News - The recession is over ? yay

[Saracen]

You might well be right (hope not too) but OTOH not having labour in might do a lot to boost confidence too - the 'obama' effect perhaps? The current lot have a proven track record in buggering up the economy and our prime minister is a buffoon. Not that i'm overly optimistic about cameron but at this point i'm with the 'anyone other than brown' majority by a long way. Either way it's a guessing game, pessimistic or optimistic, but that's all it is right now because we find ourselves in a unusual situation versus the last recession to say the least.

I pretty much agree with that, with the caveat that we just have to bear in mind that recessions aren't all alike. It's dangerous to draw too many comparisons to the last recession, or any other, because the underlying causes and economic circumstances are very different.

Other than that, I pretty much agree.

Anyone that's read my comments on Brown will have a pretty good grasp of what I think of him, which is that while he might be well-intentioned, he is directly and personally responsible for much of our current mess, on the basis that the responsibility for not running a ship into rocks or an iceberg rests with the guy plotting the course and/or the captain. And Brown plotted our course straight onto the rocks, while all the time boasting about how good and "prudent" a navigator he was. He is, in my view, an arrogant and egotistical control freak with a hugely over-inflated view of his own competence ..... and with all the social grace of a cowpat.

The one thing that worries me about Labour dumping him is that I can't see any of the likely replacements being much, if any, better.

Hence, the Tories will probably win. But Im not seeing (or, personally, feeling) much enthusiasm for the Cameron/Osborne club. The biggest single thing they have in their favour is that they're not Brown. What a way to pick who runs a country. though .... "anyone but Brown".

If there was a "none of the above" option, I'd probably use it. And that is why I'm so bitter about politics and politicians .... they've effectively stitched the system into a conjuring trick, where they ask us to pick a card ..... from a deck of two. There is no real democracy. We just get to elect a new dictator every five years, who then proceeds to pretty much ignore what the electorate want, or say. Our local MPs are supposed to "represent" us, but most don't - they just follow the party whip. And they certainly follow the party whip if they want to get any career advancement and end up in government, and given the pay boost they get as ministers, not to mention the ego-feeding power, most do. So it's in their own vested interest to keep the whips happy, and mostly, they only care about us for the 6 months before an election, at which point, their only interest is getting re-elected, and then the merry-go-round starts up for another 5 years.

Until politicians, and more especially governments, actually start listening to the people they're supposed to be representing, instead of preaching to and patronising us and telling us why they know better, then any suggestion that we have a democracy is a con.

Brown, and most politicians, may be well-intentioned, but Gordon "Son of the Manse" Brown ought to be able to tell us where the road paved with good intentions leads! Personally, I don't give a fig about their intentions .... it's actions and results that count.

[dangel]

Actually we do agree - if you read carefully

Either way it's a guessing game, pessimistic or optimistic, but that's all it is right now because we find ourselves in a unusual situation versus the last recession to say the least.

I pretty much agree with that, with the caveat that we just have to bear in mind that recessions aren't all alike. It's dangerous to draw too many comparisons to the last recession, or any other, because the underlying causes and economic circumstances are very different.

[Stringent]

There will be a surge in other party votes which is the only closest thing this country will do to becoming militant. Either that or people just won't go out and vote. I vote just so I can moan. If you don't vote, don't moan.

I'm buying my own Island. When I win the lottery ...

[Saracen]

Actually we do agree - if you read carefully

I wasn't suggesting I disagree with what you said, but rather, extending and/or clarifying my view on that bit of it.

Ive often seen what seems to be an implicit assumption that because something was a good idea in the last recession, or that the last recession had this or that effect, that the same is true this time. Some "treatments" that worked last time are a good idea this time, but it's not necessarily the case - that's what I was getting at.

It's like a flu jab. If you take a swine flu jab, it might stop you getting the flu-de-jour this year, but it won't help you at all next year if the flu is a different variant.

[dangel]

I wasn't suggesting I disagree with what you said, but rather, extending and/or clarifying my view on that bit of it.

Ive often seen what seems to be an implicit assumption that because something was a good idea in the last recession, or that the last recession had this or that effect, that the same is true this time. Some "treatments" that worked last time are a good idea this time, but it's not necessarily the case - that's what I was getting at.

It's like a flu jab. If you take a swine flu jab, it might stop you getting the flu-de-jour this year, but it won't help you at all next year if the flu is a different variant.

Oh I (still) agree - history can teach us only so much, but the ability to recognise a fairly unique set of properties for the current situation is of paramount importance. I just found it amusing we basically said exactly the same thing after your second (original) paragraph

[Saracen]

.... If you don't vote, don't moan.

To a point, I agree. But if you do vote, the parties take it as an endorsement and treat it as a mandate.

I want Brown etc out, and the best way of doing it, here at least, is to vote Tory, which is probably what I'll do. If the LibDems were the second party round here, I'd probably vote for them. But in either case, my vote is an anti-Brown vote, not a pro-Tory or pro-LD vote.

Suppose the apathetic and disenchanted of the country rose up in vast numbers and booted Labour out in a huge landslide. All that will happen is that the Tories would then treat that as a huge endorsement of them and a huge mandate to for the policies, when in fact, it was merely an utter rejection of Labour, and what they've done in the past.

So we are damned if we do, and damned if we don't.

What we need is a party we can believe in, have faith in and that will work for us. Much of the country thought that's what we were getting in '97, and look what we actually got!

And that's why the "if you don't vote, you don't have a right to moan " logic falls apart. It would be true if we had a way to cast a vote in a meaningful way that expressed what each of us felt and wanted, but there isn't. Even turning up and spoiling th ballet is a waste, since nobody knows if it was a protest, or merely a mistake ... and that's exactly how the incumbents of the system, on both sides, want it.

Something like a none-of-the-above option that was explicitly an expression on rejecting the current alternatives would be meaningful, and might even galvanise people to turn out, if to to nothing more than stick the old digitus impudicus up at the system.

That's also, by the way, why I adamantly oppose compulsory voting, unless it includes a none-of-the -above option.

We all ought to honour our duty as citizens (even if, technically, we're subjects not citizens) to vote but only if there's a meaningful option to select. Of course, the chances of those that could offer us that option, that being those in power, ever doing so is pretty much nil.

[Fraz]

Until politicians, and more especially governments, actually start listening to the people they're supposed to be representing, instead of preaching to and patronising us and telling us why they know better, then any suggestion that we have a democracy is a con.

Great in principle, difficult in practice - and perhaps even very foolish unless done right. The government is already controlled far too much, IMO, by the whims of whatever current issue the media has latched onto. So much so, that what they *should* be doing gets totally derailed in order for them to save face with the media (and hence general public).

99% of the general public are morons - or, at least, the media makes it appear so. Sure I want the government to listen to the public at some level, but how much? I personally know absolutely nothing about how a country should be run. Of course, I have some general feelings along the line of "bankers shouldn't be able to bankrupt the nation every 15 years", "we shouldn't borrow so much money at a national level", etc, etc, but I've almost zero concept of the realities of these wishes. Moreover, I've little to no interest in the details. I'm a physicist - I have zero schooling in economics or government.

I agree: Democracy is a total farce. Unfortunately, due to the abysmal problems of human nature, it's the only way we've got that even remotely works.

However, I DO think running a country is not easy. We DO need to listen to expert opinion, and maybe have some faith in those experts (where it's warranted, i.e. not with Brown!).

What I really really do not want is the country run by the whims of the "general public", and by this I really mean a nation run by whatever form of public opinion the media is letting through. Since we live in the information age, you'd think we'd be able to vote on matters more frequently as a nation of individual people, rather than once every 5 years. It's utterly ridiculous.

[shaithis]

What we need is a party we can believe in, have faith in and that will work for us.

A political party without any politicians....what a novel idea

[dangel]

However, I DO think running a country is not easy.

Oh... I'd have a go - it's not like there's a formal qualification program for it or anything.

[Fraz]

Oh... I'd have a go - it's not like there's a formal qualification program for it or anything.

Well, I'd vote for you over Brown

(Not that that's saying much...)

[Saracen]

Oh... I'd have a go - it's not like there's a formal qualification program for it or anything.

Well, judging by those that end up doing it, at least in recent years .... no, don't go there.

A political party without any politicians....what a novel idea

That problem is, I admit, the elephant standing in the custard bowl of that idea.

@Fraz - I agree that running a country via Daily Mail-type gut reactons would be a mistake, but that would be one end of the extreme spectrum.

The other end of it is where a government makes significant and permanent changes to the way we're governed without asking us if they can, for instance, the Lisbon treaty, or taking us to war in Iraq.

There has to be a sensible, practical compromise point where we, the people, actually get to have a say in making such decisions without descending into farce. And, if you give the people some say over their own future in politics, they might actually come to the view that what they think and want makes a difference, and that there is a point in voting, because a lot, even including those that do vote, don't seem to think there's much point in it.

I, for one, am thoroughly sick and tired of politicians that tell us, ad nauseum, that they're "listening". Either they're lying, or they're listening and then ignoring us, which is even worse than not listening and lying about it.

I wonder, had it been put to a referendum, would we have signed up to Lisbon? For that matter, would we have signed up to Maastricht, etc? And would we now be at war in Iraq?

Of course, that latter especially requires that we be kept decently and honestly informed, not fed garbage of the standard of the hogwash Blair served up as "intelligence" on Iraq and the threat Saddam supposedly posed.

Sometimes war is necessary. Opposing Hitler comes to mind. And no doubt Saddam was a very bad man and I, for one, don't regret his removal from power or, for that matter, life, just as I won't lose a wink of sleep over the execution of Chemical Ali a few days back. But that's a very long way from saying I'd support going to war to remove Saddam.

A good part of my cynicism over politicians comes from Blair and his con-job over Iraq. It was the final nail in the coffin of any faith I had in politicians. I simply didn't believe any British Prime Minister would, putting it charitably, "spin" the facts, and moreover, the inferences the intelligence community drew from them, so outrageously in order to justify taking us to war. Naive of me, wasn't it? What he did may or may not technically have been a lie, but in my opinion, it was so close and so deceptive as to amount to the same thing, and I will never, ever trust a politician, or Prime Minister, to be taken at their word again. Not ever.

And if that is the standard of decision-making and 'democratic representation' we get from our politicians, over a subject as serious as going to war (and I can't think of a more serious subject) then it's hard to see how anything that puts some power back in our hands, or even just a veto over major steps like giving away our power to self-govern, could be anything but an improvement.

Such major steps, other than in utter emergency situations, ought to have checks and balances, and not effectively be in the hands of one man, or even a handful in the cabinet where all but one have been hand-picked by that one) and where we only get to pick the one every five years.

I'll freely concede any extra "democracy" has problems and issues, but the situation we have is so thoroughly unrepresentative that it seems to me most people have given up believing in it, or that they can make any difference. If there are dangers in gut-reaction politics, there are huge dangers in such apathy and/or disenchantment and disillusion levels too.