Is Ken Livingstone waging war on the middle classes?
830669
Don't get me started on that fool! He is the spawn of Beelzebub! lol
442159
Yes and no.  What is more happening is the middle class is changing, more people are falling into the lower middle class realm with fewer moving to upper middle class or higher or staying in the 'true' middle class.  It is a defitnate threat that the middle class could end up falling, but it is happening slow enough that most people dont really notice it but also slow enough that the problem can be fixed.
1094577
It's probably not his worst thing. The many offensive statements and actions he has made as mayor are worse for mine. He is under threat of suspension for offensive comments to a reporter last year. \n\nKen Livingstone was publicly criticised in February 2005 when he compared an Evening Standard reporter to a concentration camp guard after the reporter had tried to interview him following a reception marking the 20th anniversary of Chris Smith's coming out as a homosexual. The reporter, Oliver Finegold, turned out to be Jewish and said he took offence at the comparison, but Livingstone refused to withdraw the remark and was subsequently accused of anti-Semitism. Finegold had an audio recorder running and he released the following recording of the conversation, which contained twelve seconds of silence - which Livingstone claims is where abuse by Finegold was edited out, an allegation supported by the Standards Board for England:\n\nFinegold: Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did tonight go? \nLivingstone: How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment? \nFinegold: How did tonight go? \nLivingstone: Have you thought of having treatment? \nFinegold: Was it a good party? What does it mean for you? \nLivingstone: What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal? \nFinegold: No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal and I'm actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go? \nLivingstone: Ah right, well you might be [Jewish], but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you? \nFinegold: Great, I have you on record for that. So, how was tonight? \nLivingstone: It's nothing to do with you because your paper is a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots. \nFinegold: I'm a journalist and I'm doing my job. I'm only asking for a comment. \nLivingstone: Well, work for a paper that doesn't have a record of supporting fascism. \n\nThis last comment was a reference to the Standard's sister paper, the Daily Mail, which endorsed Oswald Mosley's fascists in 1934 and supported the Nazis until 1939. Livingstone also claimed the Standard was guilty of "harassment of a predominantly lesbian and gay event" He has also made offensive statements about the Reuben brothers Iraqi immigrants.
605042
If you could find "middle class" average people who agree. I do not think we could agree on who is middle class Harvard says single income of $41,000 & 2 income family of $72,000. I think anything below $150,000 is middle class. \nMy friends & I are middle class people, we do not live in mansions or have chaueffers, we are just regular people & we do not vote alike very often.\n\nIt is someone's dream that would would be democrats - and our nightmare. Middle Income - Kennedys, Clintons, Kerrys, rockafellares, Fords, Gates, Clooney, Oprah - I want their middle class income.
309659
Essentially it is because we are spending more.  We have become an expendible society.  Cars break we buy new a button breaks we buy a new shirt.  We do not make our own clothes now, we barely make our own food things cost more oil cost more, experience costs more.  The middle class has to try to keep up with the other middle class then in a recession it makes them poor and others rich depending on investments.  The goverments tax system also does not support the middle class only the lower income and the high end with exemptions.   There for our government, society, and economy do not support the middle class this has been this way for decades catch the phrase "rich get richer poor get poorer"  as well as the man shipping all our jobs overseas is laughing at the middle class all the way to the bank.  I hope to see our society actually vote a working middle class person in to office of several levels to turn arround the laws and tax breaks to help out the middle class.  I wait for that day.
810068
Wow you have posted this 3 times huh?  But I am in agreement... when middle class America ceases to exist and you only have Poor and Rich..... Then Poor America will have to have a Civil Right Movement.... would serve them right for being so greedy
706680
Yes, it will increase our community charges, Livingstone's lot will have every excuse to increase both the charge and the areas for the congestion charges, parking prices will go through the roof, and when it's all over, ALL the increased prices will remain, there'll be so much over-provision of public transport on that side of London that it will all be running around empty most of the time (yet still adding to the greenhouse nonsense), and there'll be a load of second rate housing which will immediately be grabbed by immigrants so that within five years it will become even more run down than it is right now, and thank you, Londoners will have paid for it all. \nNice of us, ain't it.
267249
lets see about padding the stats sure he may have created all these wonderful 5.15 an hour jobs but he is still in the red as far as how many decent paying jobs he has lost to the low paying ones created \nthats the problem with the conservatives its all black and white rich or poor no grey middleclass
768979
After they took to our streets, May 1, they created a backlash which they will never see the end of.\n\nThis ripple has become a storm and soon will be a tsunami of unequal proportions.\n\nThe middle class is the power class and as we unite through joining pro-American organizations and spending our money saving our heritage, we will be a force not to be reckoned with!\n\nTo quote a Patriot....."be afraid....be very afraid"
702737
It's a mystery to me why this man is still Mayor.\n\nThis is the person, lest we forget, who wanted to invite the families of the London suicide bombers to the memorial service of those they murdered. in the spirit of forgiveness. Regardless of the morality of this, Livingstone forgets that is only the families of those murdered who have the right to forgive or not, as they choose, not polititians.\n\nThis is the man who invited supporters of suicide bombers in the Middle East to come and speak in London.\n\nThis is the man who saw nothing wrong with London Underground employing a man convicted of terrorism offences overseas, until it was pointed out to him that the employee didn't disclose them to his employer. Apart from the disclosure issue, Livingstone didn't have a problem with an international terrorist working on our transport system.
764283
You forgot the war on the middle class and the poor.  They do like their war but only if it keeps them in power or they can make money on it.
1000477
Yes it does and this is unfortunate, it goes against my belief that if you lift from the bottom, you lift the whole society. I use the example of three boxes, with the top box being the rich and the middle as just that, and the bottom being the poor. If you lift just the top box that is all that you move leaving the other two behind. But if you lift from the bottom then you lift all three boxes and society benefits as the standard of living goes up for all. This is why I am so against the repuglican agenda of tax cuts for the very rich, or supply side economics. We saw in the Clinton administration an example of consumer driven economics the rich got richer and so did the poor and middle class. The economy boomed. It did not take Bush long to end all of that with supply side economics did it.
903225
Yes I agree. I'm sick of the Labour party wiping Bush's arse and their neglect of the increase in crime. Great question.
953153
damn the middle class.
622918
If you can have someone like Tony Blair in office and have nobody bothered, why worry about Ken Livingstone? Admittedly he's a buffoon and has said the wrong thing, but then so have a lot of other famnous people (Prince Philip is the worst!). Let's sack the lot of them and have a democracy!
1116018
Is GW looking out for anyone who isn't in the upper classes best interest? \n\nHe has done exactly what any Republican would do, make it easier on the rich and harder on the poor. Their theory is that the money will 'trickle down' to us, eventually helping the economy more than if it were controlled by the government. \n\nIt's great in theory, but unfortunately most of it will sit in offshore accounts, earning ungodly amounts of interest. Those at the top have a habit of keeping hold of their money, not trickling it downward our way.
1181153
I agree. The Government is not working FOR the people, it's working for the rich. There is no middle class. Only the rich, and the working poor.  Bush is the worst President in the history of the United States, and his record will speak for itself.