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^^^ African despots and families leading the way - but not in a good way.
Yes, that's why her [s]pay[/s] grant has just been bumped up to £82.2M a year whilst over a hundred thousand people went to food banks for Christmas.Seems to me that the royal family are much more attuned to public sentiment than a small group of halfwit tory mps.
Do we get to name it?
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@km79; a completely invalid comparison ^^^
The massive increase in food bank usage is down to political decision-making and the complete failure of so many politicos to understand the consequences of their actions/decisions on people they refer to as 'ordinary people' which gives the impression they are, in some way, not ordinary.
The increased reliance that an increasing number of people have on food banks has no fuggin' connection to the royal family - irrespective of how you try to present it.
Just for the record, I am not a monarchist nor am I massively in favour of the royal family.
I will, however, call out bollocks and spurious comments hence this post in response to yours.
I don't blame the royals for this to be honest. Though i have no love of them.
This is an out of touch, Machiavellian, heartless, loathsome, incompetent, vile, contemptible and deceitful government showing its true worth.
This Tory bunch of puss pools has to go. Sooner the better.
Corbyn looking a better option every day.
As for the yacht and what it says to the world?
[b] Look, we are so skint and hateful of our own population.... We built a yacht with lottery money! [/b]
And breath......
Away and don't talk pish. You said the royals were attuned to public sentiment. More than doubling the sovereign grant over the past few years suggests otherwise at a time where the public have had their incomes frozen and a large portion are struggling to make ends meet, not to mention the incease in homelessness but **** it a palace needs some roofing work and new plumbing.frankconway - Member@km79; a completely invalid comparison ^^^
The massive increase in food bank usage is down to political decision-making and the complete failure of so many politicos to understand the consequences of their actions/decisions on people they refer to as 'ordinary people' which gives the impression they are, in some way, not ordinary.
The increased reliance that an increasing number of people have on food banks has no fuggin' connection to the royal family - irrespective of how you try to present it.
Just for the record, I am not a monarchist nor am I massively in favour of the royal family.
I will, however, call out bollocks and spurious comments hence this post in response to yours.
Rusty Spanner - Member
This is a great plan, though - get the serfs who really care about this kind of thing to pay for it, leave the rest of us alone.Still, as long as you're ok, eh?
In this case, yes - the idea is a voluntary lottery, isn’t it? It’s not compulsory. If people feel the need to bow and grovel and give away their money, why’s that my fault?
Politics never does well on Forums like this.
While I have no love for the current Government, if people on here want to talk about wasting taxpayers money, let's not forget that in 1997 when Labour came into power the National Debt was £7.8 Bn. When they left power in 2010 it was £145.1 Bn.
http://https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7568/debt/government-debt-under-labour-1997-2010/
A new Royal Yacht is bonkers.
So is Labour's record of (not) spending taxpayers money wisely.
And now, after 7 years of Tories, it’s more than 10x bigger again...
I can't imagine people will be queuing up to buy tickets, but setting it up will obviously be at the cost of the tax payer.
And that grinds my gears a bit.
It's now £1.56 Trillion so it seems like Labour were quite frugal compared with todays government.While I have no love for the current Government, if people on here want to talk about wasting taxpayers money, let's not forget that in 1997 when Labour came into power the National Debt was £7.8 Bn. When they left power in 2010 it was £145.1 Bn.
Digger90 - Member
Politics never does well on Forums like this.While I have no love for the current Government, if people on here want to talk about wasting taxpayers money, let's not forget that in 1997 when Labour came into power the National Debt was £7.8 Bn. When they left power in 2010 it was £145.1 Bn.
Pfftt..
Tories are throwing billions around like confetti.
None of it hitting the NHS or social care of course.
Good causes like the DUP are doing ok though...
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Rene - I said '.....the royal family are much more attuned to public sentiment than a small group of halfwit tory mps'.
If you wish to quote me and comment about my post, please be accurate; a little attention to detail would be helpful.
My comment ^^^ stands.
Any change to the sovereign grant is a decision taken in parliament; you know, the same place with the same members who voted for continued austerity which has led to increased usage of food banks.
There are two separate points and discussions.
Do keep up at the back.
Digger.....
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As an aside, look at how much debt our continental friends have landed us in - in the past. I wonder how Brexit will stack up!
It's a lottery so if the 'common people' decide to spend money on that in order to get a new ship to represent the country and feel somehow part of it and connected to the royals rather than spending money on those god-awful magazines like Hello so they can vicariously live their lives through z-list losers like katie price then I am all for it - it would be by far the lesser of two evils.
So much wrong in the replies above, some of which display lack of a grasp of basic economics.. but hey ho. If a Government reduces the annual debt from (say) £80Bn a year to £50Bn a year the total national debt will still increase, but the burden on taxpayers per annum is decreasing.
From the OBR:
UK Net Borrowing as % of GDP
[img] https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/net-borrowing-percent-gdp.pn g" target="_blank">https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/net-borrowing-percent-gdp.pn g"/> [/img]
So in fact the Tories have reduced the debt as a % age of GDP from 10.2% to 4.9% and it is forecast to reduce further to 2.2%.
It's easy to sling political views around, but better to look objectively at the facts.
That's net borrowing as a percentage of GDP, not net debt as a percentage of GDP.
Do you even do economics bro?
If you want to talk about facts and not political rhetoric, I'd like to correct you - the spike in national debt was caused by the 2008 financial crash, not the labour party. Nor is our debt crushingly bad like Tory True Believers will try to have you think, it's a blip in the ocean compared to the debt we ran up during the Napoleonic wars and WW1/WW2. We spent 100 years slowly paying off our debts incurred during the former round of rampant stupidity - it still emerged as the worlds dominant superpower and still managed to squeeze another 150 years out of the empire!
“I'd like to correct you - the spike in national debt was caused by the 2008 financial crash, not the labour party.“
This rather conveniently omits that the then Labour government had been overspending between. £30 and £50b every year in the 6 or so years leading up to 2008 to find their “investments” which subsequently turned out to be a waste of money. While other comparable economies were doing the opposite i.e. running no deficit or in some cases, a surplus.
So as a country we went into 2008 with a truck load of debt even before the bank bail outs and have all been paying the price since - with the government since 2010 effectively inheriting a pay day loan that was so big they had no choice but to continue borrowing or make massive cuts to spending.
The hilarious thing is that Labour now tell us austerity has crippled the country when compared to Ireland we’ve had very little austerity i.e. massive overnight cuts to public sector wages, job numbers and other direct spending. Had the government actually done that the UK would probably be in an even better position now albeit we’ve got by far the lowest unemployment rate in Europe.
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Image source: https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/labour-lost-the-economic-argument-5-years-ago/
Yeah, Tom has it...to hell with the national debt. Bring back the heady days of our national debt being hundreds of percent of GDP. Them were the good old days. I mean we talk about austerity these days, but we're just tickling around the edges. We don't even know the meaning of the word compared to the proper austerity of the 1950's. They did it properly back then. And then we've got inequality. Crickey, today's snowflakes queuing up at the food banks don't know they're born compared to the poor urchins in the work houses of the good old Victorian days when national debt was 250% of GDP, grafting away every day for their bowlful of gruel - and they were happy with that and knew they were chuffing lucky to get that and not a fatal dose of TB - and that were too good for 'em. Yes that is the way to go. I've seen the light, I'm convinced. Spend other peoples money and continue to do so forever. The National debt is just a number we can justify in two graphs. It can never be too high. Just wave those graphs at anyone who questions it and that will shut them up. The political elite keep telling us we will need to pay it back some day, but what do they know? It's just bankers manipulating us so they can get their juicy bonuses which they hide in elaborate off shore tax havens, it;'s all their fault. Nobody will come knocking at our door. It can have no ultimate consequence. Just look at the Greek's. They know how to play the system - they sent them packing with their tails between their legs! Go Corbyn! Take us back to the good old days. The braziers will keep us warm, we've become soft with our underfloor heating and log burners and posh coffee, drunk on our middle class lifestyles and we need to be brought down a peg or two. And as for our frivolous activities like riding bikes FOR FUN, well, we can stop that right now. Comrade Corbyn disapproves. If you can afford mountain bikes then you're rich scum and have benefitted from unfair advantages in life so you are owe a debt to society forever, and can afford to pay more in tax and the country can afford to borrow even more and increase its national debt yet further. Sounds like a grand plan to me.
This rather conveniently omits that the then Labour government had been overspending between. £30 and £50b every year in the 6 or so years leading up to 2008 to find their “investments” which subsequently turned out to be a waste of money. While other comparable economies were doing the opposite i.e. running no deficit or in some cases, a surplus.
What metric are you using to define overspending? Judging by the graph you posted labour were running better numbers than most of the rest of the world - and were running lower deficits than the Tories during the 90s.
It can never be too high. Just wave those graphs at anyone who questions it and that will shut them up. The political elite keep telling us we will need to pay it back some day, but what do they know?
Epic rant.
But I think I'd simply make the point that the amount of debt we got into, wasn't enough to warrant the senseless levels of panic that we saw and it certainly wasn't enough to throw Keynesian economics under the bus. You need to spend in downturns in ways that boost growth.