ConDem | Lunchtime Legend

rferrett
User
Ralph Ferrett, Male, 32,
Registered : March 11, 2010, 9:35 am
Tracks Played : 18287

I'm Not Your Toy
La Roux
15 hours and 42 minutes ago
Growing Pains
La Roux
15 hours and 45 minutes ago
Colourless Colour
La Roux
15 hours and 49 minutes ago
As If By Magic
La Roux
15 hours and 53 minutes ago
Quicksand
La Roux
15 hours and 56 minutes ago
In For The Kill
La Roux
16 hours and 0 minutes ago
You've Got Maelstrom
Blockhead
16 hours and 5 minutes ago
Road Rage Breakdown
Blockhead
16 hours and 10 minutes ago
Carnivores Unite
Blockhead
16 hours and 15 minutes ago
Triptych Pt.2
Blockhead
16 hours and 18 minutes ago

Housing: Meet the new Tories, same as the Old Tories

David Cameron has clearly put his idea of “de-toxifying” the Tory brand high up in his list of priorities since being elected as the Conservative leader five years ago. Creating his “compassionate conservatism” was supposed to allay the fears the electorate had about the Tories being the “nasty party”.

Now many of us cynical lefties thought this was all a ploy, words (crucially not really backed up with actual policies) by an opportunistic opposition doing whatever it took to try and win power. That Cameron was no Macmillan/Heath style one nation

Continue reading Housing: Meet the new Tories, same as the Old Tories

We are not All in this together

So now the verdict is in, the speculation is over, and we now know in some detail what the ConDem plans are in respect of the financial and economic future of the Country under their stewardship.

And here is what we now know beyond all reasonable doubt, this is a regressive budget, it effects the poor more than the rich, the sick more than the able bodied, the weak more than the strong, women more than men. We are most certainly not “in this together”.

When the Financial Times and the IFS

Continue reading We are not “All in this together”

Some silver linings if the coalition does last.

Having recently blogged about why I think the coalition is most likely going to last the best part of a whole term of Parliament. It is now time for the companion piece about why I am not even sure it would be desirable to bring down the government quickly. On balance, I really want to see the back of the coalition as soon as possible and if they fail quickly, proving my last blog wrong then I would be delighted. But if that doesn’t happen here are a few reasons

Continue reading Some silver linings if the coalition does last.

5 reasons why the Coalition will last.

My recent blog on why I think it is a mistake for the left to be focussing so much on the Liberal Democrats generated some interesting debate, on the blog, on Facebook and on Twitter.

Much of this debate focussed on the need to attack the coalition to try and bring it down as quickly as possible. Now I cant say that this would be anything other than a hot damn good thang! But I feel the need to write a couple of quick blogs about firstly how likely I think

Continue reading 5 reasons why the Coalition will last.

Time to stop wasting time hating the Lib Dems.

A significant trick will have been missed by the left if we focus all or our ire with the coalition on the Liberal Democrats. The sense of almost visceral hatred, at the alleged betrayal is for my money misplaced and is meaning that the left are missing a trick in respect of who the enemy really are.

For my money the Liberal Democrats really didn’t have too much choice after the election given the mathematics of the parliament. There really wasn’t a credible possibility of a workable Lib/Lab coalition and for

Continue reading Time to stop wasting time hating the Lib Dems.

Yes to AV, Yes to Equal Constituencies, but not like this.

I am a long standing and passionate supporter of electoral reform. I feel that our current system of voting is manifestly unfair and skews our public policy agenda in favour of the few and not the many. The alternative vote is far from perfect, it isn’t the system I would chose but it is better than the status quo.

So I was delighted when the Labour promised to back AV in the manifesto. And whilst I was devastated to see the Tories back in power a small crumb of comfort for

Continue reading Yes to AV, Yes to Equal Constituencies, but not like this.

Crime and Punishment

Some time ago in my “5 reasons to be optimistic…” blog I suggested that it was possible that there might be some elements of the con-dem agenda that we would (whisper it) actually be quite pleased with on the left.

Not the economic class warfare on the poor that the con-dems are engaging in, nor the attempt to deconstruct universal education, nor for that matter most of their public policy agenda. But where they do seem to have stolen a march is in terms of the Liberty agenda.

I agree whole heartedly

Continue reading Crime and Punishment