Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 114 total)
  • This "we're all in this together " did i miss something ?
  • dazh
    Full Member

    Everyone's pretty much agreed that there should be no rewards for failure, right? So why oh why would anyone vote to re-elect Labour?

    I think it's fair to say that all the things which are now used to bash the labout government – Iraq, the banking crisis, recession, public debt etc – were the result of policies which we can be fairly confident the tories would have followed to the letter.

    Would the tories have invaded Iraq? Yes.
    Would the tories have reigned in the banks? No
    Would the tories have prevented the recession? No.
    Would the tories have stopped everyone getting up to the eyes in debt? No.

    The only thing they probably would have done differently was spend less on frontline services, and as a result we wouldn't have the hundreds of brand new schools and hospitals which now exist.

    I'm no particular fan of Brown or Blair, but all this talk of 'broken Britain' and the public debt is a smokescreen to deflect people from the undoubted good things that have happened over the past 12 years.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    Strangely enough William Hague and Ken Clark are probably the Tories I have the most respect

    same here.

    Im looking forward to seeing Hague at the FO.
    Just a pity that Clarke wont get No. 11 because of that cretin Osborne being such chums with Dave.

    grumm
    Free Member

    dazh – good post, thoroughly agree.

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    Stoner
    Free Member

    "The only thing they probably would have done differently was spend less on frontline services, and as a result we wouldn't have the hundreds of brand new schools and hospitals which now exist. £800bn of national debt we do"

    Stoner
    Free Member

    It may be spurious in places but it's pithy and will get the blue-rinses excited, from Hague's conference speech:

    If he wants lists I’ll give him a list. This is the real list of the last twelve wasted years:

    – £22,500 of debt for every child born in Britain

    – 111 tax rises from a government that promised no tax rises at all

    – The longest national tax code in the world

    – 100,000 million pounds drained from British pension funds

    – Gun crime up by 57%

    – Violent crime up 70%

    – The highest proportion of children living in workless households anywhere in Europe

    – The number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000

    – The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world

    – The only G7 country with no growth this year

    – One in six young people neither earning nor learning

    – 5 million people on out-of –work benefits

    – Missing the target of halving child poverty

    – Ending up with child poverty rising in each of the last three years instead

    – Cancer survival rates among the worst in Europe

    – Hospital-acquired infections killing nearly three times as many people as are killed on the roads

    – Falling from 4th to 13th in the world competitiveness league

    – Falling from 8th to 24th in the world education rankings in maths

    – Falling from 7th to 17th in the rankings in literacy

    – The police spending more time on paperwork than on the beat

    – Fatal stabbings at an all-time high

    – Prisoners released without serving their sentences

    – Foreign prisoners released and never deported

    – 7 million people without an NHS dentist

    – Small business taxes going up

    – Business taxes raised from among the lowest to among the highest in Europe

    – Tax rises for working people set for after the election

    – The 10p tax rate abolished

    – And the ludicrous promise to have ended boom and bust

    I could go on:

    – Our gold reserves sold for a quarter of their worth

    – Our armed forces overstretched and under-supplied

    – Profitable post offices closed against their will

    – One of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe

    – The ‘Golden Rule’ on borrowing abandoned when it didn’t fit

    – Police inspectors in 10,Downing Street

    – Dossiers that were dodgy

    – Mandelson resigning the first time

    – Mandelson resigning the second time

    – Mandelson coming back for a third time

    – Bad news buried

    – Personal details lost

    – An election bottled

    – A referendum denied"

    allthepies
    Free Member

    stoner – glass half empty 🙄

    😉

    Stoner
    Free Member

    That's Hagues Yorkshire optimism that is! 🙂

    uplink
    Free Member

    This "we're all in this together " did i miss something ?

    From the Mash

    The shadow chancellor told the party conference in Manchester: "I want to make this absolutely clear – you're all in this together.

    "Me? I'm err… Well, I'm fine actually. I've got a safe seat, a really super pension, two large houses and considerable personal wealth. You, on the other hand, are deeply, horribly, terrifyingly not fine."

    dazh
    Full Member

    …. £800bn of national debt

    It's called investment. The public debt is perfectly sustainable, and is lower as a proportion of national income than countries like France, Italy, Japan and the US. I'm guessing from your posts that you'd prefer us to still have the money in the bank and crumbling schools and hospitals and people waiting 18 months for a routine operation?

    gonefishin
    Free Member

    Stoner plenty of those examples are cherry picked and wouldn't stand up to much scrutiny.

    for example,

    100,000 million pounds drained from British pension funds

    Well the tories started doing that back in the 80s

    – Gun crime up by 57%

    – Violent crime up 70%

    Meaningless statistics unless background is supplied. What is the rise being measured against? Is the comparison fair?

    – Our gold reserves sold for a quarter of their worth

    I'm pretty sure they were sold at the market value at the time. Analysing decisions, especially econimic ones, in hindsight is a rediculous thing to do.

    I'm not saything that he doesn't have some valid points or that the everything the Labour party have done has been great but this is just political grandstanding.

    grumm
    Free Member

    I like the way Hague mentions scrapping the 10p tax band – shameful I agree but as if the Tories would ever have introduced it in the first place.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    but this is just political grandstanding.

    I know. I didnt put it up there for reference material
    🙄

    uplink
    Free Member

    Stoner – It must have been a tough 12 years for you

    Bizarrely – I can't think of anyone I know that's worse off now than they were in 1997

    mooman
    Free Member

    Stoner
    Free Member

    there shouldnt be a 10p tax band.

    There should be a sizeable personal allowance (c.£10k from £6,500), get rid of tax credits (expensive to administer and over complicated) and a higher rate of tax on the basic rate from 22p to 25p. leave the higher rate band at £35k and tax at 45p.

    surfer
    Free Member

    Stoner your list is spurious, one sided and misleading.

    Almost Mailesqe!

    Few could bear close scrutiny however I dont have the time unfortunately. I need to continue paying back the national debt however content in the knowledge that is it "a price worth paying" for reasonable earners like myself if it reduces unemployment in the short term.
    I recall a Tory said a similar thing? oh no that was "unemployment is a price worth paying for low interest rates" before they crept up to around 15% IIRC?

    Stoner
    Free Member

    Stoner – It must have been a tough 12 years for you

    eh? and your point is?

    EDIT. Surfer, for yours and uplink's (because he's being deliberately obtuse) , and other's benefit who havent got it…I posted that list as an example of Hague's style being attractive and showing some political skill not because I particularly hold it as entirely truthful – we were talking about him and Clarke in the previous posts, remember?

    uplink
    Free Member

    eh? and your point is?

    If the country is that bad we all must have suffered terribly eh?

    uplink
    Free Member
    grumm
    Free Member

    there shouldnt be a 10p tax band.

    There should be a sizeable personal allowance (c.£10k from £6,500), get rid of tax credits (expensive to administer and over complicated) and a higher rate of tax on the basic rate from 22p to 25p. leave the higher rate band at £35k and tax at 45p.

    Well that would be possibly a better way of doing it – think the Tories are likely to do any of that?

    Bizarrely – I can't think of anyone I know that's worse off now than they were in 1997

    This is the funny thing, despite the fact that supposedly the country is screwed, the majority of people seem to be doing ok – I certainly don't see any of the misery we have seen in previous 'busts'

    Stoner
    Free Member

    I posted in a previous thread about an interview with a researcher on the Moneybox programme on R4 a few weeks ago where she provided analysis which suggested that during a downturn, rather paradoxically, more people see their personal cicumstances improve than fall than during a growth period. However, there are those that see there personal cicumstances fall subtantially.

    its a version of the Minimax theory (minimised effect for the maximum number of people or vice versa).

    Remember the media report at the margins which usually misses out the bigger picture that effects the majority.

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    We will see the screwing over a period of years, will we not? Because government intervention in the banking sector was so massive, normal activity was largely sustained and there appears to have been a fairly short recession, which we are coming to the end of (although the economy may easily relapse in the near term). However, that level of interevention produced the very substantial debts which at current level affect the government's ability to borrow in the bond markets and are not sustainable in the long term. We will therefore inevitably see a large future effort to pay down that debt, and that will result in less government spending within the economy. As such spending is extremely substantial, evidence of screwing will become increasingly widespread.

    surfer
    Free Member

    we were talking about him and Clarke in the previous posts, remember?

    Stoner then I apologise! 😳

    rkk01
    Free Member

    The tax system as a whole needs a thorough overhaul, especially the income tax rate bands.

    The recent commentary about the quality of life in Norway (and other Scandinavian countries) had many folks on here moaning that they pay 50% tax…

    Well, with the UK higher rate cut off remaining fairly static throughout my working life (circa 20 yrs) a huge number of "middle income" salaries are now taxed as "high earners".

    I would have thought something like 15-20p for the first 20k, then step it up to 25-30p to maybe 50-60k or more. What represents a high earner in the 21st Century?? I would have thought 60k+ or so.

    A lot of folks that I know "struggle" (and I know that is relative compared to lower earners) on nice sounding 35-40k salaries, but are totally stuffed by paying 51% tax and NI (>50% hence my comparison to Norway).

    Be much fairer to have a genuinely benign tax rate for the low earners and a new middle bracket so that those in middle incomes contribute as they should, but proportionally, and the real high eraners also contribute proportionately…

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    Stoner – Member

    Just a pity that Clarke wont get No. 11 because of that cretin Osborne being such chums with Dave.

    That's bollox Stoner, and well you know it. Clarke wont get No. 11 because he is a Europhile, full stop.

    And btw, I can't believe that you've actually posted this : "So your school defines your place in society does it?" you don't appear to have said it tongue in cheek 😯

    .

    And for all those who think that Cameron's privileged upbringing/background should be conveniently ignored by the ordinary electorate, how many Eton educated merchant bankers would you expect to vote for a Jaguar Land Rover assembly worker as their MP ? Eh, how many ?

    El-bent
    Free Member

    What schools they went to reflects that

    About 6% of Children are privately educated every year, but roughly 53% of the top jobs in the uk go to this 6%.

    I'm not surprised that a number of Labour ministers were privately educated, they are the tories in all but name after all.

    Stoner always the cost never the value, typical accountant. 😉

    Stoner
    Free Member

    Eton educated merchant bankers would you expect to vote for a Jaguar Land Rover assembly worker as their MP ? Eh, how many

    Fortunately for any prospective Jaguar Land Rover assembly worker MPs there sufficiently few Eton educated merchant bankers in the electorate to worry about having to go campaigning in a suit.

    EDIT Surfer: my apologies too: nuance and timing can get lost too easily in a fast thread.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    typical accountant.

    You! Outside, now! 👿

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    So your answer then Stoner is : none

    Stoner
    Free Member

    It may be none, it may be all.

    Or do you advocate the electorate vote on the basis of a candidate's schooling rather than polcies? How very un-democratic of you.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    And btw, I can't believe that you've actually posted this : "So your school defines your place in society does it?" you don't appear to have said it tongue in cheek

    I rather thought that it was the quality of one's education that would have a greater contribution to meritocracy in the wider country than the name of your school. Are you implying that comprehensives provide a lower quality education GG?

    surfer
    Free Member

    Are you implying that comprehensives provide a lower quality education GG?

    The statistics would infer that. Are they correct or are their other forces at work? Call me paranoid but I think the latter rather than it being a reflection of the quality of our comprehensive system.

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    Tam Dalyell went to Eton Stoner – there was nothing wrong with him in that respect.

    What I'm "advocating" is that you cut out the hypocrisy. You know damn well that those who are wealthy and privileged would look at the background of someone whom they were considering voting for.

    And yet you seem to expect "ordinary" voters not to do the same.

    pjt201
    Free Member

    beyond all your petty squabling, I don't agree at all with the notion of a pay cut for MPs. All the expenses row was caused by MPs being underpaid for the job they do! The money will still get to them some other way anyway…

    And to be honest, how much money are they going to save by cutting the salary of 646 people!

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    Are you implying that comprehensives provide a lower quality education GG?

    Eton College provides a higher quality of education.

    What sort of daft question is that ?

    grumm
    Free Member

    The statistics would infer that.

    No you would infer that from the statistics. The statistics might imply it. 😉

    Are they correct or are their other forces at work?

    Bit of both. Funnily enough having lived with a few public schoolboys I think a big part of the advantage it gives you is confidence that you will succeed/get a decent job etc – it is to an extent a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    pjt201
    Free Member

    In response to myself, I reckon they'll save less that £2.5m a year, which is a pittance compared to the rest of the money wasted by the government.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    You know damn well that those who are wealthy and privileged would look at the background of someone whom they were considering voting for.

    I certainly dont think that at all.

    By your reasoning then, if Tam (Eton) and Hague (Wath-upon-Dearne Comprehensive in Rotherham) were up for election in the same constituency, a toff would vote for Tam because of his schooling, not Hague because of his policies and party?

    I think you're in a bit of a muddle there GG.

    rkk01
    Free Member

    Are you implying that comprehensives provide a lower quality education GG?

    Eton College provides a higher quality of education

    available only to those who can afford it and have the contacts to get in – in exchange, a better education than the masses, and critically, access to networks and contacts to be set up for life??

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    I think you're in a bit of a muddle there GG.

    No I'm not.

    But that's because I don't take to your absurd extreme. And despite your attempt to suggest otherwise, I see it as a consideration. Not the deciding factor.

    You daft public school educated toff.

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 114 total)

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