Comments on: A letter to our local Tories

By: tom

tom — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:12:26 +0000

IN responce to C4′ B.A. (Hons.)

“The Left will never win the ‘Battle of Ideas’, because history has proven socialism NEVER works.”

I completely agree thats why new labour is just hipocrisy. full of hypocrites most of the party started their political careers of as communists and suddenly when “NEW labour” was created over night they’ve become capitalists. The conservatives have to modernise and liberalise to an extent but when labour modernised they had to scrap all of the polices and abandon their principles and that had to liberalise too because in the 80s they were seen as radicals.

so thats why i agree with C4′ B.A. (Hons.)

By: C4' B.A. (Hons.)

C4' B.A. (Hons.) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:20:11 +0000

The Left will never win the ‘Battle of Ideas’, because history has proven socialism NEVER works.

By: Bill Turner

Bill Turner — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:46:28 +0000

a fine letter.

I’m you’re in London come and help in the Shadwell by election.

By: donpaskini

donpaskini — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:56:17 +0000

I suggested to the Oxfordshire Tories that they should focus on reducing inequality and use a targeted approach to tackling deprivation when we were working on putting together a Local Area Agreement. They rolled their eyes, chortled, and explained patiently that they weren’t socialists, they were Tories, and hence they thought that inequality was a jolly good thing and that it was a bad idea to try to reduce it.

I take it as a small victory in the Battle of Ideas that David Cameron is now claiming that his political priorities are inspired by the Oxford City Council Social Inclusion Strategy, though I don’t think Kaiser Keith and chums will take much notice.

By: jdc

jdc — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:55:24 +0000

“there are parts of affluent Oxford, for instance, which rival parts of Liverpool in terms of deprivation”.

For instance Woolton and Grassendale, the least deprived wards in Liverpool, are rivalled by Cowley Marsh and Churchill in Oxford.

The most deprived wards in Oxford, Blackbird Leys and Northfield Brook, rival Aigburth and Gillmoss, which are in the least deprived 25% in Liverpool.

So we have a problem here, is the conclusion:

1) Deprivation is relative, even within quite small geographic areas, or;
2) The IMD isn’t a terribly good way of measuring deprivation, or;
3) David Cameron doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

I have some sympathy with all of these positions. As to the rest, good luck, though the notion that County Councils run schools is one I wish the Government (or indeed Headteachers) shared.