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Cameron's notes

I watched it, and am still chuckling at the idea that David Cameron has met a black man

what a load of bulls dangly bits! it was like watching trained chimps at the zoo! remind you of anything! one thing, made me more certain that they'll definitly not be getting my vote!

Well we have had the first of the political 'events' with more sound bites and spin applied than is really necessary. We do have the manifestos now to look though so let's look at the economics behind them and leave the hype to the leaders! There is the very real problem of UK fiscal debt which Vince Cable has described as the elephant in the room. With each of the main parties having about a £30B hole in their manifesto budgeting it would seem none are willing to be honest and willing to explain their spending pledges. At best they seem to be willing to discuss about £10b worth of savings but that isn't telling the whole tale by any means and will inevitably lead to a change in policy AFTER the election WHOEVER gets in. If we extrapolate the figures further we can clearly see the need for about £37B of real cuts to achieve even the present government's deficit targets by 2013/14. It would therefore seem that we are not being told the whole truth about public finances and will lead to a further loss of confidence, an already fragile confidence, in our elected leaders. Even the much lauded Vince Cable is complicit as he wrote the Lib Dem figures! One further small comment I would have is why are all the main parties committed to raising the foreign aid budget by £4B a year until 2013, surly it is now a case of charity begins at home? If we look over the last 13 years of a Labour Government, and remember this is just a fiscal overview, we can see they have raised the tax take by around £31B per annum but also raised public spending by a greater amount, even before the recent crisis, which now leaves us with a figure of 48% of GDP being devoted to public spending. Had this been applied judiciously we might have had other options now other than to 'pension off' a large part of that workforce, which by the very act adds to the economic burden the country must carry. In other words they have put money into public sector backroom jobs and salary increases instead of modernisations and front line services which now produces an economic imbalance. Adding to this tale of woe is the fact that the Institute of Fiscal studies has estimated that in its view there has been falls in efficiency of £42.5 billion over the period of Labour's tenure. Labours record of actually keeping its manifesto pledges is somewhat lacking in credibility shall we say and it's recent promise not to raise the higher rate of income tax then actually doing so would seem par for the course! The Conservatives have given rather patchy information about how they will 'eliminate the bulk of the deficit over the term of the next parliament'. They have said they will apply an 80%/20% formula with 80% being cuts and 20% increased taxes to reduce the structural deficit and give the same result as Labour about 1 year earlier. Anyone old enough to have gone through the last Conservative government might be interested to know that Ken used a 50%/50% formula. As with other promises by the other parties we have to ask how can taxes be cut when revenue into the treasury is needed, i.e., the promised scrapped of the NI rise. The Lib Dems would seem to have said they will be the highest raising tax party as a way of demonstrating their transparency. All well and good but looking closer we see the same flaws and holes in their proposals as the other two parties have! Some of their proposals look at first glance to be worthy of consideration as with the £10 grand starter rate for income tax. However looking to see how that will be paid for and applied would seem to be driving us into the realms of wishful thinking with phrases like, less tax avoidance and evasion? In conclusion it would seem we are being cajoled into thinking we are in a better fiscal position than we really are and cuts in services and tax rises will be modest. I hope no one is thinking that and we all realise very tough times lie ahead whichever party gets in. What is happening now is actually a disservice to our democracy not empowering it!

I thought it was all too rehearsed and neat and I don't think it was really a debate but more of a chance for all 3 leaders to give well-planned statements. I really hate 'sound-bite-speak!' And why bother with an audience at all if they aren't allowed to respond to anything? A bit of an anti-climax, I'm afraid.

Blimmey 3Gs, why did I poke my stick into this little bourgeois ants' nest; first out the heap are the soldiers whose task is to repel the system's critics. Yep, the ruling elite – and they're all the same whatever political party they infest - has never REALLY cared about working men and women. Despite their weasel words these shysters systematically deprived the 'old' industries of support which could have led them to a sustained future; shutting down the mines destroyed not only a huge support industry but with it the world leading expertise it had fostered. It doesn't take a genius to extrapolate what opportunities have been lost in our capacity for research and implementation of clean coal and carbon capture technology as a result of this industrial vandalism. Political spite, the obscene scramble for the short term gain, the personal enrichment of those Tory ministers who had shares in RTZ and other mining conglomerates who ended-up supplying imported coal. Let's just take a moment to hang our heads in shame when we remember loads of the stuff came from the sweated labour of the enslaved black miners of apartheid South Africa. Clearly, bourgeois ideology can only be effective if the masses blindly internalise it's thrust and automatically adhere to it's standard form of behaviour. This type of ideological imprinting manifests itself in the form of sterotypes of social participation, the purest expression of class collaborationist ideology is the notion of the 'partnership' between capital and labour; in other words the dialogue/relationship between the boss class and the workers. The bougeoisie wants to con people that there are no antagonistic social classes but only social partners who can come to agreements. Trouble is that trade unionism has fallen hook-line-and-sinker for this social contract policy tosh. What employers want is to impose their demands so that they can continue to enrich themselves, whilst squeezing the last juicy drops of pride and resistance from the workers. Show me a 'small businessman' and I'll accuse him of always attempting to fleece the punter and squirm at paying the minimum wage; as for the banking class, well ...! To those who still believe that the workers shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves from this form of political violence there are countless episodes of successful strike action resulting in demands being met, including securing jobs (just do a Google for "successful strikes†as this'll save me from labouring over a long list). The enemies (those growing fat on the tit of the bourgeois cow) of those whose mission it is to protect the poor working men and women need to realise that they won't disappear ... patience is a fine weapon! To quote Rosa Luxemburg: "Capatilism drips blood from every pore, not just at the time of it's birth, but throughout it's advance across the world. In this way, through ever more violent convulsions, capitalism brings about its own downfallâ€. Of course, the biggest dishonest weeze to control working men and women was the brilliant trick of selling them their own Council houses ... I'll stand back at this point and wait for the usual bleats of complaint from the poor misguided fools who were taken-in by the honour of owing large amounts of money to the banks and building societies ... the morgage shackle frightened the workers into not taking action. The right to buy was a stabilising factor for the existing system. That old regurgitated chestnut, the lack of a national ballot before the Miners' strike, seems to have been swallowed by those who aren't familiar with the NUM rule book. As it had, and still has, a federal structure, each area voted for action in it's own area. What did for the miners was the behaviour of the bosses poodles (NACODS), that breakaway scum in Nottingham, and the typically timid behaviour of the TUC. For a time it looked as if we were French ... a nation with form for collaboration and cowardice! That dispute could have been settled, and nearly was on two occasions, if solidaritry had held. Let's also put to rest that other bourgeois lie that the NUM were against pit closures; the NUM didn't oppose closures when mines were exhausted. Come on 3Gs, nobody or group (unless we consider those universal tools of oppression – the cops) was above the law; plenty of folks were 'lifted' for all sorts of spurious reasons. Remember people are still being clubbed, unlawfully kettled, and killed by the boys in blue even today. Working class resistance is not an outdated or futile concept.