping of the defence budget, a total privatising of the health service, a flat tax rate and smoking in pubs. Oh yes, and one of his henchmen out here in Gravesend advocated the compulsory abortion of all Downs Syndrome babies.
User avatar
Mid A 15
Button Grecian
Posts: 3172
Joined: Thu May 19, 2005 1:38 pm
Real Name: Claude Rains
Location: The Patio Of England (Kent)

Re: Politics

Post by Mid A 15 »

rockfreak wrote:Much as we are unhappy with the main parties, please be a bit careful about Nigel Farrago. An ex-commodities trader, he has his own personal agenda which puts him right out there on the farthermost free market right of the Tory party along with figures like Bill Cash 'n' Carry, Peter Bonehead and Douglas Casi. He doesn't want to see the power of the City diluted by Europe (I imagine the rest of us do), he wants the final slashing of the social chapter ('flexible working laws', etc), a 20% cut in teachers and a 40% upping of the defence budget, a total privatising of the health service, a flat tax rate and smoking in pubs. Oh yes, and one of his henchmen out here in Gravesend advocated the compulsory abortion of all Downs Syndrome babies.
In fairness to UKIP I believe they gave the Gravesend Lunatic the heave-ho pretty promptly....


http://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/n ... re-a57680/
Ma A, Mid A 65 -72
rockfreak
Grecian
Posts: 972
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2014 8:31 pm
Real Name: David Redshaw
Location: Saltdean, East Sussex

Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

If, like me, you're a believer in Scandinavian-style social democracy, then the Greens are your natural home. Unfortunately, Caroline Lucas is not a blokey, beer-swilling, loud-mouthed, bar-room buffoon, so she is not quite such "good copy" as the gurning, white, middle class, middle-aged, paranoid Nige. So coverage of the Green Party has been virtually zilch in our overwhelmingly right-wing press with its overwhelmingly tax-exile proprietors. Nige wants closed borders to immigrants but not closed borders to footloose international capital. Does he not realise that the latter causes the former, since three decades of footloose capital sloshing around the world, weakening state borders and enriching a small cabal of speculators, has caused the vast inequalities that we now see in many countries, not just the EU, and that the consequence is the rich getting richer and the poor in developing countries moving to richer countries in search of work? Or perhaps he does realise it and just doesn't care. Perhaps he's just cynical. As I've outlined already on this thread, Farage is way to the right of anything even Mrs Thatcher proposed. Interestingly, protest parties elsewhere in Europe are successful on the left - Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. And even the FN in France and its ally the Northern League in Italy have cold-shouldered him, Matteo Salvini of the latter saying that Europe needs "less finance and more work", a clear rebuff to the British right's obsession with global finance. What a turn up for the books. Is the EU finally seeing that its problems stem originally from Chicago rather than Brussels? What has all this to do with Old Blues, you ask? Nothing, unless you happen to be worried about the kind of society we're going to be leaving our children and grandchildren, many of whom won't have had a public school education and might in any case like to inherit a planet that we haven't burnt to bits and where you don't have to be an investment banker or a Russian oligarch to feel you have a right to a life.
User avatar
J.R.
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15835
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2005 4:53 pm
Real Name: John Rutley
Location: Dorking, Surrey

Re: Politics

Post by J.R. »

As you say rockfreak, protest parties on both sides of the spectrum have done very well in the European vote.

This can only be a good thing as it will stop the centre bullying through ridiculous acts.

Angela Murky must be spitting teeth, and about time too, in my humble opinion !
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
sejintenej
Button Grecian
Posts: 4092
Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2005 12:19 pm
Real Name: David Brown ColA '52-'61
Location: Essex

Re: Politics

Post by sejintenej »

J.R. wrote:As you say rockfreak, protest parties on both sides of the spectrum have done very well in the European vote.

This can only be a good thing as it will stop the centre bullying through ridiculous acts.

Angela Murky must be spitting teeth, and about time too, in my humble opinion !
Sorry, JR but when you compare the before and after pie charts the centreist parties still have close to two thirds of the EU chamber. What has happened is that the "anti-EU" side has become far far more vocal.
How long before <someone addresses dear angie merkel as "shut up you fat old [insert your own vile epithet]"?
rockfreak
Grecian
Posts: 972
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2014 8:31 pm
Real Name: David Redshaw
Location: Saltdean, East Sussex

Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

Come on Sejintenej, Rome wasn't built in a day. These are the first stirrings of protest from groupings other than the football hooligan tendancy of Golden Dawn and their ilk. The right-wing will always try to find scapegoats - Hitler with the Jews - whereas the left will hit the real target - deregulated global finance. Of course the mainstream parties still hold sway; it would be surprising otherwise given their grip on politics, finance, business, tax havens, etc - to say nothing of their hysterical support, day after day, from the right-wing press. But surely it's fair to say that the advances made by Syriza and Podemos were a bit of a surprise. From small acorns, etc, etc...
sejintenej
Button Grecian
Posts: 4092
Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2005 12:19 pm
Real Name: David Brown ColA '52-'61
Location: Essex

Re: Politics

Post by sejintenej »

rockfreak wrote:Come on Sejintenej, Rome wasn't built in a day. These are the first stirrings of protest from groupings other than the football hooligan tendancy of Golden Dawn and their ilk. The right-wing will always try to find scapegoats - Hitler with the Jews - whereas the left will hit the real target - deregulated global finance. Of course the mainstream parties still hold sway; it would be surprising otherwise given their grip on politics, finance, business, tax havens, etc - to say nothing of their hysterical support, day after day, from the right-wing press. But surely it's fair to say that the advances made by Syriza and Podemos were a bit of a surprise. From small acorns, etc, etc...
Taken to pm; I don't think this is the right forum for extreme political debate.
rockfreak
Grecian
Posts: 972
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2014 8:31 pm
Real Name: David Redshaw
Location: Saltdean, East Sussex

Re: Politics

Post by rockfreak »

I got your incredibly long reply but don't see why it can't be on the Politics site. "Put it on the wall, man" as Bob Dylan would have said back in the 60s. Or create an Extreme Politics thread if you want.
User avatar
Mid A 15
Button Grecian
Posts: 3172
Joined: Thu May 19, 2005 1:38 pm
Real Name: Claude Rains
Location: The Patio Of England (Kent)

Re: Politics

Post by Mid A 15 »

rockfreak wrote:Come on Sejintenej, Rome wasn't built in a day. These are the first stirrings of protest from groupings other than the football hooligan tendancy of Golden Dawn and their ilk. The right-wing will always try to find scapegoats - Hitler with the Jews - whereas the left will hit the real target - deregulated global finance. Of course the mainstream parties still hold sway; it would be surprising otherwise given their grip on politics, finance, business, tax havens, etc - to say nothing of their hysterical support, day after day, from the right-wing press. But surely it's fair to say that the advances made by Syriza and Podemos were a bit of a surprise. From small acorns, etc, etc...
As you have introduced Adolf Hitler into the conversation I'm not sure it is strictly correct to refer to him as right wing given that fascism is actually National Socialism. Therefore he was left wing surely?

Furthermore there is some evidence that Hitler was actually influenced by the Green ideology you recommend in another post.

http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germa ... peter.html

(Ignore the unfortunate title of the link :roll: )
Ma A, Mid A 65 -72
anniexf
Button Grecian
Posts: 1898
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 7:29 pm
Real Name: Ann Wilkinson 8s
Location: England

Re: Politics

Post by anniexf »

rockfreak wrote:I got your incredibly long reply but don't see why it can't be on the Politics site.
Rockfreak, you have my sympathy. I too have experienced such PMs. Best to ignore, I've found.
Carry on, mate - you'll never convert this bunch, but it's such fun to watch them metaphorically turning purple in self-righteous indignation! Pompous old f*rts to a man. And sadly, most of the women. Bye now, :D
Post Reply