Left -v- Right

[Rorschach]

Won't change the facts that you are a lying whinging hypocrite though will it mantra....
Just remember you started it yet again.

[Super Nova]

Boris' view on the topic at the moment.

Germany started the Great War, but the Left can’t bear to say so

In this centennial year, it’s more important than ever that we treat the truth with respect

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ay-so.html
One of the reasons I am a Conservative is that, in the end, I just can’t stand the intellectual dishonesty of the Left. In my late teens I found I had come to hate the way Lefties always seemed to be trying to cover up embarrassing facts about human nature, or to refuse to express simple truths – and I disliked the pious way in which they took offence, and tried to shoosh you into silence, if you blurted such a truth.

Let me give you a current example of this type of proposition. It is a sad but undeniable fact that the First World War – in all its murderous horror – was overwhelmingly the result of German expansionism and aggression. That is a truism that has recently been restated by Max Hastings, in an excellent book, and that has been echoed by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary. I believe that analysis to be basically correct, and that it is all the more important, in this centenary year, that we remember it.

That fact is, alas, not one that the modern Labour Party believes it is polite to mention. According to the party’s education spokesman, Tristram Hunt, it is “crass” and “ugly” to say any such thing. It was “shocking”, he said in an article in yesterday’s Observer, that we continued to have this unacceptable focus on a “militaristic Germany bent on warmongering and imperial aggression”.

He went on – in a piece that deserves a Nobel prize for Tripe – to mount what appeared to be a kind of cock-eyed exculpation of the Kaiser and his generals. He pointed the finger, mystifyingly, at the Serbs. He blamed the Russians. He blamed the Turks for failing to keep the Ottoman empire together, and at one stage he suggested that we were too hard on the bellicose Junker class. He claimed that “modern scholarship” now believes that we have “underplayed the internal opposition to the Kaiser’s ideas within the German establishment” – as if that made things any better.

Perhaps there was some more “internal opposition” to the Kaiser, as Hunt thinks. Whoever they were, these internal opponents, they weren’t much blooming use, were they? It was Germany that pushed Austria to make war on Serbia. It was Germany that declared war on Russia, on August 1 1914. It was Germany that decided it was necessary to invade Luxembourg, and it was Germany that deployed the Schlieffen plan (devised in 1905, incidentally) and sent her troops smashing through neutral Belgium and into France.

Why was it necessary to follow up some rumpus in Sarajevo by invading France, for heaven’s sake? It wasn’t. The driving force behind the carnage was the desire of the German regime to express Germany’s destiny as a great European power, and to acquire the prestige and international clout that went with having an empire. That is why Tirpitz kept increasing the size of the German fleet – in spite of British efforts to end the arms race. That’s why they tried to bully the French by sending a gunboat to Agadir in 1911.

That, in a nutshell, is why millions died in the trenches of the western front and elsewhere, 15 million in all. It was an even greater tragedy for Germany, and for the world, that within two decades of the end of that conflict there should arise another German leader who decided to revive what was essentially the same military/political objective – a massive expansion of German influence in Europe and beyond; and though Hitler was admittedly even more nasty and militaristic than the Kaiser, it was no coincidence that he used a very similar plan: first take out France and the Low Countries, then go for Russia.

In both wars, huge numbers of British people, military and civilian, lost their lives in the struggle to frustrate these deranged ambitions. They were, in essence, fighting on the right side, and it should not be forbidden to state that fact. The Second World War arose inexorably out of the first, and in both wars I am afraid the burden of responsibility lies overwhelmingly on German shoulders. That is a fact that we should not be forbidden from stating today – not just for the sake of the truth, but for the sake of Germany in 2014.

Hunt is guilty of talking total twaddle, but beneath his mushy-minded blether about “multiple histories” there is what he imagines is a kindly instinct. These wars were utterly horrific for the Germans as well as for everyone else, and the Germans today are very much our friends. He doesn’t want the 1914 commemorations to pander to xenophobia, or nationalism, or Kraut-bashing; and I am totally with him on that.

We all want to think of the Germans as they are today – a wonderful, peaceful, democratic country; one of our most important global friends and partners; a country with stunning technological attainments; a place of incomparable cultural richness and civilisation. What Hunt fails to understand – in his fastidious Lefty obfuscation of the truth – is that he is insulting the immense spiritual achievement of modern Germany.

The Germans are as they are today because they have been frank with themselves, and because over the past 60 years they have been agonisingly thorough in acknowledging the horror of what they did. They don’t try to brush it aside. They don’t blame the Serbs for the 1914-18 war. They don’t blame the Russians or the Turks. They know the price they paid for the militarism of the 20th century.

They don’t try to mitigate, palliate, or spread the blame for the conflict. They tried that in the Thirties, and they know that way lies madness. The Germans know the truth about the world wars, and their role. They have learnt, and they have changed. It would be a disaster if that truth became blurred today. I can hardly believe that the author of this fatuous Observer article is proposing to oversee the teaching of history in our schools.

If Tristram Hunt seriously denies that German militarism was at the root of the First World War, then he is not fit to do his job, either in opposition or in government, and should resign. If he does not deny that fact, he should issue a clarification now.

[IQS.RLOW]

Don't mention the war. They have solar panels now.

Fascism and leftism are two rotten peas in the same digested turd.

[boxy]

"I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry."

[Neferti]

"I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry."

Indeed? http://www.johndclare.net/causes_WWI1_B ... ersion.htm

[boxy]

And believe it or not, this whole lefty bashing bollocks is based on this 25 year old sit-com about a war from a century ago

[Rorschach]

The Left isn't the problem... Progs are.

[Rorschach]

And to prove that point just visit Ozpol for a day to watch the hatred, hypocrisy and hubris...

[Super Nova]

Labour in the UK paint a terrible picture of what they will do to the economy.

I admit the article below is the UK's PM's view however.... from where I sit I have to agree.

Failing to even attempt to balance the books is a key failing of current labour. They created the problem in the UK and now they seem to want to borrow, borrow , borrow hitting anyone that worked to make saving through their life.

This trend needs to stop if the left ever want to be taken seriously. This time, the right have it right.


Black cloud of Labour will wreck economy, PM warns

Britain faces a “great, black, ominous cloud on the horizon” under Labour’s economic plans, David Cameron will warn today, as he tries to divert focus away from accusations that public spending will fall to 1930s levels.

The prime minister will conjure images of homeowners worrying about their mortgage payments under Labour if there were a financial crisis or economic shock. His warning comes amid growing concerns about the eurozone and the plunging price of oil, which is close to a 5½-year low. Mr Cameron will point out that Labour’s plan does not involve ever reducing Britain’s debt pile, which stands at £1.5 trillion, and that this risks destabilising the country in the event of turmoil.

He will say: “Ed Miliband is saying he will only balance part of the government’s budget — not the whole thing, like we plan. And let’s be clear what that means. Ed Miliband would never clear the overall budget deficit. He would run a budget deficit — permanently adding to debt — indefinitely. Every year. For ever.

“The independent experts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies have put it best: ‘Under a Labour government . . . you’d have much more borrowing, and therefore government debt.’ ”

Mr Cameron is attempting to get on the front foot after the autumn statement gave Labour and the Liberal Democrats the opportunity to mount sustained attacks on the depth of Conservative cuts.

He will seek to turn the spotlight on Labour, suggesting that under Mr Miliband’s plans the national debt would be £500 billion higher in 21 years’ time. “That is a great, black, ominous cloud on the horizon — and if a real economic storm hit again, the fallout would be felt by families up and down this country, people lying awake worrying about their mortgage payments, businesses closing down, jobs lost, homes lost.”

The remarks will mark a sharp change in approach from Mr Cameron’s speech at the Conservative party conference in October, when he argued that speedy deficit reduction was necessary to fund tax cuts. “Our commitment to you for the next five years: we want to cut more of your taxes. But we can only do that if we keep on cutting the deficit. It’s common sense — tax cuts need to be paid for,” he told the party faithful.

Mr Cameron will argue today that deficit reduction is needed to provide a shock absorber in case of a future economic crisis, as he seeks to remind voters of the impact of the financial crash.

“In 2008, when the economic storms hit, we were completely exposed. We were plunged into a deep recession, with all the suffering and sacrifice that brings. Our deficit spiralled out of control,” he will say during a visit to Dorset today.

“It became clear how dangerously beyond our means we had been living. And there was a real danger that people would lose confidence in our ability to pay our debts. When that happens, interest rates can get dangerously high.

“Our plan is about making sure that doesn’t happen again. It’s about saying that by 2018 we will be putting money aside so that if any crash or shock happens to our economy, we will be better prepared.”

However, a senior city economist said yesterday that the government’s progress on the deficit, which is down 40 per cent on Labour’s last year in office, means it is unlikely that Britain would face a near-death experience if the pace of narrowing in the deficit was moderated.

Senior party officials have also questioned why George Osborne has created the impression that the Tories would run an overall budget surplus of £23 billion in 2019-20. This figure was produced by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, but the Conservatives have not committed to running a surplus of any size and could use the cash to pay for tax cuts or to invest in public services.

Meanwhile, a new charter for budget responsibility, containing fiscal rules that Mr Osborne promised for last week, failed to materialise. It could be announced today.

•David Cameron has added billions of pounds of red tape in this Parliament despite pledging to reduce it heavily before he left office, a think-tank says today. Analysis by Reform, the right of centre group, shows that the coalition removed £1.2 billion worth of regulation since 2010 but added an extra £4.3 billion burden on British business.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/a ... 297535.ece

[mantra]

Britain faces a “great, black, ominous cloud on the horizon” under Labour’s economic plans, David Cameron will warn today, as he tries to divert focus away from accusations that public spending will fall to 1930s levels.

Our PM said similar in opposition, but not so eloquently. What he really meant was that if he was voted in, that great, black ominous cloud would float over the country immediately.

These forecasts of doom and gloom have caused consumer confidence to hit new lows and unemployment is the highest we've seen here in 12 years.

The UK has probably had enough of Cameron's negativity and false economy by now.