Tony Blair Farewells?

Gordon Brown doesn't control the finances; the Govenor of the Bank of England does!

Gordon raises [litteraly!] taxes and spends money.

The best analogy is that of a family with a spoilt teenage daughter;

The parents (that's you and I) work really hard to make the best for ourselves and provide for the family. Whilst the daughter [Gordon Brown] more greater and greater demands on out limited income to finance more and more ludicrous and wasteful whimsical fashions etc (ie. ID cards, NHS, city acamadies) at the expenses of the essentials.

Bliar is a sanctimonius, venal, mendacious hypocrite. His wife is worse.

Quite funny Euan Blair got himself a bit of a reputation as a 'sex pest' and arrogant knob whilst at Uni in Bristol.

Apparently one girl slapped him around a bit for trying to touh her up.

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>Bliar is a sanctimonius, venal, mendacious hypocrite.<hr></blockquote>I assure you that he is much, much worse than that.

#25 - a true child of Thatcher (remember her ' There is no such thing as society, only individuals'?). That line has taken many parts (most parts?) of Britain to hell in a handcart. Only now are we getting back to the old idea that society can actually be a very good and positive thing for a country.

And yes, to the question, I can't wait until she dies ... I feel sorry for France who have just stumbled into Thatcherism (Blairism being a version of the same).

#35. As a guy working in the Engineering sector during the days of Thatcher - she was a necessary evil.

Due to demarcation a 5--minute job could be stretched to days. In my young days I was a shop stewart & in my innocence was openly aware on the ease of bribing an individual against the wishes of the majority. Idealistically, I never took money, etc. but I was aware to the self-interest of others.

Society - Please describe?

"remember her ' There is no such thing as society, only individuals'?"

and do you remeber the rest of the article the quote came from?

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. '
I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.'
They're casting their problem on society.
And, you know, there is no such thing as society.
There are individual men and women, and there are families.
And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.
It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour.
People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations.
There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

Well said, Mrs T...........

Yes, I do remember the rest of the article, but it was used (including and particularly by her party) to encourage the most aggressive and dishonest to do whatever they wanted to get money or position. As long as the facade looked 'Conservative'/New Labour enough, that was OK. Wear a suit, drive a big car , vote Conservative, and you could get away with a lot.

O.E.D. - Society .." Association with one's fellow men, especially in a friendly or intimate manner; the system or mode of life adopted by a body of individuals for the purpose of harmonious co-existence or for mutual benefit, defence. The aggregate of persons living together in a more or less ordered community".

Before Thatcher there was more chance of an individual standing up to say something or to do something to help someone else. Now we have the philosophy that unless it involves ME or MINE I wont get involved and I won't do anything about it. It has reached the stage where people will walk away from the scene of a crime, and leave aside their coming forward later as witnesses. It is nothing to do with them ... don't get involved. As for voting ... people feel it doesn't change what is really going on with the parties and their very similar policies.

Feeling in large swathes of Britain (particularly the south and southeast) is that anyone who is poor or without housing must be a loser or a scumbag. The real level of poverty has increased at the lower end of society but, hey, if you are near the top you can avoid tax in numerous ways, cream money off projects, get big bonuses (while your just as hard working underlings are refused a pay rise) and maybe end up with an OBE or better. There is no obligation felt by these to pay due tax or anything else to earn the perks... so why the entitlement?

During Thatchers time (and Blair's) the idea of helping your neighbour (in the literal and metaphorical sense) went out the window. The country lapsed into people grabbing what they could for themselves or their families or and sod the poor, the elderly or anyone else who wasn't blood kin. Linking the rise in pension rate to the rise of wages was chucked out the window. But there is money to subsidise arms manufacture, the building of luxury cars, wars of an aggressive kind. And we won't talk about bribes in the defence industries and the stubborn reluctance to countenance enquiries into that kind of thing.

Everyone who seized the right to buy their own council flats (usually the biggest and best ones) in our neighbourhood sold up pretty soon after they bought and got out, leaving no family flats for those who had serious housing problems. So much for Mrs T's front that it was a way for council tenants to own the flats they lived in. It appealed only as a way to move out of the neighbourhood, and sod those who might be in the same situation the buyers were in when they first moved into the council property. The unblinkered know it was her way of undermining social housing and putting more property on the market. Like getting or selling shares in utilities .... people thought it meant they would be better off but it was just a way of saying "We are selling this off and you could make big money if you let us do it".

Work and unemployment benefit? Our local drug dealers still don't work (except at dealing) - I often wonder whether they are paying the police or the employment office people bribes. Comments to either of the latter officials bring nervous laughs and "I can't comment on that." I know employees (and, of all places, the Corporation of London too) who regularly come in one hour - in one case, 10 minutes, before their due time to start work (when their colleagues appear), work until lunchtime, go off after lunch and don't come back - on the grounds they came in really early (and who keeps tabs on how early that was?). No change from the old days at all. No change except that now no-one dares talk about it or they will get their teeth punched in and/or lose their job because bosses higher up don't want to admit they haven't a handle on it or that it is actually going on. It has just spread higher up the ladder.

You only have to look at Blair to see the crystalised nastiness, the corruption, the 'spin' of it all. As a friend regularly says of Thatcher and later "It was the triumph of shoulder pads over substance."

#39. Philanthropists throughout history have always been few and far between & society has always had a major share of the "I'm all right, Jack's".

Give it a couple of years and you will be able to replace your gripe about the selling of council houses with that of "key workers" selling their properties for major profit. At the expense of other new "key workers".

Or perhaps like Thailand, we should make it illegal for foreigners to own land thereby leaving considerable housing stock for the indigenous population? Can you imagine any politician putting this forward - oops, a very touchy subject?