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[DodgyAgent]

If Socialism causes crime why has it risen recently? We have the least Socialist government for ages - it's Thatcherism lite - and crime rose under Thatcher - hardly a Socialist?

Ask yourself a question. Who runs the public services? There are a lot of vested interests in maintaining an underclass.
Do you really think that the underclass is a serious enough problem for the govt to want deal with it?

Also the underclass problem (and it is these people who commit the majority of crime) has been painted as impossible to solve (which it isnt).

Ask yourself:

1. How do political parties justify raising of taxes? By helping the poor of course.
2. What would happen if there were no poor. That everyone had a good education, played sport, did music, and that no one needed the state for anything?

Answer.. A lot of people with a lot of power would be out of a job

Polly Toynbee wrote a book about low wage Britain which "revealed how awful life was for people earning the minimum wage". Her conclusion.. more taxes from the rich to be spent by the govt to help the poor.

Well If I were on £6.00 per hour and I had decent low cost housing, lived in an area with no crime and could send my kids to a really good school. £6.00 per hour would be very nice thank you.

The problem with the £6.00 per hour is not the money itself but what goes with it from having to live in an area of deprivation to sending kids to a violent school. But if there were no poor there would be no Polly Toynbee which is why she never questions the public services.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Ask yourself a question. Who runs the public services? There are a lot of vested interests in maintaining an underclass.
Do you really think that the underclass is a serious enough problem for the govt to want deal with it?

Also the underclass problem (and it is these people who commit the majority of crime) has been painted as impossible to solve (which it isnt).

Ask yourself:

1. How do political parties justify raising of taxes? By helping the poor of course.
2. What would happen if there were no poor. That everyone had a good education, played sport, did music, and that no one needed the state for anything?

Answer.. A lot of people with a lot of power would be out of a job

Polly Toynbee wrote a book about low wage Britain which "revealed how awful life was for people earning the minimum wage". Her conclusion.. more taxes from the rich to be spent by the govt to help the poor.

Well If I were on £6.00 per hour and I had decent low cost housing, lived in an area with no crime and could send my kids to a really good school. £6.00 per hour would be very nice thank you.

The problem with the £6.00 per hour is not the money itself but what goes with it from having to live in an area of deprivation to sending kids to a violent school. But if there were no poor there would be no Polly Toynbee which is why she never questions the public services.

DA You make some good points, but you're allowing dogma to cloud your judgement. Your great heroine of the free market created many of the QUANGOs we so despise today and actually increased public spending. I totally agree that public servants have a vested interest in perpetuating and even creating problems (some of which don't even exist - ID cards for example), but then you go an spoil it all by repeating that daft old claim that all public servants vote Labour - this is manifestly untrue. At least you are recognising that the current Tories aren't radical enough to make the real changes required; where we part company is with you choosing to blame only Labour. They are guilty, but no more so than previous Tory administrations.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Oh, and this just in, taxes aren't just spent on poor people. Rich people use roads, hospitals, schools and even railways. Rich people get their bins emptied, rely on the Police and Fire services, just like poor people do.

[Rantor]

. In actual fact your so called "socialist" credentials do nothing more than sustain an evil and destructive system that regularly churns out angry knife wielding young men and young women.

Not a bad VI polemic, though nicking the last bit from Julie Burchill (or is it Melanie Phillips) is a bit of bum note to end on. You've only let yourself down

Are there an examples where you're policies have been tried out? Some of them sound like the paternalistic euro-socialism model and that makes you a statist agent provocateur.

Bloody maoists

[DodgyAgent]

DA You make some good points, but you're allowing dogma to cloud your judgement. Your great heroine of the free market created many of the QUANGOs we so despise today and actually increased public spending. I totally agree that public servants have a vested interest in perpetuating and even creating problems (some of which don't even exist - ID cards for example), but then you go an spoil it all by repeating that daft old claim that all public servants vote Labour - this is manifestly untrue. At least you are recognising that the current Tories aren't radical enough to make the real changes required; where we part company is with you choosing to blame only Labour. They are guilty, but no more so than previous Tory administrations.

My points are not attached to any mainstream political ideology. They are certainly not attribted to anything to do with Thatcher, other than to say that it was she who showed us what individualism and economic freedom meant in terms of creating wealth and empowering the consumer. Her best policy would have been to press ahead with keith Joseph's ideas about giving consumers choice (via a voucher system) over in particular education.

I will accept that not all public srvants are labour voters, but I do suspect that the vast majority are. What I will say that apolitically there are too many people with too much to lose by the public sector being transformed into a service dictated by consumer choice.

[DodgyAgent]

Not a bad VI polemic, though nicking the last bit from Julie Burchill (or is it Melanie Phillips) is a bit of bum note to end on. You've only let yourself down

Are there an examples where you're policies have been tried out? Some of them sound like the paternalistic euro-socialism model and that makes you a statist agent provocateur.

Bloody maoists

I did not crib these from Melanie Phillips (of who I am an admirer ) or Julie Burchill. But I will say two things:

1. That it is not Grammar school/public school teenagers who are killing people and

2. That children are not born killers they are made into killers by their upbringing.

There is no reason why all children cannot be educated at an Eton/Manchester grammar school environment. If the parents/family is dysfunctional then send them to eton.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

.....it was she who showed us what individualism and economic freedom meant in terms of creating wealth and empowering the consumer. ...



I will accept that not all public srvants are labour voters, but I do suspect that the vast majority are. What I will say that apolitically there are too many people with too much to lose by the public sector being transformed into a service dictated by consumer choice.

Isn't stabbing someone who has annoyed/upset you the ultimate in individualism?

I can't quarrel with your last sentence - since you are so determined that a majority of Public Sector workers vote Labour, let's see the evidence.

[DodgyAgent]

Isn't stabbing someone who has annoyed/upset you the ultimate in individualism?

I can't quarrel with your last sentence - since you are so determined that a majority of Public Sector workers vote Labour, let's see the evidence.

Individualism is also collectivism whereby people form groups or associations for the individual's benefit as a collective. If I am a hard nosed ruthless self serving businessman then I cannot complain if I have no friends.

We are all big people we dont need the state to group us into collectives. We can form our own

What I object to is imposed collectivism (sorry but we are not all equal), or lowest common denominator politics (my child gets a s**te education so everyone else's child will too)

Anyway stabbing someone is illegal. And guess what people get stabbed just as much within socialist collectives as anywhere else.

[Cyberman]

Yes indeed, go and look at that most capatalist of societies - the USA, where welfare is pretty minimal and you'll see no knife crime. No siree bob. They're all too busy shooting each other. Which is clearly the fault of the socialists. Of course

There is no one reason for this increase in knife crime, and no political party to blame. It's a complex issue, with complex causes and probably needs some difficult, and tough, solution. The simplixtic nature of some the cause and efects sweeping statements on this thread are truly staggeringly blinkered.

Stuff the reasons!! Let's have some proper law and order and lock these people up for six months for carrying knives, instead of giving useless cautions.
Those that kill should suffer the death penalty by lethal injection, as they are absolutely no use whatsoever to a civilised society, and this may actually create a deterrent effect, and reduce crime. They certainly would not get the chance to kill anybody else.
New Lie have been far too soft, with the average murderer serving 6 years, and have also damaged social cohesion with their policy of unfettered immigration.

[DodgyAgent]

Stuff the reasons!! Let's have some proper law and order and lock these people up for six months for carrying knives, instead of giving useless cautions.
Those that kill should suffer the death penalty by lethal injection, as they are absolutely no use whatsoever to a civilised society, and this may actually create a deterrent effect, and reduce crime. They certainly would not get the chance to kill anybody else.
New Lie have been far too soft, with the average murderer serving 6 years, and have also damaged social cohesion with their policy of unfettered immigration.

Spoken like a true clueless Tory "lets hang em" idiot