With the benefit of hindsight (OT)

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

If an election was held tomorrow would you vote any differently?

[TF_Serious Sam]

Absolutely not, we’d just have Brown and his cronies dragging us further and further into debt.

Took them 13 years to get us into this mess, will take someone else a few years to dig us out of it whoever it is.

[TF_andy cranes mateParticipant]

@Serious Sam wrote:

Absolutely not, we’d just have Brown and his cronies dragging us further and further into debt.

Took them 13 years to get us into this mess, will take someone else a few years to dig us out of it whoever it is.

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

[TF_macca63]

People should realise that you can’t continue to borrow money at the rate the last government were….at some stage you are going to have to pay it back, if Labour had been in power for another term it would have just delayed it by 5 years.

[TF_Serious Sam]

And made it worse as we’d have been another 50 billion in the red.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Interesting views. I suppose we could have refused to lend the banks £60 billion and thus the amount of borrowing / debt would have been far less Sam and Macca? Perhaps the question is about the appropriate degree of stimulus, not about applying the brakes or creating a double dip recession. The stimulus measures may have led to sustained economic growth and is it not better to pay off debts during times of plenty? Has austerity become even scare mongering, exagerated by a government determined to cut and cut and do so in an atmosphere where people are simply too scared / too grateful that it is not them that they dare not complain, criticise?

[TF_wightangler]

hilarious answers that bear no relation to the truth re-cauasation of the econ. credit crunch recession though both labour and the crap that followed knee jerk reactions exaccerbated the effect on you all -ask actual americans in areas effected how bad currently and expect this in new year or around xmas..
or have we all conveniently forgotten Lehman, 1987 UK deregulation, promotion of financial services at expense of manufacturing base- remember why you get cheap tackle -and why reselling or repackaging debt linked to bonds and some derrivatives was bound to have some effect given the inclusion of sub-prime mortage overselling in US- at the same time that property bubble in UK was peaking.
cameron and clegg -social inclusion pmsl
like the new cap on immigration then exempting new immigrants by supporting Turkey’s EU entry and right to work and bi-lateral trade with india(ask how many local lonon trades have been rewarded with contracts via olympics over last 3 years!- a lot of bigger firms have brought in cheap indian labour though.
The new localist agenda has some positive and necessary actions and economic partnerships that labour had neglected but to work they needed a regional logistical structure and investment to function…
by the way money is not fixed – as comparison with borrowing in UK in 1932 amd 1949, 55.76 and 87 will bearout.
The credit crisis will cyclacly deepen and then restructure with an inevitable repeat without international banking agreement and regulation by babks and multinats to integrate with national and regional govt. structures- unlikely since many of the th unseen players that control govts and old families like cameron(sugar and cotton/slavery from 18th century0 can shift capital to get better returns and cheaper leader.
Paradoxically, realistically priced fishing tackle(ie x triple the current price and with more uk production) would be an indicator of UK economy structural well-being and balance.

[TF_Dodge]

The ConDems are doing a great job! ….. they have everything sorted! its someone else,s fault ~clap ~clap so we are going to get shafted like never before !!! ~sick ~sick ~sick ~sick ~sick ~sick

Bet your all glad you voted them in ? ~shh ~sick

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

That is my worry Dodge. Conservative Governments, maybe every Government are great at using smokescreens and scaremongering to crucify Joe Public.

[Anonymous]

Its a little early to be asking this question.

The measures put together by this new government have not taken effect yet!

Yep, you can blame the last Labour government for where we are at the moment. Most ppl have jobs, homes, and quality public services that benefit everybody!

God help the majority as the big changes start to take effect over the next 6-8 months. Then after the next budget in April. Even more cuts are planned. Things will only get much harder for the majority of ppl!

Those who voted Tory at the last election who wanted change. You will be sorry when your out of work, lost your home and your public services are all in tatters when you need them most. You have been warned!

The new Lib/Con government will still be blaming the last Labour government in 2 years time for the policies that will have brought this country to its knees!

Higher unemployment, lower average wages, higher prices, more lost homes, higher rates of crime and very few police on the streets, longer waiting list in hospitals, larger classroom sizes and poorer exam results for our kids. Schools and hospitals starting to fall down again. The list could go on and on.

But, you wanted a change!

[TF_Dodge]

The Public School echelon will be doing just fine though ! ~clap

So will the Sun newspaper and Sky News ! ~sick ~sick

F**K EM !

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

This is what puzzles me. I thought more people would be regretting voting Conservative or Liberal. Liberal because you could argue your vote was abused / betrayed. Conservative because they promised not to harm front line services when they clearly are and doing so BIG TIME. Are Conservative / Liberal voters not at least pleased we are in a period of economic growth etc owing to the previous government?

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

If an election was held tomorrow would you vote any differently?

Only if there was an option to vote for a party that would cut public-spending more severely and reduce town hall staffing levels more quickly than the present coalition government is attempting.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

This is what puzzles me. I thought more people would be regretting voting Conservative or Liberal. Liberal because you could argue your vote was abused / betrayed. Conservative because they promised not to harm front line services when they clearly are and doing so BIG TIME. Are Conservative / Liberal voters not at least pleased we are in a period of economic growth etc owing to the previous government?

Not when it’s due to reckless borrowing and money printing, merely delaying the reality check.

[Anonymous]

The point is that the new governments policies of cutting everything have not yet taken effect!

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@TrueBlue wrote:

The point is that the new governments policies of cutting everything have not yet taken effect!

Neither has the effects of the previous government’s unsustainable borrowing.

[Anonymous]

The effects of the last Labour Government and the over spending would/could have been less painfully dealt with over a longer period of time than is now being planned by this new government.

Slash and burn policies to destroy much of what was good cannot be great for this country in the short or long term. However, it might be good for a few individuals in a privilged position.

Whats your role in the big society, Rob? Are you planning on getting a yard brush and sweeping the streets in your spare time for the good of our society? I dont think so, some how!

[TF_caster robParticipant]

I’m hoping to see the serial benefit-claimants do a bit of sweeping first, but I expect to be disappointed.

I do have a brush as it happens, but I’ll look after my own yard.

[Anonymous]

Most of those serial benefit claimants you believe are out there cannot afford a brush, Rob!

I got the answer i expected from you, Rob! Thats the big society idea gone up in smoke! lol

[TF_caster robParticipant]

I was never really a devotee myself mate.

Too much spin in politics from ALL sides these days, easier than facing the truth.

I know he has his critics, but to be fair to Osborne, he was the first to go public on the need for cuts when Brown (clearly demented) was still ranting on about “Labour investment” which must be Pictish for “even more borrowing”.

Matters little to me now, the change of government is the equivalent of the fire brigade (or should that be service?) turning up after the place has been ablaze for ten years.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Rob on the basis of what you are saying the previous Government should never have bailed out financial institutions nor attempted to create stimulus and economic growth? Can I ask have you ever taken out a loan / had or have a mortgage Rob? Do you believe in loans / mortgages Rob?

The ‘let them eat cake mentality’ you seem to support Rob would surely result in more unemployed and having to support more and more non financially contributing members of society without achieving any economic growth so how would you then pay off debt or offer a future to the nation?

[TF_Serious Sam]

My problem with Labour is that in the course of 13 years they turned this country into a benefit culture.

I for one am sick to death of working my arse off and paying it all out on tax so other people can sit on their arse and live off my sweat.

Sure there are many genuine claimants and I don’t begrudge them a penny but there are tens or hundreds of thousands that CHOOSE not to work as they’re better off sitting staying on benefits. Over the years Labour have thrown more and more benefits their way sneaking it onto hidden taxes to the point where the working man is at breaking point.

People are forever going on about the divide between rich and poor but there’s a huge swage of middle earners that never get mentioned but have been financially raped over the last decade, I know I’m one of them as I’m sure are many of you.

I for one cannot wait until everyones benefits are reviewed and the scroungers are told to get a job. No fit man or woman should get paid for sitting on their arse, if they can’t find paid employment they should work for their benefits on community projects.

There are thousands and thousands of people out there that are quite capable of working but instead take sick money and choose not to work as it suits them. Hell, it’d suit me to get paid for doing nothing too but I still have a modicum of pride and can’t live off of other peoples backs.

When a country pays more out in benefits than it takes in income tax :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5651825/Benefit-payouts-will-exceed-income-tax-revenue.html

Then it is royally screwed and this is where 13 years of Labour put us. Thanks god we now have someone who may *just* have the balls to address it instead of continually bending the normal working families of this country over to take it up the arse.

[TF_herbie]

this country desperately needs a reality check and there,s one coming. weve become a nation of meme.s gimme,gimme,gimme, wots in it for me. greedy bunch of lazy non caring workshy people. face it weve become a third world country because the people we elect are as crooked as any african junta and cannot be trusted at any cost. we actualy send aid to china,india. the two fastest developing country,s in the world and we give THEM money. you could not write that into a momty python script. time for some pain, there,s nothing wrong with being hungry it focuses your mind to the task ahead and gets you off your backside to provide for your family instead of someone giving you a meal ticket.as for losing your jobs. dont make me laugh boys , where were you when this country destroyed our shipyards, steel,car,miners,and allowed factory owners mostly mp,s to outscource our jobs to asia. the unions which tried to represent there members interest were destroyed by media/government propaganda which the greedy meme,s lapped up with relish and aplauded the defeat of the scargills of this world and now you pay big time . you now have no one on your side so the little people return to the victorian age whilst the bosses build very big houses. the only difference is now you have an avenue to moan about it. and sam thank your lucky stars you have a job son not all unemployed are lazy layabouts and to buy into the claptrap that they can clean the streets for there benefits just puts more money into the fat cats pockets and throws more people onto the streets ie roadsweepers.

[TF_Dodge]

Well said herbie me old mate ~clap lol.

Being a passionate fella and life long labour voter myself i feel compelled to post a proper post for once !

What is worse ? a self righteous jumped up tory voter or a benefit claimant ?

For those who have never ventured north of Stafford here is a little info that will be a surprise to many of you ….It seems Rupert Murdoch and his political media empire are about to face their biggest battle yet, unknown to many tory suvs under the last labour government Manchester has been transformed into a huge modern vibrant city to rival London ……. you may not have been told this by a bitter suv media but just come and have a look around ! Abu Dhabi and its untold wealth has moved into a once derelict corner of east Manchester, sadly the American corner isnt looking so rosie but never mind lol. It just so happens that a state of the art fantastic multi billion pound media center is about to be completed at Salford Quays, it is a truely eye opening project that has to be seen to be believed ! yes the Labour core heartland of Manchester is about to recieve a friend lock stock and barrel in the form of the British Broadcasting Company ! ….. Who cares about southern England and London ? ~think

[TF_Hillbilly]

I agree with Sam, time for drastic change to the benifits system. Why should some folk have to work for less than others get in benefits. The maximum benefit a person can claim should be set at less than the minimum wage no matter how many sproggs he/they have managed to produce whilst not looking for work.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Fully agree re benefits should not outweigh the financial gain of working and yes there are a section of society who abuse the system BUT is that really the biggest issue we have as a nation? Are we not being duped / hoodwinked as we often are with such emotive issues; immigration is a similar issue.

Remember benefit does not equal laybouts per se. There are and are likely to be many more people who would love to work but have no job having lost their previous one or people who simply cannot work for a genuine medical reason. Many people seem to be saying benefits = laybouts full stop.

It would be interesting to have actual figures as to what monetary value people wrongly claiming benefits equates to compared to say wealthy tax evaders / corrupt politicians et al?

Is that the biggest issue in our country?

[Anonymous]

Job Seeekers allowance is £65 per week. A Couples allowance is £102 between them each week! Its not great for most to be out of work or unable to gain work because of health reasons!

The answer is full employment in this country or at least a job offer for anybody who wants one. However, it has to be a fair days work for a fair days pay! Thats not something any Conservative Government has ever aimed to achieve.

[TF_Serious Sam]

@herbie wrote:

and sam thank your lucky stars you have a job son not all unemployed are lazy layabouts and to buy into the claptrap that they can clean the streets for there benefits just puts more money into the fat cats pockets and throws more people onto the streets ie roadsweepers.

Cobblers, I live on the isle of Wight which is recognised as one of the lowest paying, deprived parts of the country BUT there ARE jobs available, unfortunately they require actually WORKING physically and are mostly minimum wage.

IF there were no jobs I’d accept your point, the problem is there ARE jobs but they’re low paid and there’s no incentive for people on benefits to take them – people weigh it up and once they work out all the stuff they’d lose if they worked such as kids school dinners, free prescriptions, rent payments etc. etc. they find they’re better off staying on the dole and that is the crux of the problem – anyone working should find themselves better off overall than anyone not working so there’s an incentive, unfortunately it’s not the case so why would anyone take those jobs ?

I don’t have a job by the way, I run my own company and have done for over a decade working whatever hours are required, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year no holidays and no help – I work bloody hard and always have which is why it’s so galling to give it all away . . .

[TF_MarkT]

Serious Sam now that is b

---

s and if you lived in one of the Cities here you would know that that there isn’t many jobs available. If there are jobs going companies will hire inhouse or they rehire people they’ve already let go.

I can tell you now in Manchester they are very few jobs going and when one does come up theres hundreds of applicants and only ONE job.

Theres companies closing all the time, building sites and projects being stopped due to lack of funds. Soon there’ll be alot more out of a job so believe you me there ain’t many jobs out there.

Your basically saying that every single person claiming job seeker allowance is able to get a job but they don’t want to because they get more than they would working. You can’t put all unemployed people in to the same category, it’s only the minority that spoil it. You can’t tarnish everyone with the same brush.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Sam are you sure re your claims that the IOW is one of the most deprived areas of the country?

When you made that statement I thought that seems far fetched so I did a little digging but I have to say the information seems sketchy and I am prepared to stand to be corrected.

The Isle of Wight is part of the South East region of England. Whilst the Island is in many ways unique, it does shares some characteristics with the wider South East region.
Similarities include:-
?? A rapidly growing economy. Over the last five years GVA and employment growth on
the Island and across the South East region exceeded the national average.1
?? A dominant service sector. The service sector accounts for 72 per cent of the Island
economy, and provides for more than 3 in every 4 jobs. Manufacturing accounts for just
13 per cent of jobs on the Island.
?? A rapidly growing population. Population growth across the South East region,
including the Isle of Wight, has exceeded the national average over the past five years.
But there are some characteristics and issues that are particular to the island, including:-
?? Lower than average prosperity. The South East region is among the most prosperous
in the UK and Europe. But the Island has below average GVA per head, low wages, low
educational attainment and above average unemployment.
?? Retailing and the public sector, especially health, not financial & business
services2, dominates the service sector. The mix of service industries on the Island is
very different to the rest of the South East. Retailing and hotels & catering combined
account 22 per cent of all jobs on the Island, compared with just 14 per cent for the
South East. By contrast, financial & business services, a key growth sector for the UK,
is relatively underrepresented on the Island.
?? A large retired population. A quarter of people living on the Island are of pensionable
age. This compares to less than a fifth for the South East as a whole.
In terms of scale, the Isle of Wight accounts for about 1 per cent of the South East economy.

Small islands tend to be anomalys in every aspect of life. I know the Isle of Wight is big compared to many other island, the biggest I think but what is the population? 150K? higher than normal OAP% I would suggest the IOW is not a great place to make comparisons on/with nor would an Islander know much about the reality of life in say Liverpool, Manchester etc etc

[TF_MarkT]

Qoute NW Cut Angler: Small islands tend to be anomalys in every aspect of life. I know the Isle of Wight is big compared to many other island, the biggest I think but what is the population? 150K? higher than normal OAP% I would suggest the IOW is not a great place to make comparisons on/with nor would an Islander know much about the reality of life in say Liverpool, Manchester etc etc Qoute.

Totally agree.

[TF_Serious Sam]

@MarkT wrote:

Serious Sam now that is b

---

s and if you lived in one of the Cities here you would know that that there isn’t many jobs available. If there are jobs going companies will hire inhouse or they rehire people they’ve already let go.

Sorry, I accept that inner cities are much worse off then we are here but not everyone lives in the inner cities – as I said at the outset I don’t begrudge anyone that genuinely needs benefits a penny andy anyone out there that’s actively looking for any kind of work and can’t find any has my sympathy.

The point I’m making is that there are thousands and thousands of jobs going begging around the country at the moment that are not being filled because they’re minimum wage and it doesn’t make financial sense for someone on benefits to take them.

People over here, where there ARE jobs going, are constantly moaning there’s no work but there is, it’s just not work they want to do. Macdonalds and KFC are always hiring, there’s jobs cleaning, working in rest homes, working on the pier.

The trouble is they’re unattractive, low paid jobs BUT to my mind if you’re on benefits you should not have the choice of turning then down anyway, benefits are supposed to be a crutch for those that need them not a lifestyle choice.

This is what I’m talking about :

http://www.bizbuild.co.uk/news/work-shy-leave-thousands-of-jobs-unfilled/

[TF_Serious Sam]

You’re all only focusing on the unemployed anyhow which is only part of the problem, another huge chunk is people on the sick getting benfits that they shouldn’t.

I can give you an example which I know 100% accurate as it’s a member of my wife’s family . . . .

Middle aged couple, grown up kids one living at home, Husband is a bank manager earning something like 30k a year, wife is signed off work with one of these imaginary syndromes people claim to have than no doctor can find.

She gets some sort of sickness benefit, what she does with it is go down whetherspoons every day and lunch with her friends.

When she’s not there she spends her whole day on the computer / phone running a site / helpdesk for other ‘sufferers’ so she IS working full time on that but apparently couldn’t do it for an employer.

This is what I find sickening, we’re all paying for her lifestyle and thousands like her.

[TF_kid_a]

All the people slagging off the tories, what would be better, carrying on spending? Its all good and well investing in schools, NHS etc.. but we invested too much, we have wasted billions. This country is bust, our debts are over a trillion pounds we need to cut and cut hard!

People need to wake up and take a reality check…. Thank god the tories did win the election, they probably wont get elected again for a long time due to what they will have to do to fix labours mess but the alternative would have been far worse for future generations…

[TF_Dodge]

Does The Isle Of Wight have the same population as Eccles then ? lololol

[Anonymous]

Kid a, what are you going to say if you lose your job and cannot find another?

What are you going to do when you cannot pay your bills and your going to lose your home?

What are you going to do if you find yourself ill and your told that your going to die unless we give you X treatment. We could treat you next week and you will be fine for many years to come. However, the country is skint. So, expect to be in a box in a few weeks time?

What will you say if your kids or grand kids cannot get a good education because of the cost to the country in schools teachers and equipment?

What will you be saying when your mugged on the streets or your house is robbed and there are no police to call because of massive cuts in police numbers?

What are you going to say when benefits are cut and your in need????

The country is not bust as suggested by a few.

Yes, the country owes money. However, its how its payed back and over X amount of years that is the main argument here. Any cuts should never hurt the weak and poorest in society. Those WITH gain most of there wealth off the backs of the weak and often hard working! Why should they not give more to clear what the country owes?

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Rob on the basis of what you are saying the previous Government should never have bailed out financial institutions nor attempted to create stimulus and economic growth? Can I ask have you ever taken out a loan / had or have a mortgage Rob? Do you believe in loans / mortgages Rob?

The ‘let them eat cake mentality’ you seem to support Rob would surely result in more unemployed and having to support more and more non financially contributing members of society without achieving any economic growth so how would you then pay off debt or offer a future to the nation?

I said at the time tht the government should have let Northern Rock collapse. Anyone who’s stupid enough to speculate in 120% mortgages deserves all they get IMO and shouldn’t be rescued by those fiscally more sensible and realistic. This would have been a wake-up to the rest of the banks to get their own houses in order.

They didn’t of course, because most of the mortgagees were in the labour voting heartlands of the North East and the government were suficiently embarrassed and exposed to be responsible for the first run on a UK bank in over a century. One could argue that using my taxes to rescue this useless institution was my first contribution to the “big society” eh TrueBlue?

I have had a mortgage and did have a loan.

The mortgage was comfortably paid off because I only borrowed what I could afford to repay, nothing complicated about that.

The loan was a bit different.

In the early 1980’s I was running the surveying department of a building consultancy that I worked for. They had got into financial difficulties and were looking to raise money by selling my (the only profit-making) department.

To cut a long story short I raised the money against the value of my property to purchase the work-in-progress of the on-going contracts.
I went on to complete the contracts, win many more, pay-off the loan and eventually employ up to about 30 people in the process.

This involved often paying 3 or 4 grand a month into the governments coffers by the late 90’s as part of the employers NI contributions, yet more contributions to the “big society”, is that enough for you now TrueBlue?

Needless to say, after 2 years of Blair/Brown I’d completely lost incentive and enthusiasm when I saw what they were dong with my hard-earned 60+ hours a week money I was raising for them so I wound the business up in 1999.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

TrueBlue asked:

“What are you going to say when benefits are cut and your in need????”

May I suggest:

“Thanks Gordon, thanks for nothing”?

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@kid_a wrote:

All the people slagging off the tories, what would be better, carrying on spending? Its all good and well investing in schools, NHS etc.. but we invested too much, we have wasted billions. This country is bust, our debts are over a trillion pounds we need to cut and cut hard!

People need to wake up and take a reality check…. Thank god the tories did win the election, they probably wont get elected again for a long time due to what they will have to do to fix labours mess but the alternative would have been far worse for future generations…

How old are you?

Virtually every person in this country takes on astronomical debt at some point in their lives. Are they bust? Are your parents broke? Does that not telling you something about debt?

You seem very naive and sucked into the rhetoric that the media feeds us. Should the previous government not have spent £60 billion bailing out British financial institutions, should it not have invested in stimulus packages? Do you really think governing a country is as simple as spending nothing, collecting taxes and sitting on a surplus?

Economic growth is surely a better way to alleviate debt than simply turning off the life support system?

[Anonymous]

Rob, what would you have said if your savings and mortgage where with Northern Rock at the time that the bank was about to collapse? I suspect something very different than what your saying now! You would be the first to say that the Government need to bail the bank and in effect you, out!

Rob, Gorden is not PM anymore and Labour are not in power. So, i ask again. What if your in need and because of cuts. There is nothing there to help you out?

Try thinking outside the box. Instead of looking only into your own tiny little world of me, me, me!

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Rob you didn’t really answer the questions I posed to you. Why not 😉

Northern Rock were actually at one time superb. I even took a loan out with them (paid off a long time ago) because when I compared rates they were offering the best rate for Joe Public. I know people who had/have mortgages with them. Is it not correct that Northern Rock got into trouble because of how they reinvested money in an attempt to secure greater profits? (greed) Am I right that Northern Rock were not the only UK bank to fall foul of the Gordon Ghecko Greed is Good philosophy that is a weakness of the private sector that you often espouse as the answer to every problem known to mankind?

You work in the construction industry. Would it not be fair to say the Public Sector has made a massive contribution to keeping that sector going when the Private Sector virtually shut up shop? Those hospitals and schools = pay packets for construction workers and profits for private construction companies which in turn both feed back into society and a better society.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Sam you throw your relative to the wolves but have not answered my question. How much does people falsely claiming benefits actually cost? Is that cost greater than the money wasted, concealed or stole by the private sector, politicians et al? Is your relative worse/better/the same as numerous politicians?

Most of the incredibly wealthy citizens of this so called great nation STOLE that wealth or rather other predecessors did. Are we not a nation borne from corruption and thieving?

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

I am going to put some example up. 30 trainee teachers from one dept of one university. Only 3 secured employment last time I checked. All 30 have worked hard throughout their lives but now 27 are what spongers? Acccording to some it seems they are. That is 1 subject dept 1 university. Imagine across the whole university, across the whole country?

The Mrs is a nurse. Never misses a days work. I think IIRC that in over 25+ years she has not missed a single day. She is a health freak / fitness fanatic. Nags me to death on those fronts but I love her. She believes people should be refused free treatment in certain circumstances if they ‘self harm’ smoking drinking over eating etc and that contributes to their ill health that needs treating. Far more right wing than I will ever. I am to coin an Orwellian phrase a responsible socialist which means I am right wing in terms of personal responsibility / law and order etc but left wing in other aspects such as social welfare. Her PCT is in debt. Cuts are looming, the service will suffer, less doctors, less nurses, far worse working conditions. Is she or her other colleagues lose their jobs are they spongers? Over the years several of her colleagues have left Britain PLC and gone to work / abroad. Should such people pay back any money they owe Britain PLC?

How do you feel about business people, entertainters, sportstars hiding their wealth abroad and not contributing to the country? Are they worse / better / no different than the benefit spongers?

[TF_Dodge]

Just for Mr Murdoch and Torie voters who havent ventured north of Stafford courtesy of the Labour party …….

http://www.salford.gov.uk/mediacityuk.htm

also

http://www.mediacityuk.co.uk/

~clap ~clap ~clap

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@TrueBlue wrote:

Rob, what would you have said if your savings and mortgage where with Northern Rock at the time that the bank was about to collapse? I suspect something very different than what your saying now! You would be the first to say that the Government need to bail the bank and in effect you, out!

Rob, Gorden is not PM anymore and Labour are not in power. So, i ask again. What if your in need and because of cuts. There is nothing there to help you out?

Try thinking outside the box. Instead of looking only into your own tiny little world of me, me, me!

I wouldn’t risk my capital with an outfit that traded like they did, if it looks too good to be true, it is.

Correct, Gordon’s no longer PM, but his anf labour’s debt will be with us for years to come.

Sorry if my “tiny little world” hasn’t paid enough in to the big society, how much do you suggest, and what have you done?

[Anonymous]

Most of the UK banks needed bailing out! Rob, i said if….. It seems your not able to look outside of the box.

Yes, the country will be paying back the debt for many years to come. Shame this Government is intent on destroying what we are paying for and taking us all back to where we where 13 plus years ago!

You mean you have payed your taxes? We all do that, Rob!

[TF_Serious Sam]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Sam you throw your relative to the wolves but have not answered my question. How much does people falsely claiming benefits actually cost? Is that cost greater than the money wasted, concealed or stole by the private sector, politicians et al? Is your relative worse/better/the same as numerous politicians?

Most of the incredibly wealthy citizens of this so called great nation STOLE that wealth or rather other predecessors did. Are we not a nation borne from corruption and thieving?

What have they to do with each other ? Are you saying because the rich have stolen it’s ok for ‘normal’ people to ?

A theif is a thief whatever their income.

Can’t find up to date info on benefit fraud but from the info from past years I can find it’s a couple of billion a year, 20 billion a decade.

Thing is I’m not talking purely about fraud I’m talking about a culture that makes it much to easy for people to claim legitimately for stuff they don’t really need or could provide themselves if they got off their arses – thousands aren’t working that could be but that wouldn’t be counted as fraud.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Sam I gave you a simple example 30 hard working trainee teachers, 3 got jobs. Maybe it is a tad harder to find jobs than you think.

My point is just that Sam, it does not matter whether it is a politician or unemployed joe public, if they are both cheating the nation. They are both as bad as each other but you like others choose to turn the other cheek when it comes to the bigger cheats and are happy to castigate and tar the unemployed as one without by your own admission any concrete facts simply the rhetoric from the media that demans we should all think like this.

I have an inkling benefit fraudsters and illegal immigrants / immigration are two fairly minor issues in making our country grow and develop but you wouldn’t think that way given the way the media and the new government have whipped up persecution of such easy targets. There are much bigger questions / tasks.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@TrueBlue wrote:

Most of the UK banks needed bailing out! Rob, i said if….. It seems your not able to look outside of the box.

Yes, the country will be paying back the debt for many years to come. Shame this Government is intent on destroying what we are paying for and taking us all back to where we where 13 plus years ago!

You mean you have payed your taxes? We all do that, Rob!

You also said “where” when you should have said/wrote “were”.

Look outside your own box.

“We all do that”

Right, the exchequers just awash with money from pimps and drug-dealers I suppose.

I guess some of us pay more taxes than others.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NWCA

“You work in the construction industry. Would it not be fair to say the Public Sector has made a massive contribution to keeping that sector going when the Private Sector virtually shut up shop? Those hospitals and schools = pay packets for construction workers and profits for private construction companies which in turn both feed back into society and a better society.”

And the Public Sector just goes out into the garden, shakes the nuLabuh money-tree and rakes up the cash, in this socialist utopia of yours?

[Anonymous]

Let me educate you a little on the truth about benefits and benefit fraud over the last 13 years, Serious Sam.

More than £2.7 billion in benefits lost to fraud and error’ according to a new National Statistics report. During 2007/08, the Department for Work & Pensions spent around £126 billion on benefits, about a quarter of the overall government annual budget. It is estimated that during 2007/08 around 2.1%, or £2.7bn, of overall benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud and error. If you break this down it’s an even 3-way split between fraud, customer error and official error. 1.4% is due to error and only 0.7% is due to fraud.

The government has significantly reduced the level of fraud over the last 10 years, but still has a lot to do to reduce the official error rate

One interesting part of the report, overshadowed by the misleading headline, was that over £1bn of benefits were underpaid or not paid out at all, which means that benefits are not reaching the people who are legally entitled and really need it.

If you would like me to put some stats up for you for the Conservative, Thatcher and Major Governments. You will see that the last Labour Government did much to solve the issues of the past over benefits and benefit fraud. However, they still had more work to do in solving all the issues connected with benefits!

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@TB:

“One interesting part of the report, overshadowed by the misleading headline, was that over £1bn of benefits were underpaid or not paid out at all, which means that benefits are not reaching the people who are legally entitled and really need it.”

Or one could conclude that the civil servants/local govt superannuated administrators were less than competent in executing their task, alternatively the people who are legally entitled didn’t really need it anyway.

Shows what a farce it is, made unnecessarily more complicated by Brown and his stupid tax credits and the rest.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@TB

So you’ve corrected your spelling error after I pointed it out for you.

Socialists eh?

Carry on educating Sam, should be fun.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Sam et al perhaps being British is exactly that, fraud and theft? Exploitation?

Jobs existing and nobody wanting them? Ancient history well not quite but hardly new is it. 50 / 60’s. Immigrants welcomed with open arms to do the jobs we ‘Brits’ did not want. Racism was common then as it is now.

Trust me I advocate being far harder on people than many of you. For example I support children being more readily taken into care. It is actually better for them IMO or should be if done correctly. Not quite sure how you do it but I advocate finding ways to stop people having so many children. Sterilisation / Contraception Implants something / anything. Trust me when you have seen single women with up to a dozen ferrel children borne to numerous fathers collecting vast sums in benefit you want change.

However, prosperity and economic growth is the best panacea for such social diseases. Poverty is the most fertile breeding ground for such social diseases.

All I keep hearing is peole saying make cuts, pay off the debt and yet modern society is what is it because of debt. Debt fuels the society we live in. Debt is the norm and I wonder when politicians start talking about debt and telling everybody how tough times will be what the ulterior motives are. I don’t trust any political party but I know none nor many people are talking about what country I want to live in;

Namely one where people are safe, law and order is respected / abided. Children are given the best possible education and health provision for all is the best it can be. Three simple values and yet all 3 seem to have been lost and/or ignored in the red herring media/political frenzy beig whipped up against the unemployed / immigrants

[TF_caster robParticipant]

NW Cut Angler wrote:

Sam et al perhaps being British is exactly that, fraud and theft? Exploitation?

Jobs existing and nobody wanting them? Ancient history well not quite but hardly new is it. 50 / 60’s. Immigrants welcomed with open arms to do the jobs we ‘Brits’ did not want. Racism was common then as it is now.

Trust me I advocate being far harder on people than many of you. For example I support children being more readily taken into care. It is actually better for them IMO or should be if done correctly. Not quite sure how you do it but I advocate finding ways to stop people having so many children. Sterilisation / Contraception Implants something / anything. Trust me when you have seen single women with up to a dozen ferrel children borne to numerous fathers collecting vast sums in benefit you want change.

However, prosperity and economic growth is the best panacea for such social diseases. Poverty is the most fertile breeding ground for such social diseases.

All I keep hearing is peole saying make cuts, pay off the debt and yet modern society is what is it because of debt. Debt fuels the society we live in. Debt is the norm and I wonder when politicians start talking about debt and telling everybody how tough times will be what the ulterior motives are. I don’t trust any political party but I know none nor many people are talking about what country I want to live in]

If you’re really suggesting that my two daughters would have had a better life by being failed by the useless state system than being brought up in the loving environment that my wife and I have provided for them then we’ll have to arrange a meet so that I can explain a few things to you. I think you’ve been brain-washed.

Modern society is what it is because of Gordon Brown’s debt, and it’s going to last a generation, at least.

By the way, these bastard children are feral, not ferrel.

As an aside, when I suggested doctoring the water supply to sink estates to stop the chav/scum from reproducing you labelled me a facist, now you’re suggesting a similar solution.

Ho-hum.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@caster rob wrote:

@NWCA

“You work in the construction industry. Would it not be fair to say the Public Sector has made a massive contribution to keeping that sector going when the Private Sector virtually shut up shop? Those hospitals and schools = pay packets for construction workers and profits for private construction companies which in turn both feed back into society and a better society.”

And the Public Sector just goes out into the garden, shakes the nuLabuh money-tree and rakes up the cash, in this socialist utopia of yours?

You have still not answered my questions Rob 😉

The public sector wastes money. The private sector wastes money. Society wastes money. To be honest your desire to demarcate public and private is ill advised because both exist together, both are mutually dependent. At times, always in terms of one, both are using OUR money. Society. My point stands without public sector building schemes the construction industry would have suffered greatly and recent economic growth might have been far far less or not have happened at all. The so called public sector gets money back through employed construction workers and society then has new better hospitals for all and school for their children which hopefully leads to a more educated / better skilled society and economic growth / prosperity.

PROGRESS!!

Utopia does not exist. It never will. We can certainly improve and move forward though.
Read Ragged Trousered Philanphropists Rob good read and stupidly the extreme socialists treat it as a socialist bible when it is far from it. the reverse in some respects.

[Anonymous]

Rob, benefits and fraud was in a much bigger mess before Labour came to power 13 years ago. However, im sure your aware of this fact!

Or one could conclude that the civil servants/local govt superannuated administrators were less than competent in executing their task.

True but getting better under Labour control.

alternatively the people who are legally entitled didn’t really need it anyway.

No, those ppl need it, Rob. However, they live with a little less than they should have and suffer in silence for the most part. Hope it makes you feel good, Rob!

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

@caster rob wrote:

@NWCA

“You work in the construction industry. Would it not be fair to say the Public Sector has made a massive contribution to keeping that sector going when the Private Sector virtually shut up shop? Those hospitals and schools = pay packets for construction workers and profits for private construction companies which in turn both feed back into society and a better society.”

And the Public Sector just goes out into the garden, shakes the nuLabuh money-tree and rakes up the cash, in this socialist utopia of yours?

You have still not answered my questions Rob ]

And you still haven’t revealed where the PS gets its money from.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Rob our society was created over centuries. It is not blame Brown, blame Blair, blame Thatcher, blame whomever. It is not just the last decade. You fall into the trap of wanting to blame somebody to suit your own agenda. All political parties are corrupt and all are fuelled by greed. Society is fuelled by greed.

🙂 Your solution was facist because it was indicriminate just as this media / politian whipped frenzy against the unemployed / immigrants is. My solution was better but no having spent years working with such people I concede something has to happen just as something has to happen at the other great cheating section of society. The section that you Rob would never touch because the questions / the solutions are too damning just as they are for many and thus we continue on the same old same old path with minimal progress. It has been that way for decades / centuries.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@TrueBlue wrote:

Rob, benefits and fraud was in a much bigger mess before Labour came to power 13 years ago. However, im sure your aware of this fact!

Or one could conclude that the civil servants/local govt superannuated administrators were less than competent in executing their task.

True but getting better under Labour control.

alternatively the people who are legally entitled didn’t really need it anyway.

No, those ppl need it, Rob. However, they live with a little less than they should have and suffer in silence for the most part. Hope it makes you feel good, Rob!

You mean, under Labour control (two words seldom heard together) more money was thrown about.

feel good?

Not really, I’d rather hear them suffer for their pitiful inadequacies, it would be a minimal return on my investment.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Rob our society was created over centuries. It is not blame Brown, blame Blair, blame Thatcher, blame whomever. It is not just the last decade. You fall into the trap of wanting to blame somebody to suit your own agenda. All political parties are corrupt and all are fuelled by greed. Society is fuelled by greed.

🙂 Your solution was facist because it was indicriminate just as this media / politian whipped frenzy against the unemployed / immigrants is. My solution was better but no having spent years working with such people I concede something has to happen just as something has to happen at the other great cheating section of society. The section that you Rob would never touch because the questions / the solutions are too damning just as they are for many and thus we continue on the same old same old path with minimal progress. It has been that way for decades / centuries.

I know all that.

I’m still waiting to hear from where does the Public Sector get all this money that it spends.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Doh Rob. I alread said the Public Sector gets all its money from society and if I wanted to be pedantic I could say so does the Private Sector. That was my whole point. Society is what matters. Progress. Greed destroys both.

Late, nice chatting with you, apologies for the spelling mistakes.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Doh Rob. I alread said the Public Sector gets all its money from society and if I wanted to be pedantic I could say so does the Private Sector. That was my whole point. Society is what matters. Progress. Greed destroys both.

Late, nice chatting with you, apologies for the spelling mistakes.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Doh Rob. I alread said the Public Sector gets all its money from society and if I wanted to be pedantic I could say so does the Private Sector. That was my whole point. Society is what matters. Progress. Greed destroys both.

Late, nice chatting with you, apologies for the spelling mistakes.

Sorry, I’ve been pedantic too.

I’ll just close by saying that the private sector creates wealth and the public sector spends it.

I know which I think is the important one.

[TF_kid_a]

@TrueBlue wrote:

Kid a, what are you going to say if you lose your job and cannot find another?

What are you going to do when you cannot pay your bills and your going to lose your home?

What are you going to do if you find yourself ill and your told that your going to die unless we give you X treatment. We could treat you next week and you will be fine for many years to come. However, the country is skint. So, expect to be in a box in a few weeks time?

What will you say if your kids or grand kids cannot get a good education because of the cost to the country in schools teachers and equipment?

What will you be saying when your mugged on the streets or your house is robbed and there are no police to call because of massive cuts in police numbers?

What are you going to say when benefits are cut and your in need????

The country is not bust as suggested by a few.

Yes, the country owes money. However, its how its payed back and over X amount of years that is the main argument here. Any cuts should never hurt the weak and poorest in society. Those WITH gain most of there wealth off the backs of the weak and often hard working! Why should they not give more to clear what the country owes?

Yeah I would be gutted but I wouldnt blame the tories, we could have had all of that if labour hadnt wasted billions on rubbish. They threw too much money too quickly at different parts of the economy and it was wasted on rubbish and didnt go anywhere near where it was needed….

[TF_Snooty Fox]

I’ve just read the whole thread…………

Caster Rob is my hero ~clap

He has debated the points best of all and made other posters look silly.

[Tippy]

If work is available but not being taken then the cost of living is too high. Why?

What people are comlaining about with the unemployed(long term) is the lack of effort being shown.

I lost my house in 1990 building trade crashed and mortgage rate doubled. All I could do was get a ladder and bucket and go window cleaning. I cleaned on council estates where other blokes were sat all day watching telly. Twenty years later I have another mortgage on a nice four bed bungalow, I haven’t paid off the loan yet but I have a lot of equity and my family are happy to live where they do.

When I went down I would have walked a hundred miles to find work and yes those blokes on the estates I used to clean are still sat there being paid benefits. State mollycoddling has weakened the resolve and grit of people.

Sorry rant over.

[TF_Dodge]

@Dodge wrote:

Just for Mr Murdoch and Torie voters who havent ventured north of Stafford courtesy of the Labour party …….

http://www.salford.gov.uk/mediacityuk.htm

also

http://www.mediacityuk.co.uk/

~clap ~clap ~clap

Former Labour Government home office minister Jaquie Smith has applied for a top job @ BBC !

Who needs London ?

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@caster rob wrote:

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Doh Rob. I alread said the Public Sector gets all its money from society and if I wanted to be pedantic I could say so does the Private Sector. That was my whole point. Society is what matters. Progress. Greed destroys both.

Late, nice chatting with you, apologies for the spelling mistakes.

Sorry, I’ve been pedantic too.

I’ll just close by saying that the private sector creates wealth and the public sector spends it.

I know which I think is the important one.

It’s a chicken and egg scenario Rob

[TF_Serious Sam]

@Tippy wrote:

I lost my house in 1990 building trade crashed and mortgage rate doubled. All I could do was get a ladder and bucket and go window cleaning. I cleaned on council estates where other blokes were sat all day watching telly. Twenty years later I have another mortgage on a nice four bed bungalow, I haven’t paid off the loan yet but I have a lot of equity and my family are happy to live where they do.

~clap

My story is similar, it’s there to be had if you’re willing to get off your arse and work for it, an attitude that’s sadly lacking in the UK today.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

I am interested in how your positions slide so conveniently. Several posters, Sam, Rob etc think it is a disgrace that the Government should be in debt and that paying that debt off is the be all and end all YET you are then clapping Tipsy who went into debt, it all went pear shaped but he could then go into debt again and rebuild which is what the likes of myself are advocating. Debt be it a nation or an individual is not a fixed permanent state. All Tipsy did was reinvest in himself and others backed him which is what the government did and like Tipsy things started to turn out right. Now imagine if the world had closed on Tipsy written him off been as harsh as some of you want.

Tipsy do not be offended but times have changed and money in window cleaning simply does not exist where I live. Rounds are bought and sold all the time whereas 20 years ahgo that was not the case and the people cleaning the windows are paid below the minimum wage. Times have changed.

Sam what do you say to those trainee teachers. Incredibly hard working, want to work and yet 90% cannot find a teaching post. Are you telling me there are teaching jobs out there for all those young men and women?

I can give you a thousand feel good stories and yes I can give you some real scrote stories too but the reality is it has never been tougher IMO than it is now. I was brought up from coal mining and textile mill stock so trust me I know.

The biggest source of wealth generation in the UK today? Death!!! People benefit from property inheritance in the main and that is the biggest factor in determining wealth in this country today IMO What a country where people dying / loved ones often is the biggest factor in differentiating between the haves and haves not.

Are we a meritocricy. Have we ever been?

[TF_Dodge]

Its always someone else,s fault according to the tories ! i have yet to see them deliver anything whilst in power during my considerable lifetime …… they talk the talk but deliver f**k all. One thing they do specialize at is ripping northern communities apart.Im bored now !

BRING ON DAVID MILIBAND ~clap ~clap ~clap

[TF_Snooty Fox]

@Dodge wrote:

Its always someone else,s fault according to the tories ! i have yet to see them deliver anything whilst in power during my considerable lifetime …… they talk the talk but deliver f**k all. One thing they do specialize at is ripping northern communities apart.Im bored now !

BRING ON DAVID MILIBAND ~clap ~clap ~clap

Dodge – this country would be PROPER koofed if Maggie didn’t win against the miners unions.

Theres one for ya.

[TF_Dodge]

Really Snoots ? She is looking worse for wear these days …… must be all the stabs in the back she took off her then Tory party ? Bless her , maybe they should have just shot the b***h ! ~sick ~sick ~sick

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Snooty Fox wrote:

@Dodge wrote:

Its always someone else,s fault according to the tories ! i have yet to see them deliver anything whilst in power during my considerable lifetime …… they talk the talk but deliver f**k all. One thing they do specialize at is ripping northern communities apart.Im bored now !

BRING ON DAVID MILIBAND ~clap ~clap ~clap

Dodge – this country would be PROPER koofed if Maggie didn’t win against the miners unions.

Theres one for ya.

The Miners strike was an unmitigated diaster due to two 2 idiots (Thatcher and Scargill waging a personal war v each other). The whole fiasco cost the country £6 billion. Oh the irony of people talking about wasting money and then hailing the Miners Strike.

[TF_Serious Sam]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Sam what do you say to those trainee teachers. Incredibly hard working, want to work and yet 90% cannot find a teaching post. Are you telling me there are teaching jobs out there for all those young men and women?

I’d say move to where there is a job – over a thousand listed here currently :

http://www.eteach.com/

And 700 here :

http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/jobs/education/

And no less than 5000 listed here :

http://www.teachnetwork.co.uk/

No doubt you’ll have some reason why they’re a special case, can’t move, jobs are no good for them etc. etc. ?

Sick of hearing excuses.

[Anonymous]

Serious Sam. There are Scousers all over the world and in almost every area of this country because ppl got off there arses and moved and followed work. However, why should ppl need to move when there is a ready made and highly skilled work force in almost every major city North of Watford. Most are hard working ppl who just want the opportunity to do a hard days work for a fair days pay.

[TF_Katarino]

My 2 bobs worth…

1. Thatcher did not destroy manufacturing in this country, I know it’s sacrosanct for the left to repeat it but it’s not true. Manufacturing output increased and Britains’ releative position amongst manufacturing nations was higher in 1997 than in 1979. It has however dropped in the last 10 years (Source: OECD). The only measures any claim can be made for ‘destroying manufacturing’ is that it has dropped as a % of GDP. This in itself is fairly meaningless as this was caused by a huge INCREASE in revenue from the services sector. Secondly, there are less manufacturing jobs. This is partly as a result of more automation but the main cause was the outsourcing by manufacturing companies of service based elements of their operations. For example many companies in the 70’s employed their own cleaners, lorry drivers etc. All those jobs would have been classified by the nature of the business i.e. manufacturing. Those jobs up to and including accounts staff are now outsourced and hence become Service Industry jobs so the manufacturing workforce has dropped accordingly although the jobs are still there.

2. The Bank Bailout. Gordon loved to use this as an excuse for the deficit but the pure facts are the ACTUAL cost of the bailout are about 10% of Total Government Debt. The actual amount involved was no more than £200bn and in reality much of this is going to come back as profit. Don’t make the mistake of reading the ‘potential’ losses on toxic debt as the actual cost. It’s like saying an insurance co would go bust if every single policy holder had a crash at the same time, they would but it’s not going to happen.

3. The deficit. Utterly, utterly unsustainable, if we were in the Euro we’d have been in the same boat as Greece and I can guarantee you if Labour had won the last election we’d have had the IMF in by now doing precisely what the current gov is doing.

4. Finally, electoral reform. Very fashionable in the Gruniad to complain about Cameron being PM when he only got 36% of the total vote and no overall majority. Funny how no one queried how Blair managed a 60 seat majority on 37%?

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Serious Sam wrote:

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Sam what do you say to those trainee teachers. Incredibly hard working, want to work and yet 90% cannot find a teaching post. Are you telling me there are teaching jobs out there for all those young men and women?

I’d say move to where there is a job – over a thousand listed here currently :

http://www.eteach.com/

And 700 here :

http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/jobs/education/

And no less than 5000 listed here :

http://www.teachnetwork.co.uk/

No doubt you’ll have some reason why they’re a special case, can’t move, jobs are no good for them etc. etc. ?

Sick of hearing excuses.

Interesting view Sam. In part I agree with you. If the population was mobile then people would be far better off. Unfortunately somebody thought house ownership was a great idea and even sold off public housing stock. Housing became the GOD of this country. Successive government but in Particular the Thatcher government virtually ended geographical mobility.

BTW Those links you put up are often wrong. The best site for job is TES Jobs but as an example I think there are 6 Geography jobs, 2 Humanities, 2 Historians. The example I use was History jos. Now 6 + 2 + 2 = the equivalent of loaves and fishes for the number seeking jobs. Many do move if they can, even abroad.

Reality and truth are difficult concepts for you Sam so I daresay it makes you feel better to think everybody but you is a sponger and makes excuses.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@Katarino wrote:

My 2 bobs worth…

1. Thatcher did not destroy manufacturing in this country, I know it’s sacrosanct for the left to repeat it but it’s not true. Manufacturing output increased and Britains’ releative position amongst manufacturing nations was higher in 1997 than in 1979. It has however dropped in the last 10 years (Source: OECD). The only measures any claim can be made for ‘destroying manufacturing’ is that it has dropped as a % of GDP. This in itself is fairly meaningless as this was caused by a huge INCREASE in revenue from the services sector. Secondly, there are less manufacturing jobs. This is partly as a result of more automation but the main cause was the outsourcing by manufacturing companies of service based elements of their operations. For example many companies in the 70’s employed their own cleaners, lorry drivers etc. All those jobs would have been classified by the nature of the business i.e. manufacturing. Those jobs up to and including accounts staff are now outsourced and hence become Service Industry jobs so the manufacturing workforce has dropped accordingly although the jobs are still there.

2. The Bank Bailout. Gordon loved to use this as an excuse for the deficit but the pure facts are the ACTUAL cost of the bailout are about 10% of Total Government Debt. The actual amount involved was no more than £200bn and in reality much of this is going to come back as profit. Don’t make the mistake of reading the ‘potential’ losses on toxic debt as the actual cost. It’s like saying an insurance co would go bust if every single policy holder had a crash at the same time, they would but it’s not going to happen.

3. The deficit. Utterly, utterly unsustainable, if we were in the Euro we’d have been in the same boat as Greece and I can guarantee you if Labour had won the last election we’d have had the IMF in by now doing precisely what the current gov is doing.

4. Finally, electoral reform. Very fashionable in the Gruniad to complain about Cameron being PM when he only got 36% of the total vote and no overall majority. Funny how no one queried how Blair managed a 60 seat majority on 37%?

Excellent post Roy, spot on.

[TF_Dodge]

@Katarino wrote:

My 2 bobs worth…

1. Thatcher did not destroy manufacturing in this country, I know it’s sacrosanct for the left to repeat it but it’s not true. Manufacturing output increased and Britains’ releative position amongst manufacturing nations was higher in 1997 than in 1979. It has however dropped in the last 10 years (Source: OECD). The only measures any claim can be made for ‘destroying manufacturing’ is that it has dropped as a % of GDP. This in itself is fairly meaningless as this was caused by a huge INCREASE in revenue from the services sector. Secondly, there are less manufacturing jobs. This is partly as a result of more automation but the main cause was the outsourcing by manufacturing companies of service based elements of their operations. For example many companies in the 70’s employed their own cleaners, lorry drivers etc. All those jobs would have been classified by the nature of the business i.e. manufacturing. Those jobs up to and including accounts staff are now outsourced and hence become Service Industry jobs so the manufacturing workforce has dropped accordingly although the jobs are still there.

2. The Bank Bailout. Gordon loved to use this as an excuse for the deficit but the pure facts are the ACTUAL cost of the bailout are about 10% of Total Government Debt. The actual amount involved was no more than £200bn and in reality much of this is going to come back as profit. Don’t make the mistake of reading the ‘potential’ losses on toxic debt as the actual cost. It’s like saying an insurance co would go bust if every single policy holder had a crash at the same time, they would but it’s not going to happen.

3. The deficit. Utterly, utterly unsustainable, if we were in the Euro we’d have been in the same boat as Greece and I can guarantee you if Labour had won the last election we’d have had the IMF in by now doing precisely what the current gov is doing.

4. Finally, electoral reform. Very fashionable in the Gruniad to complain about Cameron being PM when he only got 36% of the total vote and no overall majority. Funny how no one queried how Blair managed a 60 seat majority on 37%?

The first 3 are a matter of opinion and politicaly biased just like the southern media.
Number 4 is laughable !!! Cameron only managed 36% of the total vote in the easiest winnable election in living memory despite all the help he recieved from Murdoch . sky news , adam boulton etc etc etc he failed and the tories failed to get an overall majority when they should have walked it ! so desperate to get power he had to get into bed with nick the d**k the lib dem wonder boy ~sick WHAT A MESS !!!!! Reality is around 80% of northern england around 85 % of scotland 80% of wales and 95% of northern ireland and 80% of east london despise the conservatives even knowing labour could not win the last election under Gordon Brown we all voted to try and keep the tories out ! it almost worked but best of all it left both the Conservative party and the Lib Dems in their own biggest political party mess in living memory where we all can see neither of them are fit to govern this country = FACT !

[TF_caster robParticipant]

None of Roy’s points are “opinion” they are all substantiated with hard data unlike your guestimates of how great geographic swathes of the country decided to vote.

The last section of your diatribe is the least factual of the lot because you are just expressing your class-warrior mentality forged from the politics of envy.

The one fact I’ll offer you is that every conservative government in my lifetime has had to clear up the previous labour administrations economic disaster, this coalition government is no different.

[TF_Dodge]

Thats right rob blame someone else from afar !!!! YUK !

[TF_caster robParticipant]

I’ve no idea just whom I’m allegedly blaming from afar.

If you want me to know you’re going to have to tell me.

[Tippy]

NW cut Angler

Certainally not offended fella. The point I suppose I was making is that life will always bring challenges and it’s the way we respond to those challenges that is important. My example was particular to me others will be different.

If people sit there and wait for state or divine help it just aint gonna happen. The onus is on the self to get off the butt and make it happen.

Look at nature any creature that just sits and doesn’t put the effort in is going to die that is the law of nature. Our society is a false reality where the weak willed and the lazy are rewarded out of the pockets of the hard working. It cannot continue I see them the same faces year upon year during the day overweight, trollies(?) full of junk food heading off home to catch the latest installment of Trisha or some other mindless drivel with no intention of ever getting a job.

It needs sorting now!

ps It’s Tippy not Tipsy.

[TF_Dodge]

@caster rob wrote:

I’ve no idea just whom I’m allegedly blaming from afar.

If you want me to know you’re going to have to tell me.

Rubbish reply rob.

This was fun but has become boring so ta ta.

[TF_DAT]

What really saddens me about this whole debate is that we dont really look at why people want dole instead of work.When i was a kid growing up on a sink estate all we wanted was to get out and get on,my dad never worked but thanks to 2 bigger brothers who had strong work ethics ,not working was never an option or choice.Most of us on the estate wanted to get more than our parents and we thought it attainable.But it seems to me now that kids(anyone under 25 to me)just dont have hope or belief anymore.Who destroyed the hopes of these kids?
Just a thing on the miners strike,yes maggie won,showed the miners who was boss etc etc.But what about the damage to communities.Every pit was a community centre,if a kid was out of line his dad would here about it pretty soon and whoa betide if he didnt straighten him out.In straight lines it was easy to say the pits were not economical but what is the cost in human misery of stopping a mans dignity,being able to go home on a friday with his wages to provide for his family.By the way i am not an ex-miner but they are my friends,my family and i am proud of where i come from.
Oh and as for the original question,didnt vote as i am a consevative voter who could not vote for Cameron,total pratt.

[TF_Katarino]

@Dodge wrote:

The first 3 are a matter of opinion and politicaly biased just like the southern media.
Number 4 is laughable !!! Cameron only managed 36% of the total vote in the easiest winnable election in living memory despite all the help he recieved from Murdoch . sky news , adam boulton etc etc etc he failed and the tories failed to get an overall majority when they should have walked it ! so desperate to get power he had to get into bed with nick the d**k the lib dem wonder boy ~sick WHAT A MESS !!!!! Reality is around 80% of northern england around 85 % of scotland 80% of wales and 95% of northern ireland and 80% of east london despise the conservatives even knowing labour could not win the last election under Gordon Brown we all voted to try and keep the tories out ! it almost worked but best of all it left both the Conservative party and the Lib Dems in their own biggest political party mess in living memory where we all can see neither of them are fit to govern this country = FACT ![/quote]

Point 1 definitely is not biased. It is economic FACT, the OECD has no political agenda in the UK or anywhere else for that matter.

Point 2 is also FACT, if you knew what I did for a living and where you would know that I would know something about it.

Point 3 is also economic FACT unless you subscribe to the Polly Toynbee school of economics.

Point 4 is laughable why? Don’t you get it? The point was that the system in reality is heavily biased towards Labour. Blair only managed a 1% higher share of the vote and had a 60 seat majority, ask any statistician to explain that little gem. That was why there was never any talk of electoral reform until they realised they were going to get shafted. Also worth pointing out that Cameron got 52% of the vote in Tory hating England (more even than thatcher got) which would translate to a 100+ majority in an English Parliament. Instead we allow the votes of 7m sweaty socks and 8 million taffs to decide who governs us the other 45 million of us whilst at the same time allowing them to opt out of decisions they vote on in England.

[TF_eels]

I can’t believe people think things would of been better if labour had got in for another term.
I wouldn’t have much faith in a governments ability to cope with our financial problems when they spent more money than was coming in during the good years(that they kept claiming was down to them, yet when things turned bad was nothing to do with them).

[TF_caster robParticipant]

Preventing subsidised housing for life when people can afford to pay their own way:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/03/lifetime-council-tenancies-contracts-cameron

Look how uppity the ‘nistas are getting, excellent.

Those Sky dishes will have to go.

[TF_Katarino]

Watch Polly T. jump on this one, I can almost hear her flailing the keyboard on behalf of the poor from her villa in Tuscany…….

[TF_herbie]

i come from a time when there was no dole/benifits other than family allowence which was always spent on woodbines. everyone worked, most were paid a fair wage and people got by. move forward 61 years and after 46 years working i am about to be cast aside because some greedy call them whatever you like decided to take risks with the world,s economy and cocked it up. there still up there collecting massive bonuses , still taking risks,only this time our glorious leaders have decided its the low paid who have to take the pain. lay them off and then get those with jobs to call them lazy scroungers so we can cut even more money from there meagre allowence. whilst were at it lets push for turkeys bid to join us , loads of cheap labour. i have two questions for you all.

1. name me one government who actualy did something for the working class.
2. name me one leader who didnt blame the previous leader for the state of the country.

.this one is for the union bashers. HOW DO YOU THINK YOU GOT WHERE YOU ARE TODAY. are you stupid enough to think that the upper and middle classes in the 20th century actualy wanted you anywhere but in the gutter.do you think that the bosses wanted to pay your ancesters MORE.

and snooty if you think the miners losing there jobs so we could import cheap polish coal was good for this country then i pity you.

[TF_Katarino]

Unfortunately Herbie it wasn’t that simple with the miners was it? It was about a politically motivated union leader saying he was going to bring down a democratically elected government that had been re-elected in with huge majority. In other words, he didn’t care what anyone else wanted and he was going to force them into it by putting the lights out, and I, like a lot of others lost any sympathy at that point.

Take a look at, “When Britain went to War” on Channel 4 on demand. Bought it all back.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

What a fantastic post by DAT. Superb Sir!! There is so much truth and wisdom in your post I take my hate off to you.

Roy. Where do I start. I thought from the tag name you were a lady but realised that was not the case. However, you seem to be quite bullish digging at Dodge and many of your posts are incorrect and/or wrong so I will reply to them tomorrow. Too late now.

[Anonymous]

Haven’t posted on TF for a while, as I’ve been a tad busy, but crikey, I’m a bit shocked re this one.
I work on a Government contract, things never seem to stop shocking me about the amount of waste that goes on, theres a lot of civil servants on here that have no qualms about spending tax payers money on a whim. I bet they wouldnt spend 1% of the amounts I see wasted if it came out of their pocket. Not just that, but the inefficiency of the people making decisions is just scandalous.
You talk jobs, I talk waste of tax payers money, a lot of people in government and councils spend huge amounts and waste huge amounts with no knowledge of the necessity of spending in the first place.
I’ve just been through the planning porcess, the things I was asked to do increased my planning costs by 4 fold. 90% of it was totally unnecessary. That is the legacy of the Labour government for you, red tape and paper pushing useless brain dead pillocks who wouldnt know the real World if it hit them on the head.
If you seriously think that we would be better off under Labour, you need to see what I’ve seen in just the last year, absolute joke.
Have any of you actually done any economics studies, did you not realise that 2+2 = 4.
You can’t spend forever with no way of paying it off. You can’t build quango upon quango and continue to pass the cost onto those that need to build or whatever they’re doing as sooner or later it becomes uneconomical to do so.
There needs to be a reality check in this country, we’re all so worried about offending people that the truth never comes out any more. I read in the paper the police are unwilling to question illegal immigrants because of being accused fo racialism, the people complaining about travellers are being told they’re racist because they think crime will go up. All perfectly true statements, is that the World we want to live in?? Its great saying continue with the Labour way, but sooner or later you need to wake up and look.
The worst crime to be in labour World is a white English born male. Call that sexist, racist, whatever you like, but it is the truth, and its about tiem that something was done before we end up losing whats left of our heritage and our country. Look at Australia, they have no qualms about saying it how it is, why do we??
Change needs to happen, simple as, we are/were 1 very small step away from doing a Greece. Even there, there were a load of blind pillocks out on the street complaining sounding very much like some of you on here. The country was bankrupt, and yet still the lefties complained like someone was going to invent a magic way of making Greece rich again. They still complained that jobs were going, 2+2 =4 remember, no money, moron, makes you laugh. Wake up, smell the coffee, look to Greece, breath a very big sigh of relief and be thankful that hopefully someones doing something about it

[TF_Hillbilly]

~clap ~clap ~clap Well said Pebs with you all the way on what you say. ~clap

This is how labour seems to me –

Q, Erm Mr Brown is it ok to not pay my tax this week as I need to buy a new cooker.

A, No sorry but we need that money to pay for Ms Slutt to buy one with as she has just dropped her 12th child and needs a bigger one.

Q, Well how about next week then ?

A, No sorry but Mr & Mrs Fiddler need that money to to buy cheap booze and fags with.

Q, Ok the week after then ?

A, No chance Mrs Fiddler is preggo again so we need to save your money to pay the extra support when the baby arrives.

Q, Well how about next month then, the old motor needs some repairs to pass its MOT.

A, Sorry but we need your tax for next month to pay towards Mr Unwells brand new Vauxhall on motability. We can’t have him driving round in an old banger like you have to use to get to work in now can we ??

Oh and by the way these folk are really struggling on there benefits so we will have to ask you to contribute a bit more to help them out soon.

~think ~think ~think ~think

[Anonymous]

Funny little story, Hillbilly and some truth in what your getting at.

However, Richard Murphy and others (Tax Research UK) suggest that tax avoidance loses us £25 billion a year; tax evasion loses us £70 billion a year; and uncollected tax amounts to £27 billion to £28 billion. Thats £125 billion in unpaid or uncollected taxes.

Who are those ppl who dont pay there taxes???

This is the heart of the problem in this country!!!

[Anonymous]

TB, have you ever wondered why they dont pay it?? Basically coz they weren’t going to get fleeced so it gets given to someone else who didnt deserve it, so instead they went and paid taxes abroad, its an absolute proven fact that if you let your high earners pay little tax, they bring more to the country in the form of jobs, etc.
sting them and they go abroad. You need your entrepreneurs, its a big World mate, and lots of countries are desparate to get big organisations in their own country. Clobber them, and they go.
That tax money you’re talking about was never the countries to have. If you’d have forced it out of them, they’d be gone within a month to somewhere they wouldn’t have to pay it. Thats an international problem.
Your beloved labour were the prats that put tax upto 90% in the 70’s and forced a massive brain drain from the country .. clever, eh
Wealth creates wealth, simple .. if its good economic conditions for the big boys they will bring the wealth

[TF_Hillbilly]

“Who are those ppl who dont pay there taxes??? “

Well Steve a lot of them are or have been the people that invent them i/e the government plus their rich cronies. I see nothing wrong with tax avoidance but evasion is another matter. As for me all I can do is smile and pay up just like every other working person I know but it really annoys me to see that much of my contribution is wasted supporting people who have no desire to better themselves or their families because doing so would see them join the real world where the rest of us live and fend for ourselves.

If the workers of this country were able to pay less stoppages out of their pay packets a lot of the extra money would be spent on goods and services. This would in turn kick start the economy and create more jobs. However the way things are a lot of folk live in fear of their jobs and are taxed to the hilt having little left to spend which sadly leads to more jobs being lost and higher taxes to support those who lose them.

[TF_Chris OwenParticipant]

Your post was worth waiting for Pebs, spot on mate~clap ~clap

Neil, sad but true~think ~think ~think

[TF_ubat]

If only it was that simple.

Lots of money rightfully due to be paid in taxes is held abroad in foreign banks, they pay lots to accountants to avoid paying their dues, none of that money will ever help the economy, unless the accountant smokes or drinks. ~think

[Anonymous]

Pebisit, that argument has been around for many years. Many of those ppl/companies are still here and still making massive profits but are avoiding/evading paying taxes! We are talking £125 billion in just one year!!! Then you wish to knock the poor and weak in our society.

Yes, some ppl/companies did leave in the 70s but that left opportunities for others in business. The top rate of tax is not 90% in 2010. So, why not argue for all taxes to be targeted by the rich instead of knocking the weak or poor in our society?

I call it greed.

[TF_Dodge]

It amazes me how the south of Birmingham brigade conveiniently forget 9 fantastic years of growth and prosperity we all enjoyed under Tony Blair , Iraq apart his government (LABOUR) were rather good ! ….. maybe the suvs have been in opposition that long they have suffered memory loss ?

Excellent post DAT ~clap ~clap i enjoyed that amongst the dross !

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@Dodge wrote:

It amazes me how the south of Birmingham brigade conviently forget 9 fantastic years of growth and prosperity we all enjoyed under Tony Blair , Iraq apart his government (LABOUR) were rather good ! ….. maybe the suvs have been in opposition that long they have suffered memory loss ?

Excellent post DAT ~clap ~clap i enjoyed that amongst the dross !

The growth under Blair was inherited from Ken Clarke’s chancellorship, the economy had been growing for three years BEFORE Blair & Brown got their hands on it. It was so good it took them another seven years to wreck it, by continuing to borrow in order to finace NON-Jobs (mostly north of Birmingham) that didn’t exist and weren’t needed. These are the ones we need rid of.

And please don’t try to speak for ALL of us, the only aspect of Blair’s premiership that I enjoyed was his departure.

Oh, and good stuff Pebs, nice to see someone who’s really experienced it tell it how it is.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@DAT wrote:

What really saddens me about this whole debate is that we dont really look at why people want dole instead of work.When i was a kid growing up on a sink estate all we wanted was to get out and get on,my dad never worked but thanks to 2 bigger brothers who had strong work ethics ,not working was never an option or choice.Most of us on the estate wanted to get more than our parents and we thought it attainable.But it seems to me now that kids(anyone under 25 to me)just dont have hope or belief anymore.Who destroyed the hopes of these kids?
Just a thing on the miners strike,yes maggie won,showed the miners who was boss etc etc.But what about the damage to communities.Every pit was a community centre,if a kid was out of line his dad would here about it pretty soon and whoa betide if he didnt straighten him out.In straight lines it was easy to say the pits were not economical but what is the cost in human misery of stopping a mans dignity,being able to go home on a friday with his wages to provide for his family.By the way i am not an ex-miner but they are my friends,my family and i am proud of where i come from.
Oh and as for the original question,didnt vote as i am a consevative voter who could not vote for Cameron,total pratt.

I have deliberately quoted this post because everybody, anybody should read it carefully and realise just how enlightened it is]we dont really look at why people want dole instead of work.[/quote]

Most of us on the estate wanted to get more than our parents and we thought it attainable.

But it seems to me now that kids(anyone under 25 to me)just dont have hope or belief anymore.

DAT is so perceptive that he should be runnin g the country NOT Labour, NOT Conservative, NOT liberal.

Hope/Aspiration and the belief something better is obrainable is the crux of life IMO. I was the first person in my family to go to University, the first person to do blah blah blah but I wanted something but I also believed it was out there if I wanted it. I can tell you now many many young people do not have a dream or believe it is achievable. They have given up or resigned themselves to a different life.

Remember the words of DAT

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

I posed a question and the answer is no but the reasoning actually beggars belief or rather it shows how susceptible society is to being brain washed. We often in self righteous patrotism denounced ordinary Germans and how they as a nation could stand by whilst Jews were persecuted and so forth. Propaganda, maybe we call it spin in today’s society is an incredibly powerful tool. So many in this thread are prepared to focus on one group in society and want them exterminated. They do so despite being given the facts by True Blue. Why? Perhaps it is easier to be a bully and focus all your ills on another group. Bit like Germans with Jews. Moreover, many if not all the posters here are intelligent people yet they do not show it here and we get to child like nonsense from Hillbilly and worst of all the Pebisit post which is not far in thinking from how the Nazis contrived to make Germans think about the jews. Was Pebisit for real? If so I worry given the ridiculous racial overtones of his post.

If we are to believe what is being said here. Waging a campaign of hate and war on Society’s ‘underclass’ and making cut after cut will make Britain a wonderful country. Not one of you who take that view have been concerned about real issues, offered solutions instead you have revelled in a desire o bully and victimise. You are all much much better than that.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

In his Hugo Young ­lecture at the end of last year, David Cameron cited in support of his thesis the research of two economists; Cameron said that “among the richest countries, it’s the more unequal ones that do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator”.

Among 21 developed market ­democracies, Britain does worst on child wellbeing and badly on teenage births, imprisonment, drug abuse, trust, obesity, social mobility and mental ­illness. Fresh confirmation of the pervasive and profound inequality in Britain in the form of a 460-page government-commissioned study – An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK – which described a nation in which the richest 10% are more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10%.

Where does the blame lie? The evidence shows that almost all the problems that occur most often in the poorest neighbourhoods – including those that make us a broken society – are systematically more common in more unequal societies. Rates are not just a little higher, but between two and eight times higher. Wider income gaps make societies socially dysfunctional across the board.

David Cameron rounded on Labour, saying: “Who made inequality greater? No, not the wicked Tories. You, Labour. You’re the ones that did this to our society. So don’t you dare lecture us about poverty. You have failed and it falls to us, the modern ­Conservative party, to fight for the ­poorest who you have let down.”

The truth is that we are suffering the impact of the massive increases in income inequality under Thatcher, which Blair and Brown have since failed to reverse. In the 1980s the gulf between the top and bottom 20% widened by a full 60% – much the most dramatic widening of income differences on record. Since then there have been only minor fluctuations under Major, Blair and Brown. The result is that the gap between the top and bottom 20% in Britain is twice as big as among our more equal European partners.

Almost all of Gordon Brown’s budgets did at least something to redistribute from rich to poor. But because the benefit was entirely offset by the unconstrained rise in top earnings, he can claim no more than having prevented a greater rise in inequality.

What happened in the later 1980s may now seem merely water under the bridge. But broken Britain is Thatcher’s bitter legacy. Rather than having instantaneous effects, inequality gradually corrodes the social fabric. It takes a while for greater material differences to make the social hierarchy steeper, for status competition and consumerism to increase, for people to feel a greater sense of superiority or inferiority, for prejudices towards those lower on the social ladder to harden, for prisons to fill to overflowing under the impact of more punitive sentencing, and for people to seek ­solace in drugs.

Rather than dealing with inequality, some politicians find it tempting to blame “broken families”, “bad parenting” and “damaged” children. Science has made huge leaps in understanding how our biology and psychology are affected by early life experiences, both in the womb and after. Children are deeply sensitive to family relationships and the quality of care. However, this sensitivity, and the way it shapes emotional and cognitive development, is not an evolutionary mistake.

It exists because early life serves as a taster of the kind of society that we may have to deal with in adulthood. It ­prepares children for the kind of ­society they are growing up in. Are they in a world of rivals, in which they will have to fight for what they can get, fend for ­themselves and learn not to trust ­others? Or will they need to gain one another’s trust, dependent on ­co-operation and reciprocity, in a world where empathy and social skills are at a premium?

Whether through maternal stress in pregnancy, depression, ­domestic conflict or poor attachment, parents’ experience of adversity in a more unequal dog-eat-dog society is passed on, with inevitable consequences for their children’s cogni

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Katarino wrote:

My 2 bobs worth…

1. Thatcher did not destroy manufacturing in this country, I know it’s sacrosanct for the left to repeat it but it’s not true. Manufacturing output increased and Britains’ releative position amongst manufacturing nations was higher in 1997 than in 1979. It has however dropped in the last 10 years (Source: OECD). The only measures any claim can be made for ‘destroying manufacturing’ is that it has dropped as a % of GDP. This in itself is fairly meaningless as this was caused by a huge INCREASE in revenue from the services sector. Secondly, there are less manufacturing jobs. This is partly as a result of more automation but the main cause was the outsourcing by manufacturing companies of service based elements of their operations. For example many companies in the 70’s employed their own cleaners, lorry drivers etc. All those jobs would have been classified by the nature of the business i.e. manufacturing. Those jobs up to and including accounts staff are now outsourced and hence become Service Industry jobs so the manufacturing workforce has dropped accordingly although the jobs are still there.quote]

When I first read this Roy I thought not bad. Some thinking etc but the more I read it the more I thought there are gaping holes in the arguments put forward. First and foremost the world is dynamic so you are never comparing like with like. Globalisation has made the world far more competitive, in 1979 nobody would have thought China could be as ‘powerful’ as it is in 2010. Your reasoning, seemingly to apportion blame at a political party failed to mention the overiding factor threatening every developed country’s manufacturing sector. Namely incredibly cheap LEDC labour. Personally and many think similar we cannot nor should we even try to compete at the low skilled part of manufacturing. We should however IMO understand how vital manufacturing is to Britain and concentrate on high skilled high technology manufacturing.

[Tippy]

I live darn sarf and there is loads of wealth but not for the likes of you and me. There are kids leaving education and being bought new cars by their rich parents who have inherited more money than we could imagine. This is a country of the haves and have nots and they rule it just like they always have. If you are from a ordinary family you will never ascend to the heights of these people. I clean windows on a small estate where even a lottery winner is an outcast for not being from the right background.
Politics is just a game to keep the proles thinking they have a chance.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Margaret Thatcher did try to destroy manufacturing. Why she did not believe it was important. How foolish she was. Her argument was that manufacturing could be replaced by the service sector.

Just over ten years ago the Labour Party issued a glossy booklet entitled Modern Manufacturing Strength. It had as its subtitle Building a world class economy. It rightly complained of the destruction of much of Britain’s industrial capacity during the years of Conservative rule. It called for a new strategy to revive British industry.

Labour’s booklet of ten years ago argued ‘A strong service sector requires a strong manufacturing base’. In trading terms, Labour’s booklet said, ‘we manufacture or perish’. Labour’s booklet referred to what it described as Britain’s ‘appalling balance of payments deficit’.

Labour IMO made progress but through greed and self destruction (all governments self destruct) it short changed the nation. It let us down. It made progress, possibly had good intentions but sadly like all poiliticians they forget why they are there.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

I will leave you a very perceptive article written in 2009;

Quote:

Most of the comment on the Budget has concentrated on the very large government borrowing requirement revealed by the Chancellor. But that figure is just symptomatic of a crisis rooted in Britain’s recent economic history; the crisis derives from the contraction of British manufacturing.
All developed economies have experienced a reduction in the contribution of manufacturing to GDP over the past forty years, but its fall here has been more rapid than in any comparable economy. In 1979 manufacturing accounted for almost 30 per cent of the UK’s GDP. Rapid decline followed, as large parts of British industry closed down while the financial and service sectors expanded. By 2007 just 14 per cent of the GDP could be attributed to manufacturing.

The retreat of the manufacturing sector has been accompanied by a growing deterioration of the balance of payments current account: the difference between exports and imports. Even though there were times in the 1950s and 1960s when the current account went into the red, it was very rare for the deficit to be equivalent to more than 1 per cent of GDP. The special circumstances of the oil crisis in 1973 led to a deficit worth 4 per cent in 1974, but the Wilson and Callaghan governments transformed this into a 0.5 per cent surplus by 1978. Thereafter the position became far more volatile, and by the end of the 1980s the current account deficit was approaching 5 per cent of GDP. Since 2000 it has consistently exceeded 2 per cent, reaching 3.4 per cent and 2.9 per cent of GDP in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

For many years this weak external position did not create problems for the domestic economy. Living standards rose and there was continuous economic growth from the early 1990s until early 2008. During the 1960s and 1970s successive governments had struggled to generate current account surpluses, believing that prosperity could not otherwise be sustained. More recently, it seemed that those fears had been misguided, and the country could afford to forget the external position. But this conviction was illusory.
The expansion of the last 12 years in particular has resulted from significant inflows of foreign capital and a dramatic expansion of credit, accompanied by the growth of the financial sector. However, this process was largely built on the belief that asset prices, notably property, would continue to rise indefinitely. And indeed, the returns from speculative ventures were so lucrative that a giant inverted pyramid of lending developed, with the consequences with which we are now all familiar.

The arrival of the global crisis in 2007 hit the UK especially hard. As asset prices fell, money and credit disappeared from the banks, which were completely or partially nationalised to prevent the catastrophic failure of the UK financial sector. The cushion of lending, which had sustained living standards by compensating for the diminishing contribution of exports, deflated fast.

Now the UK has to make a serious adjustment, since the credit which had allowed its citizens to enjoy the good years has gone and is unlikely to return very soon. Even when it does, the probability of it reaching its old levels is remote. The resulting fall in economic activity has caused the collapse in tax revenues and the very large borrowing revealed in the Budget. The manufacturing base of the economy is not large enough to compensate, via exports, for the loss of income generated by the financial crisis. We cannot look to finance and services to fill the gap. The City of London has contracted in the current crisis. Services tend to be less internationally tradable than goods, (take pizzas or hairdressing, for example). And at least 20 per cent of all service sector activity is dependent on manufacturing anyway.

What form of adjustment is required? The economy needs a stronger manufacturing sector, capable of earning more abroad than it has done during the past three decades. The recent Department for Business, Enterprise a

[Tippy]

NW cut

You are just wasting your life mate. Can’t you see it’s all been sown up years ago the wealthy have all the money and they aint giving none away. Ask Herbie about Marlborough and Devizes and all big houses tucked away in the picturesque villages. These people come from generations of wealth and there are loads of them their family background is their ticket to wealth and favour.

The rich control everything from the top and through freemasonry we are nobody compared to these.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Just to give Brown / Labour some credit and dispel the scaremongering and ludicrous Greece comparisons. Read the following. Also think is ending Building Schools For The Future / Reducing Investment In education simply an easy short sighted measure that threatens to harm to futures of your children, grandchildren or amazingly brilliant. It is issues like that which would make me as a Conservative voter think why did I bother voting for you, you promised no harm to front line services. Maybe the division of wealth policy/process that exploded in 1979 is now at a point where most of us are too blinkered and/or prejudiced. Maybe Pebisit is the future/the present?

Quote:

Long-term decline of UK manufacturing ‘not as bad as other countries’

July 15, 2009 by Nick Alderton

Last week the House of Commons discussed the “matter of UK manufacturing.â€

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Tippy wrote:

NW cut

You are just wasting your life mate. Can’t you see it’s all been sown up years ago the wealthy have all the money and they aint giving none away. Ask Herbie about Marlborough and Devizes and all big houses tucked away in the picturesque villages. These people come from generations of wealth and there are loads of them their family background is their ticket to wealth and favour.

The rich control everything from the top and through freemasonry we are nobody compared to these.

I know what you are saying Tippy and everything you say is correct but if we let the buggers do it to us are we not to blame too.

[Tippy]

NW cut

How can the rest of us fight back against what really is the old class system? Until we can address the root cause then we are going nowhere.

Is the solution a ban on inheritance or maybe a limit of what can be handed on?

Should Freemasonary be made illegal?

Should all secret societies and fraternities be made illegal?

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Tippy wrote:

NW cut

How can the rest of us fight back against what really is the old class system? Until we can address the root cause then we are going nowhere.

Is the solution a ban on inheritance or maybe a limit of what can be handed on?

Should Freemasonary be made illegal?

Should all secret societies and fraternities be made illegal?

We have power in terms of our vote and in terms of our ability to protest. As long as people allow themselves to be duped and become self centred and prejudiced we have zero chance. Politicians whatever the party do what they think will bring them victory.

[TF_kid_a]

Maybe the question should have been “With the benefit of hindsight would anybody of voted labour in 1997?” !!!!!!

[TF_Dodge]

@kid_a wrote:

Maybe the question should have been “With the benefit of hindsight would anybody of voted labour in 1997?” !!!!!!

Vote for who you want to pal ….. maybe we should all have this debate again in 12 months time when the ConDems (if they are still together) have done there worst ?

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@kid_a wrote:

Maybe the question should have been “With the benefit of hindsight would anybody of voted labour in 1997?” !!!!!!

Your actually provided with little option kid. Others are older and have more memories than I but ever since I have been old enough to be aware EVERY political party in Government has self destructed. The Conservatives did then and Labour have now. They both did well to get an extra term but that is often down to the incompetence of the opposition.

I do remember the sense of optimism in 1997 and people wanted / expected more. They got a small portion of what they could have had but Labour self destructed. They did offer some potentially fabulous legacies like BSF which in the long term could have made a huge difference. I wouldn’t keep a dog in some of the classrooms I have taught in over the last 2 years but it seems ordinary decent people are happy to allow their children / grandchildren to be treated as such and have become so filled with prejudice and spite towards others that they will never see any light.

[TF_Katarino]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

When I first read this Roy I thought not bad. Some thinking etc but the more I read it the more I thought there are gaping holes in the arguments put forward. First and foremost the world is dynamic so you are never comparing like with like. Globalisation has made the world far more competitive, in 1979 nobody would have thought China could be as ‘powerful’ as it is in 2010. Your reasoning, seemingly to apportion blame at a political party failed to mention the overiding factor threatening every developed country’s manufacturing sector. Namely incredibly cheap LEDC labour. Personally and many think similar we cannot nor should we even try to compete at the low skilled part of manufacturing. We should however IMO understand how vital manufacturing is to Britain and concentrate on high skilled high technology manufacturing.

But that was absolutely the point of the my argument. The manufacturing that ‘died’ under Thatcher was going to die anyway, I’ve always had the suspicion that someone, somewhere knew it and maybe forced the issue but to say manufacturing was destroyed is a myth. Britain is a world power in high tech, high skilled manufacturing and manufacturing output and income increased under the Conservative government between 79 and 97. It must be added that part of this was due to far reduced disruption by industrial action, the japanese didn’t set up successful(!) car plants in this country under Labour. Don’t trust me, dig deep on the OECD and other sources and see what the changes were. Just don’t blindly believe the lie made up to demonise Maggie because it isn’t true.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NWCA

“I do remember the sense of optimism in 1997”

Not from me you don’t, I knew it was only a matter of time.

“They got a small portion of what they could have had”

Yes, that thought really is frightening, however, it was more than enough for me, thanks very much.

[TF_Katarino]

@Dodge wrote:

It amazes me how the south of Birmingham brigade conveiniently forget 9 fantastic years of growth and prosperity we all enjoyed under Tony Blair , Iraq apart his government (LABOUR) were rather good ! ….. maybe the suvs have been in opposition that long they have suffered memory loss ?

Excellent post DAT ~clap ~clap i enjoyed that amongst the dross !

There weren’t 8 years of growth. There were 4 years of growth when they kept to Clarkies spending plans for the entire first term (that was an election pledge if you recall). Then the rest of the world suffered a minor deep that instead of dealing with properly gordo dealt with by borrowing, keeping on borrowing, selling assets at the bottom of the market and creating a vast public sector workforce to whom voting anything but labour would be like a turkey voting for Christmas. Added to which the Labour created FSA loosened the availbility of credit to ridiculous proportions but don’t blame the banks. When you take out a loan/mortgage you get a piece of paper that says it’ll cost you this much over this long, if you can’t work that out you shouldn’t be borrowing and you probably shouldn’t be breeding either.

It’s too late to see now now as one of the as one of the first casualties of the new gov has been the Guardians government jobs pages. 100’s of 25-50k jobs with “Global warming”, “Diversity”, “Outreach”, “GLTB”, “Equality” in the titles. As Rob has pointed out, want to save a few billion quid? Ask to see a list of job titles at your local council and then decide who you really want your tax money spent on…

I’m sure he genuinely believed he had abolished boom and bust but the fact was he created the s**t sandwich we’re now all going to take a bite from.

[TF_Dodge]

My mortgage is almost paid for and i have 3 grown up kids thank you Katarino !

Dont you just love how Caster rob and Katarino post in tandem ! ……. just like Cameron and Nick Wotsit ? LOL

[TF_Katarino]

I work during the day mate 😉 unless there’s a skivers knock up at Wallingford…..

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Katarino wrote:

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

When I first read this Roy I thought not bad. Some thinking etc but the more I read it the more I thought there are gaping holes in the arguments put forward. First and foremost the world is dynamic so you are never comparing like with like. Globalisation has made the world far more competitive, in 1979 nobody would have thought China could be as ‘powerful’ as it is in 2010. Your reasoning, seemingly to apportion blame at a political party failed to mention the overiding factor threatening every developed country’s manufacturing sector. Namely incredibly cheap LEDC labour. Personally and many think similar we cannot nor should we even try to compete at the low skilled part of manufacturing. We should however IMO understand how vital manufacturing is to Britain and concentrate on high skilled high technology manufacturing.

But that was absolutely the point of the my argument. The manufacturing that ‘died’ under Thatcher was going to die anyway, I’ve always had the suspicion that someone, somewhere knew it and maybe forced the issue but to say manufacturing was destroyed is a myth. Britain is a world power in high tech, high skilled manufacturing and manufacturing output and income increased under the Conservative government between 79 and 97. It must be added that part of this was due to far reduced disruption by industrial action, the japanese didn’t set up successful(!) car plants in this country under Labour. Don’t trust me, dig deep on the OECD and other sources and see what the changes were. Just don’t blindly believe the lie made up to demonise Maggie because it isn’t true.

Roy I know about OECD figures blah blah blah but you are stretching the credibility of truth and no you did not say what I said in my post. Thatcher v Scargill was the most purile pathetic private war waged by two individual at the sacrifice of so many. Bad enough that Scargill should behave like that but a Prime Minister. The truth is emerging as the 30 year ruling on documents elapses. Thatcher was preparing to destroy Scargill at any cost since the day she was elected. Billions of pounds were wasted. Even Government documentation states they do not know the total cost but admit to billions. The country was lied to, Uneconomic pits would be closed was the call but that was never the intention nor the outcome.

However, manufacturing was crazily dispelled as pointless. You haven’t even read the posts. Thatcher was as inept and callous a leader as any democratic country has ever had. The seeds of the mess deal with by all governments since then are down to her.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Katarino wrote:

@Dodge wrote:

It amazes me how the south of Birmingham brigade conveiniently forget 9 fantastic years of growth and prosperity we all enjoyed under Tony Blair , Iraq apart his government (LABOUR) were rather good ! ….. maybe the suvs have been in opposition that long they have suffered memory loss ?

Excellent post DAT ~clap ~clap i enjoyed that amongst the dross !

There weren’t 8 years of growth. There were 4 years of growth when they kept to Clarkies spending plans for the entire first term (that was an election pledge if you recall). Then the rest of the world suffered a minor deep that instead of dealing with properly gordo dealt with by borrowing, keeping on borrowing, selling assets at the bottom of the market and creating a vast public sector workforce to whom voting anything but labour would be like a turkey voting for Christmas. Added to which the Labour created FSA loosened the availbility of credit to ridiculous proportions but don’t blame the banks. When you take out a loan/mortgage you get a piece of paper that says it’ll cost you this much over this long, if you can’t work that out you shouldn’t be borrowing and you probably shouldn’t be breeding either.

It’s too late to see now now as one of the as one of the first casualties of the new gov has been the Guardians government jobs pages. 100’s of 25-50k jobs with “Global warming”, “Diversity”, “Outreach”, “GLTB”, “Equality” in the titles. As Rob has pointed out, want to save a few billion quid? Ask to see a list of job titles at your local council and then decide who you really want your tax money spent on…

I’m sure he genuinely believed he had abolished boom and bust but the fact was he created the s**t sandwich we’re now all going to take a bite from.

Are you Rob or Rob’s twin Roy 🙂 Forget nonsensical notions of public this / private this. The demarcation is pointless.

Your post above is wrong. I know you love the OECD. Well by as early as May 2009 your beloved OECD was saying

The worst of the British recession could be over, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) suggested yesterday, in its latest snapshot of the global economy.

The OECD’s widely respected gauge of “leading indicators” showed that Britain progressed from being in a “strong slowdown” to a “possible trough” in March, as the pace of decline slows.

Separate surveys from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) also showed an improvement in consumer confidence.

The Paris-based forecaster said the UK measure rose by 0.3 points to 96.6, any increasing number below 100 represents recovery. It was a better outlook than the majority of the world’s leading nations, with the G7 nations as a whole down 0.3 points to 91.4 in March. On an annual basis the UK was down 5.4 points compared with the G7’s 10.3 point drop.

Of the other G7 countries, France and Italy also reached a “possible trough”, rising 1.2 and 0.7 points respectively. Canada, Japan, the US and Germany however were still in the throes of a “strong slowdown”. The statistics are based on the results of up to 10 economic indicators per country, and are widely watched as reliable pointers to future trends in the economic cycle.

“Composite leading indicators for March 2009 continue to point to a strong slowdown in the OECD. However France, Italy and the United Kingdom are showing tentative signs of, at least, a pause in the economic slowdown,” said the OECD.
The US fell 0.6 points to 89.9 on the OECD scale and was 11.8 points lower than a year ago, despite upbeat comments from Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, who said last week the recession could be over by the end of the year.

Among the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – only China made it into “possible trough” territory, rising 0.9 points to 93. The other countries all declined in March and remained in a “strong slowdown”. Brazil fell the most by

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Economic green shoots: what leading figures say

The economic data in the UK and Britain is stabilizing, prompting talk of ‘green shoots’. This is what has been said by leading figures in recent weeks.

US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke: “We’re working on it. And I do think that we will get it stabilised, and we’ll see the recession coming to an end probably this year.

“We’ll see recovery beginning next year. And it will pick up steam over time.”

George Buckley, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank: “(If the rate of improvement continues) total output will be growing again by as soon as June and would be back to its average rate of growth by July.

“The green shoots’ phrase­ology might need to be replaced with outright recovery.â€

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NWCA

“Thatcher was as inept and callous a leader as any democratic country has ever had. The seeds of the mess deal with by all governments since then are down to her.”

I’ve been trying to ignore this, especially as your condescending school-teacher persona is coming increasingly to the fore and you address those with whom you disagree as ignorant children.

However, that statement is absolute garbage. You mention serious issues the country has to face. Without Thatcher every successive government would have had a much greater “mess” to face, one of trying to finance the operation of the country. It’s just that only Blair/Brown proved themsleves (by their deeds) incapable.

You claim the truth is emerging as the 30 year ruling on documents elapse WRT Scargill.

Why do you think your Labour government invoked a 70 year ruling on the death of Dr David Kelly?

The only unexplained death without a Coroners Inquest and the only one without a cause of death signed by a doctor and the location of the body left blank.

Nothing to do with the NuLabuh spinmeister throwing him to the wolves to protect their own lying asses?

[TF_Jadstar70]

NWCA wrote-
“Thatcher was as inept and callous a leader as any democratic country has ever had. The seeds of the mess deal with by all governments since then are down to her.”

Well, the country was founded on the principle that the primary role of government, is to protect property from the majority, And so it remains.
A slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown…

[TF_Katarino]

The point of the OECD is that it’s not blah blah blah it’s economic fact but never mind.

Regards Scargill, no, it wasn’t pointless. I wish the miners (and historically my family on both side were) had seen him for what he was. A marxist entrenched in enforcing his beliefs on this country no matter what the country wanted and prepared to sacrifice decent hardworking people to do it. I didn’t and still don’t agree with the closing of all the pits, but twice in the preceding decade the NUM were the prime movers in bringing down elected governments for who’s end? The unions of this country, which should have been a force for good, had been taken over by people with a political agenda not in keeping with what the majority wanted. My dad worked at for a period at Longbridge paying off some debts he incurred when his business went bang (late 50’s, before I was born) but he left as soon as he could because even though he was earning a very good living he was sick of the strikes. 20 odd years later he was watching TV and a senior union offical appeared denigrating the then BL managemnet and saying a strike was ‘essential’. My old man remembered him as a young shop steward forever preaching Marx and always first in line when calling strikes. Care to name him?

It had to stop and if the miners strike was what it took then so be it.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

The best one yet Roy from your beloved OECD

Britain in line for blistering economic recovery, OECD indicator suggests

Britain may be in line for its most blistering economic recovery in almost 40 years, at least according to an authoritative measure from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Published: 5:37PM GMT 05 Feb 2010

The OECD’s leading indicator for the UK – a frequently reliable indicator of turning points in economies throughout the world – has risen to the highest level since 1973.

The indicator, which is designed to signal whether an economy is heading into recession or bouncing back towards recovery, rose for the 11th straight month in December, increasing to 105.8 points.

Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight said that the indicator nonetheless “boosts hopes that the UK will continue to grow in the first half of 2010 after only just managing to stagger out of recession in the fourth quarter of 2009”, but added: “There is serious concern that the UK economy could suffer a ‘double dip’ in the early months of 2010 as some of the temporary factors that have been supporting activity are removed – notably the cut in VAT from 17.5pc to 15pc (which was reversed in January) and the car scrappage scheme (which will end by March). In addition, the Bank of England has brought its Quantitative Easing programme to at least a temporary halt.”

The Office for National Statistics also reported a 3.8pc increase in producer prices in the year to January, up from 3.5pc a month earlier and a further sign that manufacturers are feeling increasingly able to increase their prices. Input prices, which measure the cost of raw materials, rose from 7.4pc to 8.4pc, in what economists took as a further sign of the threat posed by inflation in the coming months.

Now who it telling the truth Roy the OECD or the new Government and why do all these sources actually say stimulus was necessary and a good policy. Maybe they analyse real figures instead of being hoodwinked by politicians of a flip flopping media that is only interested in what they can get.

[TF_Katarino]

@caster rob wrote:

@NWCA

“Thatcher was as inept and callous a leader as any democratic country has ever had. The seeds of the mess deal with by all governments since then are down to her.”

I’ve been trying to ignore this, especially as your condescending school-teacher persona is coming increasingly to the fore and you address those with whom you disagree as ignorant children.

However, that statement is absolute garbage. You mention serious issues the country has to face. Without Thatcher every successive government would have had a much greater “mess” to face, one of trying to finance the operation of the country. It’s just that only Blair/Brown proved themsleves (by their deeds) incapable.

You claim the truth is emerging as the 30 year ruling on documents elapse WRT Scargill.

Why do you think your Labour government invoked a 70 year ruling on the death of Dr David Kelly?

The only unexplained death without a Coroners Inquest and the only one without a cause of death signed by a doctor and the location of the body left blank.

Nothing to do with the NuLabuh spinmeister throwing him to the wolves to protect their own lying asses?

Good point, I’m going to die not knowing the truth on that and that really does bother me. I have very strong suspicions about what is in those docs and I’m never going to know.

You could have mentioned all the recent stuff about Jack Jones……

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Roy simple question which tells the truth?

The OECD or the Current Government

[TF_Katarino]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

The best one yet Roy from your beloved OECD

Britain in line for blistering economic recovery, OECD indicator suggests

Britain may be in line for its most blistering economic recovery in almost 40 years, at least according to an authoritative measure from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Published: 5:37PM GMT 05 Feb 2010

The OECD’s leading indicator for the UK – a frequently reliable indicator of turning points in economies throughout the world – has risen to the highest level since 1973.

The indicator, which is designed to signal whether an economy is heading into recession or bouncing back towards recovery, rose for the 11th straight month in December, increasing to 105.8 points.

Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight said that the indicator nonetheless “boosts hopes that the UK will continue to grow in the first half of 2010 after only just managing to stagger out of recession in the fourth quarter of 2009”, but added: “There is serious concern that the UK economy could suffer a ‘double dip’ in the early months of 2010 as some of the temporary factors that have been supporting activity are removed – notably the cut in VAT from 17.5pc to 15pc (which was reversed in January) and the car scrappage scheme (which will end by March). In addition, the Bank of England has brought its Quantitative Easing programme to at least a temporary halt.”

The Office for National Statistics also reported a 3.8pc increase in producer prices in the year to January, up from 3.5pc a month earlier and a further sign that manufacturers are feeling increasingly able to increase their prices. Input prices, which measure the cost of raw materials, rose from 7.4pc to 8.4pc, in what economists took as a further sign of the threat posed by inflation in the coming months.

Now who it telling the truth Roy the OECD or the new Government and why do all these sources actually say stimulus was necessary and a good policy. Maybe they analyse real figures instead of being hoodwinked by politicians of a flip flopping media that is only interested in what they can get.

What part of ‘may be’ don’t you get? That is forecasting i.e. opinion, the past is facts.

There is a RISK of double dip because the impact from job losses in the public sector. There is also a RISK of default if the market decides the country cannot pay its’ debts. In fact the market had already decided that a labour government represented too much of a RISK and would have downgraded Britains credit status immediately if there’d been any chance of them winning. I’ve left a few clues in there about what I do for a living.

[TF_Katarino]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Roy simple question which tells the truth?

The OECD or the Current Government

“May be” is not quantifiable, it is an opinion not the ‘truth’. Historic data is FACT. This is fairly basic stuff…….

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Katarino wrote:

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Roy simple question which tells the truth?

The OECD or the Current Government

“May be” is not quantifiable, it is an opinion not the ‘truth’. Historic data is FACT. This is fairly basic stuff…….

So if theOECD contradicts what the current government says, the current government is either lying or stuffing up on fairly basic stuff. Be careful or Rob will chastise you for being condascending BTW.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

@Katarino wrote:

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Roy simple question which tells the truth?

The OECD or the Current Government

“May be” is not quantifiable, it is an opinion not the ‘truth’. Historic data is FACT. This is fairly basic stuff…….

So if theOECD contradicts what the current government says, the current government is either lying or stuffing up on fairly basic stuff. Be careful or Rob will chastise you for being condascending BTW.

condascending?

Not a word I’m familiar with.

[TF_Katarino]

Fiscal stimulas is fine when you can afford it, when you ramp up already excessive borrowing to do it it’s called lunacy. Quantitive Easing is, was and always has been the last resort of the desperate and a sure indicator that your economy is in the deepest trouble.

Based on what I see there is no double dip because there never was any recovery. OECD figures, like the ONS usually take at least a year before completion so I’d treat any forecast/opinion with caution.

Now you answer a question? Based on the OECD available, did Thatcher destroy British Manufacturing?

and for a bit of fun, Did Thatcher use the British Army to police picket lines?

[TF_pr@ngler]

I fear that last post was a few hours premature about double dip:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/04/double-dip-recession-fears-economy?CMP=AFCYAH

[TF_herbie]

2 things in my opinion destroyed or industry.

1. outscourcing.
2. destruction of unions through legislation.

during the late 60s i worked for cadbury/fry at somerdale. family owned firm with top class relations with the workforce. ie no strikes although it was a closed shop.
now the chocolate is going to be made in POLAND
do you honestly believe kraft GF would have been allowed to throw so many workers on the dole if that chocolate industry still had a closed shop with fair legislation . not a chance. better still do you believe an american firm should be allowed to buy british firms, close them down, open in a third world counrty and import the same goods back. only in this country with our spinless meme.s could they actualy get away with that. ask dyson the shithouse who took a small village in wiltshire to make his product, gave them a good living , then greed took over and he pulled the rug from under 600 families so he could buy a big estate near the m4. i hope he dies in agony slowly, and i want to watch.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

Dyson moved his production out because the local council (being of enormous business nous themselves) turned down his expansion plans.

So instead of continuing to provide employment for the 600 families and a good many more the 600 lost their jobs and the council lost the business rates.

Real business shrewdies eh?

Perhaps you should watch the council jobsworth instead.

[Anonymous]

If we get the predicted double dip recession because of the early cuts. Will those backing the Conservatives hold there heads in shame and state that they got it wrong?

I doubt it as they have the attitude of im alright JACK!

[TF_herbie]

put up job . he knew he wouldnt get permition so did everyone else. smokescreen call it what you like. a council close by offered to build him a factory and let him use it rent/rate free for three years. not a chance. funny how his oversee,s factory was up and running before the old one closed. if you go public he threatens court action at every point. why????. greedy yes. patriotic no couldnt give a toss about the hardship he caused. but you do raise a very interesting point rob.the local council~think ~think if you know where malmsbury is then you will know there are very few poor people within a 10 mile radious. royalty , yes plenty. so who do you think the council is made up from??? working class~think ~think middle class~think Mmmm let me think~think ~think definatly not working class, so whats left~think landowners,farmers,retired city folk with cash,bored wives of rich city bigwigs. yep you got it rob, people who dont need to worry if the rents paid on time. so they couldnt give a flying toss about a few poor people losing there jobs, after all we have a welfare system to look after them. and dyson knew exactly that.
again i say the pox on him

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@TrueBlue wrote:

If we get the predicted double dip recession because of the early cuts. Will those backing the Conservatives hold there heads in shame and state that they got it wrong?

I doubt it as they have the attitude of im alright JACK!

Before we can have a double dip we need to come out of the first one. We’re grubbing along the bottom at the moment.

Even if we do double dip I’d still prefer it to reckless borrowing to keep people employed in non-jobs.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@herbie wrote:

put up job . he knew he wouldnt get permition so did everyone else. smokescreen call it what you like. a council close by offered to build him a factory and let him use it rent/rate free for three years. not a chance. funny how his oversee,s factory was up and running before the old one closed. if you go public he threatens court action at every point. why????. greedy yes. patriotic no couldnt give a toss about the hardship he caused. but you do raise a very interesting point rob.the local council~think ~think if you know where malmsbury is then you will know there are very few poor people within a 10 mile radious. royalty , yes plenty. so who do you think the council is made up from??? working class~think ~think middle class~think Mmmm let me think~think ~think definatly not working class, so whats left~think landowners,farmers,retired city folk with cash,bored wives of rich city bigwigs. yep you got it rob, people who dont need to worry if the rents paid on time. so they couldnt give a flying toss about a few poor people losing there jobs, after all we have a welfare system to look after them. and dyson knew exactly that.
again i say the pox on him

If, as I think it is, it’s North Wilts, then yes I know them, did some consultancy work for them in the past.

Location immaterial really, they move around from one council to another, all the same.

[TF_Dodge]

Think herbie is refering to the rich parasites that the tory party support rob or are you wearing your blue village blinkers again ?

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@Dodge wrote:

Think herbie is refering to the rich parasites that the tory party support rob or are you wearing your blue village blinkers again ?

I know, I also know that these people do not work in council non-jobs like climate change officers, street-scene managers, diversity co-ordinators etc.

Most of the parasites I’ve seen TAKE money from the state, in exchange for nothing much besides the act of procreation, rather than give it.

[TF_Katarino]

@pr@ngler wrote:

I fear that last post was a few hours premature about double dip:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/04/double-dip-recession-fears-economy?CMP=AFCYAH

If you read what I posted you’ll see I actually said there can’t be a double dip because I’ve seen nothing to indicate that we’ve ever started to recover from the first dip. The ‘growth’ that was heralded before the election as proof that the recovery had begun was 0.1%, in other words so statistically insignificant as to be meaningless. The stuff I see and hear every day at work makes me think it’s going to get worse before it gets better and ramping up an already frightening level of debt wasn’t going to change anything.

Incidentally, no one on this thread has commented on the fact that the Lib Dems rapidly changed their tune on the economy from their campaign once they had metaphorically “seen the books”.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Katarino wrote:

@pr@ngler wrote:

I fear that last post was a few hours premature about double dip:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/04/double-dip-recession-fears-economy?CMP=AFCYAH

If you read what I posted you’ll see I actually said there can’t be a double dip because I’ve seen nothing to indicate that we’ve ever started to recover from the first dip. The ‘growth’ that was heralded before the election as proof that the recovery had begun was 0.1%, in other words so statistically insignificant as to be meaningless. The stuff I see and hear every day at work makes me think it’s going to get worse before it gets better and ramping up an already frightening level of debt wasn’t going to change anything.

Incidentally, no one on this thread has commented on the fact that the Lib Dems rapidly changed their tune on the economy from their campaign once they had metaphorically “seen the books”.

Just hold onto your horse Roy, I have posted several quotes incl your beloved OECD and all say that Britain is climbing stronger out of recession than most G7 / Western European nations and that the stimulus was much needed. Now I am sorry if evidence by TRUE experts / official data does not fit what you or your brother Rob want to believe but that is what the experts say. They also clearly state that for ALL NATIONS the climb would be long and hard so Govts needed to tread very carefully in removing stimulus / cost cutting.

Todays article supports this but all you and your twin do is say nothing of substance. You actually prove my point that ordinary people are their own worst enemies because they become prejudiced against other sections of society that they perceive beneath them and totally ignore the corruption / actions of those above them on their social scale.

So far supporters of the new Govt have done two things cried about debt whilst failing to acknowledge that they happily go into debt during their own lives on the understanding debt is not a fixed state and can be paid off or launched vehement prejudiced attacks on those in society they deem beneath them. So the solution is spend nothing, cut everything and indulge is Nazi like victimisation of groups within society. That will surely solve all our problems 🙂

[TF_Katarino]

NWCA. Take a good long look at the OECD stuff you have posted and you’ll see that it is full of modal verbs. In other words, to go back to something said on an earlier post, it is their opinion not a fact. The OECD, ONS and HMRC take between a year and 18 months minimum to collate all their information, their short term forecasts are about as reliable as the met office. I don’t need you to post what they are forecasting, for the umpteenth time I see it all at work, I also see other internal information to corroborate whether what they are forecasting is being reflected in the market and (and this is an opinion) at this time it’s not.

Their historical data though, properly audited is accurate, it is fact, hence when they say that Britains manufacturing output increased between 1979 and 1997 you can be pretty sure that it did. You seem to be implying that because I trust their historical data it is compulsory that I trust their forecasts?

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Out of interest Roy what is your profession?

[TF_Katarino]

I’m a data analyst in the risk dept for a big US bank. Prior to that a worked in market research for a company specialising in the Export Road, Sea and Air Freight and Air Express industries, hence I have a fair background knowledge of data sources. You?

[TF_GLEBE1]

@Katarino wrote:

I’m a data analyst in the risk dept for a big US bank. Prior to that a worked in market research for a company specialising in the Export Road, Sea and Air Freight and Air Express industries, hence I have a fair background knowledge of data sources. You?

He’s a teacher mate, therefore its only natural for him to assume he’s forgotten more than you know!!! lol

[TF_Katarino]

Those than can, do……. ~shh

Sorry, but that was an open goal.

[TF_Billy no FishParticipant]

I am so glad he didn’t teach my children….

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Cheers Roy

You need to watch your mouth Billy!!!

For the record dear Billy, in just short of 20 years I have been incredibly successful at educating young people whatsmore their parents, the young people that I have taught and teach express considerable gratitude and offer incredible praise. That is based on how I care about those young people, how much effort, time and my own money I give towards them and the outstanding results they obtain, so much so that for example in the midst of the race riots, 2 of my students fighting against the odds earned scholarships to Gordonstoun to be educated with Royalty. So let’s just say prat I am damn good at what I do, I don’t shout about it but when a low life like you crosses my path and insults me then thank your lucky stars you are sat at your keyboard. I am sick and tired of you coming on these forums trying to create ttrouble and backstabbing people you once called friends. Take a look closer to home Billy, you leave an awful lot to be desired.

[TF_kev34]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Cheers Roy

You need to watch your mouth Billy!!!

For the record dear Billy, in just short of 20 years I have been incredibly successful at educating young people whatsmore their parents, the young people that I have taught and teach express considerable gratitude and offer incredible praise. That is based on how I care about those young people, how much effort, time and my own money I give towards them and the outstanding results they obtain, so much so that for example in the midst of the race riots, 2 of my students fighting against the odds earned scholarships to Gordonstoun to be educated with Royalty. So let’s just say prat I am damn good at what I do, I don’t shout about it but when a low life like you crosses my path and insults me then thank your lucky stars you are sat at your keyboard. I am sick and tired of you coming on these forums trying to create ttrouble and backstabbing people you once called friends. Take a look closer to home Billy, you leave an awful lot to be desired.

Hope i get a bite like that saturday~sick

[TF_GLEBE1]

Anybody got the number of a scuba diver??? if they have could they pm it to BNF………. he’s just had his rod dragged in PMSL~clap ~clap

[TF_Billy no FishParticipant]

“So let’s just say prat I am”

You said it yourself, i don’t need to add to it ~clap

Just so there is no confusion, you have never been my friend. I don’t know you, (a result for me there then). One other question. On previous threads when you have invoked my name and used the phrase 20 pieces of silver, is that because there is a recession? Oh, just thought of another one. If it’s a double dip, will it then drop to 10 pieces? Just thought i’d ask. You may wish to google and quote something back at me….

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

For what it is worth Rob &b Herbie; Dyson was going to outsource to an LEDC. Given the labour cost difference, low skilled manufacturing tasks will nearly always move from MEDCS to LEDCS.

The days of mass employment by once company etc are IMO virtually gone that is why I believe we need to be more intelligent and better skilled, developing high technology manufacturing and why Education is so important. Manufacturing is still vital. It always will be from a national viewpoint and balance of payments. Yes services grow in any MEDC but manufacturing is able to achieve what services simply cannot and very often a large % of services grow from manufacturing.

[TF_Katarino]

lol!

NWCA, I’ve heard worse on every draw of every match I’ve ever fished, get a thicker skin……

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

No wind up by Billy. He is here to cause trouble and disrupt. He even created another forum and yet he comes here creating trouble. Decent thread and he attempts to derail it.

Other people can wind me up / drop insults but with you Billy it is for real and personal. You may pretend otherwise but you are transparent.

Your behaviour towards other forums has been nothing short of disgraceful. A grade A backstabber

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Katarino wrote:

lol!

NWCA, I’ve heard worse on every draw of every match I’ve ever fished, get a thicker skin……

Roy. Let’s just say we have history as many do here with Billy. He usually brings his friends from his forum to back him up too. As I said you can say things, others can but with Billy he crossed the line along time ago.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Anyhow Roy it is late. Cheers for the discussion. Goodnight.

N.B I deleted/edited my own posts as I did not want somebody derailing this thread or intentionally damaging the forum.

[TF_Billy no FishParticipant]

Come on then NWCA, name another forum!! Your problem stems from you being banned from MFS. You can’t handle it. The forums are for us to relax and enjoy ourselves, a modern medium to enjoy our sport. Mind you, you don’t seem to fish much. Your posts tend to be like this, pointless and lecturing. No wonder Geeps despairs at times. He doesn’t need you putting people off. You didn’t answer my question (one of your stock phrases), about the pieces of silver?…..

[TF_Billy no FishParticipant]

Just read your last two posts. Can you tell me what planet or medication you are on?….pmsl, lmbo, and any others you can think of!!!

[TF_Katarino]

@Dodge wrote:

under the last labour government Manchester has been transformed into a huge modern vibrant city to rival London ……. you may not have been told this by a bitter suv media but just come and have a look around ! Abu Dhabi and its untold wealth has moved into a once derelict corner of east Manchester, sadly the American corner isnt looking so rosie but never mind lol. It just so happens that a state of the art fantastic multi billion pound media center is about to be completed at Salford Quays, it is a truely eye opening project that has to be seen to be believed ! yes the Labour core heartland of Manchester is about to recieve a friend lock stock and barrel in the form of the British Broadcasting Company ! ….. Who cares about southern England and London ? ~think

Only just noticed this gem. The Glorious North eh?

The main programmes will be back in London inside 2 years, you really think you’re going to get real top liners commuting to Manchester for a 10-15 minute interview on BBC Breakfast? Childs and Bleakley can’t wait.

For the record, I worked at Salford Quays when I joined my present company, they were moving everything out as were a lot of other companies, many because they were sick to back teeth of the offices being screwed by the Langworthy and Ordsall gangs. Most of the blocks where I worked are now lying empty.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

When you says screwed etc by the gangs are we talking vandalism / robbery ?

[TF_Katarino]

Yes, computer theft mostly but there was a fair bit of quasi-extortion by Ordsall backed/owned ‘security firms’.

Even inside afternoon had a lot of influence. There’s a crossword clue for you, 2 letters 😉

[TF_pelletmaster]

what short memories people have it was the conservatives who got us in this state all them years ago with maggie shutting the pits trying to privatise everything breaking unions for the working class man labour have spent the last 13 years trying to put right what the conservatives dropped us in you just watch the weathy will get weathier and the poorer will get well nothing

[TF_GLEBE1]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Anyhow Roy it is late. Cheers for the discussion. Goodnight.

N.B I deleted/edited my own posts as I did not want somebody derailing this thread or intentionally damaging the forum.

Priceless!!! nothing to to with the fact that you bit big style last night and most people reading had a good chuckle~naughty ~naughty ~naughty

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Far from it Glebe. Your post is not really required. Think of it as more a concern for Geeps and his team and what others are trying to do. Maybe you should show similar respect for Geeps and his site unless you are a lacky? If you wish to discuss this PM me but leave the forums alone.

[TF_GLEBE1]

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

Far from it Glebe. Your post is not really required. Think of it as more a concern for Geeps and his team and what others are trying to do. Maybe you should show similar respect for Geeps and his site unless you are a lacky? If you wish to discuss this PM me but leave the forums alone.

Very noble,i would have pm’d you last night but i couldnt stop laughing at your posts……..its a shame you felt the need to remove/edit them.

[TF_Hillbilly]

There have been some very informed posts on this thread about the cause of our countys demise but none of them have as yet offered a viable solution. We could go on forever stating that one or the other of our recent ruling parties have caused the problems but what good will it do.

NWCA my answer to your original question would be no I would not change my vote as I did not support any of the “three” main parties.

A question for yourself and anyone else that cares to comment.

Do you think as I do that we are heading for a period of civil unrest? All the ingredients are there, for sure the rich will hang on to their wealth (they always do !!). The poor will get poorer and more numerous as more and more people have their jobs taken away. Also the shrinking “middle England” working population will be forced to stump up even more of their hard earned cash through tax increases to support the out of work even though they will be earning less through shorter hours (lack of overtime etc). Prices will continue to rise as our pounds continue to lose value and all this will lead to both the employed and unemployed becoming more unhappy and therefore more forceful in their protests. Add to this the melting pot of cultural integration that is being forced on us and surely it is only a matter of time before tempers flare and people start to revolt.~think ~think

[TF_Dodge]

@Katarino wrote:

@Dodge wrote:

under the last labour government Manchester has been transformed into a huge modern vibrant city to rival London ……. you may not have been told this by a bitter suv media but just come and have a look around ! Abu Dhabi and its untold wealth has moved into a once derelict corner of east Manchester, sadly the American corner isnt looking so rosie but never mind lol. It just so happens that a state of the art fantastic multi billion pound media center is about to be completed at Salford Quays, it is a truely eye opening project that has to be seen to be believed ! yes the Labour core heartland of Manchester is about to recieve a friend lock stock and barrel in the form of the British Broadcasting Company ! ….. Who cares about southern England and London ? ~think

Only just noticed this gem. The Glorious North eh?

The main programmes will be back in London inside 2 years, you really think you’re going to get real top liners commuting to Manchester for a 10-15 minute interview on BBC Breakfast? Childs and Bleakley can’t wait.

For the record, I worked at Salford Quays when I joined my present company, they were moving everything out as were a lot of other companies, many because they were sick to back teeth of the offices being screwed by the Langworthy and Ordsall gangs. Most of the blocks where I worked are now lying empty.

[TF_Dodge]

@Katarino wrote:

@Dodge wrote:

under the last labour government Manchester has been transformed into a huge modern vibrant city to rival London ……. you may not have been told this by a bitter suv media but just come and have a look around ! Abu Dhabi and its untold wealth has moved into a once derelict corner of east Manchester, sadly the American corner isnt looking so rosie but never mind lol. It just so happens that a state of the art fantastic multi billion pound media center is about to be completed at Salford Quays, it is a truely eye opening project that has to be seen to be believed ! yes the Labour core heartland of Manchester is about to recieve a friend lock stock and barrel in the form of the British Broadcasting Company ! ….. Who cares about southern England and London ? ~think

Only just noticed this gem. The Glorious North eh?

The main programmes will be back in London inside 2 years, you really think you’re going to get real top liners commuting to Manchester for a 10-15 minute interview on BBC Breakfast? Childs and Bleakley can’t wait.

For the record, I worked at Salford Quays when I joined my present company, they were moving everything out as were a lot of other companies, many because they were sick to back teeth of the offices being screwed by the Langworthy and Ordsall gangs. Most of the blocks where I worked are now lying empty.

Just for Katarino

http://www.salford.gov.uk/mediacityuk.htm

and also

http://www.mediacityuk.co.uk/

Some of the post was tongue in cheek Katarino but nevermind !
Salford is typical of any major inner city district it has a few problems but also has very proud decent people who live and work there , your attitude towards the north and Salford is typical of your type , and its also great to know that you know all the BBCs TV shedule for the next 5 years …… what a man you are !!

PS What time are the BBC showing the Manchester derby in 2015 ? and please can my mrs have the 2014 eastenders listings ~clap ~clap

[TF_Dodge]

@Hillbilly wrote:

There have been some very informed posts on this thread about the cause of our countys demise but none of them have as yet offered a viable solution. We could go on forever stating that one or the other of our recent ruling parties have caused the problems but what good will it do.

NWCA my answer to your original question would be no I would not change my vote as I did not support any of the “three” main parties.

A question for yourself and anyone else that cares to comment.

Do you think as I do that we are heading for a period of civil unrest? All the ingredients are there, for sure the rich will hang on to their wealth (they always do !!). The poor will get poorer and more numerous as more and more people have their jobs taken away. Also the shrinking “middle England” working population will be forced to stump up even more of their hard earned cash through tax increases to support the out of work even though they will be earning less through shorter hours (lack of overtime etc). Prices will continue to rise as our pounds continue to lose value and all this will lead to both the employed and unemployed becoming more unhappy and therefore more forceful in their protests. Add to this the melting pot of cultural integration that is being forced on us and surely it is only a matter of time before tempers flare and people start to revolt.~think ~think

Excellent post Hillbilly ~clap ~clap

In reality imo there are only 2 major political parties , Labour and the Conservatives , the Lib Dems are a total waste of time and a waste of a vote as they simply arent equiped to ever run this country. Yes there is everychance of civil unrest maybe next year when this current government would have done its worst. People from the north, scotland , wales etc have long memories of what the tories have done in the past thats why they despise and at best mistrust them! The Tories (ConDems) on the otherhand have a fantastic opportunity to reverse that during their current time in power …..time will tell if they achieve that !

[TF_youngy]

@Dodge wrote:

The Public School echelon will be doing just fine though ! ~clap

So will the Sun newspaper and Sky News ! ~sick ~sick

F**K EM !

Like it Dodge..fu*k em all. Lets be honest there is going to be massive cuts by the tories.
No schools being built (great if you go private)
Public transport (great if daddy buys you a car)

unfortunately its a split country…those with and those without. no middle ground.class divide.

[TF_youngy]

@Dodge wrote:

Just for Mr Murdoch and Torie voters who havent ventured north of Stafford courtesy of the Labour party …….

http://www.salford.gov.uk/mediacityuk.htm

also

http://www.mediacityuk.co.uk/

~clap ~clap ~clap

wasted on the mancs…should have been built in liverpool – LOWER CRIME RATE ~sick

[TF_Dodge]

PMSL Youngy ~clap ~clap

[TF_Snooty Fox]

Youngy – you only have a problem with the Sun for one reason mate.

Easy target or what…………..

[TF_herbie]

@Dodge wrote:

Think herbie is refering to the rich parasites that the tory party support rob or are you wearing your blue village blinkers again ?

thank you dodger~clap ~clap ~clap BUT clapping a scouser~naughty ~naughty ~naughty ~naughty ~naughty ~naughty ~naughty over the top

[TF_herbie]

@Billy no Fish wrote:

I am so glad he didn’t teach my children….

~clap ~clap oh yes william best one liner of the week~clap ~clap ~clap

[TF_caster robParticipant]

Do you honestly think I needed telling that?

As I wrote at the time, if the “rich” are parsites, how do you categorise the serial-reproducing, couch-dwelling, 24 hour TV viewing, career-benefit claiming idle slobs?

[TF_caster robParticipant]

I see that you’ve read my post and logged out herbie.

Looked a fairly simple question to me, shame you were unable to respond.

[TF_Billy no FishParticipant]

Rob, dead easy that one. You’ll have to make the questions more difficult.

Answer: Labuh voters……

[TF_Snooty Fox]

Who is this Billy no Fish bloke ?

All mouth and short trousers I’ve heard.

[Anonymous]

Caster Rob said – As I wrote at the time, if the “rich” are parsites, how do you categorise the serial-reproducing, couch-dwelling, 24 hour TV viewing, career-benefit claiming idle slobs?

They are known as the underclass, Rob. One definition is – People who are at the bottom of a society having become victims of poverty trap. This class is largely composed of the young unemployed, long-unemployed, chronically-sick, disabled, old, or single-parent (usually the mother) families. It also includes those who are systematically excluded from participation in legitimate economic activities, such as cultural, ethnic, or religious minorities or illegal immigrants. Children of the underclass (specially those from single-parent families) often lack educational qualifications and social and other skills and are, therefore, unable to rise out of it.

This term was first used regularly in this country to describe a class of ppl created though policies of Thatchers Conservative Government!

[TF_caster robParticipant]

@TrueBlue wrote:

Caster Rob said – As I wrote at the time, if the “rich” are parsites, how do you categorise the serial-reproducing, couch-dwelling, 24 hour TV viewing, career-benefit claiming idle slobs?

They are known as the underclass, Rob. One definition is – People who are at the bottom of a society having become victims of poverty trap. This class is largely composed of the young unemployed, long-unemployed, chronically-sick, disabled, old, or single-parent (usually the mother) families. It also includes those who are systematically excluded from participation in legitimate economic activities, such as cultural, ethnic, or religious minorities or illegal immigrants. Children of the underclass (specially those from single-parent families) often lack educational qualifications and social and other skills and are, therefore, unable to rise out of it.

This term was first used regularly in this country to describe a class of ppl created though policies of Thatchers Conservative Government!

OK.

So, before Thatcher there were no malingering benefit careerists.

Don’t think so.

Fact is, Maggie identified them for the drain on the rest of us people with proper jobs that they were.

As for the “excluded”.

I’m white, working class, heterosexual, male.

Thanks to thirteen years of Labour social-engineering, no-one’s more excluded than me.
I don’t claim benefits, I don’t rely on the state for my income,I pay my own way and live and fall on my own attributes in the private sector (that finances the money-sucking) leeches at the councils and schools).

As for the underclass, besides the sick, the rest of them could get out of it if they really wanted, just too cosy on those sink estates dealing and protecting, isn’t it.

The worst thing we do as a society is waste money on them.

[TF_Hillbilly]

There has been an “underclass” in this country since way before Charles Dickins invented Fagin and the Artful Dodger. They used to call them thieves and vagabonds. Now we keep them largely off the streets by paying them to sit home watching their wide screen TV’s, drinking cheap booze and breeding like rabbits. However there is now a growing number of unemployed who cannot find a job to support their previous lifestyle and these are the ones who will shortly be getting very peed off with it all.

[Anonymous]

Rob, read the definition again and attempt to understand its meaning. You come across as someone who is educated to a reasonable level even if i also recognise that you dont have a social conscience. There are loads of clues in the definition as to why these ppl are called the underclass. Believe me. Those in the underclass would love the opportunity to become working class or even middle class.

[Anonymous]

Hillbilly, we had almost full employment in the 1960s. We did have social security in the 1960s. Was it the ppl or society that created these ppl known as the underclass?

[TF_Hillbilly]

We are always led to believe that there are less unemployed than there actually are Steve. Figures and qualifying criterea are manipulated to suit the government. Whilst I agree there were not so many then they have had 50 years of breeding to bring their numbers up.

[TF_Hillbilly]

I also agree that society has played its part in the increase but sadly there are still a lot of folk of all creeds and colours who are happy to just sit at home complaining that their bebefits are not enough to live on.

[TF_Hillbilly]

I was listening to a local radio station a couple of months ago when a young single mum phoned in. She complained that she would have to get a job paying 18K a year before it would be worth her going to work. Note I said going to work and not returning to work.

[TF_jaap stam]

The Miners strike was an unmitigated diaster due to two 2 idiots (Thatcher and Scargill waging a personal war v each other). The whole fiasco cost the country £6 billion. Oh the irony of people talking about wasting money and then hailing the Miners Strike.

Was it? we got rid of the Unions running the country .

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

I will just repeat my previous post because the answers are there. Hilariously/worryingly Cameron used the work of the two economist without realising they were criticising / explaining why Conservative Thatcherite Policies had sent Britain on a path potentially to ruin.

When Thatcher destroyed our balance of payments by believing she could replace manufacturing with services. When in the 1980s under Thatcher the gulf between the top and bottom 20% widened by a full 60% – much the most dramatic widening of income differences on record. The gap between the top and bottom 20% in Britain is twice as big as among our more equal European partners. No matter who has been in power since be they Conservative or Labour they have been fighting a losing battle because of what Thatcher left as a legacy.

Hillbilly you seem obsessed by the underclass but incredibly reluctant to lay any blame at the biggest thieves in Britain, a % of the richest and wealthiest. TrueBlue posted figures to show that waste/theft from the underclass is less than the rich.

The two economist explain far better than I can how Thatcher created broken Britain.

NW Cut Angler wrote:

In his Hugo Young ­lecture at the end of last year, David Cameron cited in support of his thesis the research of two economists]the richest 10% are more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10%[/u].

Where does the blame lie? The evidence shows that almost all the problems that occur most often in the poorest neighbourhoods – including those that make us a broken society – are systematically more common in more unequal societies. Rates are not just a little higher, but between two and eight times higher. Wider income gaps make societies socially dysfunctional across the board.

David Cameron rounded on Labour, saying: “Who made inequality greater? No, not the wicked Tories. You, Labour. You’re the ones that did this to our society. So don’t you dare lecture us about poverty. You have failed and it falls to us, the modern ­Conservative party, to fight for the ­poorest who you have let down.”

The truth is that we are suffering the impact of the massive increases in income inequality under Thatcher, which Blair and Brown have since failed to reverse. In the 1980s the gulf between the top and bottom 20% widened by a full 60% – much the most dramatic widening of income differences on record. Since then there have been only minor fluctuations under Major, Blair and Brown. The result is that the gap between the top and bottom 20% in Britain is twice as big as among our more equal European partners.

Almost all of Gordon Brown’s budgets did at least something to redistribute from rich to poor. But because the benefit was entirely offset by the unconstrained rise in top earnings, he can claim no more than having prevented a greater rise in inequality.

What happened in the later 1980s may now seem merely water under the bridge. But broken Britain is Thatcher’s bitter legacy. Rather than having instantaneous effects, inequality gradually corrodes the social fabric. It takes a while for greater material differences to make the social hierarchy steeper, for status competition and consumerism to increase, for people to feel a greater sense of superiority or inferiority, for prejudices towards those lower on the social ladder to harden, for prisons to fill to overflowing under the impact of more punitive sentencing, and for people to seek ­solace in drugs.

Rather than dealing with inequ

[TF_Johnny Mac]

Is David Cameron the new Ronnie Reagan? 🙂

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@jaap stam wrote:

The Miners strike was an unmitigated diaster due to two 2 idiots (Thatcher and Scargill waging a personal war v each other). The whole fiasco cost the country £6 billion. Oh the irony of people talking about wasting money and then hailing the Miners Strike.

Was it? we got rid of the Unions running the country .

The Unions never ran the country. It is against any TU manifesto for example to attempt bring down any Government. Far too many people gullibly believed media rhetoric. The Miners Strike did not stop union thereafter so the notion ‘victory’ (a crass word to use about a strike where people died) so the well trodden fallacy that Thatcher had to destroy the NUM to prevent future strikes is just that, a fallacy. It failed and it was never needed anyhow.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Miners’ strike anniversary: Journalists owe a collective apology over vindictive pit closures
The soul searching of a former BBC correspondent
By Nicholas Jones, 12 March 2009

Quote:

With the benefit of hindsight, and the subsequent evidence of a vindictive pit closure programme which continued during the decade which followed the strike, perhaps the news media should own up to a collective failure of judgement comparable to that during the build-up to the Iraq war. As most journalists have since acknowledged, not enough was done to question the pre-war intelligence so as to determine the true nature of the threat posed by Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons and likewise the same charge could perhaps be levelled against the industrial and labour correspondents of the 1980s. My erstwhile colleagues might not agree with my conclusion but I do not think any of us ever imagined that such was the Conservatives’ contempt for the National Coal Board, and so great was the Thatcherite fear and hatred of the National Union of Mineworkers, that the Tories would end up all but destroying the British coal industry and marginalising a valuable source of energy. Perhaps we should have been more sceptical. For my own part, I probably took it for granted that the Conservatives still believed that coal had a future once the uneconomic pits had been closed and I certainly did not suspect that the Tories would force through a closure programme which would exceed even the direst predictions of the NUM President about the existence of a hidden “hit listâ€

[TF_Billy no FishParticipant]

NWCA, i must commend you on your ability to google and quote. It is unsurpassed! Must be easy never having a real opinion.

Just wondered when you were going to answer my question from last night? I’ll ask again, it’s the one about the pieces of silver, oh and the one about me destroying forums? That is my favourite!

[Anonymous]

History shows that if you give ppl a chance though real opportunity. Most will take it, Neil. Being part of the underclass is not fun, believe me. Its a way of life that most hate and would love to escape from. Because of social circumstances most of these ppl are trapped. Better opportunities in education and the minimum wage are just two of the ways that some ppl over the past 10 years have been helped to get out of the poverty, underclass trap.

However, there was still a long way to go to solve many of the problems created by the Thatcher and Major Governments. There are real political reasons for why Labour never went further in helping the needy in our society ut they are very valid.

I only have to look in my own City to see the massive changes in such a short time under a Labour Government. Manchester is the same. Massive moves forward in living conditions, education and job opportunities. Interesting that in both Cities the Conservatives and Liberal parties where wiped out at the last Election. The reason being that the ppl remember the 80s and what the Conservatives did to our Cities and the way an underclass that was created.

[TF_Hillbilly]

“All the ingredients are there, for sure the rich will hang on to their wealth (they always do !!).”

No NWCA I am not obsessed with the underclass I am simply willing to accept that it DOES exist and I did touch on the subject of the rich hanging on to their wealth.

So are you advocating that Communism is the answer to our woes as I believe their ideal is that everyone gets the same/similar reward for their days work/efforts. Would you be willing to drop your sallary to accomodate this. Would you be willing to sell your house and possesions and give the proceeds to the government. Would you like to wear the same clothes as everyone else for the rest of your life and simply throw away the benefits/privillages of your hard earned education. I doubt it and neither would I. Yes I agree the gap in earnings is greater in this country than others but just how can that be addressed as simple words will not do it. I take it that you think Cameron is a fool as you state he did not understand the advice given to him. Could the reality be that he did understand but decided to do his own thing anyway.

[Anonymous]

Colin, (BnF) can i ask you why you are on this forum and ATTEMPTING TO WIND PPL UP, again? Nothing better to do on MFS?

We where fine with our political discussion until you turned up.

[Anonymous]

Communism and Social justice for all, are completely different concept, Neil. I think your getting mixed up between the two. I believe this is what NWCA believes in.

Communism has been tried and does not work in any of its forms. Social justice has never been tried in this or any other country in its true form. The political elite and the very wealthy will not allow it for fear of losing what they have which they gain at the expense of the majority in society.

[TF_Hillbilly]

Steve I know what you are saying is true and I can only see the opportunities for the ones that genuinely want to escape the trap becoming fewer due to rising unemployment. We are in a vicious circle where unemployment creates more unemployment and this was the point of my post about civil unrest being the only outcome of it all. If the minimum wage is increased employers will get 8 people to do the work that took 10 previously and so more jobs are lost. ~think

[TF_Hillbilly]

Communism and Social justice for all, are completely different concept, Neil. I think your getting mixed up between the two. I believe this is what NWCA believes in.

Communism has been tried and does not work in any of its forms. Social justice has never been tried in this or any other country in its true form. The political elite and the very wealthy will not allow it for fear of losing what they have which they gain at the expense of the majority in society.

I agree Steve but like I said it is impossible to achieve social justice if the filthy rich are allowed to hang on to their money. However if you try to relieve them of some of it they simply move it to another country. The cold facts are that any social justice has to be paid for by the workers of “middle england” who are already sick to death of being taxed for just about everything other than breathing. They also see their living standards dropping due to price increases and higher taxes and yet will be forced to contribute even more.

[TF_Hillbilly]

Right I am off to bed Steve, see you on sunday when we can chat about something important ……. fishing.

[TF_Dodge]

Ive just got in from the pub so excuse any spelling mistakes ~sick

Communism does not and will never have a role in british politics …. end off ! ~naughty ~naughty

John Major was and still is a thoroughly decent likeable bloke …… shame he is politically mixed up lol

Does everyone realise that this debate would be banned in a lot of countries ? How lucky are we ? ~sick pmsl

[Anonymous]

I dont think we will have civil unrest, mate. The riots of the 80s where about as fare as ppl in this country are prepared to go. Things will have to get much, much worse before we see anything similar to those. That will take time. With a Coalition government in power. The chances are that in 2 years time. We will have a new government (Labour) or the coalition will have done a u-turn on there policies and be following something similar to what Brown was advocating 6 months ago that most of the rest of Europe and the US are attempting to follow!

We, the British are not the type to take things in to our own hands. If we where in France or China then the Political elite and wealthy would already be swinging from the lamp-posts. A lot of the reasons for why we/the ppl dont revolt is because of our historical voting behaviour. The reasons why the working classes dont all vote Labour!

Night, lads. =) See you Sunday, Neil.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

@Hillbilly wrote:

There have been some very informed posts on this thread about the cause of our countys demise but none of them have as yet offered a viable solution. We could go on forever stating that one or the other of our recent ruling parties have caused the problems but what good will it do.

NWCA my answer to your original question would be no I would not change my vote as I did not support any of the “three” main parties.

A question for yourself and anyone else that cares to comment.

Do you think as I do that we are heading for a period of civil unrest? All the ingredients are there, for sure the rich will hang on to their wealth (they always do !!). The poor will get poorer and more numerous as more and more people have their jobs taken away. Also the shrinking “middle England” working population will be forced to stump up even more of their hard earned cash through tax increases to support the out of work even though they will be earning less through shorter hours (lack of overtime etc). Prices will continue to rise as our pounds continue to lose value and all this will lead to both the employed and unemployed becoming more unhappy and therefore more forceful in their protests. Add to this the melting pot of cultural integration that is being forced on us and surely it is only a matter of time before tempers flare and people start to revolt.~think ~think

Civil unrest? Highly unlikely IMO Hillbilly. The only prospect and a slim one IMO is if one group of society becomes more and more demonised that they become the target for the pent up frustration of other sections of society. I do not think that will race motivated as such but new immigrants. I am not sure if new immigrants are so geographically concentrated in one specific area and in sufficient number to create something similar to the race riots of the past. I think far more likely you will see repeated examples of new immigrants being victimised / persecuted / assaulted / mudered. Ironically, such groups will become the victims of 2nd / 3rd generation migrants and the ‘underclass’ fueled by ill informed media / self serving politicians.

I am not sure other sections of society have the will or desire to mount any civil action. One potential may be housing values. The race riots / hated were / was often fuelled in East Lancashire from my own experience of the impact the presence of Asian families had on the value of surrounding houses. At the present time all sections above the underclass prosper or not largely on the basis of what they inherit from the deaths of their parents / grandparents. Death of nearest and dearest and the subsequent inheritance and sale/letting of property has sustained Britain for a generation. If housing values plummet that could stir a reaction.

I think it is important to remember that yes unemployment is a factor but widening wealth inequality on a scale beyond the rest of Europe has a led to a Britain that does worst on child wellbeing and badly on teenage births, imprisonment, drug abuse, trust, obesity, social mobility and mental ­illness. Many of these factors are getting worse and worse far above the underclass / unemployed. Obesity does not differentiated between employed / unemployed. In fact from my experience of working with the real underclass they were the least obese section of society (not through choice) So the reasons / people responsible for increased financial demands will be the whole of society not just the unemployed / underclass. The worry is based on what decent people think, that might be too difficult a concept for people to accept especially with a very irresponsible but influential media.

[TF_NW Cut Angler]

Just add I am not one and I think communism was an idea doomed to failure. I actually used to teach an active learning lesson back in the day to show why it was impratical. I also spent some time in the old Czechoslovakia when the imprint of communism was still strong. I unknowingly ate Carp too.

I believe in a meritocricy. I am neither a right or left winger because in terms of law / order and social responsibilty in would be deemed right win but left wing in terms of social welfare. I used to think I was an Orwellian Socialist but one of the benefits of education is you become more enlightened so I came to realise that my right wing view of law / order and social responsibility was not the whole answer. I still believe in it but also that if one does not address social inequality then one is urinating in the wind no matter how tough you are with miscreants or whatever people wanmt to call them or in terms of people wanting to struggle for something better.

[TF_herbie]

@caster rob wrote:

I see that you’ve read my post and logged out herbie.

Looked a fairly simple question to me, shame you were unable to respond.

sorry rob but i have a job so logging out is something i do when work calls.

NOW what was the question???? i cannot find one mate.

throw that no fish off the site. bully boy~naughty

[TF_caster robParticipant]

Not a problem.

BnF answered in your absence.

[TF_caster robParticipant]

!

[TF_Katarino]

a lot of the answer to what happened has just been on More4. Watch on 4od and then add your hindsight comments…. this one will run and run…..

[Author]

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