Were to draw the line and what ever happened to left wing

In the recent General Studies paper it asked something along the lines of:
'Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems, they are all the same, theres no point in voting' 
Discuss wether it is worth while having different political parties. 
The entire premise of my EPQ is about the different philosophies and policies of different parties so this question spurred me into some what of a frenzy of defining political parties, historical examples. Hopefully which will give me quite a good grade at the end, although you can never tell with General Studies and most peoples view on the subject (not mine) are summed (if not a bit roughly) by youtuber: RichandPoor. 


Yet upon coming home I noticed this article: 

Lord Owen 'could vote for Labour' under Miliband

Lord Owen was one of  the key founders of the SDP party that broke away from labour in the 1981s to eventually merge with the Liberal party to found the Liberal Democrats. The fact that he would not support the Labour party makes a complex situation more difficult. 

There was a time when Labour and the Conservatives were clear cut (not that i was alive to remember it)  and it was not too hard to define the Lib Dems but now drawing the political line is very hard! 

Historically Labour were left wing, Conservatives were right wing and the Lib Dems were central left yet right now the Lib Dems are in coalition government with the right wing Conservatives. 

Oh but how right wing are the Conservatives, replacing a flaming touch with a green tree signalled a so called reinvention of the Tory party to the centre. David Cameron trumped the 2010 emergency budget as 'fair' and progressive, but their  polices don't seem to much of a far cry from Margate Thatcher. Experimental economic policy (crowing out theory and PSNCR priority) and downsizing the public sector is classic Tory policy.  Even the Conservative command acknolages this,  this we know thanks to Wikileaks. 

Yet tweaks to the Conservatives to make them friendlier and more electable seem like nothing compared to Tony Blairs New Labour. The reinvention of Labour Party sifted the party of the Unions into a central  Party to Govern Briton for just under 13 years. Tony Blair was named 12th most infuential right winger in the telegraph! Nick Clegg leader of the 'central-left' Liberal Democrats came 3rd!!

What happened to left wing!?

Well Mr Milliband is not leader of the labour party and it seems he is brining back the left. Elected by the Unions Ed is not new labour which means he could just be left of centre? 

If your looking for the true left wing its actually within the right wing government, if you ask me I would say it those Liberal Democrats that risked peerage to vote against the tuition fees. In time we could see the end of the coalition, if the Lib Dems don't break under pressure they will dissolve back into two parties! 

Rebellions and Promises

Tuition fees are to increase to up to £9000 
Yet not with out heavy resistance. 
28 Lib dems voted Yes
21 Lib dems voted No
8 Lib dems abstained or were not present 
This means that less than half of the Liberal Democrats passed the proposals. Full list here.
Also 6 Conservative MP's also rebelled against the fees. All in all the pass of 323 votes to 302 votes was very small. This raising underling problems within the coalistion, as predicted when tested the Liberals Democrats have split. With the Liberal Democrats being an  initial merge of the SDP and the Liberals back in 1988 and now the a divide between the Socialist of the party and the Orange Bookers, is it too unlikely that we could see a break down of the party? Having seen a number of deffections and resignations today so a number of higher profile Lid Dems leaving their posts, mainly Michael Crockart, who quit his government role. This rebellion has further to go.
Mean while Ed Millibands Labour party voted against it the change and is now speaking out against it trying to capitalize upon the situation. 

In the streets
Outside parelment things were far more open and violent! Protesters attacked Prince Charles car, attacked statues, the treasury and battled with police. Police Cavalry charges and protestors throwing  missiles were seen in public violence that would be hard to match in the last 20 years. Who is to say what will happen next? Should further Unions join strikes in 2011 when budget forms sink in it could have devistating consequences. 

Tuition fee increase: Political not economic.

Many would have use think that the Tuition fee increase is way of raising finance for the Government, that in these tough times we all must pay. Nick Clegg said his reasons for flip flopping on his promise to the NUS about not increasing them was because after he saw the 'true extent of the debt' he changed his mind. However after a bit of reading around, I've come to the conclusion that in fact it is no an economic move at all.. it is a political move based upon ideology.

The Government wants to reduce exspenditor, so it will cut University funding and increase tuition fees. As a one off this will cut the expenditior for that department as now less funding will go out to Universities. Yet this will cancel out becuase the Government will have to give out more loans. This is not a short term stragegy because it will take some time for these loans to be paid back, the Government will start seeing the return after this term in office. Not to mension the huge costs of setting up the new system!
Its claimed that the increase in tution fees will not have an effect on people going to university, that students will not be put off by high debts and the new system is fairer. This is not true at all, just from first hand experience I can say that many students are being put off from going to university and it can be seen but the civil up roar displited by the students all across the country that it is very much not regarded as fairer.
Increasing the skills and education that works have is a good way of developing the economy. It is a core supply side policy. If we deter people from going to collage then growth will suffer in the economy. On average those with a degree earn 35% more than the national average. This means that if less people go to university the Government will collect less taxes! No only this but the cut to university funding will mean Universites will have to scale down their research, this again will put Briton behind.

So what is too gain from this? Freeing tution fees is on more step to privatising it, the Conservitive party believe in the free markets. The best universities will be able to offer higher charges so will have a higher income. This means the top Universities will have more money to spend but what about those that can't charge so much?
Could we be faced with Universities disappearing? Those that don't perform may be wiped out.  This could just be the begining of policy. The Government will keep pushing up tutuin fees and liberating Universites until it becomes a business. Those that don't attract will fail. Is this really what we want?
There are serious implicaitons to slowing increasing tution fees, re-making university for the elite could be a danger. The question is, is this in the Converitives interest? Some might say so.
If fees are pushed up but the Government whats to still make it viable for everyone to go to University then they will have to increase grant, those maybe this is not a consern for the present Government.
We have established that higher tuition fees will put people off university but perhaps this is the point. Some people believe that their are too many University course and many are useless. Could this be the motive, to put those off that will not benefit themselves or society by going to University?

Really what have the Tories got to loose from upsetting students, they are not a key group of supports of the Conservative party! Those that are, are unlikely to change their view based upon this. The only ones loosing out are the Lib Dems and the students ofcourse.

Yet we must remember for all of this speculation of Conservative gain it was Labour that brought in tuition fees in the first place...

Boris VS Cameron

First Strike
One would not really expect the Conservitvie Mayor of London and leading Conservitive figure to attack a Conservative lead coalition on the subject of cutting benefits, but this is Boris Johnson. Boris claimed there was a 'kosovo-style social cleansing' of London referring to the possibility of  82,000 households being evicted under the new spending cuts. 

His voice joins the Lib-dems that are already mounting pressure on the top of the coalition to re-think their plans to cut

It could be a carefully planned political move, if Boris distances himself from the coalition he labelled himself 'hero' of the poor succoring his place as mayor of London. Its also a good Mr Johnson is also differentiating him from David Cameron, which could come in handy if he is involved in a Conservative leadership contest in future, which is likely. 

crusader of the poor

Return fire

Downing street didn't hesitate to fire back. Boris Johnson recieved heavy critism from the top, his claims being dismissed. Infact Boris retracked his statements to a degree saying they were 'taken out of context'. Dispite this who knows if Boris and Daves relationship will see any more bumps in the near future.

The Historian

"A historian is a profit in reverse"

Always a favourite quote of mine and now it seems to be more relevant than ever.

Were we are now
With the spending review just around the corner questions are being raised as to what it will mean for the UK economy.The UK has a national debt of around 950 billion (that's: 950,000,000,000!!), this staggering figure is the problem now facing Chancellor George Osborne but what is he going to do about? This is the question on the mind of many, will raising tuition fees be part of repaying the debt, cancelling child befit is certainly one part of it.
The front line services such as police have already begun making cut backs and other areas of the public sector cringes in the knowledge its almost certain to see heavy job loses.
George Osborne may be cutting back to reduce the budget deficit but what will happen to the Macro economic objectives? Government spending (G) is a key part of Aggregate demand (AD), plotting a reduction in G and thus AD on a Long Run Aggregate Supply (LRAS) has the effect shown bellow:
Output falls from O to O1 and thus GDP falls.. the economy goes into recession! Surely George Osborne knows this? Well a major part of the conservatives plan on keep the economy afloat release a theory called crowed out, as explained in full by a fantastic article written by Joe RS: Joe's Article. Basically the Government expects the private sector to fill in the gap as they deplete the public sector, a valid theory. However this only possible if businesses have money to expand, something which is about to get a whole lot harder if the Monetary Policy Commity decides to raise interest rates!
Has George Osborn factored this into his theory? It certainly raises questions as to how qualified he is to run the economy, lets find out:

The Man in charge
Name: George Gideon Oliver Osborne
Age: 39
Born: Paddington UK
Degree: Modern History.
Job History:
NHS: recording deaths
Selfridge's: Tidying towels
The Conservative Party
Experience in Economics (including GCSE ):
NONE

Anyone else shiver at the sight of that résumé, Well the city of London for a start! On the positive side every single one of you now reading this probably can say: "I have more experience in economics than the man in charge of the UK economy!" So how did he get the job.. well another Quote springs to mind, this time by Benjamin Franklin exasperated by politics:
"Democracy is two wolves and one lamb voting on what to have for lunch"
Alas more fitted for the present times would be:
"Two politicians and an economist voting on what to do with the economy"
At least there is one good thing, if he studied modern history he should be able to tell us about the 1930s.

The Past
During the period of 1930s the world economy was in a state of depression, in the US this was know as the great depression lasting from 1929 to around 1939 while the UK's problems started in 1918 but were not quite as bad by the late 1939s.
Economic growth was negative, between 1918 and 1921 there was a fall of 25% in output in the UK! The Government debt was large and the government was pressured to lower the deficit, this didn't help the economy!

Many nations were pinned down by something known as the gold standard that fixed their currencies so they could not export effectively.
As a result of the economic depression extremism increased, the Nazi party rose up in Germany and to a lesser extent in the UK, the KKK became stronger in the US and in Italy and Spain far right dictatorships rose up. Eventually Adolph Hitler rose to power in Germany and consumed Europe in war.

The future? (The apocalyptic edition)
World war 1 = war on terror
The Gold standard = The Euro
Economic down turn = Credit crunch
Right extremism = Tea Party Movement, BNP etc..
Government cut back? = Spending review?
World war 3 anyone?

OK so that's the extremest prediction possible (unless we look back the fall of Rome), but there some merit in looking back at the past to judge the future, there are many similarities to then and now and Keynesian models suggest these cut backs will lead to bad times ahead. We have to learn the lessons of the past, lets hope George Osborne did in his history classes. A final quote to consider:
"History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time"

Good Morning Mr Cameron

We now have a new PM David Cameron but also a deputy PM NIck Clegg.. what does this mean? We have a right wing PM and a left wing Deputy PM.. can this work?
Business:
The FTSE 100 Index was previously in free fall seems to be stabilizing but is still on the fall, this could show that the new coalition has yet to gain the support of business.
The pound however has risen from a sump of 1.47 against the dollar to just under 1.5, this shows that the deal has been positive but the pound is still far off 1.54 which it was at the start of the month.
Culturally:
Its difficult to tell what the people think of this deal, many die hard Torys and Lib Dems feel betrayed but it is generally seen as a good decision by most I believe as at least we now have a government... although facebook polls showed most people wanted a lib-lab coalition and if not a re-election with only a small proportion wanting a Lib-servitive coalition but facebook does not represent the whole population. Perhaps this is one of the challenges to David Cameron, trying to persuade the youth that Torys are not evil! He will also face scrutiny Europe for his parties allegiance in the European parliament.
Economically:
We don't know what the result of this deal will be, many labour supports believed Tory cuts would cause a double dip recession... this is unclear at the moment but they have stated they will not increase Nation Insurance or and will seek to alleviate tax on lower earners which though theories of Fiscal policy is good for the economy unless we already have restored Aggregate Demand to is former level in which case it could lead to future inflation. Inflation is something to watch
What ever happens we can expect interesting times ahead, some think this coalition will fall apart and we will soon have a re-election but what is certain these two men have a hard time ahead.