Mr Divine: You do not have to stoop to the level of dishing out personal insults to those who choose to contribute. If you've made the break from your routes and been to half the places you say you, good for you. But that does not mean you have the right to set yourself up as elite or indeed to use what you've observed in other countries to be some kind of measuring stick by which we in the UK should gauge all we do or say. You should not say others are stupid just because they don't hold with your view. You may occasionally say something which others identify with, but then you go and let your argument down by getting personal, it's not the way.

when hitler was in his bunker while the allies advanced on berlin, a top general whispered in his ear its all over we have lost the war,hitler replied you are all traitors!! get out there and fight you cowards we are winning the war!! think very carefully mr divine before you make your next comment.

Mr Divine,

And there you highlight a deficiency in this so called 'fair' system of ours. To take a relatively small sum by way of cheating the benefit system (which is how it is in the vast majority of fraud cases) is seen worthy of utter condemnation; yet the bigger cheats are almost looked up to when they find all these loopholes which get them off paying their real contribution. It's not right and it is fraud if it is done with a deliberate intention to evade.

It's not all high earners I'm against, it's the likes of say Jonathon Ross, he can't even speak properly and yet he earns £6 million a year,that's around £115,000 a week! No-one can tell me people are worth that. I'll guarantee he is not paying what he should; that's fraud in my book. It's cheating the State and he's far from the only one. It needs to be stamped out so that everyone is paying their proper dues. It's not some clever game of avoidance, it is nothing less than cheating. People like Ross don't fuel the economy, they drain it! I don't 'worry' about people on such vastly inflated incomes, it just incenses me that we live in a society which has got the true worth of its people so inherently miscalculated. The banking bosses are the biggest cons of them all.

You talk of reducing our defence costs by 85%; in an ideal world I'd agree. But in truth, it's the real power crazed fat cats that become world powers in many countries, they become so dangerous that we need decent defences to guard our nation against terrors. We all know how WMD's are no longer needed, we've all seen how an ordinary aeroplane can become a potent weapon in the wrong hands. Who's to say the next one isn't going to be headed our way.

I do agree on co-operative housing though. It make sense to use out of work builders to become involved in constructing much needed affordable homes, so long as those that do the grafting have their feet on two ladders. The first being the one needed to the do the job, the second being the one which provides a foot on the ladder to building a home they can call their own.

Correct analysis! Whereas the centrists in Labour were once correct to equate leftism -however minor -with losing -things are different now.

On a "personality" level -Ed M is a result too. His more laid back -and less starkly ambitious persona will win votes in my opinion.

mr divine,comparing fresh bread to stale bread is not the issue here,if i lived in third world countrys like africa or in asia i would expect to live in abject housing and poverty,the point is i live in the uk a first world country which should have first world housing and first world standards of living,comparing poverty and deprivation in the uk and third world countrys is a red herring.

@Stuart - you're so right. I, a working class woman, joined the Labour Party 25 years ago and quickly realised my mistake. It was full of bourgeois self seekers there was no room for 'one of the masses' I left post haste. An action I have never regreted.

We need a new party of the left, the Labour Party gave up that role long ago.

What has he got to say about housing? It's one of those touchstone issues: if you've never mentioned the living conditions if the poor (or, indeed, the recently-graduated children of the well-to-do, these days) then you're not a Socialist.

very good point mrs nobody,here is my gripe and people slam me all the time for saying this,everytime i hear any politacal leader from these mainstream partys open there gobs they all seem to have posh accents and plums in there throats and that annoys me,i had a go at billy bragg on his website calling him a mockney working class wannabe fake,you know what he done, he sent me an e mail boasting about his £2 million pad in dorset he lives in,some bloody socalist he is.the mans a idiot

@stuart: I thought very carefully about what you have said and I think you are saying that you're a reincarnation of Hitler.

This Buddhist streak of yours is really concerning me. And the band that you posted a link to is that also a link to the reincarnation of you know who?

Stuart: I do follow your point about social divides, but it is important not to fall into the trap of distinguishing them by how well they may talk or what accent they may have. I agree it's a bit of an indicator when you get people like that Starky who's just been on QT. The minute he opens his mouth you know where he's coming from! But equally, I know quite a few very well spoken people with what you may say was a posh accent and yet they are deeply socialist in their values. I agree that it's hypercritical to call yourself socialist if you then retire to a £2M mansion!

I'm totally with Stuart on this one Mr Divine. To cite comparative examples of how the less well off fare in other countries is only illustrative of how far their respective welfare state's need to progress. If people in other countries are reduced to living in mud huts,shacks and tents, then there is every reason why they should aspire to be like countries which (for now) have a far better welfare state. We should not lower our standards to theirs, we should look to a more equal world where they come to our level; that's progress.

It also tends to reinforce what I say about those that are disgustingly well off (and I've given you an example of the kind of people I refer to). If you are seriously saying that Stuart is rich and living in luxury, then by your own comparison you cannot defend the likes of a society which pays people like Jonathon Ross to talk rubbish and get £115,000 a week for doing so. It's an utter nonsense!

You're missing my point: we should not cut from the bottom, we should cut from the top! A good way of doing so is to batter the hell out of these obscene earners by way of taxation until our division of wealth is on a far more even keel than it is today. No one can protect these vastly inflated rates of pay in this day of so called 'austerity'. Think of how many jobs Mr Ross's £6 Million a year would provide for.

It's simple: are we saying it's right to condemn those on a measly £65.45 per week in benefit when we let people get away with hanging on to as much of their £115,000 a week by adopting tactics of avoidance?

I completely get the point over some of these big earners creating jobs, but it's more often a case of them preserving their own wealth for themselves and for 'their' next generation, that only helps them. We should smash this trend to okay these out of touch salaries with the same vigour in which we are currently witch hunting the poorer classes.

It has to stop!

Stuart: I did explain that to how sometime ago on another post?

I want to believe, and I admire your endless attempts to find something admirable in the platitudes of Labour time-servers. But really? Is this all there is to go on?

"he wants "change". Unlike the smooth, polished Anglo-American political salesmen of the post-crash era, you suspect that he actually means it."

So, same inane words as everybody else, just with a journalist's hunch that it might be different this time. Your reservoirs of optimism impress me, Laurie.

I have to agree with Mr Divine that Labour should concentrate on radically reducing military expenditure. And of course they should just stop the civil list and claim the revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall (it belongs to the state but Charles uses all the revenue for his own unelected desires).

Time for Labour to do some of its own cuts .. lets see how the other side likes them.

i have to disagree with you strongly on one point nick,its easy for left wingers and right wingers with posh voices who appear on question time and live in the leafy surburbs ranting on about the class divide and who pop down to sink estates every now and again like mine in hackney declaring they are socalists and caring torys and who will solve all are problems knowing full well they dont have to live in these dog rough shittholes and they always return to there posh nice surburbs never experiencing real life,that was my argument with bily bragg and he could not handle it so hence he fired a volleys of insults at me bragging about his £2 million pound gaff in dorset,i am sick of these people and they wont hoodwink me anymore.

@Nick: I'm advocating a practical way to solve the problems in society. The word 'practical' is the key. The left's idea of taxing the hell out of high earners will not work on many levels as I've already pointed out. It's an impractical solution. Now I'm not saying that reducing military expenditure by 85% isn't easy but I feel it is something that the majority of people would support.

I don't support social housing in the traditional way as I want that housing to be tied with a cooperative or a commune, i.e. with a situation that provides people with work. Just making houses and giving them to people on welfare isn't the way to go .. its just more hand outs. Handouts are not the future. If you can take without giving then this is what you expect. But you can't have millions of people doing this in society.

The agricultural coops I envisage can feed the workers and provide income but most importantly build a community. They can also expand into speciality manufactured products. But the key is to make money. Because with that money they can expand and encompass more unemployed people. At the moment people are taking welfare and have not the incentive to work, or give something back. And most people live in isolation to others. This situation of giving more in welfare benefits can not continue. It creates friction in society and for the people receiving those benefits makes their lives meaningless, poor and lonely.

@Suart
I think the ones we are calling the 'left' are not truly socialists today. In fact you see many from the labour party hesitating to call themselves socialists, an example is Ed Miliband who keeps dismissing the Red Ed thing. It is as if being a socialist is a dirty word.(It's like the women who say "I'm not a feminist but..." and treating the word feminist as a dirty word). I understand why they are doing it(they want to be in power, win the middle england bla bla bla)but if one does not feel passionate about where they stand and do not defend their position,regardless of the consequences then I believe they are not what they claim to be or maybe there is a strong likelihood that they would be dishonest and move back and forth from one position to another from time to time. I wouldn't be surprised if Ed shifted towards the right just so he would stand a chance of winning the next general election, after all the Lib-dems did exactly that and everybody thought they were left to LABOUR let alone the conservatives, but as we all know they sold their soul and destroyed all they stood for in order to be in power, yet they still claim they are left!

tell you what,i just watched bob crow on hardtalk on bbc2.who is that man,he talks so much sense and is a class warrior like me.

oh ok nick, fair point,at the moment i am looking at the manifesto of ukip and i i quite like what i see,this might be the party i give my support to and vote for in the local and council elections,i am strongly in favour of getting out of this quango called the european union which seems to impose there crazy laws on us.

Stuart.

To give you an idea on taxation of these high earners. Check this out..

Take someone earning £200,000 per year. They still take home £2244.63 per week. The recent tax changes makes them £7590 a year worse off, that's only £145.96 per week. What's that compared with £2244.63 per week? I note the number of websites there are openly advising people on how to make the most of tax loopholes. That's fraud!

It's time that we really clamped down on those diddling tax, everyone should pay their proportionate share. Someone on benefit should get £65.45 per week as their personal allowance. It's madness to go after those on peanuts when lots more can be gained from screwing those with the real money.

Yes I do agree with some of that Stuart. There are a lot of pretentious do-gooders out there (there are some genuine ones too) who talk of socialism, but don't practice what they preach. I loathe pretence. I think Labour went too far mixing with commerce and the city, it's done a lot of damage. I do believe there are good politicians from all sides but I thoroughly deplore the way it is all aimed at the poor at the moment. Like I say in my previous posts, let's see an attack on those who are laughing, whilst others are really suffering. I get your mistrust and you must go for what you believe in. People portray socialism as turning this country into some communist state, that will never happen. I support Labour because I believe they most closely reflect the views I believe in. This coalition's legacy will be to create a greater divide between rich and the less well off, there's a lot of mistrust and anger about. It's just not a recipe for the confidence we need to fuel a good economy.

Stuart... Are you keeping half an eye on the Labour party conference per chance ?

Mr Devine seems to think that unemployed people want to be unemployed. Mr D you clearly are part of the elite and have no understanding of what it is to be part of the masses.

I know many people with university degrees who can not get a job and others who have to take repetitive boring low paid work. I donot believe the Oxbridge elite who have created a closed shop on all the best jobs in the country are better and more able than the many working class graduates struggling to earn a crust. It's all about priviledge.

There are those who like to pretend we live in a meritocracy, I'm not one of them - I've worked with old Etonians and not felt any intellectual inferiority. There's a mystique of the professional technocrats like the one of royalty of old - it fails to convince.

The problem with social housing is that there isn't enough of it.

Stuart: In no way am I a conservative and not left wing. I may hold views which are part right and part left; that's compromise of view. But my staunch allegiance is most definitely to the left. You talk of the working class, but what has to be realised is how the working classes have changed with the way our industry and manufacturing base has changed. People who used to be factory workers are now office workers because that's the way things have changed.

I'm not into all this class stuff; people are people and they are all in a class of their own.

But when it comes to class talk, we have a huge diverse range of income bands these days. Some for instance say people that earn around 30k a year are middle class; I'd challenge that. When you look at some of the huge salaries of around £200K to several million per year, how does that make people on 30K middle ground? I'm left of centre because that it where my views are. I am highly opposed to any wilful neglect of our welfare state, because I believe in social justice, that's what I stand for. I'm not confused over my party belief, I've voted labour all my life and always will.

@Nick: But I'm saying that if you tax people at the high end you'll get less revenue because they have the means to avoid the tax, or they leave the country or business people will not invest. You are trying to solve the 'problem' by an impractical way.

The other thing about being rich is that you have 'savings'. You don't consume all that money but even if you did you redistribute it and you are not necessarily any happier (diminishing returns). Usually if you are rich you invest it so that other people get to use that money. Nowadays many people have realised that the best investment are in the third world stock markets .. this is a boost for the third world.

You are trying to solve what you see as social injustice by an impractical way. You're saying these pop stars shouldn't be paid this much, they're not really worth it (a moral judgement). So lets tax them more and redistribute their wealth to poorer people. But its not that simple. The pop stars leave the country or employ more methods to avoid the tax so that the revenue the government receives is less. The poor get less. Thats why socialist countries stagnant.

Taking advantage of tax loopholes is not fraud because it is legal .. avoidance as opposed to evasion. You might have experience dealing with welfare but I have experience in all walks of life and let me assure you the vast majority of people will try to avoid taxation especially if its very high. When I worked in Japan the income taxation rate was about 8% .. like many people I didn't bother trying to avoid it .. it wasn't worth the effort.

Too many people on the left 'worry' about people on high incomes and use them to justify the so called injustice of the system. But the system needs that inequality. And the way to solve that problem is by forming cooperatives and communes. It is not by central government redistribution or welfare payments. This is not the way to go.

Like I said I would cut defence by 85%. I use that money to step up agricultural cooperatives and housing on ex-military land. I would make sure those cooperatives made money and that people who worked on them received a share of the profit. And that all people received a pretty much equal share, but it would be according to their effort. This is the way to go not your higher taxation impractical method.