ianrobo1

It's quite amazing how the good lady is described.

'Incompetent' she certainly wasn't,

her competence could indeed be questioned

If you look at the years between her election and the war, the country wanted her out and her party was planning to topple her, so things obviously weren't going very well.

On that basis Cameron will need a war around 2012/13. History has proven that you cannot undo socialist mismanagement and negligence in two or three years.

I must have missed the bit where we got a socialist government. And indeed the bit where Cameron did anything to prove that his lot would be any different or better than the current encumbents.

not from any of the stuff I can see from the Tories, there is no evidence to suggest they have policies

ad as TT saying council empowered peopel, yes they did to those who had them, a select number who made whacking profits from a deleberate under valuation but for the future the shortage of council housing has proved the folly to be that.

Because fo the shortage peopel are now placed in far more expensive accomdation like private rented and we pay for that

as we have seen is encouraging home onwership really that wonderful ?

General on the ground developments is it possible to show the new plans for the refurbs ?

Also could the OS have better photo's of the ground it is poor on there for it

unique situation, never seen before no tried and trusted methods to do this

1930 calling...

What we need is a good ol' world war...

Actually, this came close to happening in the early 70s (at least in the US): a 20-year bull market ended, there was a rash of major bankruptcies (e.g. Penn Central). 10 years of stagflation kept things from getting too too bad...

major difference in the 30's we did not have a global economy, money was not moved amongst banks in different countries

war does help but hos much has been spent in Iraq eh ?

the debate I believe is whether you, tony

well awol and I can debate this over cocktails in Muscat on Sunday (I'll warn the wife to bring a book with her )

I'll rejoin this thread on my return ..I've a feeling it will still be going in the same circle :-)

it will go in a circle because you don;t give your point of view, I can only guess (and that is agaist site rules and riles some) at what you may think

I am not asking for detailed solutions but a broad brush approach and a general statement of belief

I had to cleanse myself and go onto the Tory website to understand what they would propose

I found a statement b Osbourne saying it was a leap in the dark but no other solution and this

But we can still help families and businesses right now.

We will freeze council tax for two years by reducing wasteful spending on advertising and consultancy in central government

We will introduce a £50bn National Loan Guarantee Scheme to underwrite

bank lending to businesses and get credit flowing again

We will help the innocent victims of the recession and encourage a new culture of saving in the long term by abolishing income tax on savings for everyone on the basic rate of tax and raising the tax allowance for pensioners by £2,000 to £11,490

We will provide tax cuts for new jobs with a £2.6bn package of tax breaks to get people into work, funded by money that would otherwise go on unemployment benefit

We will cut the main rate of corporation tax to 25p and the small companies' rate to 20p, paid for by scrapping complex reliefs and allowances

We will give small and medium-sized businesses a six-month VAT holiday, funded by a 7.5% interest rate on delayed payments

We will cut National Insurance by 1% for six months for firms with fewer than five employees, paid for from the above changes to the company tax regime

We will abolish Stamp Duty for nine out of ten first-time buyers and raise the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1 million. Both of these changes will be funded by a flat-rate charge on non-domiciles.

To repair the broken economy in the long run, we need economic responsibility. That means:

A responsible fiscal policy, bolstered by independent oversight.

A responsible financial policy, bolstered by a renewed role for the Bank of England

A responsible attitude to economic development that fosters more balanced economic growth

a few small points adding upto very little in the scheme of things and thats it, a few words but no possible answer to the issues that are happening now

keep asking but say the tories were in power the past 6 months would RBS have been allowed to fold or nationalised ?

what woudl they have done with the half a trillion of bad debts two banks held ?

I believe you are referring to the the taxi incident where I think a slab of concrete was thrown on a taxi carrying 'scabs'

I wasn't but thanks again for furthering the conversation.

So were these 'scabs' deserving of their fate then, your use of language suggest you might think so. Was it justified to murder men going to work to feed their families then or no? T'other Ian seems to be swerving this one...

no one deserved to die but this was a chicken and egg situation if thatch ahad not allowed her dogma to dictate and be prepared to compromise it may never have got that far

we can only guess at that

AWOL, the banks have had to have billions and billions pumped in to secure them, the debate I believe is whether you, tony or anyone else thinks this should have been done

that one policy by teh Tories is small beer in the overall scheme of this, it is barely half of this years borrowings and only a fifth of the bad assets we will be buying off lloyds

I think though the problem is your can't generalise people

There are some very wealthy people who put a lot back into society ..and society should continue to create wealthy people ....Capitalism hasn't died overnight ... it's just taking a short time out in Dubai and will be back nicely refreshed in a short while

and when the society creates wealthy peopel those wealthy peopel should give more than it;s fair share back and help others to grow upwards and thus increase their own wealth

you knwo Tony as well as I do increasing say top level tax to 50% will not effect most wealthy peopel that much or any other methods

someone on £100k a year still will get 50k a year cash

the problem is snowy is that frankly the well off in general do not believe that they owe soceity anything, they get rich on the back of ;birmal people' but simply want to kee all the benfits to themselves or **** off to tax havens whilst still earning from the UK (example Phillip Green)

And by god that is so wrong and unjust.

I have to admit that I know people like that - I also know people who firmly disagree with that.

There are people who think that they ought to put back into society at least as much if not more than that which they received.

What is really, really horrible is when people think that 'class' or private education automatically puts people into categories on this subject.

It really is frightfully disgusting when idiots categorise people and treat them awfully because of that.

yes there are rich people who put back into society, there are some who may give all their wealth away (gates and buffet) but most will always want to keep and grow their moey hence the rush to to the likes of Stanford and Mahdorff offerring every attractive ROR's

as a labour MP in a EDM said why not tax pensions at 90% over 700k (cheap shot at tosspot) because does any pensioner really need more than 70k a year to live on ?

as for your class point then class is sometimes how you act towards fellow human beings

Along with my fav of the council house sell off

which is one of the best things a PM has ever done for this country

foreign companies who broughty some great assets

assume you are talking Nu Labour here with this line ? what was it ?? ahh yes a target of raising £36 billion from disposals by 2011 ..think the exact line from Superman was ""rationalise the use of buildings and land, and place extraneous assets on the auction block to swell the Treasury coffers."

that line was started by Thatch who sold early all our energy and water to foreign companies

but what the hell you believe it to be right because Tony you are well off, it does not concern you on how someone on min wage or above lives, so why should you care, thats how it goes

I have been there, you may have in the past but I have never forgotton what it was like to balance just £36 a week which I had to pay £6 for a bus pass, he only god send was that I lived at home

the basic tory philosphy never works because peopelwill always be left behind because some peopel have to clean your offices, make your sandwiches, sell you your food and these will never get paid well

Weren't some of these guys murdered by fellow miners*? If so how does that make people feel?

*Serious question because I'm not sure.

If not how does it make you feel to ask that question?

Does that make any sense at all or are you avoiding the question?

If miners committed suicide how does that make you feel to support her still?

If you read back through the thread I actually agreed with the more flexible Ian who will occassionally answer a direct question - which still stands by the way. Did strikers murder any other miners who were just trying to feed their families?

I believe you are referring to the the taxi incident where I think a slab of concrete was thrown on a taxi carrying 'scabs'

so I take that as a yes

well if you look closely my sentence ended with a question mark

so I was asking a question and as such haven't actually said anything

well I answered, I think the economic impace of doing nothing would have been catstrophic

so tony you going to answer my point, new times, unique situation ideas being tried

or would you do nothing ?

Part of Thatch's legacy was to con people into thinking that owning shares in the companies gave them power. It didn't and the likes of Goodwin and Hornby proved such.

thats a fantastic peice of analysis Snowy, the sell off of all our assets i the 80's were a con and could oly be done when the unions were destroyed. Along with my fav of the council house sell off, it gave a false notion that private was better but in fact the only winners were those at the top or foreign companies who broughty some great assets

Thank you for the praise, Ian.

Your extension from my analysis was, in my view, spot on, too.

I do remember posting an article about the foreign ownership issue but I also think your comments hit the nail about the disparity between rich and poor.

It is not enough to make the poor slightly less poor - what the *king hell is wrong with redistribution?

Okay - I expect an avalanche of responses....

I am all for it, Brown has done a fair bit but the rich simply got richer quicker than the poor got more money

the campaign to abolish inheritance tax is the perfect symbol of this

the problem is snowy is that frankly the well off in general do not believe that they owe soceity anything, they get rich on the back of ;birmal people' but simply want to kee all the benfits to themselves or **** off to tax havens whilst still earning from the UK (example Phillip Green)

so would you do nothing ?

just curious but doing everything has coast a few hundred billion , so would doing nothing have been the cheaper option ?

so I take that as a yes

so RBS, HBOS, B&B would have all gone tits up, they owed billions to others who may have gone tits up

thousands o the dole if not hundreds of thousands

all deposits remember guanrteened

I think the cost would have bee a lot somehow

at least you are have nearly said the typical Tory stance of Laissez faire (look where that got us) a stance that no tory poltician dare not say because is it all ' a price worth paying'

thanks tony

Part of Thatch's legacy was to con people into thinking that owning shares in the companies gave them power. It didn't and the likes of Goodwin and Hornby proved such.

thats a fantastic peice of analysis Snowy, the sell off of all our assets i the 80's were a con and could oly be done when the unions were destroyed. Along with my fav of the council house sell off, it gave a false notion that private was better but in fact the only winners were those at the top or foreign companies who broughty some great assets

so Plans ... A to X all failed ...

now let's try plan Y

just wondering , do we start again after Z or do we designate the next attempt Plan A1 , B1 etc

do you know tony ?

unique situation, never seen before no tried and trusted methods to do this

even Phillip Hammond admitted as much and clearly stated that teh Tories have no answer

so would you do nothing ?

pretty much the definition of competence..

As a military man you must have admired her competence in selling all of the UK "summer" uniforms to Saddam then.

also arms to Iraq under her watch ??

of course Trim, missed the zero

but sill shows the massive amount of possible debt to come

where's the can of el Cid Rob ?

Tony do you think the closures could have been handled in a better way or do you think as Bicks says and I totally agree it was a war on what she saw as a threat.

It can be argued that emancipation of workers led not only to valuable assets being sold off abroad but led to where we are now

yes and I am trying to get these figures into my head am I right in thinking that £75bn equates to just 50000 £150k mortgages

total mortgages around 20 million, those figures show just how much debt is a cumalted and that is without buisness debt and personal loans

well we know the amount being printed is 75bn which in relevant terms is quite low

but listening to the shadow cheif sec Phillip Hammond on R5 he admitted from a Tory for the first time that whilst it was going ito the unknown it was measure the tories would have looked at in these 'exceptional circumstances'

of course like Osbourne's comments today n alternative given

bullying has always been the only way of progressing the socialist cause.

NOT this. :shock:

who were the bullies

number of miners found guilty in court after Orgreave - 0

police compensation for illegal jailing - £500k

What came first?

Policing or flying pickets?

You play with fire, you get burned.

so you are all for the repression fo the public then ?

don;t liek free speech and the right to free assembley

guess you had best move to the China there they like authortian types

bullying has always been the only way of progressing the socialist cause.

NOT this. :shock:

who were the bullies

number of miners found guilty in court after Orgreave - 0

police compensation for illegal jailing - £500k

what about the miners that killed that taxi driver?

I don't believe anyone said the miners were all innocents in this

bullying has always been the only way of progressing the socialist cause.

NOT this. :shock:

who were the bullies

number of miners found guilty in court after Orgreave - 0

police compensation for illegal jailing - £500k