Tristram Hunt: 'Too great a distance between the rich and poor harms us all'

“Gnomecomplex has succinctly put it in a nutshell,our friend Tristram was parachuted in by labour into a safe seat.All politicians are morally bankrupt YET keep on telling us they know better! Its a joke thats no longer funny & the outlook for any change is remote to the detriment of all of us who wish to work & provide .Those that have no desire to contribute will just continue to take & that suits labour very nicely thanks.However let us not forget that we a tory leader in Liberal clothing & that folks is just as bad !!
Politicians bye the way have learned no lessons,expense claims are up once again so the snouts are well & truly back in the trough ! Time to stop all this nonsense & show all these scroungers the way out for good .”

“HigginsIND - and you stand for? Ask the one trick pony (Labour bashing) mole10... standing for nothing can be an expensive hobby.”

“Posh kids have posh mates, Redtone.”

“Redtone - spoken by a true supporter of New Labour spin.

Make a point about Conservatives all being from posh public schools, then once someone adds scrutiny to the statement, turn your point of attack into a defensive by claiming that it is discriminatory to expect all public school students to join the Conservative party and demand or Labour members to come from state schools.

Does this not confuse your original point about the 'Eton Mafia'?

I for one am simply fed up of a succession of lies from changing regimes which have increasingly become indistinguishable from each other, and that is the sole reason for my involvement, because I think I can do a more honest job that what we have grown accustomed to.”

“None of the parties should be looking here for approval ratings. Party politics is now the slick device ridden antics of the advertising industry. They may not be selling snow to the Inuit but they are certainly capable of it. How dismaying is our politics. Politicians have come a long way since William Pitt asked for a 'pittance' from the general public with which to furnish his war against the French and then purported it to be a temporary measure. Today the political class profess ownership of our money and indulge themselves dramatically on the country's cash. Gone is any pretence of doing the electorate's bidding, gone on the distinctions of doctrine, gone is the care and attention lavished on our own. Instead we have a a quasi-religious conglomeration of outpourings where we are asked to suspend belief and to vote for unreformed, un-penitent parties who are drawn to liberalism like moths to a candle even though unsustainable and doubtful in aims. Neither of the leading parties has a scintilla of credibility. The last hundred years has seen a succession of give a-ways to an an electorate that has now come to expect the largesse. But have we not learned that this grandstanding has pauperised us? Social security has never been costed or adjusted to allow for the actual wealth of the country, it is an incrementing gift that refuses to have any relationship to our actual finances. Labour's client state is a busted flush where movers and shakers pay for a disparate band who it is convenient to label as needy or poor without any distinction of honesty or industry. Fairness (for whom) trumps frankness and more and more people are dragged into the gravy train by socialist dogma as a direct bribe. As a result we are now paying for less and less that depends on ever more Government funding and Labour want to add more categories and recruit more people to depend on the shrinking band of workers. But how can Conservatism holds its head up? They assured us that the markets would furnish everything and that honest labour invested would produce the security craved. The markets have perished and little or nothing of any sort of radical stamp has been done to resurrect them. In fact, the printing of money is actively destroying pensions and they call it QE. The Conservative conference was a litany of things you want to hear that we are not going to attempt. The referendum may come in 2015 but what will the question be? If it that the Parliament should permanently reside in Strasbourg or Brussels wont mean much, but there is nothing in what Mr Cameron said that is anything but cosmetic. And Mrs May talking boldly on Human Rights and immigration only proves all the more how well Labour stitched this country-up during its last tenure. It is some matter when we look at the politics of Stoke to ask ourselves what is it all for. In the old days it was lots of work and misery, today it is little work and misery. All that effort and involuntary contributions have come to little which is getting less and the only answer from Labour is to infiltrate Stoke with a glamour boy historian who seems to look right in the media, the acceptable face of Labour is a wholly owned characterisation of privileged, cosseted middle class intelligentsia who have a strong line in image and, in our case, of the miracle of the archives of the Dark Ages and the trumpeting of the credentials of an historian who saw no harm in the mass murder of millions of by a monster that other historians such as Anne Applebaum, Montefiore, Rosenbaum have all exposed for its true worth. That a local MP could see value in the non-lives of ordinary people so that a dogma may perpetuate can leave little hope for his constituents or understanding of their struggles. We are in thrall to the effete, the dilettante, the man who responds to history by placing himself at the centre of it whether or not that means camouflage and simulation.”

“HigginsIND - please take it as an insult.

So left wing politicians must come from state schools and council estates?

My God! You intend to keep us in perpetual opposition! Should all good posh kids buy in to keeping the plebs down?”

“Redtone - I'm never expecting to 'convert' someone with Red in their name! I'm not that delusional of my hopes and ambitions. Also not sure whether to take the quip about policies as an insult or a compliment, but I can assure you that my policies will be available for viewing before the next election and I will be available on both facebook and twitter for any Q&As.

However, I would like to point out that there are many Labour Politicians who were educated outside of working class state schools instead schooling in the lofty halls of a private education including; your last elected Prime Minister, your current shadow prime minister, current shadow chancellor and current deputy prime minister to name but a few.

Admittedly none of these institutions are as grand or pompous as Eaton but they are still far removed from what the average working person experienced in their youth. My point being that even within the perceived 'Party of the People', politics is infected by those who have no experience of the people they are attempting to govern.”

“There's some pretty naieve people on here. Do a trawl on Facebook and explore who our New Labour councillors are friends with and the type of people who're now New Labour activists. The Portias and Eleanors of Kightsbridge. The Milibands big friends with Seb Coe and other big tories, as are many of our New Labour councillors. I'm afraid there's no Tory Lite just Tories now the colour difference is a smokescreen. And if there's any question just compare the actions of central to our local government - they're pretty much the same. The pursuit of social benefit as a priority to private benefit and interests has finally been crushed by all involved in the political world. It is a very sad prognosis for the working man and their families and I see no way out; in the same way the celts saw the invasion of the saxons the instintion is to run to the hills (Hunt's rubbing off on me). The only possible thing to do is to raise political awareness across the city and, most importantly, make the distinction between central and local government clear to the masses so that people vote for the person not the colour.”

“Is a Labour controlled council in Stoke-on-Trent worthy of our support when they refuse to release details of the Dimensions affair and have to be supported by the ICO to keep it under wraps? Not forgetting the severe cuts endured on this city and then the rise in Council Tax when they didn't need to. Then they give van de earnalot an assistant (outsider) after making severe cut's to front-line staff, services, care and community facilities!

And now they want to move everything to Hanley and completely separate Stoke-upon-Trent from the rest of the City! NO. I won't vote Labour or buy into this "One Nation" theory? Infact, I'll never trust a LabRat, ConArtist, Dimwit or Schity Independent again because they're all SHIFTY.....

The Victoria Ground is to important to go voting for any of these career politicians whose only interests are self interests. "When is someone going to get a party of people together that are prepared to actually represent the "6 towns" of the City of Stoke-on-Trent instead of manipulating them"? How about you Mr Peter Higgins?”

“"We pledge not to increase tuition fees" Clegg said. He was lying through his teeth. Is such a lizard worthy of the cushiest sinecure in Britain?”