Deep down, are we all Conservatives at heart?

...because some people are all too happy living off other people's money and start throwing a tantrum when someone challenges them to make a living for themselves.

Good, I'm not going to miss them.



IDK what you're on about, I didn't mention anything about it being representative of the whole of society. Are you just arguing with yourself, or... ?

erm no. I would never vote the conservatives

On what basis have you concluded that austerity is 'economically illiterate'? Just as economists oppose austerity, there are economists who support it. Just as Nobel prize winning economists oppose austerity, there are Nobel prize winning economists who support it.

We should be clear that every prediction made by Keynesian economists and the Labour Party about the state of the economy under the Tories so-called austerity plans have been proven wrong. The UK is among the fastest growing countries in the developed world, we have record levels of employment, very low levels of unemployment, the cost of living crisis did not materialise, we have non-existent inflation...

Free markets do not advocate nor encourage 'no regulation'.

I suspect you merely cherry pick what parts you like and do not like based on your ideology...

I am not sure if you are trying to make political points or genuinely do not understand what you are talking about. The only way for the Conservatives to meet their pledge on immigration would be to break the law. Not wanting to break the law does not make one inept.

I genuinely love the idea that of all people, Conservatives are the ones that apparently want to deny morality... the people that tend towards traditional morality... are denying morality. That is just brilliant.

So you are also opposed to the movement in the 1960s? Interesting.

I'm a Conservative and i have no problem with high immigration (my problem is with with the type of immigration - i want more North Americans and less Africans). Indeed, free movement is a fundamentally capitalist concept.

But in general i think most people accept the market, but many people still think government knows best.

What rubbish. Hardly anyone actually wants to have to live off benefits, because paid work usually makes them better off. Unemployment benefits are just a subsistence payment.

And most people on those benefits are there for reasons beyond their control, and want to find work but can't.

Going to venture a guess here....have you ever actually lived on a council estate?

According to the only survey that I know of conducted of economists, the majority thought that the Conservatives' austerity measures have been bad for the economy. As the Oxford economist Simon Wren-Lewis, for instance, stated: "the only interesting question is how much GDP has been lost as a result of austerity".

In Labour's last year in power, the economy grew by 2.1%. The Conservatives took a growing economy and stagnated economic growth from 2010 to 2013, and only a significant slowdown in the pace of deficit reduction allowed the economy to grow again.

As for the cost-of-living crisis, it did materialise. We witnessed the longest fall in living standards since records began. Claiming that because things are a bit better now, things weren't bad before, is silly. In fact, we still haven't reached the GDP per capita level that we had before the financial crisis.

The Keynesians were right, and both the United States and Germany reached their pre-recession levels much faster than we did precisely because they implemented Keynesian policies over a longer period. Austerity measures slow down economic growth because recessions are caused by a lack of economic growth, which in turn are caused by a lack of demand and when the government cuts back on spending, demand is lowered even further. Moreover, those on lower incomes tend to spend more of their income than those on higher incomes, meaning that we see an even bigger decrease in demand when the working poor's incomes are frozen due to welfare cuts.

And, one might have thought that we'd have learnt from past austerity failures: Herbert Hoover's austerity measures caused the Wall Street Crash to turn into a Great Depression in 1929 (the crash, once again, was caused by laissez-faire economics). IMF austerity measures converted downturns in East Asia and Latin America into recessions and depressions. And, more recently the extreme self-enforced austerity measures that were implemented in Greece and Portugal, for instance, did the same.

Also, you should, perhaps, consider that quoting Adam Smith doesn't necessarily mean that you're giving an overview of what free-market economists support. Both free-market economists and mainstream economists would argue that Smith was not a proponent of free-markets in some areas. In other words, Smith's support for some policies does not mean that free-market economics supports these policies, but that Smith did not support free-markets in some areas.

Oh, so the Conservatives made a pledge despite knowing that achieving it would break the law? Or, did they make the pledge without knowing that achieving it would break the law?

Either way, such actions are hardly going to make me want to vote Conservative.

Greed and self-interest certainly aren't the tenets of traditional morality, incidentally.

What?

Yes.If you vote with your heart you would vote labour,but if you vote with your head you would vote conservative.

- Conservatives believe people should pay less tax and retain as much of what they earn as possible.

Well who doesn't want to pay less tax? Everyone hates tax. You're essentially working for a certain amount of money, only to have a portion of that stolen from you. No one wants that. We all want as much money as possible.

- Conservatives are naturally greedy and self-interested.

So is everyone in this world. We all look out for ourselves first. We all try and better our own lives, even if it's at the expense of someone else. Humans are naturally greedy, especially young people.

Conservative voters vote to benefit themselves.
Labour voters vote to benefit society.

Yes, the public sector unions vote Labour to benefit society. They resist even minor reforms to their pension plans not out of self-interest but to benefit society.

They are socialist crusaders who only care about the interests of the working class and never themselves.

It is, indeed, a generalisation.

Our levels of growth have been relatively impressive given the circumstances in the European Union and further afield. We cannot control for these.

Given that the drop in growth came almost immediately after Labour lost power, I am not willing to accept the Conservatives are responsible for this. When we take into account economic delays, for things such as growth and employment, for all we know, Labour could be responsible for this - a charge I am unwilling to make as well!

I think we definite crisis a little differently. While the recession put incredibly squeeze on a large number of families, particularly those that were always feeling squeezed under the Labour period in government

Given that Adam Smith is the philosophical father of the free market, from my perspective, strong deviations from the underlying philosophies of the free market are a bastardisation of the free market.

They made the pledge without necessarily anticipating the huge levels of European migration that came as a result of the UK being among the fastest growing economy in the developed world. While they have successfully cut non-EU migration, EU migration has increased.

the movements in the 1960s were thoroughly individualistic and were, in part, set against the collectivist approaches of Government and society before then.

According to academics at Oxford University, even if immigration from the EU had stayed level, or fallen slightly, net migration to the UK would still have risen.

Are you referring to the civil rights, gay rights and women's rights movements? They were implemented for the collective benefit of oppressed groups and it was eventually the government, upon hearing these arguments, who forced individuals to comply with anti-discrimination laws.