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

ministers in the next government will have a 5% pay cut.

Whilst I agree with the economic diagnosis and to some extent the conservative prescription he's been given to trot out by people far brighter than him, I would really prefer to hear it come from someone who I didnt think was a bit of a t1t.

Unfortunately callmeDave has nailed his colours to this particularly dimwitted mast and I cant see him getting away with dumping Gideon before the General Election without getting anally violated by the left-wing press. More's the pity.

They will be sacrificing some of us.

"..Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death..."

his proposals would seem to ensure that [i]they[/i] observe [i]us[/i] all being in it together for a few years longer

As above, 5% cut in [b]ministerial[/b] pay next year and then freeze it for the rest of the Parliament.

I need to see a [s]few[/s] lot more dead bankers before I believe we're all in this together.

It's a lyric from High School Musical.

His favourite film probably.

we're all in this together

More like: "[b]You're[/b] all in this together, while me and Dave C (worth £30m, natch) continue to look down on you peasants and squeeze the middle classes until their pips squeek."

It seems to me there's an awful lot of people out of work at the moment. Until ministers emulate this situation I fail to see how they're in the same boat as the rest of us.

'heir to the Osborne baronetcy of Ballentaylor, County Tipperary, Ireland.' - yeah we're all in this together aren't we.

I heard Ken Clarks speech, he refered to Osborne on several occasions however I cant help thinking he was "damming him with faint praise"!

ministers in the next government will have a 5% pay cut.

I'm assuming you mean if the Tories win.

Well if the Tories win David Cameron will get a 33% increase in his salary, even with, the 5% cut in the PM's salary. He will also scrap the 50p top rate tax.

So basically............ "vote for me, and I will have a massive wage increase, and I will cut my own tax"

How self-sacrificing of him. It will make me feel so much better when I haven't got a job.

Dave and Georgie Boy are totally clueless when it comes to the lives of (how I hate to use the phrase) "[i]ordinary people[/i]". The only brush with reality Dave has had was the tragically brief life of his son. But this, however sad, does not give him any insight into the economic realities faced by millions. George has no idea.

As for High School Musical being Mr. Osbourne's favourite film? I fear the plot may be a little complex for him.

callmeDave has nailed his colours to this particularly dimwitted mast

LMFAO.
Brilliant. 😀

where you're going in wrong is in the 'listening to what politicians say' department. HTH.

>Dave and Georgie Boy are totally clueless when it comes to the lives of (how I hate to use the phrase) "ordinary people".

You think Gordon's down wit da streetz ? 😆

oldfart just doesn't get it, obviously....

"We're all in this together" - and it's true enough.

[img] [/img]

Bit like the Titanic - we're all doomed, "we're all in this together", but the crew will be checking the first class tickets on the lifeboat

"[i]It seems to me there's an awful lot of people out of work at the moment[/i]"

But that can't all be laid at the government's door. Surely some of it must be down to ****handed-****wittery in the finance dept of individual companies?

You think Gordon's down wit da streetz ?

Are you suggesting that Gordon Brown had the same privileged upbringing as David Cameron ?

What do you base that on ?

[i]You think Gordon's down wit da streetz ? [/i]
Deffo! Did you not think him ringing the mental singing woman and going on breakfast TV to mention it showed his humanity and understanding of the little people ?

You think Gordon's down wit da streetz ?

Born in Govan, went to a comprehensive school - you know, like normal people.

Cameron - 'At the age of seven, Cameron attended the independent Heatherdown Preparatory School at Winkfield in Berkshire, which counted Prince Andrew and Prince Edward among its alumni.'

But we're all in this together.

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? (read Robert Peston's book "Who runs Britain?" if you want a convincing explanation of why you shouldn't)

Let the other lot have a go, they certainly can't be any worse and you never know, they may actually be an improvement.

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? (read Robert Peston's book "Who runs Britain?" if you want a convincing explanation of why you shouldn't)

10 years of uninterupted growth, yes huge failure!

Born in Govan, went to a comprehensive school - you know, like normal people.

Yes, his childhood was clearly horrible

Gordon Brown was born in Govan, Glasgow, Scotland.[15] His father was John Ebenezer Brown (1914–1998), a minister of the Church of Scotland and a strong influence on Gordon.[16] His mother Jessie Elizabeth Souter, known as Bunty, died in 2004 aged 86.[17] She was the daughter of John Souter, a timber merchant.[18] Gordon was brought up with his brothers John and Andrew Brown in a manse in Kirkcaldy — the largest town in Fife, Scotland across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh.[19] In common with many other notable Scots, he is therefore often referred to as a "son of the manse". Brown was educated first at Kirkcaldy West Primary School where he was selected for an experimental fast stream education programme, which took him two years early to Kirkcaldy High School for an academic hothouse education taught in separate classes.[20] At age 16 he wrote that he loathed and resented this "ludicrous" experiment on young lives.[21]

It's funny how everyone seems so hung up on what schools people went to.

I didn't get much of a choice about where to go to school - I didn't get into the "good" comprehensive and the bad one was very very bad (and subsequently led to all of my primary school mates failing to pass their exams) so my mum went back to work and I went to a Grammar instead.

I suppose in the eyes of a lot of STW readers that makes me a toff too - but as I didn't really have a say in the matter I can't help but wonder what makes people judge others on the basis of the decisions that those people's parents took when they were still too young to decide for themselves.

How many people on here wouldn't give their kids the best possible education given a choice?

went to a comprehensive school - you know, like normal people.

I rather take offence at being described as abnormal because I [i]didn't[/i] go to a comprehensive.

So your school defines your place in society does it?

EDIT Farmerjohn beat me to it.

I'm suggesting that the Tories are still generally the party of privilege, and they don't really know or care about the issues that affect ordinary people. What schools they went to reflects that.

Surfer wrote:

10 years of uninterupted growth, yes huge failure!

That comment serves simply to highlight your ignorance. Ever heard of boom and bust, the thing wot dear Gordon abolished?

[i]So your school defines your place in society does it?[/i]
Often yes. But it's not really a question that warrants a yes/no response.

Have you actually seen Kirkcaldy High?! 😉

A good essay on PMs and Public Schools

[url= http://www.attainmagazine.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=archive.content&cmid=82 ]But whatever he did to British party politics, Blair has apparently revolutionised the attitudes towards public school. While Blair was at Number 10, the growls of John Prescott about posh Tories sounded rather silly. Even now that he has gone, he has left a party where a significant number of senior members have had a similar background. Such luminaries as Ed Balls, Ruth Kelly, Harriet Harman, Charles Clarke and even Jack Straw all attended independent, fee-paying schools

That comment serves simply to highlight your ignorance

My masters in Economics is clearly no match for your insight!

However from my position of ignorance I know a largely external economic influence when I see one unlike the largely self inflicted downturns the previous tory governments have inflicted upon us.

Give me Keynes over Friedman any day!

My masters in Economics

If it came from a Poly it doesnt count surfer! 😉

As President Richard Nixon observed in 1971, “We are all Keynesians now.”

Nice role model Surfer 🙂

Damm you Stoner!!

Nice role model Surfer

Baby, bath water Stoner?

"Baby, bath water[b]gate[/b] Stoner?"

fixed it for you.
😉

Jack Straw

He was born in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, England of part-Jewish background and brought up at Loughton, Essex by his mother, Joan Sylvia Gilbey[1][2] on a council estate after his father Walter Arthur Whitaker Straw,[1] an insurance salesman and the son of Arthur Whitaker Straw, left the family and condemned them to poverty. He was educated at Staples Road School, Loughton, and then boarded at Brentwood School, at that time a direct grant grammar school with largely LEA supported pupils

We could play this game all day. I'm not suggesting that anyone who went to a fee-paying school is automatically a toff and a snob, but the level of privilege on the Tory front bench is fairly ridiculous. Strangely enough William Hague and Ken Clark are probably the Tories I have the most respect for - just discovered William Hague went to a comprehensive and Ken Clarke went to the same school as Jack Straw. 🙂

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.

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.

dazh - good post, thoroughly agree.

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

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

[i]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" [/i]

stoner - glass half empty 🙄

😉

That's Hagues Yorkshire optimism that is! 🙂

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

[url= http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/will-we-ever-have-bananas-again%2c-daddy?-200910072116/ ]From the Mash[/url]

[b][i]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."[/i][/b]

.... £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?

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.

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.

but this is just political grandstanding.

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

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

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.

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 - It must have been a tough 12 years for you

eh? and your point is?

EDIT. Surfer, for yours [u]and uplink's (because he's being deliberately obtuse) [/u], 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?

eh? and your point is?

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

This was the Tories economic miracle at work

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/16/newsid_2519000/2519013.stm

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'

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.

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.

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

Stoner then I apologise! 😳

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...

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 : [i]"So your school defines your place in society does it?"[/i] 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 ?

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. 😉

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.

typical accountant.

You! Outside, now! 👿

So your answer then Stoner is : [u]none[/u]

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.

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?

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.

 

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.

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!

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 ?

The statistics would infer that.

No you would infer that from the statistics. The statistics might [i]imply[/i] 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.

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.

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.

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??

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.