Government watch

And whose taxes do you think will be put up?

There seems very little - well nothing really - left of the Conservative manifesto if they are going down these paths.

What madness, to fight an election and then bring the opposing parties manifesto promises in.

As they have stolen Labour's clothing it should be those earning over £80,000 pa. Somehow I don't think that will be the case. Far too much against the nature of the Tory.

Damien Green in a fix, then. If they put it up for the just about managing they will lose more votes than they will gain from the youth vote.
Really looking forward to how this pans out.

Hard to believe, really, that we've only just had an election.

I doubt very much if only those earning over £80k will be paying more tax.

They'll be getting their heads together to come up with a plan which looks as they they're helping younger people, but in reality it will be a smoke screen.

Wow - Labour seems to having so much influence they might just as well be in power.

It's not enough to just influence though whitewave. We need to pull the country back from the extremism of neoliberalism and to do that we need a government that is prepared to be as far to the left as the Conservatives have gone to the right.

Far left is not my political stance - I am really quite centrist but then perhaps we all feel that. However, the extreme right wing of the Conservatives have held sway for far too long and it will take an equal and opposite extreme to let us settle in the centre again.

Thatcher ended the post-war consensus and allowed the greedy society to emerge. She turned her back on the Keynesian economics that allowed many more to benefit from the riches of society and set-up the grasping society. She tried to stop the collective bargaining of the workers - which was never communistic but a simple reaction to the collective bargaining of capital which hung on to more of life's assets than could be anyone's 'fair share' of the worlds abundance.

She destroyed the mixed economy where those things with a single source were held by the state but where competition drove things forward, it was cheered and allowed to thrive. From Thatcher onwards (and yes, that includes Blair) competition has been brought into areas it where it has resulted in increasing the wealth of a few on the backs of the ill, disabled, very young and very old.

She began the destruction of the welfare state,where all contributed for the benefit of possible need of some but where we remembered that might be us. It has been starved under government after government. Now, as even the USA is beginning to see the light we need a government here who sees it before the darkness of private medicine takes over.

She began the destruction of progressive taxation, redistributive welfare spending, comprehensive schooling and regional policies and we need that moving back to the post war consensus.

... and she began to take us away from any idea that we are better at maintaining peace when we act together and grew the idea that we can do everything on our own.

So I still want the equal and opposite reaction to the Thatcher and post-Thatcher destruction which, I believe, will require, at least for some time, a Labour government and not the wolf in sheep's clothing that will be the May government if we are not very careful.

gg good post.

I am also a social democratic just like you. I also believe in a mixed economy just like you. I believe in a strong welfare state just like you. I believe in pushing towards a Keysian form of economy just like you. I am a Labour supporter you are perhaps a Lib Dem supporter, but there is barely a cigarette paper between us.

That is what the broad left must realise. We can and will defeat this dreadful form of governance that has gripped this country over the past 7 years.

We are many they are few

Errmm...just going to pick you up on a couple of things GG.

Post war Keynesianism died with the Callaghan government, although Thatcher of course went much further. Redistribution of wealth was only ever a by-product of Keynesianism

Even Thatcher didn't privatise as much as subsequent governments have done. The UK still has a mixed economy.

More comprehensive schools were actually signed off when Thatcher was Education Secretary than ever before or after.

A movement doesn't always see it's ends fulfilled in the lifetime of one person Daphne.

I realise that and I could have written more. In my opinion, your post contained inaccuracies and doesn't do your case, with which I mainly agree, any favours

I'm just not as knowledgable as you Daphne and I wasn't writing a thesis - just my opinion. Add and alter by all means

Naomi Klein on Marr now.
She seems to agree with you, GracesGran, changing British politics takes a long time.

Gove on TV trying to justify the money paid to DUP. He's doing his best, defending the indefensible.

GG and ww I'm with you too and over the last few years have voted SNP. This is because I don't see independence as no 1 priority in present circumstances but rather the need to bring some sense out the chaos.

As a government SNP are close to your ideals and I wish more MPs had been returned to help secure that left of centre ground.
Had NS moved sooner to put any 2nd indyref on the back burner I believe we might have achieved that.

SNP are stopping the pay cap. Shame we didn't have enough brave MPs here.

Tory MPs are fearful of Labour - there will be a lifting if the pay cap for sure.

It is amazing how their cock sureness has totally evaporated

Whitewave it wasn't cock sureness it was simple arrogance and an unwillingness to look outside their own propaganda.

I am just waiting to hear they will be paying the amount the review bodies recommend (as in 'it wasn't me gov') and I would be prepared to take a small bet that they will pay for it with a "small tax on the very broadest shoulders" (earning over around the £80,000 mark)

This all seems so very undemocratic!

Can't see the Tory voters marching because the government hasn't stuck to the manifesto, can you?

Nobody who voted Tory voted for any of this.

No Jen, but oh the irony.

I think I read a couple of days ago a statement saying Tories will never march because they have everything they need!
Can't remember where, though. Or who wrote it.