TJ, how on earth would you have had faith that the previous gov would have reduced the national debt? Maybe we could have kept spending until you got your reasonable retirement and pension and let the next generation pay for the mess we left behind?

No i’m not naive, but i can not believe that career politicians would commit political suicide by DESTROYING the UK economy and risking not being re-elected, doesn’t make sense does it?

Anyway, wasting my time, so whatever.

care to state your pension benefits in a public forum TJ I’m sure everyone will have sympathy for you then

If I retired tomorrow I would receive ( based on last years earnings and nearly 20 yrs contributions) a lump sum of around £4000 adn around £3000 pa pension.

Assuming I get a full time post, work in that until I retire so another 10 years contributions the lump would be around £10 000 pa and the pension around £10 000 pa.

I pay 9% of my salary to this

Very rough figures but it will be around that

NHS pension is just about fully funded BTW IIRC

Don’t believe the myths put around by tories determined to wreck the public service and who want their friends to make profits of public sector workers by privatising the pensions

its a moral panic built up about the public sector pensions. Instead you should be agitating for decent pensions for the private sector. The race to the bottom does no one any good.

Youa re completely wrong about churn as well – the majority of workers stay for decades

I am a highly skilled individual who has decided not to go into management. With a professional qualification, a degree, decades of experience, working unsocial hours in stressful conditions. Teh best I can get is short of £30 000 pa

Now how much do you earn and how much will your pension be>

Happy?

si_progressivebikes – Member

TJ, how on earth would you have had faith that the previous gov would have reduced the national debt?

Where did I say I did? However putting th4e economy into recession is not the right way to go about it.

You didn’t say it, but how would they have gone about sorting the deficit out, whilst keeping the masses happy?

No i’m not naive, but i can not believe that career politicians would commit political suicide by DESTROYING the UK economy and risking not being re-elected, doesn’t make sense does it?

Why would they be committing “political suicide” ? Surely as the economy deteriorates they can simply just blame Labour ? Already we are now back in negative growth and unemployment is rising, are you blaming the Tories for that ? Or are you blaming Labour ?

Besides, even if they lose the next election it will be no big deal, as long as they have privatised as much as possible for the privateers, destroyed Britain’s social structures, and shifted the burden onto the ordinary people and away from wealthy bankers and all those responsible for the mess.

It will after all have been well worth it …… history has shown us that Labour governments never undo the damaged caused by the Tories. They have neither the guts nor the power.

“As a minister, I experienced the power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government. Compared to this, the pressure brought to bear in industrial disputes is minuscule. This power was revealed even more clearly in 1976 when the IMF secured cuts in our public expenditure. These lessons led me to the conclusion that the UK is only superficially governed by MPs and the voters who elect them. Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is, and some new Chartist agitation might be born and might quickly gather momentum”
– Anthony Wedgwood Benn

Naive ? Yes, you appear to be very naive. Still, you’re not alone.

Chaps chaps, can’t we just leave the bloody cuts alone for one thread and ponder what developments and wonders mankind can rustle up in 5 years, or 50 years?

This thread was looking quite promising.

Classic Radio Times cover

Z-11, what a film! Still scares the bejesus out of me now – although the hospital scene is not unlike an average night in A+E, tbh.

For my own part, I await the coming Rapture.

what developments and wonders mankind can rustle up in 5 years

All Government policy to be decided via sticky polls on Mumsnet.

Sandra Bullock lookalike “companion robots”.

Brompton 29ers.

can’t we just leave the bloody cuts alone for one thread

Swear filter avoidance ?

Ernie, where are they going to find the money to tidy up Croydon from?

In 5 years time Croydon will be the new Barcelona. I read it in the Evening Standard.

I can’t wait. At the moment the only thing the High Street has in common with Las Ramblas is english drunks puking and pissing in the street.

nah it will just be full of call centres where we will be providing tech support in urdu and mandarin to middle class asians who make fun of our accents

Too true. History shows nobody stays on top for ever, things go in circles, so it’s the most likely outcome.

I think there will be great progress in medical treatment but the vast majority of it will be financially out of reach for the average man/woman. Ironic when you think that we (mr & mrs average) have paid for large parts of it.

understanding Agenda 21 will give you a clearer picture f whats just around the corner

At the moment the only thing the High Street has in common with Las Ramblas is english drunks puking and pissing in the street.

😀

5 years, hmmm. Country will be out of recession, well sort of. Real issue i see is that at the current rate of oil usage. IEA is saying no problem, that by 2015 there will be more oil than demand and the price will be at $114, or that is what they were saying last june. But there is also a fair amount of data to suggest we are at or about to hit peak oil and that prices are going to climb along way.

The impact, well transport is going to get very expensive. Which will knock on to food, employment etc.

I hope things are ok, but i do really wonder.

For the future, why should the US remain dominant, There was a time when the world was ruled by Greeks, then Italians, later the Spanish and Portguese, more recently the UK, for the future, I suspect China.

The dollar will fade from view other currencies will move into its place. but that will take a few more years than 5.

I doubt any great medical advances

! think the thing that will happen is a decent new computer interface. Keyboard and mouse is so shit,

Ipad / Ipod is getting there – and there are projected keyboards as well. Some sort of point and pull and poke interfacea long with decent speech regonition perhpas.

Some sort of point and pull and poke interface.

Speed-dating? 😀

nah it will just be full of call centres where we will be providing tech support in urdu and mandarin to middle class asians who make fun of our accents

Haha.

[Upper Class English Accent]:”Good evening sir. My name is Vikram. How may I be of service today?”

Murdoch somehow in the House of Lords (yes I know, I know, but I am sure if a man of his errr, influence wants it badly enough it can be arranged….)

Also a whole load more people without landlines or ‘home’ broadband, and instead of phone, stereo, telly and computer they will have just an ipad/similar connected to a ‘cloud’ rather than having any data/music/dvd’s stored/stuck at home.

I accept the need to criticise the current political regime, but how come so many of the current pessimists failed to notice that the Blair/Brown years did nothing to cure neighbourhoods like this:

(Little Hulton)

and this:

(an anonymous street in Salford)

For three years I lived in Salford because of work, and visited some of the most impoverished streets I have seen anywhere in the world (I did the same job in the Caribbean and Canada, with working time spent in Mexico and the Dominican Republic). Yet in all that time, Hazel Blears – cabinet member and MP for Salford – turned a blind eye to reality and carried on as if nothing was wrong.

How is that worse than what the condems will supposedly do?

For the future, why should the US remain dominant, There was a time when the world was ruled by Greeks, then Italians, later the Spanish and Portguese, more recently the UK, for the future, I suspect China.

I’d personally feel safer with the US being the dominant force.

Them there Yanks might be as mad as a bag of frogs, but I think a good percentage of the rest of the world are even more insane. The more stable lunatic in charge of the asylum for me ta.

i hope the ConDems have made an inroad into the debt brought about by 16 yrs of the Last Governments investments into buying votes,

TJ will have drawn an excellent dividend from his BP and Exxonmobil shares if he gets in there now 😉

I hope but seroiusly doubt racial tension will not have grown in the UK, had a disturbing chat with Libyan prior to coming home from Triploi this week and his wish for Islam and the UK were not what i expected from someone who holds a British passport.

(an anonymous street in Salford)

Which looks all boarded up and ready for redevelopment.

If it didn’t happen, I would primarily blame the bankers for that.

If it isn’t going to happen now, then I would blame the Tories 60% cut in social housing budget for that.

Labour at not blameless. But some are more to blame than others.

saxonrider – Nice point and well made

It’s happening already -can no one else see the flying car in the Salford photo?

IGMC

im serious about the call centre thing

with science and research and the universities taking the financial battering they are and the restrictions on foreign students/ workers one of the few things we lead the world in will have evapourated

pfizers decision to close their world leading facility in kent will devastate the area and add a kick in the nuts to uk science
pfizer obviously see the writing on the wall and are off to countries that are investing in reserach, ie the rest of the G8!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12344506

and strs anti islam posting would be hilarious if it hadnt annoyed me so much, i know i shouldnt bite it will just encourage him etc

and strs anti islam posting would be hilarious if it hadnt annoyed me so much, i know i shouldnt bite it will just encourage him etc

Why’s that kimbers? Do you not see issues such as that as a problem, or do you want to bury your head in the sand like the rest of this country?

It wasn’t an anti-islam post, it wasn’t a post chastising anyone’s skin colour, or place of birth.

It was a post relating to a worrying issue that will become more and more prevalent and if you think it wont, then you are deluded.

TandemJeremy – Member
Increased poverty, increased unemployment, decreased standard of living for everyone but the rich, increased waiting times for the NHS, increased homelessness, destroyed public services.

Politics isn’t driven by ideology any more, its about who can manage the economy best. The only way to do that is to get elected, ConDems have done that. Does anybody think they will pursue policies that will result in TJ’s predicted outcome and prevent themselves being elected again?

because 30 people and 5 placards isnt the great threat to the country the sun/mail/express/telegraph etc etc would have you believe

There’ll be more violence in the streets, more political nonsense, more millionairs and even more paupers. On-One will release a steel singlespeed bike.

At current rate of population growth, polarisation of wealth, etc

http://www.postcardsfromthefuture.co.uk/

Thanks for some good news ernie_lynch.

At bloody last. A cleaned up Croydon we can tolerate.

It wont go away and will only get worse kimbers.

These ‘extremists’ f’kin hate us, hate our freedom, yet want their own and want to take ours.

Islam is not a bad religion, but bad people choose to use it as an anti-British tool for hatred and destruction. Islam will continue to grow in this country and with it, so will the factions. One day we’ll wake up and wonder what the **** happened.

What are your views on the introduction of the allowance of Sharia courts/law in this country? Shouldn’t it be UK law, or nothing? Why on earth can people be allowed to bring their own course of justice to this country?

Or are you going to tell me they don’t exist, or because they are few they dont matter?

Yeah, I can’t stand all thse extremists, covering their faces and stuff.

Funny, how they seem to embrace the Burka.

cbrsyd – Member
Politics isn’t driven by ideology any more, its about who can manage the economy best. The only way to do that is to get elected, ConDems have done that. Does anybody think they will pursue policies that will result in TJ’s predicted outcome and prevent themselves being elected again?

Actually its all about who can convince the electorate that they can manage the economy best. A con trick the tories have done well despite their appalling record of mismanagement. its clear the Conservatives are driven by an ideological hatred of public ownership – what other reason for the sell off of forests? Waht other #reason to break up the NHS and to privatise it – ‘cos make no mistake thats what the policy is designed to do

Yep, they’ve got me scared Elfin – covering their faces and stuff (saying that, they are probably a right bunch of w***ers, but what are they protesting against?).

Unless you support what is depicted in my earlier post, then what argument do you actually have?

Did you see that EDL leader knob on Paxo was it last night? Could hardly string a coherent sentence together. Confused little bunch, aren’t they?

Erm….

Do you not see issues such as that as a problem, or do you want to bury your head in the sand like the rest of this country?

Like the rest of this country ? …….so its just you then ?

Personally I don’t see a problem – why would my head be buried in the sand ?

This is my local mosque :

I like. Not only is it quite a pretty building, but often park my car next to it if I go to the Mayday hospital opposite, I feel it will be safer next to a mosque which is attended by decent law-abiding people – and also I feel that one of the mosque users might intervene if they someone breaks into it. I’m not sure if that’s totally logical, but I guess I tend to see Muslims in a fairly positive light. Maybe I should fear
them ?

And btw, a couple of years ago I mentioned to a local Muslim shopkeeper that I would very much like to look inside. He took me there the next Friday Prayers and I was shown around and talked to the imams – I had made it clear that I wasn’t interested in becoming muslin, just wanted to learn a bit about the culture and religion. I spent over an hour in there and it was truly fascinating.

Are you really that much of a bigot str? Did some brown chap steal your sweets when you were a kid?

Really 🙄

Sharia law in the UK. Right.

Why on earth can people be allowed to bring their own course of justice to this country?

they can’t. End of

FFS, I’d quite happily park my car next to a mosque – what’s your point?

It’s like the 3 wise monkeys on here.

There’s no point making a point on here, when no-one will see your point in their excitement to call you a bigot.

Sharia law in the UK.

That’s the one where they chop off your hand for stealing a car ?

Yeah alright, I’ll have some of that.

Whats your point STR?