"Al...This discussion has gone far away from George Galloway.
Teribus thinks all is well with the world...I do not, while we sit on our arses and allow some lunatic to make us complicit in the deaths of more than half a million men women and children."

Well no actually it has not Akenaton - It is all encapsulated in that quote from your post above. Front and centre in Respects Manifesto is - "the deaths of more than half a million men women and children" - that is a lie.

Not even the people from John Hopkins who wrote the report said that - Gorgeous George did.

Myths, half-truths, misrepresentations and downright lies that is Gorgeous George's coin, and gullible fools such as you swallow them hook, line and sinker.

TO WLD:
No Al, I disagree entirely there is absolutely nothing abstract about self help, and taking responsibility for ones own life.

"I just pointed out that poor sods being marched to the gas chamber didn't have much choice. You could say the same about the gulags."

But at the same time you refuse to acknowledge that while they did not have much of a choice, they still had a choice. If someone told me to march into a Gas Chamber I am damn certain that I would not do it - So what if they shoot me! how much time does my meek compliance buy, 30 minutes, I'd rather have the self satisfaction of knowing that at least I'd had a go at the bastards.

Oh yes, Thatcher's economic miracle, I lived through and remembered the run up to that, by all means tell us of those halcyon, idyllic days that preceded her landslide election victory in 1979. If memory served me correctly the country was on the bones of its arse and had just gone to the IMF for a loan just in order to survive the next six months. Rampant inflation, sky-high unemployment and trade union leaders dictating to the elected government of the country what was going to happen and when.

Funny that none of her policies were ever rescinded, odd that the governments of damn near every country in Europe adopted her self same methods.

So compassion and economic aid are the cure all are they Al? While you might think it sensible to have British industry and every family in the land subsidising the life cycle of your beloved Nottinghamshire mining villages in order that you continue bimbling through life with thumb in bum and mind in neutral, others quite correctly did not. Coal, fuel, power for homes and industry from the British pits put the price per ton to produce at £75, you could get the stuff delivered from Poland, or Australia for £8 a ton.

You were a teacher you say. And you come out with this absolute gem - "The only real success stories were the kids who had become drug dealers. These are places where the kids traditionally switched off from education - not in a challenging unfriendly way - but they knew they were going down the pit, like their Dads - and the girls knew they were going to marry miners - and so did the teachers."

No bloody wonder, if you and the likes of you were teaching them with that sort of attitude. Just going through the motions, marking time, there would be no point in sending in any "hot shot headmaster", apparently you, and likes of you, by your own account, had already totally given up.

Yes Al, there have been times and places in history where hope seems to have been sucked out of the situation. And frankly on every such occasion the people have overcome their difficulties in one way or another and risen above it.

Unfortunately for those on the left it is always dependent on "compassion" and "economic aid" supplied by others in order to maintain the untenable until the next disaster strikes and more "compassion" and "economic aid" is required. Trouble was the likes of the John Harvey Joneses were never listened to by those who should have known better.