The United Kingdom Elections 2010

[Louis VI the Fat]

Excellent Subotan, and one more reason yet to root for the LibDems!

I've never quite understood the lefts fetish with Murdoch. Are they really insulting the electorate by saying that Murdoch buys the election?

It's not a lefty fetish. Murdoch's got an undue influence on UK politics. Remember Murdoch's swing in 1997 that was so instrumental in bringing NuLab to power? :

[InsaneApache]

So they are insulting the electorates intelligence then. It's all as clear as mud.

[Furunculus]

Excellent Subotan, and one more reason yet to root for the LibDems!

It's not a lefty fetish. Murdoch's got an undue influence on UK politics. Remember Murdoch's swing in 1997 that was so instrumental in bringing NuLab to power? :

given that you have such a low opinion of the electorate, it is a wonder that you support the concept of democracy at all.........?

labours win was inevitable after 16 years of tories, especially when the last term was considered riddled with malpractice scandals.

the british electorate are judged to be adults of sound mind and therefore legal responsibility, if you are willing to write that off so easily then concepts like democracy and trial-by-jury are utterly pointless.

i have a little more faith in the people than that, so no, getting worked up about Murdoch (that nasty republican that he is) is totally stupid.

and watching anti-tories (previously known as lib/lab fan-bois) getting worked up over murdochs advocacy for the tories after his support for labour in 97 is frankly just hilarious!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Oh, I trust the electorate alright.

I do however mistrust politicians and politicised media. These two are in bed with each other, enjoy an intimate relationship*, and, even more worryingly, the latter have the upper hand, an undue influence on the former. I am not impressed by their excuse that any questioning of this all too intimate relationship amounts to 'mistrusting the electorate'. Masterful spin that, it plays on the pride of the reader.

*For example:

David Cameron's chief press adviser, Andy Coulson, is not named in any of the suppressed evidence. However, the paperwork shows that during the time when he was editor of the News of the World, and contrary to News Group's earlier denials, editorial staff for whom he was responsible were involved with private investigators who engaged in illegal phone-hacking; and that when Coulson was deputy editor, reporters and executives were commissioning multiple purchases of confidential information, which is illegal unless it is proved to be in the public interest. These purchases were not secret within the News of the World office: they were openly paid for by the accounts department with invoices which itemised illegal acts.

[Furunculus]

*fails to be bothered*

rather more importantly is the liam halligan article above on what the Bank of International Settlements is saying, i.e. unless something DRASTIC as attempted britain will be carrying a public debt of at LEAST 350% of GDP by 2040.

who do you think is going to have the best shot at reducing that figure, and preventing my retirement occuring in azerbaijan mk2?

[Subotan]

Murdoch's influence over the media and British politics is far more dangerous than that of the EU. The Sun revels in boasting about how it won this election or that, rolling like a pig in the mud of corruption. The impact of Fox News in the USA is terrifying enough to make any sane person think twice about Murdoch's attempts to dismantle the BBC.

[Furunculus]

Murdoch's influence over the media and British politics is far more dangerous than that of the EU. The Sun revels in boasting about how it won this election or that, rolling like a pig in the mud of corruption. The impact of Fox News in the USA is terrifying enough to make any sane person think twice about Murdoch's attempts to dismantle the BBC.

not a fear i share, but then i treat the electorate of this country as adults............

[Furunculus]

on the subject of the lib-dems and their blithe refusal to 'see' the fiscal apocalypse the country is facing; here is an ex-lib-dem who has a very good idea of what is needed:
http://critical-reaction.co.uk/2573/...-is-not-enough

When Tinkering Is Not Enough
It has taken Nick Clegg to get the debate going on the size of the State
Mark Littlewood
It’s become something of a cliché to suggest that politicians are all the same, it doesn’t matter who you vote for and that the real issues that matter to people are ducked or ignored. ‘Don’t vote, it only encourages them,’ the cynics often say.
None of the three main parties have yet to properly address the elephant in the room. And it’s a £170 billion elephant. That’s the approximate size of this year’s budget deficit. On top of an overall debt that is set to accelerate beyond a jaw-dropping figure of £1 trillion.

Such horrific numbers require considerably more surgery in the public sector than is being countenanced by anyone likely to serve in the next British cabinet. Amongst politicians of all stripes there is a growing, albeit often begrudging, acknowledgement that the nation’s finances are in a sorry state, but there is no seizing of an opportunity to fundamentally change the way we do things.
It’s here that liberal free marketeers need to truly find their voice. Because although no party is running on a classical liberal platform in this election, the need to make the intellectual case for less government and more freedom is going to become increasingly important in the months and years to come.

Necessity may – to some extent – become the mother of invention. The prevailing social democratic consensus could soon reach breaking point because of a simple lack of funds. An ever-growing array of government programmes reliant on squeezing still more support from taxpayers - or funded by yet more borrowing - is simply becoming unsustainable.

But proponents of free markets need to show not merely that free markets are necessary, but that they are actually more desirable than the state-run alternatives. It is here – in public relations terms at least – that supporters of markets have sometimes allowed themselves to be boxed in. If arguments between social democrats and classical liberals are couched in terms of the former defending the interests of the poor – or even the ‘average’ family – and the latter defending the vested interests of the rich, then – whatever the merits of the liberal case, the social democrats are likely to prevail.

Free marketeers need to show that the welfare state and a growing public sector sphere are not in the long term interests of the overwhelmingly majority of British citizens.

It is an absurdity, of course, that a third of all households in Britain are reliant on state handouts for more than half of their annual income, but this isn’t merely a heavy tax burden on the middle classes, it entraps the least affluent members of society in a cycle of poverty, generation after generation.

An entirely new economic settlement – and a wholescale review of the functions of the public sector is needed.

With less than three weeks to go until polling day, the LibDems’ Nick Clegg has – according to the polls and media narrative – banked a substantial win in the first of three televised debates between the party leaders. He is widely seen as having scored a public relations coup, in part by insisting on honesty and a new approach to politics.

But the Liberal Democrats’ proposals remain extremely limited. The scale of cuts recommended by Nick Clegg amount to a microscopic proportion of the overall public sector spend – and the LibDems would only countenance any measurable reductions in public spending in the next financial year. Even then, they amount to only ₤15bn per annum – and two thirds of this would be recycled into alternative public sector projects.

In the very same television debate, David Cameron attempted to make a virtue of the modesty of Conservative proposals to trim spending. Although the Tories support cutting spending now, Mr Cameron was determined to emphasise that he was only seeking to save a penny in every pound, that such reductions were easy to achieve and could be implemented without any serious pain.

The Labour Party, of course, continues to insist that any reductions in public spending amount to taking money ‘out of the economy’ (as if the private sector – which funds government programmes - doesn’t really count as part of the economy at all).

What Nick Clegg may well have established is that there is a growing appetite amongst the electorate for straight-talking and that under-promising may be more attractive to voters than over-promising. But his party – along with Labour and the Tories - are yet to contemplate the sort of reductions in government activity that the country really needs.

To a very considerable extent, they are looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope. Each of the parties is considering present expenditure and looking at where it can be trimmed or where those elusive ‘efficiency savings’ can be made.
But the problem isn’t just that their proposals for cutbacks are so limited, it’s that the size of government has spiraled completely out of control. Public spending has doubled in nominal terms since Labour came to power in 1997. And, while it is true that if you throw enough money at something you are bound to sometimes make some improvements, no one in their right mind suggests that the qualitative output of the public sector has improved in line with the resources placed at its disposal.

Rather than working through every government department, working out how we might save ₤1bn here or ₤2bn there, we should start with a completely blank sheet of paper. We should think through – from first principles - what we want the public sector to do, and how much it should cost. Given that no sensible person would start from here in making those assessments, it makes sense to start all over again.

Let’s not trim, or even slash, a list of specific government programmes. Let’s raze the whole edifice to the ground and start from scratch.

If we did so then it’s hard to imagine that we would countenance a public sector that consumed much more than 30% of GDP.
Tragically, instead of this approach, we face a choice of parties who essentially seem to disagree on whether the proportion of national income spent by the state should be 49%, 50% or 51%. That does not provide much ground for optimism - whichever shade of social democracy ultimately triumphs at the polling stations on May 6th.

Mark Littlewood is Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). He was head of media for the Liberal Democrats from 2004 to 2007.

[Myrddraal]

Churchill would disagree with you Furunculus, and I'm inclined in this case to agree with Churchill.

The combined power of the press is enormous, but it is negated by it's disunity. Monopoly of ownership of the press is quite a scary idea, hence why we are appalled by the idea of state media.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Murdoch's influence over the media and British politics is far more dangerous than that of the EU. The Sun revels in boasting about how it won this election or that, rolling like a pig in the mud of corruption. The impact of Fox News in the USA is terrifying enough to make any sane person think twice about Murdoch's attempts to dismantle the BBC.

I tend to agrre, though the Son is more terrifying than the Father, being essentially a hard-right American.