Right Wingers are less intelligent...

[Undisputedtruth]

Otta Wrote:

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> I suspect that part of the reason for this is that

> thick people buy tabloids and The Mail, and

> because they are thick, they don't question

> anything, they take what is printed as gospel

> truth, and as a result, end up with right wing

> ideals.

But your behaviour is no different to that of Mail readers.

[Otta]

How so UDT? I'm very interested to hear this.

[El Pibe]

I would be, and have guiltily enjoyed UDT's ludicrous posturing and bulletproof self-belief, but frankly it has become quite excruciating to watch.

UDT I've no idea why you enjoy hanging out in the forum or what it is you're trying to persuade others' of other than your own omnipotence, but stop it, seriously it's just embarrassing.

[indiepanda]

Undisputedtruth Wrote:

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> indiepanda Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> > Whereas Labour did such a great job

> overspending

> > for years when the economy was booming, hmm?

> >

> > Even my right wing parents taught me saving a

> bit

> > of money for a rainy day was a good idea.

>

> I think Labour was right to renew schools and

> hospitals.

>

> Since when did the Tories had enough money to put

> away?

I don't believe I claimed they did. I also don't think that Labour having had money to put away was anything much to do with what they did whilst in power - there was a worldwide boom at the time, and though Brown tried to take credit for a lot of things, I think even he would have struggled to take credit for all of that.

Come to that Brown claimed he had put an end to boom and bust and if making that sort of claim isn't lacking in intelligence I don't know what is.

As for investing in schools, I'm not convinced education standards rose under Labour so their money spent on schools doesn't strike me as having achieved much. Employers and university lecturers have been telling everyone for years that the quality of people coming out of secondary education doesn't match up to their grades, the crazy grade inflation isn't helping students.

I'll grant you waiting lists in hospitals came down and I would definitely support the increases in pay given to nurses.

However, my general view is all governments tend to make political decisions with a large financial impact that frequently ignore the economic reality and I've seen no evidence that left wing governments are any better than right wing ones on that front. (Don't get me started on how economically successful the communist states were)

[david_carnell]

I think comparing North Korea to the Labour government of 1997-2010 might be a bit of stretch even for reductio ad absurdum don't you?

It's that sort of stuff that'll get you branded as "less intelligent"

;-)

[Undisputedtruth]

:))

[Undisputedtruth]

indiepanda Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> I don't believe I claimed they did. I also don't

> think that Labour having had money to put away was

> anything much to do with what they did whilst in

> power - there was a worldwide boom at the time,

> and though Brown tried to take credit for a lot of

> things, I think even he would have struggled to

> take credit for all of that.

>

> Come to that Brown claimed he had put an end to

> boom and bust and if making that sort of claim

> isn't lacking in intelligence I don't know what

> is.

>

> As for investing in schools, I'm not convinced

> education standards rose under Labour so their

> money spent on schools doesn't strike me as having

> achieved much. Employers and university lecturers

> have been telling everyone for years that the

> quality of people coming out of secondary

> education doesn't match up to their grades, the

> crazy grade inflation isn't helping students.

>

> I'll grant you waiting lists in hospitals came

> down and I would definitely support the increases

> in pay given to nurses.

>

> However, my general view is all governments tend

> to make political decisions with a large financial

> impact that frequently ignore the economic reality

> and I've seen no evidence that left wing

> governments are any better than right wing ones on

> that front. (Don't get me started on how

> economically successful the communist states were)

USA had a few recessions during Labour's term in power. So it is absurd to suggest that Gordon was lucky because of a world boom.

As for grades inflation this phenomena is happening around the world and not confined to the UK.

[Loz]

Undisputedtruth Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> indiepanda Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> > Whereas Labour did such a great job overspending

> > for years when the economy was booming, hmm?

> >

> > Even my right wing parents taught me saving a bit

> > of money for a rainy day was a good idea.

>

> I think Labour was right to renew schools and hospitals.

>

> Since when did the Tories had enough money to put

> away?

>

> http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/photobylines/2011/2/22/1298400212637/Budget-deficits-graphic-008.jpg

Good grief. I never realised how much Brown oversaw such a budget blowout in the last two years of his office.

[david_carnell]

Is most of that not due to the huge amounts of govt money invested to stop the banking collapse rather than some sort of splurge on new outfits for firemen?

[Undisputedtruth]

Not forgeting Bank's inability to lend money to house buyers and SMEs. This is in turn had an effect on the real economy and ultimately tax receipts.

[Huguenot]

Yes d_c

Doesn't matter the government, that was fooked.

[Undisputedtruth]

Irrelevant argument, H.

[Marmora Man]

I think comparing North Korea to the Labour government of 1997-2010 might be a bit of stretch even for reductio ad absurdum don't you?

It's that sort of stuff that'll get you branded as "less intelligent"

Where was this comparison made?

[indiepanda]

Undisputedtruth Wrote:

> USA had a few recessions during Labour's term in

> power. So it is absurd to suggest that Gordon was

> lucky because of a world boom.

I think you have taken me a little too literally. Although I still think the economic situation pan Europe for the first 10 years Labour were in power was quite stable compared to other periods - certainly than the post credit crunch years. As for absurd... end to boom and bust - now that was absurd.

> As for grades inflation this phenomena is

> happening around the world and not confined to the

> UK.

Yes, but the point I was making is that if you talk to employers and university lectures they can't tell you where all the extra money Labour spent on education has gone - the real standards have not been increasing and with all that extra money spent, we really should have something to show for it beyond a bunch of inflated grades. You said it was a worthwhile investment - well where was the return on that investment??

[Chippy Minton]

Spending was only slightly up during the last couple of years of the Labour Government. The drop in tax receipts because of the financial crisis was the biggest reason for the deficit.

And how exactly do you measure education standards? The Office for National Statistics shows that between 1996-2008 the resources that went into schools - number of teachers, classroom assistants, books etc) rose by around 30%. At the same time, the 'outputs' of schools - measured by the numbers of of kids being educated, attendance rates and GCSE grades - also rose by around 30%.

[Undisputedtruth]

It's telling when you see all these right wingers spouting hearsays as facts. Obviously indiepanda hasn't heard of the dot com crash and its implact on global economies including Europe but excluding the UK.

[Huguenot]

How many people are you going to insult UDT? What really is the point of adding an insult onto the end of every post, to people you have never had a dialogue with before? What's with this 'see a stranger, spit in their face' behaviour?

That's the kind of thing that get's you banned - not people taking the piss about your identity.

[????]

Whilst UDT is being an utter prat I am actually gasping that you can post that with a straight face Huge

[david_carnell]

Marmora Man Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I think comparing North Korea to the Labour

> government of 1997-2010 might be a bit of stretch

> even for reductio ad absurdum don't you?

>

> It's that sort of stuff that'll get you branded as

> "less intelligent"

>

> Where was this comparison made?

Well, indiepanda spoke about the Labour government's financial acumen (or lack of), then spoke about "left wing" governments in general and then said "and don't get me started on communists". Her train of thought seems to suggest a lineage between New Labour and Communists. I, rightly, pointed out that this was a bit of a leap and she was being silly.

Also, I was being flippant. You know, as indicated by the winky thing.

[Undisputedtruth]

My name is related to the legendary Motown group 'The Undisputedtruth' and see no reason why this group is subjected to attention on this forum. So it does give me a giggle when people think otherwise. But that's their problem and not mine.

And as for the insults then all what I can say is that I was telling it as it is as opposed to be intentionally rude. Afterall, this is the "Right Wingers are less intelligent" thread, right?

Many years ago, around 2000/2001, I attended a couple of Tony Blair's conferences and he spoke about investing in schools and hospitals. The point he made was this spending was about giving people the 'feel good' factor when they visited a new school or hospital. Improvements in targets was secondary.

[El Pibe]

What a very Blair moment.

He introduced the awful cult of target-driven managerialism into the public sector almost singlehandedly, demoralising vast swathes of our teachers, nurses, doctors and civil servants, and he spins this by saying he did it to make people feel good.

Oh dear.

There will be a very special circle of hell reserved for that man.

[Undisputedtruth]

Targets started under the Tories during the 1990s and progressed under Labour. I'm not a fan of targets but how do you measure performance without them?

[El Pibe]

It's perfectly possible to measure something withough imposing a target.

But the moment you decide to do so you have define performance, something Labour were very very bad at.

'I do ideas I don't do detail' Blair was often heard to say.

THe moent you decide to quantify things can be a slippery slope, but the moment targets are imposed and punishments meted out for failure to meet them then the unquantifiables go out the window adn that's what has happpened to both health care and education,wiith the many ill effects that has had on both workers and customers, err i mean pupils and patients.

I admit there are some fairly sensible pointers to keep an eye on, number of deaths from post operative infections say.

BUt step away from the (failry) clear cut and it all becomes harder.

How do you measure the positive effect inspirational teachers have on their pupils? How do you measure hte effect that kind personal nursing can have on patients?

[Otta]

The Tories did introduce some targets, but it was very much Blair's Labour that went Performance Indicator crazy. This resulted mainly in less real work being done with real people / patients / children, and instead just led to organisations finding ways to meet their targets, such as changing eligibility criteria to screen lots of people out at the first hurdle.

Most of these PIs were introduced as knee-jerk reactions to press outcry.

[Huguenot]

I don't know EP.

There are many variables that are intrinsically unmeasurable, but there are quantifiable manifestations of them.

I ran a sales team ten years ago that was struggling, so we asked customers what made a good account manager, and the persistent idiom was 'trusted'. We couldn't quantify that, so we pushed for more details.

The output, to paraphrase was.. 'they answer the phone, and if they don't then someone does who knows them and they call back. They understand my business, they give me solutions when I need them. They walk the talk, and if there's a problem they solve it'.

Now that's quantifiable.

The team were obliged to register all interest in an enquiry through the reporting system, if they didn't they lost the bonus. Every call had to be answered within 4 rings - about 15 seconds. Every enquiry must have a response within 4 hours, a substantive response within 24 hours, and if issues were irresolvable they needed to be listed and deadlines set inside that deadline.

Every enquiry required a completed briefing document, covering every relevant detail, prompting the account managers to probe for more information when it wasn't volunteered.

Problems were graded, registered and red flagged. The red flag report had a daily review at senior management level.

Lost business had to be reported, the critical issues documented, and were reviewed weekly.

Of course, some salespeople twisted the system, but it's easier to fit in after all.

Could we target 'trust'? No. But it was the same bastards at the bottom of the list every time, and we fired them for cause.

Nine months later we won a national award for quality. More importantly we delivered results to the bottom line.

Whatever you may feel about revenue as a goal, the targets worked.