Why are so many people in St Andrews conservative?

[Eliot Wilson]

[s]Rilla wrote on 14:27, 16th Mar 2005:
I cannot stand conservative people. They swan around thinking they can acheive anything cos of who their father is or something.
This is my personal experience anyway. I have had sooooooo many bloody rich yah students come and offer me MONEY to do their work for them. hah! they think they can bloody well buy their degrees, and probably anything else they want. It's the left wing students (in my experience) that actually take an interest in their study and work hard and have an aim in life besides making enough money.

Yes this is a big generalisation.


Basically "conservative" to me = KK/GIG/arrogant twat.


What an extraordinarily blinkered view of the world. Funny how many people think that saying "This is a generalisation" means that they are perfectly at liberty to make them and that they therefore have some truth.

I might just as well say that left-wing people are poor, common and chippy. It would be as wildly inaccurate and rather insulting an assertion.

[hr]
Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[tintin]

Three words: Common Sense Policies.

[tintin]

[s]Rilla wrote on 14:27, 16th Mar 2005:
I cannot stand conservative people. They swan around thinking they can acheive anything cos of who their father is or something.
This is my personal experience anyway. I have had sooooooo many bloody rich yah students come and offer me MONEY to do their work for them. hah! they think they can bloody well buy their degrees, and probably anything else they want. It's the left wing students (in my experience) that actually take an interest in their study and work hard and have an aim in life besides making enough money.

Yes this is a big generalisation.


Basically "conservative" to me = KK/GIG/arrogant twat.


I would seriously advise you to take another look at who the majority of Conservatives actually are. Firstly, you are in a town with a high proportion of rich people, who may or may not be Conservative voters. For starters, your local MP is non other than the Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell. Hardly very Tory.
Secondly the last Conservative Prime Minister was hardly what I would call the product of a privileged upbringing. Indeed you will find if you take the time to look into who the current government are, you will see that a good number of Labour and left-wing Members are actually public school and Oxbridge-educated. These would I believe be the "yahs" that you so eloquently describe. Finally I can give myself as the exception to your rule that it's only the Left-wing students who take an interest in their study and have an aim in life. I am currently unemployed having graduated in the Summer (and will be employed again this September). During this time I am in the Library studying not because I have to but because I want to.

I also vote Conservative.

[Bitterandtwisted]

[s]tintin wrote on 15:54, 16th Mar 2005:
Three words: Common Sense Policies.


Like...?


[hr]
I let my mind wander and it didn't come back.

[puzzled]

[s]The Cellar Bar wrote on 13:50, 16th Mar 2005:

The same goes for "indirect" taxation. In any given quarter, the major corporations are in default to the government in terms of VAT payments to the tune of £24 billion. They aren't pursued for this. They are invariably honoured and/or elevated to positions in Government as a reward for large contributions to the Labour Party. £24 billion equates to about a third of our annual education bill or NHS bill. Can you imagine the kind of society we could live in if those SOB's were pursued for what they are legally obliged to deliver?


Would you care to give some evidence for these seemingly incredible VAT figures; I just can't believe the National Audit Office would let that happen without a major rumpus.
Forgive me if i don't shed to many tears over companies being late in their payments because of having disputes with the government (often what they owe is not obvious), the government imposes outrageously unfair tax systems on us. For example. self-employed people now have to pay tax on earnings whether or not they have received the money yet - how much more unfair could you get? In the case of lawyers the gap between being taxed and being actually paid by the client can be longer than a year.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

What we really need is a COMMON SENSE REVOLUTION!

The problem generally seems to be that politicians are too busy thinking about the next election.

[exnihilo]

[s]Steveo wrote on 12:39, 16th Mar 2005:

Quoting exnihilo from 10:52, 16th Mar 2005
A point I made in a debate, I was sitting there at my advanced age, being told by 18 and 19 year old's of the iniquity of Thatcher's government. A government they would have been barely conscious of. I

Please, just because one does not live through events, does not mean one can not comment. If one reads abotu the past, one learns about the past. It was me that you heard speaking about Thatcher in that debate.


And your comments were ill-informed, factually innacurate and one-sided. I think that was the point I was making.

Incidentally, for what it's worth, I'm not now and have never been a Conservative, so I'm not just saying that because I'm a party member.

[flarewearer]

[s]Rilla wrote on 14:27, 16th Mar 2005:
I cannot stand conservative people. They swan around thinking they can acheive anything cos of who their father is or something.
This is my personal experience anyway. I have had sooooooo many bloody rich yah students come and offer me MONEY to do their work for them. hah! they think they can bloody well buy their degrees, and probably anything else they want. It's the left wing students (in my experience) that actually take an interest in their study and work hard and have an aim in life besides making enough money.

Yes this is a big generalisation.


Basically "conservative" to me = KK/GIG/arrogant twat.


Thats an extremelly ill-informed view that you have. In fact its just so absolutely ridiculous i can't think of where to begin pointing out how wrong it is.

[hr]
[s]Have you ever wondered how you get triangles from a cow?
You need butter, milk and cheese, and an equilateral chainsaw.[/s]
http://www.magnificentoctopus.com/

[Ga]

[s]tintin wrote on 15:54, 16th Mar 2005:
Three words: Common Sense Policies.


One mans common sense is another mans idea of madness.

[hr]
If everything in life had a point, life would be pointless

[Steveo]

Quoting exnihilo from 18:48, 16th Mar 2005
And your comments were ill-informed, factually innacurate and one-sided. I think that was the point I was making.

Your opinion aside, none of my comments were factually inaccurate.

[hr]

[s]Strangers passing in the street....by chance two seperate glances meet[/s]

[The Cellar Bar]

[s]puzzled wrote on 17:08, 16th Mar

Would you care to give some evidence for these seemingly incredible VAT figures; I just can't believe the National Audit Office would let that happen without a major rumpus.

the figures are from a couple of years back and came from the Federation of Small Businesses. They blew me away as well when I read them. And I'm relatively comfortable taking them at face value. I've a suspicion it's a "roll-over" figure which reflects what is maybe owed every quarter rather than a cumulative figure. But even so it's a massive amount of money that doesn't hit targets we'd all like to see aimed at.

What I would say tho' is that it's probably not down to disputes or queried figures which leads to them. This country is dominated by maybe 3 or 4 very large corporations who produce something like 80% of our GDP. The relationhship between them and Government is utterly incestuous as witnessed by the frequent "cross overs" and the Advisory boards which are invariably dominated by the interests themselves. And that has led to an unsavoury relationship where both sides basically recognise that, for instance, the big businesses have enough lawyers and accountants to stave off the evil hour when they actually have to divvy up what's expected of them.

And in the meantime, the rest of us are left to carry the can of supporting social policies we know make sense but are being shafted in the process.

[Midget]

I always think that Conservatives in their belief that basically it has been better and we should change things to be more like the past if anything.

While lefties want a real change for a better (perhaps utopian) future, at least its a dream.

Lefties do seem to have this more idealised society. They at least know what they want

Rather than just saying it should be case of leaving economics and market foces to sort the world out.

I think governments should be interfering a lot more for the benfit of the worst off.

[Mr Comedy]

That is a fundamental misunderstanding, Seth.

The idea behind right wing thinking is liberty, and that people should be given as much economic and social liberty as possible - this would be described as the classic libertarian view, that the state should have as little influence as possible. This applies to economics as well, and in particular the free market ideal, where people are free to make money in the free market system.
An authoritarian viewpoint is that we should stick to some percieved moral code, and this ought to guide policy making as well.
The Conservative party sits in the middle of these, fighting for commonly held morals as well as economic liberty, which is a compromise situation.

The view of the left is that the duty of care lies on the individual, not the state. So there needs to be a bigger emphasis on social equality, with taxes levied at the rich to provide the money to drive huge state-funded social projects.

Therein lies the difference.
It depends largely on what your theory on life is, and whether the government ought to provide for everyone at large cost, or save money by creating more personal liberty and responsibility.

[puzzled]

[s]The Cellar Bar wrote on 22:17, 16th Mar 2005:
This country is dominated by maybe 3 or 4 very large corporations who produce something like 80% of our GDP.

No offense, but you are confused. Our top three or four companies are worth around £300-400 billion out of a GDP of $1.2 trillion. THEY MEASURE DIFFERENT THINGS. GDP is essentially a measure of national output per year, where as total comany value is not what they make year on year (it is a multiple of that, typically for a FTSE company 10 to 15 times). The sum of the corporate profits/turnover per year of the top 4 firms as a share of GDP would be tiny.

And in the meantime, the rest of us are left to carry the can of supporting social policies we know make sense but are being shafted in the process.


That's a nice image of evil corporation fighting to pay their tax while little businesses pay the bill, but that fact is that most tax renvenue comes from larger firms and the black economy is strongest at the smalled end of the market.

[Bitterandtwisted]

"The Conservative party sits in the middle of these, fighting for commonly held morals as well as economic liberty, which is a compromise situation."

You're saying they're socialy authoritarian and economicaly libertarian? I sure won't vote for them then. The way I see it, it's none of the governments damn buisness if someone drinks or take hash or wants to marry another man. It is very much in the governments interest to keep some reign over buisness however. If allowed to grow completely unchecked, we end up with the United Fruit Co. or the East India Co.

[hr]I let my mind wander and it didn't come back.

[Guest]

[s]Midget wrote on 22:23, 16th Mar 2005:
I always think that Conservatives in their belief that basically it has been better and we should change things to be more like the past if anything.

While lefties want a real change for a better (perhaps utopian) future, at least its a dream.

Lefties do seem to have this more idealised society. They at least know what they want




We can therefore conclude from this analyses that Conservatives are essentially cowards.

[fraggle rock]

[s]Laura wrote on 09:39, 16th Mar 2005:
[s]Unregisted User fraggle rock wrote on 17:28, 15th Mar 2005:[i]
[s]creative wrote on 16:12, 15th Mar 2005:[i]
[s]St Andrews University Conservative and Unionist Association wrote on 15:39, 15th Mar 2005:[i]

The AGM has not happened yet. Once the date is fixed, you'll be sent an email well in advance to let you know.


?????????
[/i]

delayed because current president trying to stop former president from taking over
[/i]

Erm, as a member of the committee and a friend of both of them, I'd have to say that that's bollocks.
[/i]

cough, cough

[Guest]

[s]Unregisted User fraggle rock wrote on 22:40, 17th Mar 2005:
[s]Laura wrote on 09:39, 16th Mar 2005:[i]
[s]Unregisted User fraggle rock wrote on 17:28, 15th Mar 2005:[i]
[s]creative wrote on 16:12, 15th Mar 2005:[i]
[s]St Andrews University Conservative and Unionist Association wrote on 15:39, 15th Mar 2005:[i]

The AGM has not happened yet. Once the date is fixed, you'll be sent an email well in advance to let you know.


?????????
[/i]

delayed because current president trying to stop former president from taking over
[/i]

Erm, as a member of the committee and a friend of both of them, I'd have to say that that's bollocks.
[/i]

cough, cough
[/i]

'cough, cough' meaning axactly what?

[Midget]

Dave. I'm not sure you're supposed to use my name without my permission.

Seth