Does the Guardian know..?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on March 25, 2014 at 10:52

I thought I was getting an honourable mention there Liz...

Permalink Reply by matt on March 25, 2014 at 12:15

Wot! Just(in) - a -tory said this (according to the Guardian)!;

And the prize for building this new approach into something the party can use goes to Justin Hinchcliffe, the irrepressible leader of the Tottenham Tories and long a source of radical new ideas. A tireless organiser now, but aged 14 he was the most famous Young Conservative in the country. Master Hinchcliffe damned his local hospital for being "full of geriatrics who waste the taxpayers' money". He urged the poor to eat fish from the Thames.

Well, he was only 14 poor lad.  

Permalink Reply by DavidAllen on March 25, 2014 at 12:27

WRT what Justin may have said at age 14: Guardian diarists and bloggers simply rehash the quotes from previous Guardian diary entries. I suggest they/you go back to contemporaneous reports and search for evidence of this bogus quote. I do recall a reference to "bed-blocking" ; admittedly a controversial term even then, but very widely used to refer to the fact that many hospital beds were occupied by elderly people who no longer needed hospital care but could not be discharged to their own homes because of a lack of district nurse provision/social care.

Permalink Reply by DavidAllen on March 25, 2014 at 12:13

Good grief!  The font, I believe, is garamond, which is not trademarked by anyone. No sensible person could possibly be confused by this into thinking it is the Guardian newspaper. There is clearly no intent to pass anything off. I suspect what you really object to is the fact that Conservatives have the gall to organise and publicise in your Labour one-party state of Haringey. The sooner we get local government reorganisation in London, with larger boroughs that no single party can dominate, (and preferably with a bit of genuine PR thrown in, like for GLA elections) the better. 

Permalink Reply by pamish on March 25, 2014 at 12:39

PR or PR? 

Permalink Reply by DavidAllen on March 25, 2014 at 13:03

Proportional representation (definitely not the monstrosity of transferable votes, which is just a LibDem racket!).  In London it could work like this: keep 'first past the post' for 2 seats in each current 3-seat ward, thus leaving everyone with a couple of very local councillors. But have one third of the seats allocated to parties to try and smooth out any lack of proportionality. It prevents 'one party states' arising and ensures that, in almost every borough you will have a large enough number of  opposition councillors to hold the ruling party to account. It would be good for Labour in place like Kensington and Chelsea, good for the Conservatives in places like Haringey--and good for the Greens everywhere. Best of all it would KILL tactical voting because there would always be an incentive to vote for the party you REALLY wanted.

Permalink Reply by Domshaw on March 25, 2014 at 12:49

Not being a Labour supporter, that isn't the reason, no. I just wondered if it isn't an attempt to ape the Grauniad, why they bothered at all...

Permalink Reply by DavidAllen on March 25, 2014 at 12:54

I think it's called "poking gentle fun"--which is much under-rated these days! :-)

Permalink Reply by maggie on March 25, 2014 at 13:21

"poking gentle fun" isn't something I would associate the Conservative Party with however scrapping Education Maintenance Allowance, increasing tuition fees, introducing the Bedroom Tax, attacking and privatising the NHS, increasing the gap between the rich and poor..., these are things I'd associate the Tories with. I forgot the beer and bingo!

Permalink Reply by DavidAllen on March 25, 2014 at 13:41

1) Scrapping the EMA?  In what other country in the world do children need to be BRIBED to go to school to receive a free education? 

2) Increasing tuition fees? I don't think you will find Labour promising to scrap or reduce them. And they were only introduced in the first place because of a demented insistence on putting so many young people thru college that (for many) there ceased to be any economic benefit in having a degree. 

3) Bedroom Tax? Why should poor people in council houses receive a greater subsidy than poor people in housing benefit-funded private accomodation? Council housing needs to be rationally allocated, and this helps thta.

4) "attacking and privatising the NHS" : you are just sledging now. But let's remember it is called the NATIONAL health service, not the NATIONALISED health service. Stalinists are more interested in the maintenance of a vast state-owned bureaucracy, property empire and unionised workforce than in patient care. What matters is improving patient care. If that can be done better by a private organisation, then so be it. The NHS is not helped by secular socialists for whom it has become a substitute religion.

5) "Increasing the gap between rich and poor": I haven't the slightest interest in that gap, nor should anyone who isn't consumed with envy of others. --what does interest me is having  a government that is prepared to spend money on alleviating genuine material poverty in the world--and it is not in Britain. The relativist definitions of child poverty peddled by the Rowntree Foundation and the BBC are an insult to the truly poor of the world, and simply a figleaf for massive redistributive taxation.

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on March 25, 2014 at 14:02

I'll leave two, three and four for others but EMA is a bit of a favourite of mine. I am bribed to attend work using what is called a salary. EMA was a small amount of money (£590 million nationally a year) that slotted in nicely between "doing things to please your parents" and "doing things for money". The money went back into the local economy, it was means tested, it was administered by school teachers who seemed very happy about it and IT WORKED!

Where do you think middle class kids get the money to buy drugs from? Do you think that their parents just give them that for nothing? No, it's for doing work around the house and fulfilling their obligations with regard to their education.

I had an essay in stage one Philosophy at University downgraded from an A+ to an A for using the same argument you have used against EMA. Just saying.

Permalink Reply by Angela on March 25, 2014 at 19:16

I thought the EMA was aimed at lower/middle income families? (eg, the higher level of £30 p/w for families with an income of less than £20k with an upper limit of £10 with an income of less than £30k)

Do you know why it has been withdrawn in England and why the school leaving age is higher in England than for example in Scotland?

I agree wlth you wrt how families with a disabled or vulnerable child or adult have been treated, absolutely outrageous.

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