Tom and a colleague are chatting by the kettle. Tom’s colleague is complaining that she has just received a parking ticket.Colleague: I was only there for 10 minutes.
Tom: The problem is, there’s just so many of them these days. You can’t get away with it even for a moment.
Colleague: The vultures!
Tom: Admit it – we’d be in gridlock without them.
Colleague: They’re just revenue raisers for the Council.
Tom: Maybe we should retrain them all as plumbers.
Colleague: We can’t even get a plumber round my way.
Tom: You want to find a nice Pole to do the job.
Colleague: I’d rather give the money to an English person. [As an afterthought] If they were better at the job.
Tom: Ah, but that’s the thing, you see. The Poles are excellently well trained. They’ve still got decent vocational education over there, unlike here. Polish workers are very skilled.
Colleague: Yeah, but they charge half as much as our workers.
Tom: So you get a quality plumber for half price, and they get a better income than they’d get in Poland. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Colleague: But I hear they’ve got a skills shortage over there. Nobody’s left to do the jobs.
Tom: But that’s okay, ‘cos they’re getting loads of money in remittances, as the Polish plumber sends money home to the family.
Colleague: Yeah, but they’re not getting enough taxes because all the work is being done over here and the money comes in but nobody pays tax on it.
Tom: Perhaps, but they don’t need so many public services if they have the money to provide for themselves.
Colleague: That’s Tory talk! I thought you were a Liberal.
Tom: That is liberal. Just a different kind of liberal.
So the battle goes on.
5 comments:
"That’s Tory talk! I thought you were a Liberal"
AAARGGGHHH!
Reminds me of this 15th February 2007 post:
http://cicerossongs.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
May I suggest that it is about time the LibDems drop the "Liberal" bit from their name. Otherwise they may be in trouble with the law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misrepresentation
Of course you may, Kit. As liberals, we would let you say whatever you wish.
After all, one of the most important qualities of liberalism is that one must be prepared to allow people to make their own mistakes.
As liberals, we would also welcome any suggestions you might have as to a superior alternative to the liberal democracy that we profess. I've noticed that you never let on what you do believe in; only what you don't believe in.
Tom, sorry for being snarky, in the previous comment, but you have to admit that your more classical liberal view, which I share, is a minority view in the LibDem Party. The majority of LibDems would see your views as "Tory Talk".
I agree, but I don't think it's confined to the Lib Dems.
Every party has it's more libertarian and its more egalitarian wings; every party has those who subscribe to a "positive" as opposed to a "negative" view of government.
Nonetheless, the Lib Dems are moving more towards their classical liberal side, whereas the Tories are moving back to their interventionist hinterland.
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