The Windsors

In the UK we eventually seem to copy everything that the USA has done. And I don't care for it.

I sincerely hope for evolution towards the European model as shown in Germany and Eire.

I fear that we will not, but I do not know that we shall not of course. It is an expression of worry. I'd prefer the House of Windsor to any political style President.

ATB from George

It all seems a little at odds with Cleggy-Cameroon's idea of 'big society'; those that can, should... out of charitable instinct.

So, pare-back the (welfare)State 'establishment'. Fine.

Why, indeed, should the tax payer or the State be obliged to help those less fortunate....hmm.

Funny, Joe Public will be stumping-up for their mobile disco and buffet. I'm struggling to square this circle.

...and - without Googling - the President of Germany is....??

ok, I'm aware that everybody in this thread knows the answer, but would the average bloke in a British pub?

Cheers

Don

This is off topic, but 'Big Society' is a farce. There's nothing wrong with the idea (except that it can't be a reliable substitute for a guaranteed minimum level of statutory provision), but if you really wanted to increase volunteering significantly you'd have to invest heavily in schemes to support and encourage it. Cameron is either so naive he doesn't understand this, or it's all window dressing and he just doesn't care. You choose. Volunteering is a fantastic thing and there are a lot of great volunteer run projects of every sort. I don't see this government doing a lot to help them.

Digression over.

quote:

I'm aware that everybody in this thread knows the answer, but would the average bloke in a British pub?

Does it matter? I don't suppose the Germans mind?

Dear Don,

Exactly - but in fact the profile of the German President is low enough for me to be not entirely sure that his name is Richard von Weizsäcker, who a quick google reveals left office in 1994, or not.

I like the idea that the executive leader of the political class has to face a Parliament rather than live in an Ivory Tower [with an unelected "kitchen cabinet!"], not as the British Prime Minister certainly has to - facing a committee of 650 is far preferable to my mind than one chief with a chosen group of "yes men," be he GW Bush or B Obama!

ATB from George

PS: I am in no doubt that the German PM's intials are AM!

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Originally posted by TomK:

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:
For me the cost of the Royals isn't the issue (not that I think the money is well spent - I don't). I just think the hereditary monarchy is absurd, archaic and - in a purely technical sense - degrading. I'd much rather be a citizen than a subject.

Exactly.

Really? In what way would you feel differently on a day to day basis? How will your life change as a citizen rather than a subject? I appreciate there might be some short term change in your mind but how would your life change?

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:
This is off topic, but 'Big Society' is a farce. There's nothing wrong with the idea (except that it can't be a reliable substitute for a guaranteed minimum level of statutory provision), but if you really wanted to increase volunteering significantly you'd have to invest heavily in schemes to support and encourage it. Cameron is either so naive he doesn't understand this, or it's all window dressing and he just doesn't care. You choose. Volunteering is a fantastic thing and there are a lot of great volunteer run projects of every sort. I don't see this government doing a lot to help them.

Digression over.

Actually, David...

this may not be too far off topic, for one thing, the Royal Family a.k.a. The Firm are committed to supporting Tory politics. It's well known in the HoC that the Queen herself phoned up the Conservative Club HQ and royally ordered them to put her man, Cameron in charge and the rest 'as they say' is history - he's now in No.10.
It may as well be called The Royal Conservative Party ~ by appointment by the Queen.

'Big Society' or BS for short, is the brainwave of Cameron who talks a lot of BS but seriously this is just another ideological putting down of working class life, peoples jobs are lost and then carried out by people working for them nothing, and this is the new order only for the working classes, the middle and higher will carry on earning huge salaries and whopping great bonuses, which are bigger now than ever before due to tax avoidance scams (deemed legal) to tax havens. This BS work for nothing con will make the stinking rich industrial classes even richer so they may buy even better luxury yachts to sail away in and sit on the sunny beaches of the world where they can laugh their nuts off at all the 'inferior' underclass’s slaving away in rainy Britain.
But of course it’s okay really because we’re all in this together!

Things are going to get even worse next year but this royal bleeding wedding will give the tory press something else to bury the bad news of tragic tory political ideology, and meanwhile the young newly weds will be so very sensitive to the economic hardship of the times by moving into their first time buyers starter home mansion with a nice little garden (called Anglesey) ...and on fine sunny days they may go out and shoot only a few Welsh peasants.

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WHO'S PAYING FOR IT ?

HRH The Prince of Wales.

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Really? In what way would you feel differently on a day to day basis? How will your life change as a citizen rather than a subject? I appreciate there might be some short term change in your mind but how would your life change?

Sniper,

You're making too much of this. The small change in the mind is the point. And I'm not convinced it would only be short term. I think if you came back twenty or a hundred years later I'd still say I preferred it. I'm not trying to make it into more than it is.

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this is the new order only for the working classes, the middle and higher will carry on earning huge salaries and whopping great bonuses

Nymph,
I'm sympathetic to your point of view, but I think some of the detail what you say is distorted by your own ideological commitments. I know plenty of middle class public sector workers who've lost their jobs - many of them working in exactly those non-statutory fields that Cameron likes to pretend the Big Society can take on - and I have a feeling I'll know a lot more before very long. Many of them will really struggle to find work. I certainly wouldn't suggest that this kind of class analysis is no longer relevant, but I don't think the boundaries are anything like as rigid or clear cut as you imply. There is a real conflict of interest between groups and I do believe that Government has a responsibility to protect people from the effects of this, but the classical rhetoric of class war doesn't match social reality well enough any more. New terminology needed I think.

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New terminology needed I think.

Rulers and serfs, perhaps?

BigH,

Now that's more like it!

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Lacey:

quote:

WHO'S PAYING FOR IT ?

HRH The Prince of Wales.

Who pays for him?

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:

quote:

this is the new order only for the working classes, the middle and higher will carry on earning huge salaries and whopping great bonuses

Nymph,
I'm sympathetic to your point of view, but I think some of the detail what you say is distorted by your own ideological commitments. I know plenty of middle class public sector workers who've lost their jobs - many of them working in exactly those non-statutory fields that Cameron likes to pretend the Big Society can take on - and I have a feeling I'll know a lot more before very long. Many of them will really struggle to find work. I certainly wouldn't suggest that this kind of class analysis is no longer relevant, but I don't think the boundaries are anything like as rigid or clear cut as you imply.

I think my definition of middle class is a whole lot higher than yours...

quote:

There is a real conflict of interest between groups and I do believe that Government has a responsibility to protect people from the effects of this, but the classical rhetoric of class war doesn't match social reality well enough any more. New terminology needed I think.

Yes, maybe we need new terminology, but it's obvious the Tory Toff Party is not going to be responsible to protect anyone from job loss, and i've also heard recently that suicide rates of disabled people are rising which is quite alarming to say the least. The Government strategy appears to be in support of U.K.'s biggest export which is the plus £200 billion per-annum of tax avoidance money into off shore tax havens. Too many Companies don't pay corporation tax, their directors don't get paid salaries either, they get far more money with dividend shares from Company profits which they don't have to declare or pay tax on.
This is continuing to drain money out of the country.
Under this strategy the deficit will never get paid off, they will only get richer by robbing us which is why Cameron says... we're all in this together!

Debs

Dear Debs,

The TAX payer has absolutely no responsibility to protect those who will not work [after say 12 months from loosing their present job]. There is plenty of work out there though some of it might be considered beneath the aspirations of those who have no job.

I believe that unemployment benefit should cease after twelve months. A year is long enough to learn how to do any of the jobs that ARE available, and no one has the right to expect that people who would not refuse work because it is "below them" and expect the main corpus of hard working [in the best job they can get] people to pay an extra say 15 pro cent of tax to subsidise the "work snobs."

If we had this tough regimen, then one million Poles would not be here! Working of course but in jobs beneath the work-shy unemployed British ...

Best wishes from George

George,

I'm not sure you're arguing with anything Debs actually said. In any case, if you think this

quote:

There is plenty of work out there though some of it might be considered beneath the aspirations of those who have no job.

is true everywhere in Britain, I think you're wrong, just as I don't accept that fecklessnes is the only barrier to employment when jobs are available. And where do you get the figure that 15% of income tax goes to unemployment benefit?

quote:

I think my definition of middle class is a whole lot higher than yours...

Maybe so - and I think that's partly why the terms are a bit clumsy.

I wonder; define middle class these days - the uk 'blue collar' worker has been hoodwinked, through the aquisition of whitegoods, holidays and a mortgages, into believing they are something they simply are not...

they believe themselves, in some cases, to have 'risen above' working class and are encouraged to belittle the jobs that, a generation ago, were 'normal, honest, everyday work'...

society, and your place within it, doesn't seem to play a part in many people's lives.

values reinforced over several governments. If ever I feel like sneeringing at a charva/chav or one of the so-called 'underclass' I have to pause. Most don't.

let's have a thoughtful, structured accountable society.

Just like 'victorian values' not many people I know subscribe to this fabled 'big society' - I feel Cammo's dream may be more of a small club affair.

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the uk 'blue collar' worker has been hoodwinked,

Well one of them has not ...

I'll count myself as number two then.

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the uk 'blue collar' worker has been hoodwinked, through the aquisition of whitegoods, holidays and a mortgages, into believing they are something they simply are not.

What's that and why aren't they?

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society, and your place within it, doesn't seem to play a part in many people's lives.

Doesn't this contradict what I quoted above? Or are you suggesting the working classes should know their place?

Know your place? Not at all!

Aspiration is natural and should be applauded. However, I personally can't abide the 'I'm alright, jack' attitude at any class level. I especially dislike it when I see people who I consider working class peers displaying it.

Convincing a working population that being working class is something other than aspirational may be part of the reason that some people just don't want to work.