Lies

[orathaic]

@Octavious, yet a number of pro-Remain Tories joined the Lib Dems...

I actually don't think you realise how little 'liberal democrat' means. I mean Liberal 100 years ago (in the UK) meant an economic liberalism, or free market force. For businesses not being restricted by the state. In the US it gained a far more left wing connotation. More social than economic freedom. Liberal as opposed to progressive, meaning freedom from state control over what people do in their bedrooms, or other social behaviours.

What does it mean in the UK? I've no clue. And after the Lib Dem/Tory coalition I'm not sure the Lib Dems know either.

[Octavious]

It still means economic liberalism, but as the UK is economic liberal already that doesn't feature much in their campaigning these days. Socially it is in favour of equality (as are everyone, to be fair) and for the Lib Dems practically speaking this manifests itself primarily as support for LGBT+ rights and somewhat bizarrely a suspicion of religion and old school feminism. Where they differ most from the Tories is in law and order, being heavily in favour of the decriminalisation of drugs and various other things, and deeply suspicious of the effectiveness of prison and punishment in general.

They're also very much internationalist in outlook, and increasingly big on the environment and fighting climate change.

[orathaic]

That is liberal on drugs, not sure what it is on law&order. Equality is an odd one, as it depends on how you imagine it... Though given that it was Cameron's Tory party who brought in marriage equality, they aren't exactly anti-LGBT (though was he in coalition with the Lib Dems at the time? Did they claim credit for it? - personally I thi k it was a smart move co-opting the gay rights movement, bringing Conservative gay men in to the tent, rather than having them outside with the queer radicals pissing on the tent... I mean, I'm not necessarily happy about what amounts to stealing the victory of those queer radicals and all the decades of work they put in fighting for this kind of equality... Though I know many in the 70s/80s would have preferred abolishing marriage entirely, so this may have been the only victory they were ever going to see... It is the way of politics to co-opt other people's movements once they become popular enough... Perhaps similar to the Lib Dems and Green policies).

[Octavious]

That's a very left wing centric view of Conservative gay policy. There has always been a strong pro-gay movement within the Tories, powered from the natural Tory instinct for promoting individual freedoms over state interference, and the sheer number of gay people who are Tories. I think there's a score of openly gay Tories in Parliament now. The Conservative way of promoting gay rights is somewhat less showy than the left wing methods, but to disregard it utterly because of that is to do a great disservice to the many gay Tories who have worked tirelessly over many decades.

[orathaic]

I would likewise dismiss the activism of Labour or the Lib Dems, as contrasted with decades of grass root non-party action. I suspect it is only the environmental movement which has formed it's own political party (and by just existing forced other parties to formulate policies on the environment, even if they have had little electoral success).

However I entirely disagree with you on the basis of right wing conservatism, I see it as maintaining the power and privilege of the powerful and privileged. Literally conserving the status quo, on a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" model. While also rejecting the social benefits of things which happen to help those less privileged but cost the wealth elite (like selling off the railways, or their next project the NHS).

But sure, I see them from what an outsider would think.

[Octavious]

Let me tell you a fun story about the railways. These days safety critical staff have to take a series of pretty strenuous tests to prove that they know their job, and they have to repeat the tests every 3 years. Back in the British Rail days there was no requirement to repeat the tests after initially passing them, despite refreshers being an extremely obvious way of ensuring good standards of safety were maintained, and despite management repeatedly attempting to introduce them.

So what stopped these obvious improvements from happening? The unions refused, and the unions under the nationalised system were all powerful because governments were terrified of upsetting them and being blamed for everything grinding to a halt. So they weren't adopted, and there were accidents, and people died, and died some more. But privatisation happened and slowly things began to improve.

I won't pretend for a moment that the privatisation of the railways went brilliantly. There were plenty of cock-ups along the way, and the system adopted introduced a bucket load of uncertainty that pretty much killed off the UK train manufacturing industry. But the nationalised railway was shite, and we forget this at our peril.

There is no plan to sell the NHS. Increasing NHS budgets has been written into law. Killing the NHS is political suicide and the Tories lack many things but a sense of self preservation isn't one of them.

[orathaic]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... s-21178712
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nh ... 41881.html

I'm not saying I know anything that hasn't been reported online. But that said, if the Tories can sell off the NHS piece by piece while their supporters (like you) don't believe it is happening, then it wouldn't be suicide.

[Octavious]

It is not happening. There have been private elements to the NHS since its founding. GPs and dentists have always been private companies within the system, and private companies have run various other parts of the NHS throughout my lifetime. Labour even tried to privatise a hospital, but that was brought back into public ownership by the Tories.

This is nothing remotely akin to any scare story Corbyn's Labour talked about.