This obnoxious, destructive, extreme right-wing government has reached a new low. May has pulled out of a vote she knew she had no chance of winning.
All her bribes (peerages and ministerial positions) have fallen on deaf ears.
All her threats (demotions) have come to nothing.
To save her hide she has pulled the vote.
After years of austerity and decimation of our public services the vultures are finally coming home to roost. They’ll pick over the corpse of this heinous bunch of extremists.
What now?
She is only putting off the evil hour!
She went to her cabinet and they said no.
She went to her party and they said no.
She went to the public and they said no.
She has now gone back to the EU and they are saying no.
She’s afraid to go to parliament because she knows what the answer will be!
She’s running scared, doing everything she can to hang on to power! And that is what it is all about – power! The good of the country has never been the slightest consideration!
They are lining up to knife her!
Good riddance is what I say!! I have not the slightest bit of pity for her! She has presided over the most callous government we have ever had. For ideological reasons they have hammered the poor and destroyed public services. Everything is in crisis. The economy limps along! It is as disastrous as you could get!
She went in with the right-wing extremists in order to gain power. They are a vicious bunch. Now the rabid wolves she ran with will rip her to pieces!
Let’s hope the end is quick!
The only way this is going to be resolved is with a new government and a people’s vote!
Come on Corbyn! Step up to the plate!
What bribes and threats? Who told you that… Owen Jones?
I don’t think you have fully understood what has happened here.
You’ve just used a load of adjectives “vicious” this and “rabid” that, but forgot to work out what it all actually results in. So Owen Jones. So leftie-twit. So stupid thick.
Good evening Mrs Troll – don’t you read what’s going on?
So after all the Tories have done to people. Poverty and misery and general inhumane treatment. People will still say the left is worse. This is why the poor and working class should stand together and take power from the ones who abuse it. Yes there are people on the left who are as bad as the people on the right. They need to be removed as well. Maybe this is just a dream but I can dream.
Yes you are right about that. There’s always two sides to every problem. But don’t expect to get that here – it’s not how the guy thinks. He’s one dimensional and can’t seem to understand why we still have austerity and who actually caused that austerity by borrowing countless billions of monies that we didn’t have. Not only that, but also borrowed from the most expensive sources available – the reasons for which have never been answered. We are all still paying out bit for all that nearly ten years later.
That’s why we can’t ever have another Labour government ever again until all these people that are still active party members and were involved with the past, are all dead and buried. Only then can we start afresh, but not before. Corbyn and co. would be a catastrophe. I’d rather take my chances with WW3 than these lunatics.
You talk such rubbish. Do you really believe that crap?
You Tory trolls need to wake up.
Funny Opher – I sort of agree with Sarah in some ways though not her conclusions.
Yes, problems caused by borrowing but who really caused the problem – the banks and Federal Reserve in an utterly rotten system. Nothing to do with the last Labour government. Yes we need to start afresh but I don’t think Corbyn would be a disaster – that’s ‘daily mail’ propaganda.
I’m 73 next month and if the lovely John McDonnell is not our next Chancellor, I fear all is lost – I will have to settle in Spain permanently!
Let’s do whatever it takes to get Corbyn elected and Trident cancelled.
Whatever it takes to get the Tories out of office before they completely dismantle the whole of public services and kill off the poor.
Good to hear from you Trevor. We never got to meet up!
Two – I find it unbelievable what the Tories have got away with for so long.
The reality is this problem boils down to inheritance. When there’s nothing left there’s only one thing for it but to start all over again. The decimation to the countries coffers was sizeable. I don’t think a lot of people fully understood that the Tories inherited a complete nightmare. It’s always difficult to explain where exceedingly biased strongly held views are held that blurry a lot of pertinent incoming information. Nobody likes to hear bad news about things they believe in. However, it was very much the case that the Labour government had reeked considerable havoc. We’ve only just recently reached the point of replacing all these losses. It’s been an immense struggle to balance the nations books as the demands are left, right and centre.
I work for the Treasury Department. Junior level, obviously.
The Tories inherited a big problem from the collapse of banking and a world recession. They made it far worse by enforcing austerity on the poor (while allowing the wealthy to run wild) instead of funding growth. Hence the economy has been the slowest to recover. We trail the rest of the EU and the USA. They recovered quickly. All we did was foster greater and greater inequality by giving tax cuts to thy wealth, decimating public services and hitting the poor.
The Tories have been despicable. Under the veil of Brexit they have been running an ideological campaign against public services and the poor which has brought the country to its knees.
Austerity was due to the world wide financial collapse. It was introduced as mechanism to help stimulate markets and produce stability. This clearly did not work. It produced more inequality with small economic results. Though people in the highest financial social group benefited. I do believe that a government should be held accountable for their decisions. If required they should be personally held accountable.
This government run their system in a way that hurts the weakest and benefits the already privileged. Surely that is clear to see.
Two – yes I agree. Austerity has been used as an ideological tool against public services and the poor. They represent the wealthy and that is whom they have been giving the tax cuts to. They have fuelled inequality and brought the country to its knees. Under the fog of Brexit they have got away with murder. They have used the recession as an excuse and done it all badly. Our economy has been on the floor while all around us have recovered.
I really don’t think either of you people fully understand the extent of the damage imposed on the economy and public services. Or the demands placed on the public purse.
Under Labour, they kept very inaccurate immigration record keeping. There were so many more people coming into UK than reported. Under the regulations of the EU then, many qualified for social security benefits and all kinds of other benefits.
Labour wants as many immigrants as possible into UK because they think they will be their voters so it’s obvious why. But it is a very expensive plan and sooner or later the money will run out to support it. If Labour had actually published in their annual budget the amounts of money they were actually going to need for this, then everybody would be able to see what they planned to do.
No government should be taking in twice as many immigrants as the national policy, but this is what Labour did throughout the time of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. That was many years and many millions of people. Plus all the extra people that were not recorded for reasons nobody knows.
This is why today we do not have just 66 millions in UK. We are not just taking in only 300,000 people a year.
In the last 15 years we have been taking in over 800,000 a year and our population is really around 75 millions.
We have many, many more immigrants living here than the official figures say.
The government also is very slow to report population growth on the numbers of people entering the country – we forget that they have children.
We know about the massive explosion of population within the Muslim community.
They are not 4.6 million. They are 8 million and rising. They used to be 4.6 million, but that figure is many years old. Nobody wants to talk about this. It isn’t difficult to imagine because they now have so many centres, schools, mosques and large communities.
It has only been in more recent years that restrictions were made. What was happening was we had hundreds of thousands of people coming in every year, for years and years and getting housing and unemployment allowances. Where was all this money suddenly expected to appear from? The hospitals and council services were swamped and cannot cope with the stress of demands. So everybody suffers. It is always the poorest people who need help with housing and benefits so they will be affected because it works on a queue, first come first served system – a fair system for all. What happens is we only listen to complaints from our own British people, so we blame the government for “cut backs” and reduction of services. We cannot see the vast numbers of extra people, non-contributing people taking our resources that had been planned to be given to our own people. But if we are to continue to take in every immigrant, economic migrant, war escapee, victim of tyranny or whatever we want to call them, in order to do this effectively as possible we will all have to pay a lot more in taxation.
It’s a very simple process. It there’s no tax cuts then there’s no investment. Everything will become state owned and state run just the same as like in East Germany.
We have already lost many people who were investing and they sold to Arabs. This is why London is now mostly owned by Arabs, because we didn’t give ENOUGH tax cuts.
When you work for the government you get to understand that there is a good reason for everything. Governments don’t do things intentionally to hurt people. Nothing you people say could make me think this so. I see the amounts of money going out to people who never paid a penny into the system. They get £15-35,000 on benefits free a year, every year and there are millions of them. They have no jobs, no incomes, no financial means at all and we pay for every single thing. The abuses of claims for benefits are at incredible levels of fraud.
The government now has so many more people working on fraudulent claims. We no longer spend the best of our time working with people to make sure they get everything they are entitled to. We now spend most of time making sure people do not get what they are not entitled to. This is because of the vast numbers of people we allow into UK who have only come here to get the most they can get.
We now have departments that help people who have fallen into debt. They spent all their family benefit money on gambling cards, online casino, scratch cards and could never pay bills and eventually their children become so ill with hunger.
We now have to make extensive extra precautionary controls for claims with many children. There are so many claims where children are swapped around and it’s got out of control.
Other people see this and they blame the county councils and the government.
It is now against the law to openly accuse people of these crimes against their children so we can no longer safely talk about it. Everything is hush-hush and with that comes bad rumours and bad information.
We have suffered very badly because of the changes of rich people in UK. For the first time ever we now have more rich people no longer living here full time and investing their money is other countries because it is much cheaper for them. We are losing a lot of money leaving our economy in property income. We will not recover that.
We are now too heavily reliant on foreign investments that do not invest in industry or interested in creating jobs. They do that in Asia. Investments such as property ownership is bad business as it is not real investment. It only amounts to a one time payment, then the removal of income money followed by the re-sale money.
In order to stop that we must give better tax breaks to our own people to encourage solid and long term investment.
You don’t seem to understand that.
I understand lots of things Sal.
I understand that the Tories have flat refused to close the tax loopholes. The wealthy can go tax free. Like the Mrs Brown cast squirreling millions off-shore and Wayne Rooney paying no tax.
I understand that the Tories have absolute control over immigration from outside the EU but have let it soar because it’s good for the economy. They say one thing and do another.
I understand that there is a rhetoric about immigration and particularly Muslims. There’s been too much of it and it has to be controlled. We’ve let in far too many. But demonising Muslims, despite how obscene aspects of their religion is, is not helpful. The vast majority do not want sharia law, are not terrorists or rapists. This attitude is unhelpful. We need to split them up and assimilate them. We are creating a siege mentality that radicalises them.
Sigh. It is real shame that people feel they have to attack those who hold views that differ from their own. Austerity measures ALWAYS hurt the most vulnerable in any country – and that’s not fair. If a country needs to get their fiscal house in order, then they must seek compromise solutions that will spread the pain around fairly. Playing the blame game is infantile and counter-productive. We need more mature and more intelligent discussions about all the major issues facing our countries.
John – it seems we are really in the post-rational age. Any Tom, Dick and Harry can say what they like, deny what they like and make up what they like. Their views are as valid as any expert.
Illogic and conspiracy rules! Rational debate? There is none! This is the tribal age of post-truth abuse.
Opher: There is no such thing as post-rational or post-truth.
The only changes made in recent years is that more serious matters concerning public expenditure have been shrouded in politically correct protectionism for fear of offending. The debate has been closed down and threats made to protect that closure.
Sal – there is definitely a post-truth. All experts, the media and scientists are now rubbished. I have always treated them with a degree of cynicism but this is on another scale.
Conspiracy theories take the place of facts. There is no global warming – despite 95% of all scientists saying there is (and the 5% are nut jobs). There is no overpopulation, no environmental catastrophe, no need for another Brexit vote. People have become tribal and logic is out the window.
Yes, I agree. My comments have no basis with support to any political division or party. I’m a civil servant and I sit firmly centre. I do not point fingers of blame. But I do have a better idea than most as to why we have some of the issues we have concerning some issues as I have a better access to figures, quantities and scales. I am fully aware that my country has been abused and those vulnerable who firstly should have received help did not because they were shoved aside by others with a louder voice.
Our social services have become running scared with being accused of racism and bigotry. Unfortunately these charges are being used as tools by too many unscrupulous persons. Dignity and respect have been eroded by greed.
It’s always the same with these kinds of blogs. There’s always people who never ever want to take on board any fresh information.
Sal – I’m amazed that you can say that you are centre without blushing. So far all I’ve read of your comments have been extreme right. But maybe I haven’t heard them all yet.
Yes I think there is some truth in the assertion that our social services (and police) have been running scared of being accused of being racist. It’s time they started coming down hard on the ones breaking the law regardless of race.
This blog is my blog, my views and perspectives and I’m very open to intelligent discussion and other views – as long as it doesn’t become abusive, personal or racist.
Mr Opher -: That’s quite something. Here’s somebody with input of validity and you in a back-handed manner issue a warning about abusive, personal and racist content of contributions when there were clearly none at all. Why do that?
Perhaps you are also one of these people that keep popping up loudly exclaiming “no, you can’t say that, you can’t ask that, you can’t discuss that.”
I’m reminded of the situation of the Mayor of Molenbeek in Belgium, Francoise Schepmans, who had been given a list of names of people suspected to have interest in operative terrorist cells. She did nothing for fear of complaint. After the Paris atrocities when asked why she did nothing, replied “it’s not my job.”
That brought it home that we must ask questions, no matter how uncomfortable they may be without fear of criticism or having to defend from accusations from persons suffering from acute political correctness and evading the big issue.
History dictates that we always pay very dearly for such apathy.
Emily – I’m quite happy to discuss anything in an intelligent and rational manner. I do not delete content unless it is abusive, making personal comments or is racist.
I have had to remove some comments on those grounds.
I have no intention of stifling debate but every intention of preventing abuse.
I agree that we should not allow accusations of racism preventing us following up crimes that have been committed.
Corbyn? He lives in a tooth fairy world of the imaginary money tree. His immediate cabinet are mostly vastly under qualified. Dianne Abbott as UK’s Home Secretary? That’s unimaginable.
I’ve never voted Tory but I would have May long before Corbyn.
Corbyn has destroyed Labour with the sort of people he surrounds himself with. I can honestly say I’ve never seen such a disparate bunch of useless and grossly under qualified members. When you compare this lot to the calibre Tony Blair had it’s beyond a bad joke. Terrible situation.
Well thanks for your opinion. I don’t agree. I have never seen any set of policies that are as good as those put forward at the last election. Labour are spot on under Corbyn. We desperately need to boot these vile Tories out before they completely destroy the country.
You moan about Corbyn’s shadow cabinet being short of talent – look across to the lamentable set the other side of the house.
Creeping privatisation putting money in the pockets of the wealthy.
Tax cuts for the wealthy so that they can keep their obscene salaries and multimillion pound bonuses.
Tax loopholes for them to squirrel away their loot.
Tax cuts for the corporations too.
Then the public services decimated with cuts.
The poor hammered with cuts.
Food banks.
Rough sleeping.
Trains that don’t work.
Inequality growing to obscene levels.
Economy stagnating.
Pound through the floor.
Racism rising.
Hate crime rising.
Violent crime rising.
What a nasty country they are making us into!
And you moan about Corbyn!! Hell – he’s ten times the man any of those ideological bastard Tories are!
Gosh, well done, that sounds just like Britain was under labour in the 1970’s.
Never mind Labour’s policies that are written down on a piece of paper, they mean nothing. Anybody can scribble down a few good ideas and pretty them up with jargon. They’ve had eight years to practice and if they can’t write an agreeable manifesto by now they’d be as well just going for ice cream and chips then down the swings.
I hate Corbyn. I hate his affiliation with those that hate so much that they kill.
I hate his lies and his inability to maintain any stability.
He only has 30% of the party membership backing him.
He’s has 100+ party member resignations resigning because they will not tolerate his leadership.
His real support level is only half of that of Theresa May.
She has two-thirds against his one-third.
His current shadow cabinet is simply dreadful.
He has some of the least qualified people on that bench in the history of the party. Abbott is an out and out laughing stock. This women, shadow home secretary don’t forget, didn’t even know how many serving police we have in London. She didn’t know how many more police were required to balance her own parties policing policy. And this is shadow home secretary? A person who could although it’s highly unlikely be in a position to be in charge of all legal affairs within our country. This tin-pot minded, extremely racist, anti-white people, finger-pointing nasty bitch. That’s unimaginable. If there ever were public rioting over that they would have my complete sympathy and full support and I’m the last person to condone rioting.
Meanwhile, the Tories front bench spells only one word = Qualified.
All these people were high attaining academic achievers and didn’t get there from just hanging out at local council meetings and brown-nosing senior party members and through personal relationships. It’s like Manchester City vs Tranmere Rovers. There’s no contest. I can no longer watch PM’s questions as May decimates Corbyn week in, week out.
He doesn’t represent anything to do with my life or my world. He’s archaic and the last thing I want representing me. He’s a Steptoe like character as far as I’m concerned and a lot of the people I work with. I don’t know anybody with any support for him.
He’s spent his entire life at every given opportunity sharing speech platforms with IRA senior personnel. It would have been a different situation had he also shared platforms with the UDA. He never did, not once. There’s also his many years spent voicing his anti-Jewish vitriol on Palestine LIVE. This is an online community frequented by many members of the Momentum group, who are extreme hard left-wing people. There so extreme as to be inseparable from the extreme-right.
It was only recently that he agreed to meet with the Jewish Council after being hounded and goaded into it. That was his first time ever with a Jewish committee. It was like sending Magda Goebbels to child-minding class.
Had Corbyn not done all that it would be another situation entirely. But that doesn’t go down too well with my generation, and he’s just another Tony Blair type, and really bad news.
Did you know that UK’s tax breaks were some of the lowest in the western world.
We all know about that list of anti-social problems. Most of us also know the root causes and we also know who’s committing these crimes. What did you expect?
Racism rising? Hardly. Considering the millions flooding in over the years with 80% of them terminally unemployed, I think out national level of patience regards these people has been extremely tolerant. Our figures are minimum compared to many other western European countries. Look at France’s! Germany’s! Closely followed by Italy, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Greece. We are way behind.
Your pound through the floor claim is unfathomable. Simply not true.
That’s another area we will see great improvements post Brexit as we won’t be under pressure from the greedy Bundesbank that banks the EU. Germany’s main national bank doing all the finance for the EU. That’s rather convenient. Good riddance.
I wonder what it would take to coax May over to Labour. If it meant having to hang Abbott, OK, I’ll pull the lever.
Sad to hear that you prefer Tory scum to fairness. Never mind. There are millions who want a better, fairer country and find the greed of the Tories repulsive. They’ll vote him in.
Mr Opher -: I don’t think you have given enough consideration to the future of Labour’s leadership. There is no point in changing the party leadership whilst it languishes as a shadow government. Corbyn’s tenure really doesn’t matter as he’s not PM. It’s highly unlikely he would receive high enough public acceptance particularly when he only has 30% confidence vote of his party members. He’s lost many top ranking people who have refused to serve in his shadow cabinet. Nearer the time when a general election proper is on the cards then we will see some action. He’ll be removed and then we should have somebody who meets general social acceptance standards. There are many far more suitable and qualified persons waiting in the wings who can fill every one of these shadow government positions he has filled with ex-girlfriends, friends and supporters. Labour can and will do better for themselves.
Corbyn’s history of affiliation with these organisations of hatred was mostly unknown by the general public upon his leadership position. They now know a lot better.
Emily – I like Corbyn as a leader. He stands for the principles and policies that I agree with. He has moved the party from being watered-down Tories to a good socialist platform. That is all good as far as I’m concerned.
Of course the displaced do not like it and are kicking up a fuss.
Of course the media are going for him and trying to create a bad image.
As for his associations with groups like Hamas and the IRA – I do not find that sinister. He has been working with many groups and talking to all manner of people!
Sal. Could you explain the situation the Tories inherited. I genuinely would like to know. This is an area referred to but never really examined. I do not have any information of how there was no money in the coffers.
Two – it’s quite simple really. When the recession started to kick in the whole financial system started to collapse and money was borrowed in order to shore it up and prevent a complete crash.
I understand the bailouts. Make the poor pay, one way or the other. But the Tories say that there was nothing in the coffers. How can that be. There is no information easily available to show how much the UK government gains from all the different taxes. Like tax on fuels, income tax, v.a.t. on everything etc. I do not understand how they could not have money. It sounds like lies. But would a government lie? Oh wait…
Two – They had used the money available to try to stabilise the banks and stop a complete collapse.
I think the real tragedy is that the bankers who caused the crash have largely gone unpunished. Their greed cost the country huge amounts, threw people out of work and has caused a decade of austerity (though I believe the Tories have used that as an excuse to hammer the poor and public services. Those guys should be in prison!
Opher, I’ve tried to reply, but for some reason the system won’t take the reply. I then passed it onto a friend and he had the same problem and again with a second friend.
No one can make a post.
OK, it’s working again – I’ll try again.
Good.
That seems to happen from time to time. WordPress can be problematical.
Twoonekpoetry / Opher:
In 2009, when Labour left office, their Chancellor famously left the note in his desk reading “There’s no money left!”.
Shortly after Labour left government, public sector net debt hit £1 trillion in March 2011, and has continued its steady ascent. The figure has risen from £337bn in 2000, to £1.16 trillion today – and that’s excluding bank bail-outs.
As a percentage of national output, net debt fell under Labour when they took power in the mid-1970s, following a double-dip recession caused by an oil crisis.
Britain’s debt continued to fall when Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government took power in 1979, dipping to a low of 26pc of GDP in the 1990/91 financial year. It began climbing again on the back of the US savings and loans crisis in the early 90s.
After the first Middle East war in 1993 the UK was 50.9 billion in debt deficit at financial year’s end. War are expensive.
After the Blair and Brown government, the UK was 156.3 billion in debt.
Boom times under Labour also saw the national debt fall to 29.8pc in the 2001/02 financial year, although several bank bail-outs meant net debt soared from 43pc of GDP in the 2007/08 financial year to 150.4pc twelve months later.
Excluding the bail-outs, net debt rose from 36.4pc to 44.5pc.
Under the Coalition Government, net debt excluding bank bail-outs has continued to rise from 57.1pc of GDP when they took power to 71.8pc last year.
When George Osborne became Chancellor, he set himself two targets.
His core “fiscal mandate” was to be on course to balance the books over a rolling five-year period.
His supplementary target was that net public-sector debt would fall as a share of GDP between 2014-15 and 2015-16.
In December, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said that Mr Osborne was likely to miss this second target
It forecasts that debt to GDP, excluding bail-outs will climb to 74.7pc of GDP in 2012/13, and will not begin to fall until the 2016-17 financial year.
The Government deficit is the gap between what it spends and what it gets in income, mainly from taxes.
Since 1974, there have only been eight years when the Treasury has ended the year in the black.
Four of them were under Labour, and four under the Conservatives.
As a proportion of GDP, Britain’s deficit ballooned in the wake of the financial crisis, jumping to 109pc in 2009 and 10.1pc a year later, according to OECD figures.
The latter number is bigger than bailed-out Portugal, at 9.8pc and close to Greece’s deficit that year of 10.8pc.
We have still not fully recovered. Since 2002, our population has rocketed and where many contribute nothing to the economy except the to increase on-cost account. Many investors have abandoned us and been replaced with foreign investment which continually leaks all profits out and inter-economic linked re-investments are at an all-time low.
We’ve had some very stupid risk taking people in charge of our money.
Twoonekpoetry, there you have it. Who would want the job of Chancellor?
Thanks for that.
Ok I understand what you have said. But I would be interested in the figures of what the government brings in. I passionately believe that our government are inflicting damage to the weakest in society and claim no responsibility for their actions. They either are unable to see the pain they inflict or more likely they are not concerned. If these are the best of us then we are in real trouble.
Two – I believe that as well. The Tories are making Public Services and the poor pick up the bill for the greed of the bankers. We should have seen tens of those bankers being locked up for what they did instead of continuing with their multimillion pound jobs and receiving multimillion pound bonuses.
They have brought in cuts to services, cuts to salaries, cuts to pensions and cuts to benefits while giving tax cuts to the wealthy and tax cuts to the corporations.
I don’t have any other figures than what’s published. There’s no “secret” accounts sheets crossing my desk or anyone else’s. I can’t answer to what I don’t know.
Regards some of the money coming in, that’s not a Tory secret issue, that’s much bigger than that. The UK will never openly publicise the vast quantities of money it receives from selling weapons to Saudi etc.
I do know that there’s new departmental focus groups been created to tackle certain issues. What basically happened was the governmental departments were simply not geared to deal with the huge sudden swell of demands. In just a few years a massive tidal wave of people arrived here with no money, no jobs, no housing, many needing medical treatment, many with children needing school places, you name it. You know all the rest of the problems that goes with all that.
Nobody had budgeted for that. So they restructure the budgets and another tidal wave arrives, so they’re back to square one, that is if they ever caught up from the last round. And the pendulum keeps swinging gaining momentum, each year more and more piling in. There comes a point were densely populated areas are too saturated and it’s almost impossible to provide what’s needed. There’s only so many jobs available in each area. What we have now is 20,000 people living in a 10,000 job area. It’s that simple.
We also have been really stupid about distribution of incoming population.
We should be telling them where they can live, but we allow them to report to any local council office they choose. That’s why we have entire areas swamped with Somali’s and Nigerians etc, as they follow where their cousin went before them.
This is a very bad situation. A hopeless situation. I actually blame a number of people who work for these councils as they promote tolerance of this jamming everyone into the same small place. Many should never be in these jobs.
The plan was for people to come here freely to work and pay their own way. It didn’t turn out that way. I don’t believe anybody is intentionally inflicting pain or not concerned for reasons as listed above. We were too lax with open door policy and now paying for it the hard way.
Sal – I agree with many of your points.
I do not think we have handled immigration well. We should have directed them and really worked out strategies to integrate and provide services. What has happened has greatly exacerbated the negative aspects.
Politicians have looked too much at the economy and not enough at the effects on people.
I understand what you are saying though I may not completely agree with it. I think what I am getting at is there a lack of transparency. We should have the right to know what the government income is etc. They tell us we are spending too much but never give us the whole story. This means we cannot trust them even though they are supposed to look after our interests. I know this applies to all governments though.
Two – I think a cynical position is usually the right one. We will never have complete transparency. I think we have to put some faith in them though. We just have to make them accountable.
There’s little sign of any making progress with that. Government’s – and I mean either Labour or Conservative – have a nasty habit of suddenly closing shop when it gets a bit too hot with transparency and suddenly up springs another brand spanking new re-make re-modelled department with a flag-waved “policy of transparency” that’s got more hurdle’s than a journey to Mars. The only times where these departments open their doors for close examination is when there are allegations of illegal procedure, otherwise all they are obliged to say is repetition of their mission statement.
That’s why the civil service is structured on a pyramid basis. Low levels have no access to upper level information.
Sal – governments certainly do like to keep everything hidden. That’s their nature. They like to put a spin on events. I don’t know how we go about making them more accountable but I think it is what is needed.
I think that this has been a good debate and shows even if we do have differences that we still have common grounds.
Thanks Opher and Sal.
Thank you two. It goes to show that if we are civil we can usually find some things to agree on and even when we don’t agree it doesn’t have to be nasty.
The following might be of interest.
Firstly, a reminder of what it used to be.
Back in 1979, at the close of the 78/79 fiscal year, the UK was under the Labour Party.
Income tax rates were at 83%, plus unearned income surcharge that got it up to 98%.
Basically, the highest earners were paying 98% of their income in income tax, after tax free allowances.
The top 1% of tax payers paid 6% of the total UK income tax take.
Today taxation as a percentage of the GDP is at the second highest level it’s been since the early 1970s.
The top 1% of tax payers at current rates are paying 28% of the total income tax take.
Tax taxation revenue for 2017/18 was £594.3 billion
In 2015/16 the top 1% paid 29% of the total take of £533.7 billion
That was the highest percentage ever under any government.
All joking aside, a lot of this talk of Tory tax cuts to feed their rich friends is obviously faulty.
The last few years have still seem a high proportion of income taxes paid by the top 1% by historical standards.
Since 1999 the percentage of the top 1% of earners pay in income tax has risen in an almost constant trend, across Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments.
Back in 1999/2000 they paid 21% of total income tax take.
During this same period the percentage of income tax paid by the bottom 50% of earners has fallen from 12.6% to just under 10%.
The top 50% of earners make up roughly 90% of income tax receipts, slightly more than back in 2000.
Income tax is only a fraction of the total tax take.
Over three-quarters of the Government’s income comes from other taxes.
There are Direct Taxes: Council Tax, National Insurance
Indirect Taxes: VAT, Tobacco & Alcohol Duty, Corporation Tax
It is much more difficult to say what percentage of these taxes the top 1% of earners pay.
Households earning the top 10% of incomes pay about 27% in total of most direct and indirect taxes, according to the Office of National Statistics.
This figure has remained roughly constant since 2009/10.
These numbers at least indicate that the top 1% of households would be paying a smaller fraction of total taxes than 27%.
It is estimated that 15,000 UK taxpayers have incomes above £1m, of which 4,000 have incomes above £2m.
In total, there are now an estimated 30.3 million taxpayers in UK, as per mid 2017.
These 15,000 tax payers are currently contributing 28% of the total UK income tax take.
Income tax payments are highly concentrated. In 2016/17, the top 1% of income tax payers – those with gross incomes of over £164,000 – earned 12% of the pre-tax income of income tax payers and contributed 27% of income tax receipts.
The forecast for total UK public revenues in 2019 will be 775.8 billion.
42% will be in indirect taxes
33% in income taxes
18% in national insurance contributions
7% in business and other revenue.
What governments do with this money is another matter entirely!
Sal – who are you kidding? Try telling all that to the nurses having to use foodbanks! The people sleeping rough! The poor sods on the gig economy working all hours to manage to eat!
Under Labour the schools were properly funded, people were paid a living wage, there was no creeping privatisation and the NHS, police, armed forces, councils, courts and everyone else was properly funded. We had no need for food banks.
It is the policies of Tory scum who have created such drastic inequality.
Opher – I’m afraid your working knowledge of the facts have let you down again!
This is becoming embarrassing. How can you debate when you have the basic facts all tits up?
These figures are facts. Published facts which are used for every calculation made thereafter.
Food banks were first introduced in the UK in 2004 under Labour! Not by Labour but during their tenure as a remedial action against their domestic economic policies.
2004 would be about mid-term of Labour’s government which ran from 1997 – 2009.
The Tussell Trust established a franchise model for UK food banks. Before the financial crisis of 2008 even the concept of food banks was virtually unknown in the UK.
It would be a fool who blames the Tory government for the gig economy. If you care to remember a number of years ago there was great debate in parliament as to the consequences of such open border immigration. Needless to say the gig economy is the direct result of that.
It was not until the run up to the 2015 general election that the issue of hunger in the UK became politicised.
Active politicised advertising campaigns have a habit of giving people the false belief of the sudden development of problems.
While the increase in hunger appears to have begun while Labour was in power, church groups and left wing commentators began to attack the coalition for aggravating hunger with austerity. Right wing commentators and politicians rebutted such arguments for misrepresenting the extent and causes of UK hunger.
For example, in December 2012, Trussell Trust chairman Chris Mould spoke out against the coalition’s welfare reforms, accusing the UK government of lacking empathy for those faced with poverty and hunger. In January 2013, a Conservative councillor argued there is no starvation in the UK and no need for food banks, saying they enabled recipients to spend money on alcohol instead of budgeting for food, and are an insult to the billion people in the developing world who “go to bed hungry every day”. The rapid rise in cheap take-away alcohol sales in supermarkets supports this claim. Neverthe less, hunger does exist in poorest sectors and has also been exacerbated with parental alcohol abuse. In general terms both factors exist in close proximity.
A spokeswoman for Trussell responded by suggesting that while low earners in the UK avoid starvation most of the time, they can face periods of severe hunger when hit by personal crisis, which for economically vulnerable people can be something as simple as a spell of cold weather, forcing them to choose between staying warm or going hungry. This of course is by no means a recent anti-social development.
However, the government countered that the proportion of benefits paid on time has risen from 88-89% under Labour, to 96-97% in 2014. This represents a considerably significant increase.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported that people answering yes to the question “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?” decreased from 9.8% in 2007/2008 under Labour, to 8.1% in 2011/2012 under Tory, leading Toby Young to say that the rise was due to both more awareness of food banks, and the government allowing Job Centres to refer people to food banks when they were hungry – the previous Labour government had not allowed this.
In 2016, the All-Party MP group on hunger has called for an end to political fighting over the issue, to avoid the risk of undermining public support.
Until about 2009, severe hunger was rarely considered a problem which afflicted people living within the borders of the United Kingdom. There were a few exceptions – a tiny minority of people might “fall through the cracks” in the welfare system. While some hunger relief efforts were undertaken by civil society, this was generally just provided on a local and mostly informal bases. This began to change in 2004 when The Trussell Trust established a franchise model for UK food banks, though they only had two establishments. This attracted little media attention at the time – before the financial crisis of 2008 even the concept of “food banks” was virtually unknown in the UK.
Like most of the rest of the world, economic conditions in the UK were adversely affected by the lasting global inflation in the price of food that began in late 2006 and especially by the 2008 financial crisis. For the first couple of years after the crisis, the rise in hunger was checked in part by the UK government’s fiscal stimulus, which boosted public spending to head off the threat of depression.
Yet by 2010, stimulus policies began to be replaced with an austerity programme. Low earners would increasingly see their incomes fall further due to enforced cuts in working hours and sometimes even to rates of pay. People who had suffered lasting falls to their income began to draw down savings and run out of friends of whom they were willing to ask for help, leading to increases in the numbers suffering from hunger.
In 2006, Trussell food banks operated in six local authorities, by 2009 this number had rose to 29. The pace of growth accelerated sharply from 2009: by 2013 Trussell was operating food banks in 251 local authorities.
A September 2012 report asserted that hunger due to poverty had returned to Britain as a substantial problem for the first time since the 1930s. It noted that about 43% of those needing emergency food assistance from food banks have been affected by benefit disruption – this can take various forms – for example, sometimes when there is a change of circumstance, such as a new resident coming to live at the family home, delays can arise in the payments of further benefits. Other reasons why people in work or on full benefits are often needing emergency food is debt; in particular due to the sophisticated tactics now being used by door to door lenders, where borrowers come to think of the credit company agent as a personal friend and so will make sacrifices in order to make repayments.
In October 2012, another report highlighted the way in which internet-based loan providers can also cause people to go hungry. Their contracts sometimes allow them to take out the entire balance from their debtor’s accounts, at a time of their choosing. Sometimes this happens just after a benefit payment had gone in, meaning the recipient may not have any money to buy food for at least a week.
Those who are not actually starving are frequently forced to buy and eat cheaper, less healthy food.
For the poorest in our society, up to 35% of disposable income will now be needed for food, compared to less than 9% for the more wealthy. This will increase reliance on cheap, highly processed, high fat, high sugar, high salt, and calorie-dense, unhealthy foods. Re-emerging problems of poor public health nutrition such as rickets and malnutrition in the elderly are also causes for concern.
This problem is exacerbated by the EU’s economic policy of taxation surcharges on all non-essential food stuffs – there only are five, including milk – where food prices are pushed 10% above the world averages.
In contrast to the first few decades after World War II, poor people’s incomes stopped rising in line with increased costs for housing, utility bills and food.
The Trussell Trust reports that numbers receiving help from food banks is steadily rising and claimed that reached 1.1 million in 2015. However the Trust was forced to admit that this number represented the number of visits to food banks, not the number of different people receiving help, which it estimated at 500,000.
There is a further hidden problem of people who remain hungry because nobody in a position to refer them to a food bank recognises their need.
By no means is this a new problem and there are many reasons for its cause.
Food bank use in Germany and France is much higher than in Britain.
In 2014, 1.5 million people a week used food banks in Germany.
Considering Germany’s leading position and influence over EU economy, this raises many questions.
Lastly, I read you description of “Tory scum” with a certain level of both surprise and amusement. Tories tend to be the more educated people within our society. Usually the more unsavoury characters, the thug rustics, the rough hands and corner boys tend to come from the working class. These are the people who we refer to as scum.
It really says a lot if your really believe all this guff. There’s really no hope for you at all. They’ve really done a job on you. Where did you dig up your selective representation?
I get the distinct feeling you don’t like facts and figures! I’m can’t do much about that.
On another post I gave you the accurate financial data for annual taxation – you didn’t like that either. These figures are completely accurate.
Above is the state of affairs as it stands. You will be exceedingly disgruntled to learn of the necessity to introduce food banks half way through Labour’s last term. This was the case and the minimum of research on your part will confirm this.
Perhaps you shouldn’t get involved with important things which involve multiple reasons for the cause. You appear to have problems with good information concerning complicated issues. You too readily are looking for the easy blame that simply does not exist.
I suggest you read it all again and let it sink in. I don’t think you read it properly the first time. Happens a lot where people read a couple of lines, immediately see red and fire off a load of unintelligent crap. If only they read things properly.
Go and find out for yourself the reports compiled by the Trussell Trust who manage the food banks and other cross-party committee reports – everything you read above is a summary of all of that.
I’m afraid that you will have grave difficulty proving what you are demonstrably looking to prove – there is no one political party to blame.
You may not remember the parliamentary activity centred around the poor performance of Labour’s government social services offices making payments in a timely manner. I do. You probably didn’t realise that Labour policy prevented people who were using unemployment offices from also using food banks. Neither did I.
Neither did I realise that in most cases where many areas where children are suffering with poor food health are where higher than average spends on cheap alcohol are also found. I knew it existed but not in the endemic proportions as found in reports.
The problem is endemic within society and really does not wear a political party badge. Considering the large numbers of working class people we have in UK, it never ceases to amaze me quite why Labour are not consistently holding government.
It must be the case that the working class look to the Tories to try and help them solve their inherent problems. I would imagine that accommodation premises free of rental and corporation charges allows the Trussell Trust to roll out the food bank programme throughout the UK without any limitations imposed on their programme. Perhaps it is true after all that Labour have washed their hands of many of the working class. I didn’t used to believe that until I saw for myself the extent of damage done to Labour council administered areas. These champagne socialists have a lot to answer for. A truly shocking state of affairs.
I get the distinct impression that you select the facts and figures that conveniently support your POV and reject all the ones that don’t.
A short glance through history shows quite clearly what is going on. The Tory scum (yes I know about their education – they come from the elite and represent the elite- I’ve seen them in their Little Lord Fauntleroy costumes) were formed by the elite and always represent the elite. I’ve suffered under their obnoxious policies all my life. They always hammer the poor and try their damnedest to dismantle the welfare state and public services. They despise ordinary people and begrudge any penny that goes to them. I’ve worked in schools and my wife worked in schools and the NHS and saw first-hand the huge difference. When Labour got in services, pay and conditions were hugely improved. As soon as the Tories get in we have cuts, cuts and more cuts, pension thefts, castigation, bureaucracy, punitive inspections, pay cuts, worse conditions and privatisation (putting money in the pockets of the rich investors they represent).
They represent, at most 5-10% of the population and it shows.
I have given you the factual figures. It would serve nothing to supply of false info.
Go check it for yourself. If you had half the brains you thought you had you’d be in a position to know where to look or know who to ask. Subsequently, you asked me and I got them for you. Yet all you can do is criticise me? Tell you what you can do Opher in future. Just keep knowing nothing. Your ignorance is very appalling. Please don’t ask again.
I take no responsibility to your chip on your shoulder or your origins of working class poverty, your lack of educational opportunities leading to any lack of professional opportunities etc. Life is what you make it and what you make of any opportunities, if any. After my university masters in accountancy, I practised in the city and after some twenty years of that moved into civil service duty. I could have something other but chose not to. I don’t still around all sullen harbouring grudges against much wealthier people. Most of the wealthy I knew didn’t sleep, lived fast and died young.
When did Labour get in? 1964? 1974? 1997?
We all know they made a dog’s dinner in the 1960’s. We all know they made another from 1974 with constant union strikes and walk-outs. So I imagine you must be referring to Blair and Brown tenancy. That’s when they propped up the economy with all that very expensive borrowed money. Just as long as you got your annual bonus. Hooray for you.
I don’t think ridiculous costumes are discriminatory in England. Many boys wear peculiar affairs as members of the Church of England. The garb as worn for ceremonial duty in parliament is also quite something. The Peers in the House of Lords quite comical. As is all the garb at universities. The top schools are nothing to talk about and don’t compare. Unless you’re upset at the sight of a top hat and tails morning suit. You might find that England’s military take the biscuit.
You are entirely wrong to state that all Tory MP’s come from the elite. That’s total hogwash. Both Blair and Brown went to very private expensive schools. They were the two goons that made sure you got your annual increase. You have extreme double standards to say the least. Worryingly so. I think that must stem from a rubbish quality education.
Strange that anybody who believes anything different to you is ignorant. I don’t agree with your facts and figures
It’s not about economics – it’s about people. I have checked out everything myself thanks and, more importantly, lived long enough to have experienced the differences first-hand. I’ve felt the callous blows of Tories as they savage the poor and cripple public services. I’ve watched them handing out huge tax cuts to their chums and selling off Britain to investors abroad. I’ve also experienced the benefits of a far more caring Labour government.
Grow up man for god’s sake. The figures are irrefutable. This is what the Treasury dept produces end of every fiscal year.
You lived, of that I’m certain, but to what level of general understanding is unknown.
I see your logic believes the people don’t need economics? That explains why you are in such a mess of confusion.
I think it’s high time that I got to ask you a few questions. That would be fair as it’s been so one-sided so far.
1. If Labour were really this wonderful caring bunch, why then did the Trussell Trust deem it necessary to roll out food banks half way into Labour’s tenancy?
2. Why did Labour actively prohibit people using Job Centres from gaining access to food banks?
3. Why did Labour have just such a poor percentage record of meeting pro-active payment schedules to their clients, the unemployed and those seeking and entitled to various other benefits?
4. Why did Labour lose the general election nine years ago and have never come close to regaining power?
5. Why did millions of former Labour voters turncoat and vote Tory?
6. If so many former Labour voters were so affected by adverse Tory policy why did they not return to Labour in much larger numbers than as previously indicated?
7. Why did more Labour held constituencies vote pro-Brexit than Remain?
8. Why did at least 103 Labour Party MP’s resign and/or refuse to work for Corbyn?
I think you have got some serious thinking to do! It might keep your fragile mind off worrying willy nilly about Fascism and Islamophobia for a few minutes.
Thank you Sal. I’m perfectly grown up thanks.
1. 2. 3. – Are you really comparing the plight of the poor under and Tory and pretending there is any comparison that possibly favours the Tories? Just look at the use of food banks and the number of rough sleepers! When it comes to treating the poor badly the Tories are complete bastards. You certainly can’t score any points on those ones. Don’t bother trying. Not even the most rabid Tory supporters try to pretend they care or do better for the poor than Labour.
Labour lost the election, after many years of power, for a large number of reasons: because the world recession kicked in and the finances went awry; because Brown was not a great PM and the stupid mess with Blair had caused a bad smell; because of the Iraq war; because the country was ready for a change…….
Labour voters have been subjected to lifetimes of tabloid hysteria and biased reporting. The recession created huge problems in deprived areas, mass immigration, terrorism and Islamophobia created mass fear and panic, ………….
Brexit has nothing to do with Tory or Labour. Both are hopelessly split. In the depressed areas the everlasting Tory austerity created a wish to try anything. What could be worse? Fuelled by media tabloid mania, immigration and Islamophobia.
In the South it was slightly different – immigration, nationalism and a bit of little Englander.
Blair had made Labour a watered-down Tory Party. They did not like going back to true Labour values. Fortunately Corbyn has won through and established a set of policies to be proud of and ousted the psuedoTories. Great stuff. I look forward to a radical Labour government!
I don’t think you are. You are seemingly completely unable to procure and forward one single piece of financial data that contradicts anything that I have so far supplied.
There’s a good reason for that – you can’t. What I provided is the facts of the matter.
Needless to say you failed the question test and all you could muster up was more bullshit leftist shill excuses blaming Islam again for all your idiot Labour failures.
I’ll repeat the questions.
1. If Labour were really this wonderful caring bunch, why then did the Trussell Trust deem it necessary to roll out food banks half way into Labour’s tenancy?
2. Why did Labour actively prohibit people using Job Centres from gaining access to food banks?
3. Why did Labour have just such a poor percentage record of meeting pro-active payment schedules to their clients, the unemployed and those seeking and entitled to various other benefits?
It goes without saying that Labour excelled in the complete bastards competition.
They were the cause of food banks in the first place. They cruelly denied people the use of food banks. They were careless and gung ho about making sure people in need received their benefit money in a timely manner. By not doing so they caused a lot of unnecessary cruel suffering. They did it for years until the Tories took charge and solved the problem with pro-active due diligence.
I know this and was able to supply Labour’s average percentage success rates with this issue. All things considered they were woeful.
You talk nonsense about depressed areas. These people were simply sick of being swamped with migrants dumped on them by Labour. It’s Labour active policy to bring as many into the UK in the hope to gain more votes. Labour depends on the coloured vote and it’s no secret. Take the North East. They had massive Brexit support and they don’t have by any means the largest intake of immigrants. They simply don’t want what they see. It’s their choice and nobody else’s. They cannot be faulted. It’s democracy.
Fortunately what? What has Corbyn won? He’s over. He’s a dead man walking without support of two-thirds of his party. If his party have got anything they will be doing it without him. He’s a dangerous liability. First of all Labour have to win a general election. If Corbyn thought he had half a chance he’d have called from a more stringent motion against May. It’s also really funny that he said what he said to an almost empty house. Such a strength of character that man. Yup, top gun him, innee?
I don’t care about food banks per se. They are paid for. They are just another social service these days. In case you forgot Labour allowed to UK to fill up with people mostly unable to fend for themselves. This is the fallout return of that. I should know, I see the benefits payments out quotients. It’s astronomical.
You clutched your last straw. You’ve backed a dead horse. Move your corpse aside.
I seldom ever feel compelled to tell people outright of my opinion on what I can determine as their short comings. You certainly have a few. Did nobody ever teach you how to receive information and how to use it in discussion?
Because all you have done is say, “No it wasn’t”, “I don’t agree” etc.
How can you dispute as published data? That’s all there is to be had. There’s no magic second version, I’m afraid. Whether you agree or not is completely irrelevant.
I see you enjoy poetry. Truth is like poetry and most people hate poetry.
Depends how you select your published data doesn’t it Sal? Personally I don’t like debates based on reciting figures from dubious sources. Personal experience and moral integrity is far more important.
Perhaps you can justify the Tories hammering the poor with Universal Credit and slashing public services (all well documented) while giving big tax cuts to wealthy bankers, failing to plug tax evasion loopholes and reducing taxes for corporations (well documented), I wouldn’t even begin to put my contempt into words.
These are real as published bona fide reports. What you don’t like is actually more to do with failing very badly when up against persons who know what they are talking about and avoid loose talk silly meaningless conjecture and hit you between the eyes hard and fast and with some degree of unnerving repetition with facts and figures which are irrefutable. I can understand why that might be troublesome for you but that’s the nature of debate I’m afraid.
What moral integrity? Your were prepared to believe Owen Jones’ lies over all the evidence anybody would otherwise need. I don’t think integrity is a suitable word to describe your attributes. Not at all in fact.
We’ve discussed tax cuts. Surely you have a basic understanding of where that stands now? You were given many examples and explanations. Why are you speaking as if you’ve just had a lobotomy?
I just don’t have the will to live to try to explain to you the inter-relationship between taxation, growth, jobs and wealth. It’s very complicated.
I think you will find Universal Credit to be a more modern system. That’s all it is. It offers login facilities, on-line tracking, on-line applications and much more expedient services. It is not necessary for people to travel and then sit in a job centre queue for some time just to apply for something. Technology can do all that. This is why you might have seen some job centres closure because they are redundant.
I don’t know of any public services that have been slashed but I’ll take your word for it. I suggest we stop selling knives to yobs. In my day it was just the seats at the cinema.
Sal – the problem is the data you select from what is published. Just like anybody can use camera angles to create an illusion.
Of course I believe Owen Jones over you. His views and observations are utterly consistent with what is actually happening; yours are not.
You really don’t know of any public services being slashed!! Incredible!! I’ll give you a little list of the top of my head:
Schools
Hospitals
Police
Welfare
Mental health services
Libraries
Youth Services
Councils
I can’t think of any that haven’t been!! Surely they haven’t all passed you by??
Yes – I am aware of taxation and growth. I am also aware of the best ways to stimulate the economy and create growth without hitting poor people and public services. They chose the route of austerity for ideological reasons
Universal Credit could be a good modernising mechanism – if it was done right. Unfortunately it hasn’t been. It has been brought in wrongly and used as a budget cutting exercise. People without money cannot be expected to go for weeks without support. That is callous and pushes people over the edge. But starving people do not matter if you are a Tory. If they die it’s a few less scum to have to support, isn’t it?
What problem with the data? Did you have a problem digesting it?
That’s the data and that’s how it is. It’s for real.
All the data is accurate, relevant and contemporary.
Owen Jones? eh, sorry, when did he come into anything I’ve discussed?
I’m a fully qualified accountant with a masters degree, and have worked for the Treasury for the last ten years.
Jones has got a degree in American history. He became a researcher (his degree being useless) and now he’s some kind of journalist and brown-noser with the Labour party. What he knows about economics and national level money budgeting, I could write with butter on my toast.
He’s a whining, irresponsible, gob-shite, propaganda motor mouth for the Momentum division of the extreme left-wing. Personally, I’d be most wary of most of his acute exaggeration. His most recent fall from all credibility was not entirely unexpected.
I would stress that I work for the Treasury dept., and not the Tories. I’m a civil servant, end of story. Were I interested in working for the Tories, I could very easily. With my excellent credentials and CV, I could very easily slide into Tory HQ, but I have absolutely no wish to do so. Yet all I’ve received from you in a continuous pelting with shit and fucking (excuse my french) insulting accusations. You couldn’t hold a civil debate to save your life. Not just because you haven’t got the necessary education of the subject matter and are wholly reliant on thought bubbles and instagram quick shot captions to hold your weight, but you’ve got lousy manners.
Ref your list off the top of your head:
Which schools
Which hospitals
Which police
Which welfare
Which mental health services
Which libraries
Which youth services
Which councils
There exist constant revisions to budget costings for all of these facilities under any government at all times. So much good money gets wasted by so many local authorities that it is not unusual for governments to take remedial action. Tony Blair did that in 1997 and Gordon Brown.
Where I live, we’ve just had a new wing open at the hospital.
Last week I watched a TV programme about a secondary school, where the head teacher was dealing with keeping his school alive because he only had 500 pupils for a school built for a thousand. So naturally his annual budget would see cutbacks.
Our local library is under threat because hardly anybody uses it anymore.
There’s a sob story for everything and a hundred reasons for everything.
The majority of people who are homeless for example are in that situation because of alcohol problems. No government can accommodate for alcoholism. The numbers have rocketed upwards due to the great numbers of casualties from eastern Europe.
With all due respect to these people, they are a great burden, an added burden to an already exaggerated problem.
I’d be interested for you to explain what you do know about the best way to stimulate the economy and create growth – providing it isn’t the Labour policy of borrowing multiple billions at extremely high interest rates with no hope in hell of every paying back without imposing further very expensive penalties.
Fire away – be my guest. I’m listening and waiting with bated breath.
What does “brought in wrongly” mean regards Universal Credit? It’s instant. Years previous under Labour, people would wait for weeks whilst their case was under review. Now it’s a short-term turnaround of on average two weeks. People have always gone without money for weeks. Some people have absolutely no savings, lose their job and have nothing to fall back on because by law, I’ll repeat that, BY LAW, they are NOT eligible for any state subsistence for THREE months. This fact of life has nothing to do with Tory anything. As I previously stated and will find confirmation of this, previously under Labour there was a serious problem with late payments with a percentage shortfall of payments going out on time at 88-89% under Labour. Under Tory this increased to 96-97% in 2014. What does that tell you.
Just because people turn up to local council offices does not mean that council has any responsibility towards their plight. I’m aware that may be harsh, but I don’t write the rule book.
I have provided a significant amount of information.
I suggest that you read it all again and digest it properly and stop making naive statements and asking elementary level questions.
You don’t even seem to realise that on average 19% of all applications for state benefit assistance contain inaccurate, inconsistent and/or fraudulent information.
Have you any idea what that does to the backup levels of administration work?
Have you any idea what level of demands are placed on local government council translators due to the quantities of people seeking assistance? They have immense difficulty recruiting enough of them to meet the demands.
Have you any idea that local council administration have got no idea at all about the level of demands that will be placed upon them in coming months?
Or do we just keep throwing civil servants at this ever increasing over-population problem?
Let me just say, today’s issues are nothing close to what they were in 1998 or 2008.
The magnitude of issues for a plethora of reasons is unimaginable. And downright bloody ridiculous of you to be pointing fingers all the time at a government that you can’t support because of your extremist views. Your common sense has shot down the toilet. Governments are run with common sense.
I find the figures you put up incredible. As in that is a staggering amount of money that is surely not going to the places in most urgent need. I do vote Labour but I see the short comings of all the political parties. If I had my way the whole structure of politics would change.
To me the Tories are more ruthless and cold than Labour. Until accountability is made into law to protect the weakest in society I do not think anything will really change. I just hate all the lies, smoke and mirror tricks that defines politics. This current government is very cruel the way it treats the weakest in the society. There is so much evidence to support this.
I think Labour would be a lot less cruel than the Tories.
Our political landscape is a minefield of people serving their own careers rather than the people they should serve.
People who have, will not give people who do not. Maybe that is human nature.
I believe the traditional political lines between left and right etc. Have been shifted, bent and obscured making politics even more difficult to believe in.
We can argue all day about history and the rights and wrongs that have occurred. But we seem unable to learn from any of it. The poor get ignored, the middle class get scared that they could become poor. The ones who are in control seem to get richer and take even more.
What can we do to change this? Here and now. What do we need to do as a society.? How can we rebalance power? Surely we all want the same thing? To be healthy, secure, educated and to have a purpose and happy.
Two – I would agree – we need to do away with this two party system and bring in proportional representation.
I personally loathe Tories and the callous elitism they stand for. But I expect that is obvious from my posts. I think Labour, while still being too corporate (necessary for both election and the economy), is much more compassionate.
At the moment the inequality is becoming obscene and the poor are really suffering. The Tories really don’t care.
Brexit has opened up entire new divisions – outward and trusting – inward and fearful.
Opher – what’s to trust on this outward view? The EU? That greedy bunch of self-serving politocrats who pay themselves shed loads and are willing to give UK zero concessions but hive off hundreds of millions every month.
I remember reading about why Cameron gave up with them having been knocked back about seventy times. They just refused him and there was nothing he could do.
The EU are an ugly monster who issue the most implausible directives regards monetary policy. They don’t care as is absolutely evident with their treatment of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and now Italy.
Why anybody would want to continue under that tyranny is beyond my comprehension. We have absolutely nothing to fear by disassociating ourselves from their clutches of despair.
Two – all the figures are completely accurate. Go check them for yourself. I hope you took a few minutes out to check some of them for yourself. I’m really not in the business of feeding out bullshit to people. I’ve nothing to gain by doing that.
Everything I work with is in millions of pounds. It would be because of the size of our population.
I don’t think you are completely aware that the public services that deal with applications from people for benefits are not run by any particular government. They are run by the civil service. The civil service is not directly under any government control. The government may make adjustments to policy but this is a long process and never an instant fix mechanism. Please, let’s get that basic very clear.
As for money not going to places in urgent need that’s hard to define. Local councils as I mentioned previously have difficulty budgeting for the demands that may be forthcoming.
I would say we should instantly stop sending billions of pounds every year to Pakistan and Bangladesh. It’s high time they stood on their own.
It’s very easy to say that you think Tory is more ruthless and cold than Labour. That kind of assumption is very much based on information received that informs you and you have no idea of the accuracy level. We now have instant information resources that were not available some years ago, so influential commentary, objective criticism and basic propaganda are forced down our throats. All I can say is if I saw a quarter of the bullshit on accountancy reports and trial balances compared to the hysteria generated by the corrupt media, I would say something.
I do agree with you on the extent of pattern behavioural science.
Fundamentally we need to get rid of extremities within the political spectrum. We shouldn’t be having such an entity such as Momentum, which is a politically motivated extreme left-wing think tank that manifests some of the worst excesses of propaganda. Amazingly enough the Tories do have have an opposite version, but of course are accused of manipulating extreme divisions of right-wing of fascist groups. What amuses me when we see these groups of “fascists”, is I’m looking at football thugs covered in Chelsea or Millwall tattoos, who live in Elephant and Castle in a tower block and the last people they’d ever be voting for would be the Tories. The insanity of loose conjecture accusatory assumption from the common man is incredible – if I may paraphrase your last introduction.
I’m all for starting again just as long as there is absolutely no globalist mentality employed as that is the most dangerous and malevolent mindset. These globalists out there are rampant lunatics and really only an extension of the extreme left-wing.
We need centric based and unbiased doctrine.
Have we had a Christmas break?
This has been very interesting reading and pause for thought.
Opher certainly displays some left-wing bias and is sometimes intemperate but I also detect a strong right-wing bias in Sal however well-informed and ‘centrist’ he or she may be.
I believe Labour costed their last manifesto, the Tories did not.
George Osborne’s policies appear to have been a disaster. Gordon Brown ‘saved the world’ (his best howler) by following Keynes – did anyone notice?
The sooner we get rid of ‘neo-con’ ‘neoliberalism ‘ and its crazy so-called economics the better.
Not ‘trickle-down’ but ‘suck-up’ economics and working people have been sucked dry.
Do I detect a degree of prejudice (of race and religion) in Sal’s writing?
Trevor – I agree this crazy ‘suck up’ economics is a disaster. It is causing mass poverty and destroying public services.