good stuff the tories will do?

[_angel_]

Yeah, that's what happens. And they of course tend to cut the jobs on the front line usually which are already under pressure, whilst filling others with middle managers to look at how they can create efficiency

No govt is really going to try and create efficiency, take the whole system apart and build it up from scratch in an intelligent way to reduce waste - it's too much of a nightmare. Just slash some staff somewhere and leave more work for everyone else. And like you said, get a load of highly paid consultants in to tell them how to do it.
Stoat Boy's post sounds more like someone with an axe to grind against "the public sector" than anything else.

 

[little_legs]

They won't do anything good. At all. But, they won't be a lot worse than the present lot. Still, they're Tories, they can double fuck off.

ChrisFilter read my mind.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Bin ID cards.

Which is pointless if they don't bin the plans for further database consolidation.

 

[ViolentPanda]

With a bit of luck they'll reduce the national debt by cutting waste in public spending, cutting thousands of non-jobs as advertised in the Guardian, cut all the medding crap like diversity control departments and 5-a-day outreach workers, and get the unemployed doing many of the jobs that are going begging.

You are aware that all that local authority quality assurance and outreach stuff started in the late 1980s as part of the Thatcherite "revolution" of turning local government into hollow vessels for fulfilling central govt policy, aren't you?
Stupid question, you're obviously not aware, or you wouldn't vomit out such rubbish.

Oh, and vacancies are currently outnumbered by over 4:1 by job-chasers, dickhead.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Cut public spending. Sack civil servants. Simplify the tax system and remove lots of paper work that NL have imposed on business.

Cut what public spending?

Sack which civil servants?

Simply which parts of the tax system?

Remove what paperwork?

A bit of detail, please, otherwise you just sound like you're regurgitating tabloid prejudices.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You right-wingers, what do you mean when you say this?

They mean that they read a rant at "Harry's Place" which went on about the Guardian jobs section, and that they thought it a sufficiently apt representation (which in itself shows a fair level of stupidity) to try recycling it.
In my humble opinion, like.

 

[ViolentPanda]

"There is no such thing as society."

She was right.

There's always been such a thing as "society". It's what has allowed us, in spite of ourselves, to advance as far as we have. We've always been stronger as a social collectivity than as individuals.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

There's always been such a thing as "society". It's what has allowed us, in spite of ourselves, to advance as far as we have. We've always been stronger as a social collectivity than as individuals.

Ah. You say "society" with quotation marks. What is a society?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Fuck off!




* waits for the usual lame 'commie tw..' remark which one has come to expect from Alright.

Which usually only proves that the lame twat doesn't actually have much of aa clue what a "commie" is.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What so increase unemployment then......................like last time ?

Probably worse than the early 1980s, because at least then we were moving from being a "late-industrial economy" to a "service economy" and there was a little in the way of resources to smooth the transition. This time there's no economic transition, just a near-religious belief that the old verities of low public spending and control of the money supply will make everything right.
Of course, anyone except an economist will see that as the load of spurious steam-enshrouded horseshit it actually is.

 

[flash]

A bit of detail, please, otherwise you just sound like you're regurgitating tabloid prejudices.

You can't expect a bit of detail in this day and age, I mean seriously. That means you expect someone to have thought about a policy or point before they've made it - rather than just announce it as they are "on message"....

 

[ViolentPanda]

Ah. You say "society" with quotation marks. What is a society?

I put the word in quotation marks merely to highlight it.
What is a society?
Well, Thatcher would have had it that "...there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first", which ignores the fact that people organise into larger social and political aggregations than the family, even so far as being part of an "imagined community" (cf Anderson) of "the British people" (a socio-political aggregation that Thatcher was happy to appeal to on more than one occasion). She also avoided acknowledging that "those people who must look to themselves first", as elements of society and as individuals, were and are part of a social compact between the government and the governed, and that the compact that allows the government to govern means that the government has an obligation to "look to" them too, as well as expecting them to look to themselves.
So, the answer to your question is that society" is the coming together of individuals to seek and assure mutual collective benefit, whether that's through current democratic mechanisms or through some other "way".

 

[ViolentPanda]

ChrisFilter read my mind.

That's because he's a witch.

BURN HIM!!!

 

[ViolentPanda]

You can't expect a bit of detail in this day and age, I mean seriously. That means you expect someone to have thought about a policy or point before they've made it - rather than just announce it as they are "on message"....

You're right.
I don't know what I was thinking...

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

I put the word in quotation marks merely to highlight it.
What is a society?
Well, Thatcher would have had it that "...there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first", which ignores the fact that people organise into larger social and political aggregations than the family, even so far as being part of an "imagined community" (cf Anderson) of "the British people" (a socio-political aggregation that Thatcher was happy to appeal to on more than one occasion). She also avoided acknowledging that "those people who must look to themselves first", as elements of society and as individuals, were and are part of a social compact between the government and the governed, and that the compact that allows the government to govern means that the government has an obligation to "look to" them too, as well as expecting them to look to themselves.
So, the answer to your question is that society" is the coming together of individuals to seek and assure mutual collective benefit, whether that's through current democratic mechanisms or through some other "way".

Some people say, however, that it was kind of an observational statement. As an observational statement (i.e about how atomised we are) it might hold true now. But part of the observation is that if the state needs to facilitate social capital then it's not society, but the state, or even social capital, that we're talking about.

Society is a set of relationships, but these relationships are distinct from individuals with their narratives etc.. Perhaps, ultimately, we could be isolated self-sufficient islands and would prefer to be, but until then is society merely necessary, rather than an end in itself?

 

[Alright]

You are aware that all that local authority quality assurance and outreach stuff started in the late 1980s as part of the Thatcherite "revolution" of turning local government into hollow vessels for fulfilling central govt policy, aren't you?
Stupid question, you're obviously not aware, or you wouldn't vomit out such rubbish.

Of course I'm aware. It's still wrong.

Oh, and vacancies are currently outnumbered by over 4:1 by job-chasers, dickhead.

Link?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Some people say, however, that it was kind of an observational statement. As an observational statement (i.e about how atomised we are) it might hold true now. But part of the observation is that if the state needs to facilitate social capital then it's not society, but the state, or even social capital, that we're talking about.

The state is a tool of society, enabled only through the (tacit or otherwise) consent of society. If the state "needs to facilitate social capital", then it does what is required of it, whatever ideologues may state otherwise. The state only has utility to society for as long as it fulfils society's needs.

Society is a set of relationships, but these relationships are distinct from individuals with their narratives etc..

Or perhaps those relationships are part and parcel of individuals and inform their narratives?

Perhaps, ultimately, we could be isolated self-sufficient islands and would prefer to be, but until then is society merely necessary, rather than an end in itself?

Society appears to be necessary insofar as we need to be social animals in order to individually and collectively fulfil our potential, but given that society bestows more than it subtracts, then for most, the question of whether it is "merely necessary" isn't one that is asked.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Of course I'm aware. It's still wrong.

And yet I suspect you never railed against it until after 1997.

Link?

Who needs a link? Go check out directgov. Look at the current unemployment figures (just under 2.5 million) and match them against current vacancies) around 600,000 if you discount "seasonal" (i.e. "Christmas only") vacancies. Even an idiot can work out the ratio, so why not have a try?

 

[stethoscope]

Link?

You can piece it together pretty quickly yourself just by googling...

 

[CosmikRoger]

eventually get voted out.

 

[Davo1]

Or perhaps those relationships are part and parcel of individuals and inform their narratives?

^^^ YESYESYES!!!!!

I hope you've read this text by Jean Luc Nancy?:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Being-Singular-Plural-Meridian-Aesthetics/dp/0804739757

It borders on postmodern flimflam sometimes, but in my opinion it is currently the best that there is. He calls the idea of a pure individual - a pure subject - an 'implosion without any trace'.

Brilliant. And this poem as well, for a more 'arty farty' take:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175679

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Or perhaps those relationships are part and parcel of individuals and inform their narratives?

Society appears to be necessary insofar as we need to be social animals in order to individually and collectively fulfil our potential, but given that society bestows more than it subtracts, then for most, the question of whether it is "merely necessary" isn't one that is asked.

I was going to say something like "they're just two different vantage points of what are material processes". But I concede.

 

[toblerone3]

The Tories will get rid of a few QANGOs. One or more of these closures might be justified in terms of ' "value" for money '

If you had to close down just one QANGO which one would it be?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

The Tories will get rid of a few QANGOs. One or more of these closures might be justified in terms of ' "value" for money '

If you had to close down just one QANGO which one would it be?

the Met?

 

[toblerone3]

the Met?

Do you mean just get rid of the police?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Massive unaccountable quango, eating up public money....

 

[toblerone3]

One thing about a QANGO is that you will never get a QANGO recommending that it be closed down itself. So usually somebody who is not an expert in the field has to make the decision.

 

[toblerone3]

but what would you replace it with?

 

[toblerone3]

...anyway this thread started off with what the Tories might do. The Tories are not going to get rid of the Met.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

but what would you replace it with?

You're not thinking in proper cost-cutting terms - that's not important!