In the words of a former leader and still respected elder statesman of their coalition partners, "We've seen the price of unbridled free market capitalism and it's not worth paying."

If it was all free market. It is not in capitalism's interest to have a 'free market'. So we have an 'unholy' alliance between politics and the corporate world.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini

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My blog: https://stevenplrose.wordpress.com/

Mussolini had workers' corporations, military corporations and peasant corporations. The present government won't even go as far as Mussolini in terms of equality and inclusion.

Personally I don't think a free market in its strictest form can ever exist. Not that I would advocate an old Labour style Clause IV theory to running the country, but I believe that governments should have a constructive hand in how the economy is run where they govern and prevent any one person, group or interest from becoming too big to undermine others. What too many right-wingers fail to understand is that while too much governmental power is harmful, so is too little. Governments at least in a functioning democracy are accountable in a way businesses are not. Take away an authority's powers and you create a vacuum which quickly get taken up by a select few whom will do everything in their path to remain in their place and crush any pretender below them, with no transparency available to bring them into account. Russia post-Soviet Union is a good recent example in that many people were so hungry that they sold the shares they were given in former state businesses for a fraction of the price to others willing to buy it off them for hard money, which gave rise to the Oligarchs.

Milton Friedman once gave Hong Kong as to him the best example of laissez-faire capitalism in the world without pointing out (a) unemployment does exists and at times is higher than some social-democratic European countries, (b) that they have an equivalent of JSA there, (c) that while income taxes are low, much of the revenue Hong Kong gets (to this day) comes from rather high land-value taxes, and (d) there are still monopolistic or cartel practices in certain areas of business there. This is not to mention that Hong Kong itself isn't that big and that most of the best examples of laissez-faire are constrained to quite small areas or populations. I wonder what he would think of the likes of Somalia these days? Sure there's a fair bit of businesses freedom there but you'd want to have you own Uzi armed guards alongside you in many parts of Mogadishu.

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"The first casualty on your Facebook wall is always facts..."

#rightwingpoliticalcorrectness - for when some "Tell it like it is" bullshitter plays the political correctness card, often without irony!

What with News International and A4e, there's an unusually large number of government's friends currently helping Plod with his inquiries, isn't there?

Odd thing about the A4E scandal is that whilst money is involved, the employees in Slough who have been accused of committing fraud, did it for the sake of hitting targets, rather than personal financial gain (although bonus incentive may be a factor). Because when A4E claim money from the Government for finding a jobseeker work, surely that dosh would go directly into the A4E bank account, it certainly won't go to individual employees. It does make A4E seem like a bit of a Mickey Mouse set-up if their people at the top have such flimsy procedures which allow employees the possibility of doing it in the first place.

Must say, IDS has been a bit quiet over all this.



Cameron always seems to come away unscathed though doesn't he. Without so much as a synthetic hair on his humanoid head out of place.

He's not unscathed from the health bill. When people realise he's just posturing on the EU, he'll lose those few supporters he picked up there too.

Good stuff on A4e in Private Eye. The Public Accounts Committee (not least Tory member, Richard Bacon) have been unimpressed with them. They fucked up under Labour and got termination payments which we aren't allowed to know. They're like the Pistols being paid to leave record labels.

That great track record, eh, Fraser Nelson?

I suspect you won't have to be a grammar nazi to appreciate this:

http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2012/02 ... l-student/

that's the most red pen i've seen since i let my (self confessed gramma pedant) housemate proof my last essay,


except that was 3000 words long,


and cited,


and not an explanation of something i'd devised in the first place.


F indeed.

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i have an art blog: http://procrastinationathon.blogspot.com/
and a review blog: http://blindwithwoodenhands.blogspot.com/
double blog! what does it mean?

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My blog: https://stevenplrose.wordpress.com/

At the risk of doing a broken record - can you imagine the shitstorm if a Labour SofS did that?

Well that would require capitalists to behave in an honorable and decent way..... so... you're right...

Humans suck.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

There's always something you don't know about arsehole politicians

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012 ... properties

Holy shit. First it was Andy Coulson and now Emma Harrison. What an incredibly bad judge of character the Prime Minister appears to be.

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My blog: https://stevenplrose.wordpress.com/