Does everyone scream at the TV like a lunatic, or is it just me? Ed Miliband’s Labour party conference speech had just been covered on the news last night, and they were replaying his big soundbite quote of the day…
“Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out-of-touch, U-turning, pledge-breaking, make-it-up-as-you-go-along, back-of-the-envelope, miserable shower than this Prime Minister and his government?”
Like several million others I suspect, I was yelling at the screen that couldn’t care less…”Yes! You lot last time you were in power!!!”
The speech itself seemed to get a very good reception – mainly I suspect, for the same reason that performing chimps get a good reception – not because they’re particularly good, but because people are amazed they can actually do it all.
The ‘soundbite of the day’ was annoying, but it wasn’t nearly the most irritating, cringe-worthy and potentially damaging part of the speech. That honour was reserved for Miliband’s repeated references to his own comprehensive school education, making the distinction between that and the privately education enjoyed by Cameron and Osbourne.
The implication and inference were clear – “I’m one of you…a man of the people who has come from nothing. They are part of the privileged elite.” It’s an approach cynically designed to appeal to people who hate the thought of anyone getting a better start in life – people who see starting out with a level playing field as more important than anything else. If the approach did appeal to those people, then maybe they should take into account a few facts which Mr Miliband overlooked.
If you’re going to use your comprehensive school education as evidence of your “I’m one of you” credentials, then I think it’s only right that you bring to the fore, all aspects of your start in life. The school you attended is just one facet of your early life – just one determinant of any unfair advantage (if such a thing exists) you may or may not have had. So what do we know about Mr Miliband?
Ed Miliband was born in London. His father Ralph Miliband was a renowned author, academic and thinker. His mother was a well-respected human rights activist. During Miliband’s childhood, his fathers work took the family around the world including two one year spells living in Boston, Massachusetts. As a teenager, he reviewed films and plays on LBC Radio’s Young London programme as one of its “Three O’Clock Reviewers”, and worked as an intern to family friend and MP for Chesterfield, Tony Benn.
The harsh truth is that life isn’t fair. The school you go to isn’t the only determinant of how good a start you get in life though. It’s not even necessarily the most important one. Having the ‘right’ parents and being brought up in the right environment are far more critical. If David Cameron had an advantage enjoyed by few of the electorate by virtue of the school he attended, then I’d argue that Ed Miliband enjoyed an equally rare advantage by virtue of his parentage, contacts and upbringing.
Can either of them be blamed for the advantages they were born with? Of course not. Should either of them be penalised or criticised for the advantages they were born in to? I don’t believe so. They can do nothing about what they were given, but they can do everything with what they make of it.
It would be bad enough if Miliband had been brought up in a council house with working class parents to try to make political capital from his opponents private school education. The fact that he does it while drawing a veil over the privileges of his own upbringing is nothing short of hypocrisy.
Nobody should be criticised or penalised because of where they came from, only for what they have become. Political posturing like that displayed by Miliband this week, shouldn’t really matter, but it does. It gives those brought up without privilege, justification and validation for failure, and it gives the privileged cause to metaphorically apologise, and hold back from fully capitalising on the advantages they have . When that happens, nobody reaches their full potential, and with that, a whole society is made to suffer.
To be the best you can be, you have to believe that you can do it – that there is nothing standing in your way. When you’re being asked to bemoan your start in life – or apologise for it…it’s almost impossible.
One Nation my arse, Ed!
Don’t get me started John….
I’ll say one thing as a proud working class kid, actually brought up on a council estate, who was bright enough to make it to grammar school, ‘There’s possibly only one thing worse than being working class and that’s some twat – like Milliband – pretending they’re working class!’
Well I had a similar start (no Grammar School though…just the local comp) and I have to agree. Anybody who was brought up working class can spot a fake a mile away. Miliband is no more working class than Cameron. They are from the same place. To pretend otherwise is an insult to the intelligence, and a massive backward step if he really wants to create ‘one nation’.
Fully agree with you John – seems like a few years in opposition causes amnesia.
In the ’70s I was Marketing Manager of London Transport Advertising. From time to time a colleague or I sat on a sub-committee of the Film Censor Board. We decided to research a number of film posters to assess their impact on growing children. We trained a number of sixth formers as interviewers and set up a display around which the children could move looking at posters. There followed the interview. This was the best behaved, well organised, disciplined school I had been in for a very long time. It was Haverstock Hill Comprehensive, Ed’s Alma Mater.
Wow someones touchy! Life isn’t fair as you rightly said, but what’s wrong with trying to make it fairer. All politicians should be aiming for a more just and fair society for all, rather than pandering to one specific group. Giving a tax cut to millionaires whilst freezing the pay of nurses, teachers, kitchen assistants etc says it all really about the conservatives.
Good luck to Ed Milliband for at least trying to make things fairer for the less fortunate. Equality of opportunity is what he is proposing rather than preserving the advantages of a few rich elite.
Nothing wrong with trying to make things fairer, but do it with honesty and integrity. Accept which side of the tracks you started out on. There’s no shame in it. People will never achieve all they are capable of if they feel constrained by their start in life. What message does it send out that our top politicians don’t feel able to be open about how they started out?
As for the ‘few rich elite’, are you talking about the sort of people who have a combined family income of over £400,000 a year…the sort of people who live in £2 Million+ houses? Wonder if Mr Miliband knows anyone like that?
John, how true and how succinctly put. But go easy on the chimps they are in a different league to these muppets!
Hasn’t the penny dropped even now. No politician is ever going to “fix” this world. Man is largely unable to ever agree. Take any subject and ask opposing men, or political parties their views. Both sides give their sides, both sound correct, but they never agree, and would pretty much like to kill each other once it degenerates into insanity. It’s the way it always has been, they keep their positions of well paid power and the masses live in hope…that never comes. I’m afraid it will continue. To be the way of things until the biblical new order is upon us. Live your life, do your very best, its the best we can ever achieve on our own.
Apart from all the hypocritical upbringing bo****ks, “One Nation” which one would that be? Any of the ones Labour devolved power to? Just England maybe, or does that still have racist overtones for the Labour wonks?
I like it . If I was 30 years younger I’d stand for parliament and like Cromwell tell them, In God’s name go’. Things have changed in my day if I asked my Dad for something. He’d reply you can have whatever you want just go an earn it. Give to the poor and the poor will remain . Who was the last poor man that employed a poor man. Yours DC
Can you imagine a country run by Wayne and Waynetta’s….We do at least need people who can read and write, but given all our combined politicians efforts that’s getting more and more unlikely as they keep destroying our education system. As for hypocrisy…well ALL our so called politicians are absolute masters in the first degree.
I really don’t think it matters where you came from, what matters is what you say and do and I just wish one of them would get up and speak their mind.
It wont ever happen…
My rant in response to your rant = While not disagreeing with what you say about Ed Milliband being a turd, your implying that in contrast arrogant posh boys Cameron, Osborne and Johnson are so ultra bloody wonderful because they have been to fee paying schools is just a load of bollocks. Yes the Labour government under Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were completely out of touch. They could not see the disaster that was coming by their ridiculous over spending and lining the pockets of the wrong people and Ed Balls was a key component of that failure, but if you study the speeches of arrogant posh boys Osborne and Cameron when they were in opposition they were equally out of touch with Labour. And have the Con-Lib government actually done anything to correct the problems they highlighted such as by cutting idiotic bureaucracy like the chief executive of New Forest Park Authority being paid £1,000 per day for destriying people’s homes without any kind of mandate or approval from council tax payers, nationalising the banks and making them lend, cutting the number of MPs to about 200, taxing football transfer fees by 200%., stopping overseas aid to countrie like India who are far more wealthy than us and pulling out of the EU. – NO. Things are just as bad under the Con-lib government as they were under Labour.
Regarding last government’s out of touchness, the only politician in UK who saw what was coming and said so was Vince Cable but he was a voice in the wilderness who nobody took any notice of, but I have no time for the rest of the Lib-Dems policies either. Because at the end of the day the whole lot are tarred with the same brush, no it makes no f-ing difference who we vote for we end up with the same cocktail of vote grubbing lies, incompetence, out of touchness, arrogance and lining their own pockets and to hell with everybody else.
Best Wishes
David, Reading, Berks
Well if I can rant, no reason why you shouldn’t follow suit. I’m not sure I’ve expressed myself very well though, if you feel I said anything in favour of the current government or ‘the arrogant posh boys’ as you put it. My point was that Miliband is decrying the aforementioned ‘APB’s for their privlidged upbringing while making out that he didn’t have one, which clearly isn’t the case. In so doing he is being divisive and destructive, rather than laying the foundations for the ‘one nation’ he says he stands for.
Dani
I do not care what school they may have attended, what matters is what they do afterwards before becoming an MP. Banking, government Civil Service and interns do not cut it. If they spent a few years in the real world first, they might learn how the “Plebs” exist.
Dani et al,
Quite correct. There are very few politicians nowadays, in all parties, who have any experience of working life. Both Millipede and Camoron have only ever “worked” in Westminster. We need people who have had to make their own way in life and have developed common sense and wisdom along the way. The great majority of our ruling class have not done this. The greater part of today’s politicians are not even old enough to have developed either common sense or wisdom.
If red Ed went to a comprehensive school, which only came into being in the late seventies, (before he went to Oxford!!!), then he is not yet old enough to lead anything more than a dog.
David,
What in God’s name is the matter with you? Be the change in the world you want it to be. Someone far more illustrious than myself has been attributed that quote (or similar).
YOU are the one that will make the changes in your life. Just get off your pompous arse and stop blaming someone else (anyone else) for the ills in your sad life. Wailing about others will send you down the road of madness! I had to write this as it’s YOU and YOUR type that have driven me to move overseas to live out my life. It’s not the ‘fault’ of the politicians, they’re just carrying out the duties YOU voted them in to perform. Your ‘reasoning’ is an embarrassment to yourself.
I’d forgotten why I don’t usually write anything about politics. It’s coming back to me now.
John, a great article.
Myself and my brothers attended one of the roughest comprehensive schools in Liverpool as children. The school sucked, but it was the closest to get for us. Today, myself and my brothers are doing really well in life. With a mix of a Software Consultant, Doctor, a Managing Director and a National Logistics Manager, all of us excelled in our careers after school. We were brought up in the roughest, poorest parts of Liverpool but one thing was consistent all the way…. the one ingredient that helped us all reach our goals…
We had fantastic parents who taught us well…..
🙂
Kevin – you are so right. Blair did it big time too. They are the most dishonest & hypocritical bunch of ar*es imaginable.
What grieves me even more is that I have the radio on most of the day (on BBC 6Music), is the amount of airtime given over the last few months to quotes by Milliband and Balls. They have proven to be massively incompetent spendthrifts with not a jot of economic sense between them, and their credibility should be absolute zero with NO chance of ever resurrecting their careers.
But the zombies that ultimately John is referring to will vote for them. Perhaps our education system should involve a business, political & economic test that if it isnt passed then they cant vote? Yes, I know the ruling Gvmt will rig the test and force-feed more propaganda into schools, but really, the “Great Unwashed” need to understand what is really happening & how poor their children are going to be because of their economic myopia, short-term greed and laziness!
You are a scamp Mr. Harrison…
Baiting your loyal readers (all 6 of us) with tales of lying politicians.
All politicians tell lies, all of them, all of the time. No exceptions (apart from the Sacred Margaret).
The fine gent who is lucky enough to lead Spain is a shining example of a lying politico. “We don’t need financial assistance”. “We are a strong economy”. “Oh bugger we may need a few Euros after all fellow Europeans.” Sensible people panic when they see job losses of 3% of the workforce per month. Not Mr. R.
While I’m on the subject of Spain and lying…
The monthly industrial production data shows a decline since the economic peak in 2007 that is three times that reflected in the GDP accounts. Spain’s GDP numbers stink like rotten fish. You will no doubt hear much more on their dodgie bookkeeping in the press later this year.
I feel better after my mini-rant!
PS. I attended a wonderful High School in inner city Leeds. O’levels in both Fire Starting and Shoplifting were very useful for a career in Investment Banking. Would I have chosen Eton if my parents had the means…….. F*** yes!
Ha…You must be at least wrong on one count, given that there are more than six replies to this rant alone! Shoplifting was an optional extra curricular activity at my school with many pupils selflessly giving up their dinner hour for that very purpose. You wouldn’t get that kind of dedication today
Did you in fact listen to him? Do you really throw your time away like this? There are no longer any politicians of that quality around in these days to harm your ears listening to the sounds of their pathetic speeches. Next they will be in and we will have to listen to the very same mantra from those in power now. I thought you were self made man!
I wouldn’t want to take responsibility for that standard of workmanship!
same old labour same old lies nowt original blame the tories for the mess brown and co left the country in, LABOUR ISNT LEARNING , period , labour voters and guardian readers unfortunately are incapable of free thinking poor sods
Hear, hear, John.
I fully agree with you and Kevin Sheeran.
I, like Kevin, went to a Grammar School, although I didn’t grow up on a council estate.
However my father suffered ill health and consequently we were poor in comparison with many of our neighbours, who were coal miners.
Why does Ed Milliband think he is capable of efficiently running a Country, especially one in the mess left by his predecessors?
Vote for J Harrison everybody! Oh, he isn’t standing as an Independant. Shame.
Quite right John! It was sickening.
Like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown he had a a sheltered and privileged upbringing.
The sham was cynical and designed to create a quite false impression of “man of the people”!
Wasn’t John Major the last p.m. genuinely from the background Mr Milliband suggests, falsely was his?
Just a thought … but then he will be judged on what he achieves not where he came from!
Seems a nice guy though!
Missing the point of it all? Look at all the ‘leaders’ (parties) of the western world Europe and USA. What are they worth, have they achieved/ what can they achieve? …. colossal debt along with a near-destruction of inventiveness and self-reliance, personally and nationally, i.e. total destruction of family and societal structure, achieved with your permission and money. Politics has become a cynical, media and money circus for people to use the hard-earned wealth of the ‘real working (earning) class’ (RWC) to finance a useless governmental bureaucracy, service economy and burgeoning ‘social programme’….. Too much government intervention and meddling. Politicians don’t care about a decent or sustainable society, only votes or half-baked concepts. Could a RWC party /(the earners and funders) be outvoted by bureaucrats and beneficiaries of state? Probably, but, even if in power, coalition or other, they (RWC) would then be exposed to the corruption of values and ‘pragmatism’. That leaves the final alternative of Don’s aforementioned Cromwellian intervention, and, if that doesn’t work, the eastern emerging nations will do it for us….. Our comments will probably been have been stored in a government database somewhere by now.
Of course you’re right John, but all Victor Meldrew ever got for his exasperation was blood pressure; =- and so will you!
I can’t see a solution to our ‘One Nation’s’ problems being addressed properly by any of the current batch of Politicos, (with the possible exception of Nigel Farage). – I believe we could do worse than have a ‘French’ style revolution, and a period of benign dictatorship. — Lead me to the barricades!
I have found the easiest way of avoiding increased blood pressure at this time of year is to totally ignore all the posturing that goes on. I always feel that GB. Ltd seems to manage remarkably well when all of these bloodsucking, expense bloated, self seeking politicians are on holiday, and would have no problem if they remained so.
Its the civil service who run the country anyway so why not have a group of policies that everyone votes for and let the civil service get on with it and get rid of every man jack of the politicians. Simplistic I know but we led the world in democracy now maybe its time for some real change, instead of one party spending most of its term in office destroying evrything that was done in the previous lots term.
Arent we all just fed up with the lot of them. How many of them stand out as true leaders with vision – none of this lot thats for sure….
Good point. I’ve been thinking about this. You know how roundabouts seem to flow a lot better when the traffic lights are broken down? Same thing with the country when the politicians are on holiday.
Lol. I was shouting at the tv too! They are all as bad as one another though and I think everyone knows that deep down.
They will say whatever the hell it takes to get into power and then usually do the exact polar opposite of what they have promised to do.
That’s why I am writing this from Cyprus! (The politicians are no better here, but at least the sun is shining)!
Nice little Rant John. One of the things that always amazes me is the fact that they all slag off each other. The discipline and way that they conduct themselves in Parliament is a complete refection of how a large majority of people who live in the UK conduct themselves.
It doesn’t matter who gets in they are all the same, there needs to be a system in place that will only allow them a certain amount of time in Government to present themselves after that they become outdated and very hypocritical. Anybody from the outside looking in would and should look at these complete incompetent arseholse and question the way that they lead and voice themselves is a far cry from from any standard of leadership this country needs.
Speaking as a privately educated, white, thoroughbred English male, I am disgusted at the hypocritical ramblings of this pleb!
Seriously, whilst I am all of the above, I’ve finally learned not to get all het up about the nonsense that all politicians come out with. They all say, and always will say, what they think the sheeple will suck in regardless of the bare-faced lies some of us know they are telling.
They are all power hungry, money grabbing, inveterate liars. The politics of envy really comes out at times this – the use of phrases like posh boy etc are really pathetic and just shows the bleeding heart Lefties for the cretinous scum they really are. I have no time for the Tories either, and certainly none for the moronic Illiberal Dumbocrats, but the notion that Ed just wants a fairer society for all is so mind-explodingly naive that it never ceases to amaze me how the tribal socialist voter always forgets how consistently poor Labour governments are at managing the economy.
We really do need a revolution of some sort in this country to rid ourselves of the barely indistinguishable LibLabCon pact. None of them have anything different to offer now. They have made vast swathes of the population dependent on nanny’s teat, taxing those of us who actually try to provide decent lives for our families til we bleed. The lying Lefties are the worst at this but in the end they are all the same.
One nation, one of you, comp education … blah, blah, blah. Fingers in my ears, heard it all before mate. Doesn’t change the fact that he looks and sounds like a poorly conceived cartoon character, has the most egregious bully boy sitting at his right hand and the truly awful Mad Harriet Harperson at his left.
OK, so maybe I still do get a bit het up.
Yes, pretty good rant for someone who doesn’t get het up about this stuff. Let me know when you’re really cheesed off about something. I’d like to read that.
I knew Milliband was lying cos his lips were moving.
Our politics would be improved if we adopt the Swedish model of killing a politician every five years or so.
Gerry that was brilliant – really made me laugh and after reading the doom and gloom here I needed it 🙂
It’s an interesting idea, and would certainly test the commitment of those standing for office. Maybe it should be like X Factor, with a different MP voted out each week and promptly put in front of a firing squad. That would liven up question time a bit.
Vote Gerry!
Dave L
You are spot on.
Just a bit of background. I went to a “posh” school – Dulwich college, south-east London. We were a middle-class family (I think) but I managed to get a scholarship (I was clever, see?).
Did my upbringing/schooling achieve a lot for me? Well, in the 70’s/80’s I had my own business – big house in the country and all that – but lost it in the tail-end of the last big recession (91). Since when I’ve worked my butt of for others and now I’m 7o and poor – VERY poor!
What nobody really seems to realise about politicians is that they are, without exception, in it for one thing: how much money/power can I get for myself?
Every four or (now) five years, they come around for three weeks and tell you whatever it is you want they will give you when they get in. They kiss your babies and your arses.
Then they get in, tinker around at the edges a bit, and everything carries on as before.
The result is that for the last 30 years – and the forseeable future – nobody in their right mind votes FOR a party – they just vote AGAINST the lot in power, because we’re all sick to death of them. That’s what happened to Brown and what have we got in his place? A bunch of shilly-shallying morons with nothing better to do than squabble over who’s going to get their way and to hell with the country.
There isn’t ONE of them – of any party – who could actually give a toss about you.
Dave, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve said for at least twenty years that what we need in this country is an armed uprising and kick the whole bloody lot of them into the long grass. Pity is, we won’t get it.
You’d be daft to trust anyone who brags they’re working class!
I was thinking on very similar lines when I heard the speech, The thing that worried me was that BBC seemed to report it a some kind of triumph. Can’t see how anyone could really be taken in by him but stranger things have been known. I think the only way we’ll get sensible government is if we scrapped the party system altogether. We elect our local MP to represent our views in parliament only for them to be told to toe the party line. Politics seems to attract the wrong sort of people. Any chance of you standing John?
I’m getting to an age were I don’t really care any more. I have been saddened by many things over the years. Bad politicians, bad unions, bad media coverage and the gradual decline of political speaking, which is becoming more of a point scoring exercise against the opposing party rather than an opportunity to explain how they would improve our lot.
It’s sad that most of the electorate are sucked into this and seem to forget what happened before. I have lived through two periods of Labour government and on both occasions they left the country in severe financial straits. At least Thatcher got us back on the rails but then only for Blair and Brown to plunge us back into debt.
Cameron and Co. inherited a difficult financial situation. They have had little choice but to make difficult and unpopular choices to get our debt under control. I just hope they can do it before they get voted out. Lord knows how we would fare if Labour got back in again now.
Looking back, several years ago, there was an obvious problem waiting to happen when personal debt on credit cards and loans reached all time highs. So many people are now having to pay back those loans and cutting back on spending that would help the economy now. I’m amazed that all these clever financial gurus couldn’t see the danger back then and done something to bring a bit of reality into the banking sector.
My mum was right – if you can’t afford it manage without until you can.
We now have a population with expectations of a high standard of living, often funded by past credit, faced with austerity and they are not happy about it.
What I would like to see is someone like Vince Cable present the financial situation to the people in a clear, unambiguous, none political way, much like Harold MacMillan did way back in the days of “I’m backing Britain”. Maybe then the we would get some reality and fewer pipe dreams.
While I’m on a roll, what was all that fuss about re-grading GCSE’s. Why do we have grades anyway, why can’t we just be told the percentage mark. Beats me – I can understand 50%, 75% etc – why do they have to complicate matters with a grade. From what I understand the marks that the pupils got were pretty much as expected it was the grade that changed. Am I the only one who can see this ..
End of rant – oooh that was good – 68 years old and just getting going 🙂
And I thought I was the only one who daydreams of a Guy Fawkes/Oliver Cromwellian solution! It would, though, need to include the senior ranks of the Brussels-adoring Administrative Civil Service.
Hello John,
There are only three words to descibe the opposition accurately:
ENVY – ENVY – ENVY and before I forget
JEALOUSY – JEALOUSY – JEALOUSY and before I forget
INCOMPENTENCE – INCOMPENTENCE – INCOMPENTENCE
There are three thousand more but I do not wish to bore you because you are obviously aware of them all. Thet must never be allowed to them to arrange a booze up in a brewery – failure will surely follow.
I’m afraid envy is a very easy sell.
I heard no mention of exactly how Ed M. actually got his place at Oxford university and later, a spell at Harvard, could the ‘hidden hand’ of power have helped out here? I never heard anyone go on about ‘posh boy’ Tony Blair who attended Fettes, the best private school in Edinburgh. What hypocrites they all are, spending taxpayers money like confetti, never saving a single pound, selling 400 tons of our gold reserves with NO Referendum from the people, that lost us all £16bn at todays prices. These people are complete buffoons we can all do without. Our pensioners live in penury on the lowest pensions in Europe HMG cannot afford to pay for elderly care without stealing your house or funds built up by working and paying taxes for a lifetime. CGT at 28% for unearned capital gain, why does HMG believe they have any right to such assets that they didn’t earn it either? Inheritance tax to keep the people poor, no help on welfare for anyone who has not paid any NI for the last two years even though they paid in for 40 years previously, yet anyone coming in on the boat gets the lot. This country is totally shot! no wonder George Harrison sold everything up and bought a house in Switzerland to stop HMG taking his wealth when he learned he had cancer and why Richard Burton is buried in Switzerland under a chunk of welsh slate to save £millions in taxes if he had been buried in Wales. We all need a flat tax system to encourage people to work because they can keep that little bit more for themselves and encourage growth but it will never happen. The Treasury even give bonuses for those who can dream up ever more tax schemes to strip us all bare. Now they target ‘Tax avoidance’ which is totally legal, with smart people using the 11,000 pages of tax rules to minimise their own taxes, why not simplify the lot? That’s too easy! Some of this was published this week in my letter to the Express in a vain hope that people wake up to the socialist wreckers.
Cheers AC. Ipswich
Excellent post. No reason to think that Miliband didn’t get his places at Oxford and Harvard on merit though, any more than that Cameron and co didn’t get theirs in the same way. But if you argue that one had a leg up, a similar arguement for the other is equally valid.
Yep… Little tip for the next elections….
As we no longer have Screaming Lord Such to look up to, please vote for King Arthur Pendragon who has a very nice shiny sword to wave about.
Cheers.
All great stuff. Hypocrite, defo. But don’t forget ‘liar’ to boot. A number of the ‘facts’ he lobbed into his speech were clearly untrue, such as, for instance, Cameron signing himself a £40,000 cheque by reducing the top tax rate. Sheer nuts.
But also emphasise that Milli’s comprehensive was one of the highest achieving schools in the country. Not at all a bog standard comp.
And, all this talk of millionaires ! Why not highlight that Milli’s own house in London is valued at something in the region of £1.6 million quid. So, even though he may be the son of an unreconstructed Marxist, he’s still a millionaire himself.
Keep up the good work !
Wow, great responses all round, even if I don’t agree with some.
Here is my final two cents worth…
*I’d love us to be governed by people who have actually had proper jobs, built businesses from scratch and created wealth.
*The truth is that businesses in this great nation (big and small) succeed not because of government but DESPITE it. For eg, the last Labour government imposed over 3,500 new regulations on enterprises (around 10 every day) in ONE year!
*Disraeli never actually used the expression ‘One Nation.’ Although Ed apparently repeated it over 40 times! Maybe his comp school wasn’t that good after all?
*Where the f*** is Gordon (‘an end to boom and bust’) Brown? The former Chancellor and Premier who helped land us in the mess has been all but invisible in last couple of years…except when he was moaning about the Sun invading his privacy.
Happy days indeed
Kevin
Congratulations John. Not only on an excellent rant but also an exceptionally excellent gift of adding to the day’s wind-up!
So – who does everyone think actually DOES make a difference to their community or Society in general?
Some may say Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Lawyers (pah!), Social Workers, Business Owners (employers) – who?
Once you have made your choice ask yourself this question – what training, qualifications, dedication, do they need and what time do they have to commit to being good at their job?
Then ask yourself the same question about politicians…
You need a licence to own a dog – but not to be a parent.
You need time, effort, qualifications, and dedication to be successful in any job that actually matters – but nothing whatsoever (except perhaps a complete disregard for your fellow man) to be a politician.
Nuff said?
I sat the eleven-plus and won a place at grammar school, and I am grateful to have received a first rate education. My father was a car worker at Dagenham and could never have afforded to pay for my schooling. There were no toffs at the school, just average lads who got there under their own volition.
None of the three main parties are in favour of grammar schools, in spite of the fact that the remaining ones score as many qualifications as do private schools. The only party solidly supportive of grammar schools is UKIP.
The Lab/Lib/Cons have all a go at running the country, and have made a right pig’s ear of it and all of them are content to take their orders from the EU when it comes to legislation, and to give Brussels £50 million a day for the benefit of accepting the avalanche of regulations that is holding our industries back. Nor will any of them give us a referendum.
We should vote them out of office. Fortunately UKIP has a whole range of policies which put the UK first, and put the money now leaking our to the wasteful and useless EU, to far better use.
So, are we all in agreement?
They are all useless, nobody believes them, we vote for the next lot because we are fed up with what this lot did, and we think revolution is what’s needed. Trouble is we are all too tired to try anymore! Well maybe we care, and shout at the TV but what do we all do, nothing. Maybe we need to import some Aussies or French types, they don’t seem to take it lying down, cause if we carry on doing the same thing we will always get the same results. I think it all sucks but what should we do, well let’s vote for someone who cares, someone who will do a good job for us? Now I am sure that many who aspired to represent the people had the best of ideas, trouble is in the main those ideologies got changed by others. If you ever watched ‘Yes Minister’ perhaps we need a great sort out with the other lot as well?
spot on about Ed .last time they were in power they threw money around like a madwoman .How can people be better off not working than working.The only fact is that whichever party is in it will be the workers getting poorer and the politicians getting richer.
John, in your rant you made it very clear whose side you are on. How what Ed said is keeping me poor is beyond me. Ed Miliband was perfectly right with his description of the incompetence of Cameron and his cabinet. Hardly a week goes by without some clanger or U turn. Even now it is the rail network u turn which is costing the taxpayer vast amounts. It is perfectly true that EM went to a comprehensive school and his friends there were from all walks of life, which probably does make him more in touch and the fact he went on to bigger and better things doesn’t nullify that fact. It is funny(peculiar) you don’t mention Cameron and his photo opportunities and “we are all in it together” speeches. I think a lot of people like me are heartily sick of one Condem after another appearing on the media repeating”the mess we inherited” parrot fashion. OK arguably in hindsight Labour spent more than they should, but most of it was to build new schools and hospitals and repair crumbling ones and the like, and this was voted on and approved at the time by the very Condems who are complaining about it now. The main problem was the banks and countries round the world have suffered because of it. The Condems are borrowing more than ever, we are in a double dip recession, higher than ever unemployment, and all you can rant about is Ed Milliband trying to get a few brownie points because he went to a comprehensive school. Personally, as much as you find EMs remarks about Condems cringeworthy, I find your remarks about” performing chimps” cringeworthy You, as a poorer kid, had a free university education and now have a multi million pound publishing empire due to your own endeavours, and good luck to you, but don’t now turn your back on the principles that helped get you there. One thing I would agree with you on. It is as important, if not more important, that you have decent parents who encourage you. Not all kids are this fortunate. Incidentally, to your correspondent Anthony Jones – EM is not a liar – his remark about writing a £40,000 cheque was not meant to be taken literally! If I were to list the lies I have heard Cameron utter at PMs questions I would be here all day! From an eighty year old who has seen it all and learned from it.
We’re all going to have our own political views, but this wasn’t about that. It was (and is) about being honest and proud about where you come from, and to neither penalise nor criticise others for where they started out. Mr Miliband was being disengeneous at best when comparing his background to Camerons. To my mind their backgrounds are identical. They come from the same place.
At the risk of repeating myself, this is important because if a perception is created that one background is somehow ‘worse’ than another, this can only be harmful to ambition, attainment and social mobility. And what better way to create such a perception than have your senior politicians so embarrassed about their start in life, that they choose to ‘re-present’ it for public consumption as something it isn’t. To do all this while on the other hand, trying to sell a ‘One Nation’ policy, is staggering.
For what it’s worth, I don’t have a great deal of time for many politicians, irrespective of their leanings. Cameron and Co can be criticised for many things – but isn’t their conference next week?
There are some excellent posts here. Great work John.
I’ve thought that our governments have always been useless. I’ve never voted one in, gladly, as I’ve always thought that no matter what they promise, it will never happen (sorry, only the policies that allow them to extract more money from the workers/business owners of the UK).
Let’s face it, regardless of who is voted in today, tomorrow or in ten years time, they will only achieve what is good FOR THEM and not for US!
This country should be run by the people. Not some political party that only thinks about lining the pockets of its members through fraud, lies and false expense claims.
End of rant.
All that I can say Is :- If You want to be a Criminal then join the Government and do it Legally. !!!!
The class war/envy battle will never go out of fashion. It is merely a vote catching exercise to keep them in dodgy expense claims amongst other things because they are puppets of a continental regime.
One person is a heartfelt story. Millions become a statistic. There’s nothing wrong with equality.
However your parents are the most important influence. If they don’t care, you won’t either. If you had a bad start in life with say violence and lack of stability, it seriously programs your view of the world at large to a very limited degree.
I don’t mean money necessarily. Poverty of pocket is one thing, poverty of thinking is another.
Take a conveyor belt of broken society and the engine propelling it will keep churning out the damaged and dispossessed. It is not easily fixed but envy politics does not provide a cure either.
We can’t all be amazing Olympic competitors who uplift our spirits . Or overpaid soccer players who can only kick with one foot, and influence children with their antics to the ref .
We are all different and can never be quite the same. The influences over our lives and those within them shape our thoughts and actions. Starting to ‘think for yourself’ and change your outlook can invite concern, jealousy and criticism with the best of ‘intentions’.
Take two guys with the same job. One spends everything he earns. The other tries to put some cash aside for a rainy day. When retirement beckons the first is lacking in filthy lucre and the other has modest savings.
They are ‘equal’ but not in terms of money. The saver is not responsible for the situation of the spender.
It is strange that they can’t take the best aspects of the best performing schools and integrate them within state schools so everyone benefits. Is this not equality?
Oh no. Elitism. So you have to be pulled down to the same level as everyone else!
Hi John,i listened to ED and Company, and to be blunt,if they gain total power at the next general election,we will have worse trouble ahead to live with.
I hate to say it, but a LIB-LAB,pact may be the best option,i thought the present partnership,would work and i pray that they can get us into profit,at least.!!
Here’s a tip that will save hundreds of thousands in Agency fees …
All Cameron has to do when his present five year stint ends is to make billboard sized copies of the note Labour Treasury Chief Secretary Liam Byrne left for his successor ..” I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left ”
History shows that Labour governments ALWAYS run out of other people’s money
I’ve read enough of the above to get the gist. Excuse me if I missed a relevant post.
I was brought up in Peckham, by good and honest working class parents, who through no fault of their own, didn’t know what was what. Yes, they knew that education was important, and they duly encouraged me to do my homework. I was a bit on the lazy side, but still managed to get to grammar school and university, because I was clever (only at sums though). Does this mean I could become prime minister or an MP even – no way josé..
What my parents didn’t tell me was that it is all about who you know and what you sound like. Do you think a cockney lad such as myself would be able to become a high ranking army officer – do you think I would command the respect of the “men”?
Lets face it, becoming a politician relies on thousands of “plebs” voting for you – and like it or not the right background helps. Whether it’s your left wing credentials (a la Antony Wedgewood Benn) or the right old school tie, this is the way “Great” Britain works.. Like it or lump it.. I wouldn’t worry though – “Democracy” doesn’t exist – Anthony Charles Lynton Blair mullahed the country for his own benefit with about 30% of voters (and even fewer non-voters) agreeing with him. Moral of the story – plough your own furrow, and forget the lot of them.
Never mind the ridiculous suggestion that Ed Milliband is/was/ever-will-be working class.. If he’d been a pupil at the local comprehensive I went to*, he’d have been mercilessly picked on for being a freak. How the hell did he ever get to be the leader of a political party?
* and I lived on a council estate. It didn’t stop me getting an education, a degree and a good job. (Both Technical AND Management)
Wow, with all these replies and emotions engendered, there has to be money to make here.
Oh, wait a minute, maybe that’s why they do it… a reasonable salary plus all the add-ons, even just the legal ones – if you can hack the hatred, there’s money in it.
I’d forgotten why I don’t usually write anything about politics. It’s coming back to me now.see what you started john (ha ha)
I feel people in this country are as to blame for the problems we have more than just politicians, mainly due to collective amnesia, plain stupidity, apathy and a self-centered outlook. It’s scarily true that we do get exactly what we vote for, our political class is a direct reflection of the people who keep voting for them.
It pains me to listen to football phone ins (I’m not a footie fan but just listen out of curiosity sometimes) where the caller is raving and ranting in a passionate and emotive tone about transfers or the goings on at his local team but ask him about politics or the 1001 legislations being undemocratically rammed through, mainly emanating from the dictatorial EU, that directly impact him, his community and his siblings future and you’ll be met with a well thought out and firmly put “Huh?”