A radical policy?

[Ignis Fatuus]

Reduction in working hours
Free education
Electoral reform
Reform or abolition of the House of Lords
Decent provision for old age.

Sounds good to me.

These were all proposed by Gladstone in December 1891. Some of them are taking some time to implement.

[LatteLiberal]

Reduction in working hours
Free education
Electoral reform
Reform or abolition of the House of Lords
Decent provision for old age.

Sounds good to me.

These were all proposed by Gladstone in December 1891. Some of them are taking some time to implement.

No they all have been implemented and found not to have worked (except the HOL).

[sasguru]

Reduction in working hours
Free education
Electoral reform
Reform or abolition of the House of Lords
Decent provision for old age.

Sounds good to me.

These were all proposed by Gladstone in December 1891. Some of them are taking some time to implement.

Bolded item implemented by the French recently. Didn't work for them.

[Ignis Fatuus]

No they all have been implemented and found not to have worked (except the HOL).

You're joking, right? (OK, this is General) Do you mean what you said to be a statement of fact?

Reduction in working hours: what makes you say that it has been tried and found not to have worked? I draw your attention to the famous case of Henry Ford (no pinko liberal he) who cut his workers' working hours in order to have them work more efficiently and make more profit for him; and found that it worked.

Free education: harder to give an acid test of whether it "worked" or not, but I maintain that it does make our country a better place. Feel free to argue otherwise. (not the same as "we can't/don't want to afford to send 50% of young people to university")

Electoral reform: facile to say merely that it has worked - more than that, it was essential for a civilised society, but more is still needed. Cameron would have got it too, if he hadn't shafted the Libs on HOL reform.

Decent provision for old age: again, a mark of a civilised society. It clearly has worked, the reforms in care for the aged after a lifetime of work have kept generations from ending there days in the poorhouse. But it is still shameful how some people suffer at their most vulnerable age.


No: all have been tried, and all have been successful; but none is complete yet.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Bolded item implemented by the French recently. Didn't work for them.

Didn't it? what do you mean by "didn't work for them"?

The French view (fron the INSEE) is that it did work, though not as much as the ex ante analyses had suggested: it did create 350,000 jobs (which was the main point of the French exercise):

le processus de RTT a conduit, selon les estimations, à un rapide enrichissement de la croissance en emplois de près de 350 000 postes sur la période 1998-2002, et ceci, sans déséquilibre financier apparent pour les entreprises.

-- Les effets de la RTT sur l’emploi


Implemented piecemeal by the Dutch, AIUI more with a view to better work/life balance rather than job creation. Worked for them.