Thing that always troubles me about any kind of welfare dismantling/scaleback is that there's kind of a reason it expanded in the first instance - more people were failing, or felt they were failing.

"Bootstraps" sentiments have no useful answer to that.

Swype is writing proles instead of people. It's like the i ching.

Indeed the requirements haven't changed however its scope has. We identify more vulnerable people now and we find it impossible to actually give 'weight' to what is necessary welfare and what isn't.

"Big Society" is what I'm calling the next weapon I get in a game that lets me name my own weapon.

BFS 9000.

Kow wrote:

Swype is writing proles instead of people. It's like the i ching.

Autocorrect on my phone once changed something incredibly prosaic into 'gas the Serbs'

Communism is the opposite. It's giving because you expect, need, to get back.

Yeah violence.

Communism is just another form of governance. As I said earlier.

I never vote nationally because I forget/don't have time to do research on the actual policies and background of the running cabinets and I feel it's worse voting with little knowledge than it is not to vote.

Locally i'm a typical voter as it's easier to tell how much of a bellend each one is from which patch of land they're trying to protect/sell.

For what it's worth (not much) I tend to take the view that most people are basically altruistic when dealing with individuals.  Most people will help a stranger, if there's no-one else around to help them, with no particular expectation of reward.  I've seen that more often than not.  (And yes, we can debate the true definition of altruism, perhaps they're helping in the hope they'll be helped in the same situation, or doing it for some kind of rosy self satisfaction, but certainly with no expectation of material reward...)

The problem I find is that communities are generally not altruistic.  They're self preserving and self serving, often fiercely so.  Individual people are fine.  Groups of people however, are capable of treating "other" groups appallingly.  Systems and institutions are equally guilty of this, and Government especially so.  

As others have said, we've previously had a kind of push and pull - Tories would be incumbent and drive the agenda of the privileged, creating more wealth, but screwing the poor, then they'd eventually get kicked out, and Labour would drive the agenda of those who are perhaps less privileged, and redistribute some of that wealth, usually leading to them being quickly booted out again.  Both were inherently self serving, but served essentially opposing communities, leading to a curious sort of balance.  New Labour completely buggered up that status quo however and now we're even further out.  I'm not entirely sure how we pull it back - I think one of two things will happen.  Either enough people will get screwed over that a truly left wing party will become a viable election winner again.  Or, the current rhetoric aimed at blaming your slightly poorer neighbour will snowball, and we'll slide further to the right still.  Naturally the former really doesn't serve Tory interests, so they will to point at the poor, the sick, and immigrants as the cause of our suffering whilst continuing to quietly line their pockets.

Surely Communism has been completely discredited by now. The states that still nominally practice it are paying lip service at best. I'm not sure why it's even still talked about.

Mod74 wrote:

Surely Communism has been completely discredited by now. The states that still nominally practice it are paying lip service at best. I'm not sure why it's even still talked about.

It's not discredited its malpractised, china, russia or n.korea have never been communist as the works of marx dictated, the word itself has been polluted and is now a derogatory term, without realising why its a derogatory term or why it shouldnt be

its a terrible state of affairs but irreversible sadly

@Cuckoo

I see where you're coming from but I have a heard time giving much credence to the idea that it definitely definitely would work if people would only do it right.

Mod74 wrote:

it definitely definitely would work if people would only do it right.

yeah,its unworkable, cause people are selfish pigs