Yes France is up now but we are in the same if not worse position since that article was written.

Down in the last quarter? what does that tell us? This re-pull on austerity is once again causing a downward trend and the longer it goes on, the worse it gets.

I don't believe the Tories will continue doing what they are doing because they know the long term damage it will cause, but they also use this stance on austerity as one of their big advertising slogans so just like they didn't tell us back in 2012-13 they will keep it under their belt again.

Edited to say, We are being played with. The government are relying on our ignorance.

21 pre-election promises broken in such a short time. Its as though they are sprinting towards a final goal post with sledgehammers in their hands. What is their end goal? I'm baffled by the way Cameron is behaving at the moment. That man is a liar; he’s a propaganda profiteer who has successfully created the peasants to revolt against the peasants.

We all know the countries in a mess but most of us seem to think it’s either the scrounging unemployed and immigrants fault or Gordon Browns. This government relies on our ignorance.

With respect, i've seen many replies on this thread taking an opposite stance in this to yourself, none of them ignorant.

I think you do the British people a great disservice, they are a lot more informed than you think, and shouldn't be judged ignorant because their views differ from yours

Really glad you are on here too DR.
I am not really someone who should comment on Cameron because I dislike the man as a politician intensely.
His lies as to the NHS and that top down re-organisation at massive cost is just one of the many things I will never forgive him for.

I agree with you,he is a political liar and of the worst kind in my view, his word not to be trusted on near anything.

This post and you earlier post are well balanced and spot on.
Again well said.

If someone has good reason to vote conservative, which I'm sure there are many (depending on how these policies benefit them), then fine, but when people rattle on about immigration and benefit scroungers being the biggest ill of this country, then I stand by what I said.

'Ignorance' as used in my post, means lack of knowledge or information on a subject. What it doesn't mean, though people have the right to interpret this word out of context if they are looking to be offended, is foolishness, slow-wittedness or dimness.

Edited to say: How many times on here have Corbyn supporters been called idiots, fools or bonkers? I'm not about to trudge through the archives but if I did, I'd know which posters history to search. Frankly, those comments don't ruin my day :)

Thanks Joey and ditto.

You can't debate politics if you can't discuss both sides and most debates on politics tend to get very passionate and heated so I guess you have to be thick skinned ;). You absolutely should be able to voice your opinion on Cameron and on Cameron supporters for that matter because if you can't do that, you may as well take up knitting and stay well clear of political debate.

I agree again.

When I was aged up to 17 I would have been termed a Conservative DR,I actually was strongly supportive to the coalition and hoped for good things from it.
However in 2010,I was concerned,as a lot of my family work in the NHS,whether David Cameron could be trusted with it,something made me not trust him and I voted Lib Dem.

Than as you point out we saw the many failures to hit every economic target set by 'themselves'.
With budget targets revised downwards in the Autumn and the Autumn targets revised downwards again in the next budget.
Then the obscene unnecessary and costly demoralising NHS top down re-organisation that was 'promised' to be never going to happen by Cameron.
Finally the bedroom tax, that was the final thing on top of all the benefit changes and persecution, victimisation and demonisation that was then in place against the most vulnerable in society.
With the whipping up of the divide and conquer stance of turning working people against those needing benefits.

That was when I looked elsewhere and although I was never anti Labour, I found they had the policies more suited to how I viewed how society should be especially to the protection and respect for the dignity of people who are sick, disabled and vulnerable.

Since then some have fired loony left at me, have been told my posts are nonsense,have been told things like food banks are not as stated just because some people have not seen one or seen what happens at one, while I have.
All in the main from Conservative supporters.

I don't change allegiances lightly,just because Corbyn got elected as leader that would not make me run off, it is the policies, the thinking and base of the planning of policies that matter to me.
The building up of the sick and disabled and most vulnerable, not grinding them down, the plan to bring social care and general care together in the NHS.
AS for these austerity cuts, they proved a disastrous between 2010 and 2015 and it may well be that history repeats itself again as to that.

Now the real acidic and in my view unjust attacks on Corbyn have become widespread, yet the policies remain in the planning stage with that base of respect for the dignity of the most vulnerable so I do consider a lot of the attacks as unfair.
I am quite thick skinned and believe me off here,even in my family they get it all guns blazing as to what I believe should be done.
However the written word is hard to express as to tone which is frustrating.

I am mystified anyone can call what this govt is doing as of merit and as to being successful,when all it is doing is executing a set of truly cowardly and bullying policies,designed to grind the most vulnerable into the ground they are walking on, to make the sick and disabled feel like second class citizens and then planning to build a surplus before you make sure 'all' are fully protected before you do the policies needed to bring a surplus about.
This govt acts with a pack mentality against the 'annoying to them' poorest and weakest, sick and disabled of the Nation.

A cowardly bunch of bullies who set out to make sure the strongest and richest get more or are protected while the weakest get ridiculed and crushed,
Yet you read from some, that is him and this vile govt doing good for the Country and worthy of praise and merit,even deemed as success.
Well it makes me feel ashamed and sick.
I said ages ago for his lack of any compassion and decency, this PM has brought down the office of PM of the UK and in my view will continue to do so right until at last he departs the political stage and hopefully for good.

Unfortunately leaving possibly as bad but even worse to come after him if the Theresa May, Osborne or Johnson take over after him.
So I will get behind Labour and Corbyn in the hope for more policies across the board of compassion, understanding, fairness,justice and respect for all citizens of the UK, and not just for the strongest and richest.

Just as a side note to this, my mum has voted labour all her life because that's how she was brought up, and when I was growing up she'd always say how against the conservatives she was. But in the last election she actually voted for Cameron, and her reason? Because she's getting older and she heard somewhere that older people tend to lean more towards the conservatives! :joker: :facepalm: I couldn't believe it. It had nothing to do with policies or her own beliefs or anything, just hearsay. It's a good example i think that not all voters are informed (sorry mum!) in fact I'd say that you lot are probably in the minority.

It was a great plan, they've done wonders for the elderly and pensions... ... D:

I keep saying this and similar on here but am often shot down with assurances that the majority of people are politically aware. I was starting to think that I was living in some sort of alternative reality bubble, because in my experience 75% of people have no idea and aren't really interested :joker:

Great post Joey, you will make a politician yet!
In the time I’ve known you on here, you have stuck to your principles and I for one, think those principles are genuinely based on compassion towards a working class and middle class Britain. Regardless of what fence you sit on though, I’d enjoy debating with you, simply because of the substance you put into what you write.

Most people who vote and especially those who don’t bother turning up to vote, do so (or don’t bother) because whatever is happening in Britain hasn’t infringed on their own personal lives or at least they believe it hasn’t. Most people lean towards the party their regular paper believe in and most people who read the Daily Mail or The Guardian, come from families and hang around with friends who read similar or the same paper; so when people talk about popular opinion, they generally mean popular opinion between their peers and relatives.

I spent years as a LibDem supporter. I was raised with their sort of principles and because both my husband and farther were regular attendees at their old headquarters in Cowley St, I was able to attend some of their functions, which inevitably strengthened my support for them. If they had stayed out of the coalition, I’d likely still be supporting them but what I see now is a party with no point and although I’m told that they are now re-grouping out of the limelight, I don’t believe they will ever re-morph into what they once were.

I had no interest in the Blairite type NL and the Conservative party didn’t overly worry me but I will admit to initially being quite excited at the prospects of coalition government. I have though, always had a fascination with Marxist philosophy (which a lot of people confuse with Russian type communism ;)) and so when Corbyn came along, my interest in British politics was re-kindled.

By the way…friends and family have tried teasing me by calling me a Marxist. I just smile sweetly and ask them to explain what they mean, which of course they can’t!

Jamie, I think that is fairly typical. Saying that NL were just a party who aligned themselves with the right and so it was a really difficult choice in these last elections.

Out of interest, what does she think of Corbyn ?

Jamie your mother may well be right, is she a homeowner?
That was said to 'turn people conservative directly', as that is the ideal the property owning capitalist ethos maybe she's heard this somewhere.
Or the theory of bourgeoisification?

David isn't satisfied with ruining the country... He want's to ruin Europe too.

https://www.gov.uk/government/speech...eech-on-europe

Here is his letter of renegotiation.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...-politics-live

She doesn't really think anything of him. When I was younger both my parents were very politically minded and were always discussing the parties at election time etc and drumming it into us that politics is important, but over the last few years they've both completely lost interest. I find it really weird, but I think it's a case of disenchantment. But even though they're not interested anymore, they'll still vote, because they always have.

She is a homeowner yes but to be honest, even if the conservatives do have policies that would benefit her, that's just a happy coincidence, because she really has no idea what they stand for or what their policies are.

I'm gonna print this thread and show it to her haha!

Maybe it simply was a case of better the devil you know?...
It is well known that as people grow older they become more conservative in their outlook, as they accumulate property and possessions, the right are seen as the party of the family unit and the protectors of traditional values.
Except now they aren't.

Sir Bill Cash, a Conservative, says the proposals are a “pig in a poke”. Almost all of the proposals will require treaty change. But that is not on offer, so how will the government get the guarantees it wants.

enoughway ithway hetay igpay okesjay!

They are all things he has talked about for the last year,he has been planning this for nearly 3 years now and this is the best he can come up with.
I tell you this, nothing he said today will heal the divisions in the Conservative party on Europe and could even make things worse.

This man is a political danger to himself never mind the UK and the EU.

I agree with Bagehot at the Economist; " Cameron has now committed himself to phoney renegotiations."

He won't get everything he wants but some of the demands are moderate enough to get a favourable reception and at least he can then say he's done something. And at least he's trying: pretty much everyone agrees that the EU in its current state has a lot of flaws that serious need to be addressed if it wants to survive. We're not the only country who wants different terms: there is plenty of sympathy for the UK's aims in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and elsewhere.

Ruin? Well, not completely. But he is undoubtedly one of the worst prime ministers we've had, second only to thatcher herself.

I'll wager that support is firmly in one area.

“cold advisers of yet colder kings” who “coolly sharpen misery’s sharpest fang … regardless of the poor man’s pang”,

I would say Josh that she was miles better than him, she was right in her reforms of the Unions.
She knew when to stop however and not go too far.
She was wrong on many issues but one thing can be said for her, she never set out and persecuted,victimised,demonised and piled pressure on the sick,disabled and most vulnerable like this PM has.

Whatever the views on her,at least she held on to some decency and justice unlike this waste of space we have now in Cameron.

I really don't get everyone's gripe with Cameron and the EU. If he wins concessions, they will be good for the interests of the UK. If the EU don't budge, on their heads be it when we get an opportunity to vote

did you go to bed last night in a comfortable bed, under a strong roof, in a warm room, with food in your belly? Did your loved ones also enjoy that comfort? that is Cameron's job, to make sure that continues happening. so if the answer is yes, he is a success.