The coalition should cut the POLICE and PRISONS and rich in the JUSTICE system.

The coalition should LISTEN to the people.

They promised no cuts to benefits for the poorest yet they have now changed tack and it is not good.

We need to see CUTS to the RICH who have got us into this mess.

If they dont sort this out fairly then there will be strikes and protests leading ultimately to meltdown.

Yes - labour got us in this mess - but the COALITION needs to tax the very rich and let the poor have the help they need.

Even better they should create REAL jobs - we need smaller classes in schools - so double the teachers. We need more doctors and nurses to make waiting times a thing of the past so employ more. We need more housing so fun some big building projects to house all the immigrants coming over each year - and do it outside of England in Scotland in particular - create some new cities up there. London is FULL and a mess as yesterday's tube strike showed once again.

The politicians in the UK are lacking in vision of how to create a fairer and better society,

Thanks BR,

Do you realize you're a socialist?

Best Wishes,
Jim

Jim wrote:
Do you realize you're a socialist?

Jim

Do you agree that the real socialists are those helping people out of the poverty trap - not those trapping them in it ?

Jim wrote:
Thanks BR,

Do you realize you're a socialist?

Best Wishes,
Jim

yehhh..welcome to the club !

the workers united will never be defeated !

Thanks ITK,

I'm not sure how to define socialism. I guess it began around the time of Marx with the perception that the free market solution which enlightenment economists like Adam Smith had hoped would produce a grand levelling equality, thus destroying the previous aristocracy, was seen to fail since it did in fact produce an aristocracy of its own: an industrial rather than a landed one.

But everything BR promoted in his last post seemed consistent with my idea of socialism.

You suggest that it may be about giving the people what is really good for them rather than what they want. The problem with this idea is that it doesn't allow "socialism" to include people power unless the people know what's good for them. Evidently, on this view, they don't. What Marx was talking about was first a dictatorship of the dispossessed and then a dissolution of the state. The goal is that the unified body of the people should be sovereign over its own affairs. This is inconsistent with the government house benevolence from above, if I can call it that, which you seem to be proposing.

But of course conservatives would say what they are doing is good for the poor. Would I call it socialism? No. But are they wrong? Not necessarily. The question remains hanging no matter what you call it.

Best Wishes,
Jim

Jim wrote:
What Marx was talking about was first a dictatorship of the dispossessed and then a dissolution of the state. The goal is that the unified body of the people should be sovereign over its own affairs.

Thanks, Jim

Isn't the staement (above) consistent with what Labour were trying to do ... control everything from above, and by doing so, "forumlate" everyone - all living in identical (council) houses, working in state factories, looked after by unions (all of who would belong to the party machine)?

Thanks ITK,

I would agree that New Labour were controlling, but not with the other aspects of your analysis. If it is your view that they were trying to create a dictatorship of the dispossessed I wonder what evidence you have for this?

The launching of imperial wars, the maintenance of Thatcher's curbs on the unions, and a thorough-gong programme of privatization are inconsistent with this thesis.

It is more likely that both major parties are just two branches of the same one: the business party, which functions to preserve the power and privilege of the corporate elite.

Best Wishes,
Jim

Yes, Jim, it cannot be a controlling state as in say the old East Germany (because too many freedoms have already been given) but I do believe that they have done whatever they could to maintain a "control" basis.

Take the laws ... almost always a "state knows best" mentality.
We will take awy your rights (but you can trust us to protect you !)

Almost all Councils (democratically elected) have had their powers stripped away by the "government knows best" hierarchy.

veritas wrote:
the workers united will never be defeated !

Shall we ask the miners ?

or the BA cabin staff LOL ! ?