General Election 2017

[markavfc40]

22 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Because she knows the tories will come back with a bigger majority than she has now so she'll have more wiggle room to get Brexit terms through parliment. Politics in the UK and Ireland have converged a bit over the last few years, you don't really have any other choice than just not to vote. At least this election will be the end of Comrade Corbyn and UKIP. 

But the continuation of the Tories. How lovely.

So after 7 years of a Tory Government hiding behind reducing the deficit for making the ideological cuts they have made to benefits, the demonization of the poor and the disabled, the wilful destruction of our public services resulting in the huge increases in child poverty and those reliant on food banks, all at the same time as increasing national debt, the stagnation of wages and business taking advantage with the creation of over a million zero hours contract jobs we are now walking straight into another 5 years where they will now use Brexit to hide behind as the reason for continuing austerity. This time using it as a reason to also erode things such as workers’ rights.

I got to be honest I don’t get it. How thick must we be in this country to not see what is coming. I get that we have had what is perceived to be weak opposition but you don’t need a strong opposition to paint a picture of what has happened over the last 7 years. It is staring us all in the face. You also don’t need a strong opposition to allow you to foresee what is coming.

People will wake up when it is too late I guess and it seems to me too many are going along with a well I am alright now Jack attitude. One day though you may have to fall back on the state for help and it won’t be there, you or one of yours may get ill and find that the NHS isn’t fit for purpose, you may get old and frail and find that there is no one to help you with your everyday needs as social care has been decimated. Those of us with children may well watch them struggle to do what past generations have done and be able to buy their own home due to a lack of housing and that those available are overpriced.

Some need to wake up now before it is too late.

[tonyh29]

Just now, StefanAVFC said:

It all makes sense now.

next , you'll be telling me it's not called Rhodesia anymore

[Awol]

13 minutes ago, blandy said:

there's a fine line between "intolerance of intolerance" (good)  and "intolerence of any view that doesn't conform to a particular set of 'right-on' values" (bad)

I suspect that AWOL's post hints at that.

No flies on you.

[blandy]

Thanks.

[blandy]

45 minutes ago, jon_c said:

So is the only party leader that's not a word removed Leanne Wood? Or is it just no-one really knows anything about her. (or cares)

I don't think so. I'd say the only one two who is a word removed is Theresa May and the fantasist liar Paul Nuttalls.

Corbyn's incompetent as a leader, but I don't see any of them apart from May and Nuttals as being "nasty" or "words removed".

The other Tory one (Ruth Davidson), Plaid, Greens, Farron, Sturgeon....they all seem fine to me, given their job is being a party leader

[Wainy316]

Last June the British people voted to strip themselves of free healthcare across Europe.  This June they are going to vote to strip themselves of free healthcare at home

'Bok bok' (or whaevert noise does a turkey makes)

[terrytini]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

 

I got to be honest I don’t get it. How thick must we be in this country to not see what is coming. I get that we have had what is perceived to be weak opposition but you don’t need a strong opposition to paint a picture of what has happened over the last 7 years. It is staring us all in the face. You also don’t need a strong opposition to allow you to foresee what is coming.

 

You are wasted on here mate !

What you do so well is Post (whether in the footy thread or elsewhere) something that is well written and enjoyable to read, that also  - often as not - echoes my own views, but, crucially, almost always manages to find a different or better way of putting something I already think, and in doing so give me something more to think about or give a clarity to stuff I mayn't have been quite able to express.

That's a damn clever, and rare quality. And most welcome. 

In this particular instance its this bit - and I appreciate you were not saying this directly yourself, but its where it led me - - it sort of goes to the heart of a thing I've thought for ages but had trouble framing ; the constant message, from all over the place, that "Labour/Corbyn owe it to the poor, the dispossessed etc to make themselves electable/change leader/drop certain policies"......why ?  The poor and dispossessed are not stupid, they may be ignorant of many facts, like the rest of us, but if they (and the same goes for the Middle Classes and everyone else) really can't see, (or can't be bothered to see, or see and don't want to know, or see but think they'll be alright, or any other variation) whats happening and that there is an alternative surely that is down to them.

The plain sight destruction of all public services is there for all to see (of course the even more catastrophic dismantlement of the more hidden services is harder to spot until you need a service that has gone), if people cant/wont respond to that then, sad though that may be, they have only themselves to blame.

[MakemineVanilla]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

But the continuation of the Tories. How lovely.

So after 7 years of a Tory Government hiding behind reducing the deficit for making the ideological cuts they have made to benefits, the demonization of the poor and the disabled, the wilful destruction of our public services resulting in the huge increases in child poverty and those reliant on food banks, all at the same time as increasing national debt, the stagnation of wages and business taking advantage with the creation of over a million zero hours contract jobs we are now walking straight into another 5 years where they will now use Brexit to hide behind as the reason for continuing austerity. This time using it as a reason to also erode things such as workers’ rights.

I got to be honest I don’t get it. How thick must we be in this country to not see what is coming. I get that we have had what is perceived to be weak opposition but you don’t need a strong opposition to paint a picture of what has happened over the last 7 years. It is staring us all in the face. You also don’t need a strong opposition to allow you to foresee what is coming.

People will wake up when it is too late I guess and it seems to me too many are going along with a well I am alright now Jack attitude. One day though you may have to fall back on the state for help and it won’t be there, you or one of yours may get ill and find that the NHS isn’t fit for purpose, you may get old and frail and find that there is no one to help you with your everyday needs as social care has been decimated. Those of us with children may well watch them struggle to do what past generations have done and be able to buy their own home due to a lack of housing and that those available are overpriced.

Some need to wake up now before it is too late.

All very well but where are the solutions?

Take the NHS for instance.

This government is spending more of the Nation's wealth on the NHS than Labour were in their final years in power: 9.1% of GDP 2007-8 v 9.9% in 2014 (£197bn)

The OECD average is 9%.

The present government are running a 9.2% deficit on what it spends and what it takes in (Germany +1.5%, France -5.9%, Greece -8.6%).

According to many the UK economy is about to either flatline or get smaller.

If the aspirations for the NHS are to be met, it looks like the nation needs a tax hike.

With inflation now creeping up, interest rates likely to rise and incomes still stagnating despite low unemployment, are the electorate likely to vote for a tax increase for themselves?

Middle earning households used to be significant net tax contributors but are now net beneficiaries.

Are the electorate capable of facing the ugly truth that if they want better services, they need to pay more tax?

The Tories are happy to let the deficit increase and Labour are offering handouts.

While one party is lying the other has no choice but to lie also.

What's the solution?

[terrytini]

And just for a little interests sake, if anyone fancies just one never reported example, I'll give you a personal one.

No apologies for length, if you don't want to read it , move on !!

I'm only going to mention those aspects I have actively been involved in and taken either detailed remedial action or prosecuted or taken other effective action.

At 55 I'm redundant.  I'm a highly experienced Trading Standards Officer. In my career I've been involved in pretty much every aspect of peoples lives.....when your alarm goes off its covered by product safety, as is the Cot your kid is sleeping in, and his /her baby soother. (they choke on the poor ones, and some contain nasty chemicals) Your Tog ratings are descriptions which require the product to meet them, your electric blanket is covered by product safety, (sadly investigated deaths here) the manufacturer of these and pretty much every thing else is subject to audit and testing.  The blinds on your window are subject to safety Regulations, in particular because poorly designed ones have killed toddlers with the cords. The windows are subject to Regulation - as is every other piece of Construction Product in your home, all the builders merchants subject to Inspection and sampling.

The builders who built your home ? I've advised many, and prosecuted a lot aswell.  False claims of membership of NICEIC, FMB, GMC, etc etc .......misleading prices, faulty work, dangerous fittings, rogue 'tarmacers', roofers pretending to put insulation in old folks lofts (they cant get up and check see ?).falsely claiming to have serviced washing machines, introducing their own faults and then charging for them.  Nationally recognised builders ?  Yes, I've had misleading showhomes, site plans, all sorts.

The Estate Agent who marketed it ? Yup, I've set up quality controls for those who want to get it right, and prosecuted others for significant misleading claims. Often as a result of those trying to do it right being racked off that the rogues undercut them.  Once had an Agent with a window full of sold properties of which they had sold none - but it looked good so they kept nicking others business.

The mortgage company ? Yes - Consumer Credit in all forms, loans, APR, loan sharks, getting licences revoked.  Some terrible stories of peoples circumstances being used against them.

OK, so you are out of bed, your toothbrush didn't electrocute you, nor your hairdrier catch fire  - guess why ? - (its all happened, not just once), so get some breakfast...........well if I was to detail the work Ive done 'from plough to plate' this would run to pages and pages - suffice to say, whenever I worked anywhere where the Authority had been lax, the stuff I uncovered would put you off eating for life...and not just at the places you would think.  And that local beef you like, that organic bread ?  How do you know ?  That's right.

And is a 400g tin actually 400g ? Why ?  Short weight and measure is a problem as old as trade.

Do you even want to talk about your car ? In my first three years in a Car Team I prosecuted 20 traders (of which most got custodial sentences ) - buy from auction, tart it up, clock it, sell as if private, "Its the Wifes Car " - no tax, no Consumer Rights, lots of profit, unroadworthy ? Who cares ?.....undercut the proper guys.

Servicing ? We used to put cars in where we knew what did and didn't need doing  -I could be here all day on that one, and again, we aren't just talking back street garages. Towbars, shocks, brakes, part worn tyres ? 

Counterfeiting anyone ?  Bulk delivery of fuels ?  Feeding stuffs for animals ? Package travel ? Toy safety ? Manhole covers ? All electrical products ?

 

So its getting on now Ill cut a lot out..........

Anything else you buy - misleading prices ? Safety  ? Quantity ?

In the nineties I investigated all aspects of the building trade in the County I worked in - I could've done with three people to help..how many do it there now ? None.

I worked in a Team of 6 looking at the Motor Trade.........how many now ? None

I worked in a Team of 4 looking at all aspects of Food.  How many now now ?  Go on, have a guess ? Thats right, None.

It use to cost every household the price of an Apple a week.  Its all gone, and it wont be back.

 

Edited April 20, 2017 by terrytini

[terrytini]

8 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

All very well but where are the solutions?

Take the NHS for instance.

This government is spending more of the Nation's wealth on the NHS than Labour were in their final years in power: 9.1% of GDP 2007-8 v 9.9% in 2014 (£197bn)

The OECD average is 9%.

The present government are running a 9.2% deficit on what it spends and what it takes in (Germany +1.5%, France -5.9%, Greece -8.6%).

According to many the UK economy is about to either flatline or get smaller.

If the aspirations for the NHS are to be met, it looks like the nation needs a tax hike.

With inflation now creeping up, interest rates likely to rise and incomes still stagnating despite low unemployment, are the electorate likely to vote for a tax increase for themselves?

Middle earning households used to be significant net tax contributors but are now net beneficiaries.

Are the electorate capable of facing the ugly truth that if they want better services, they need to pay more tax?

The Tories are happy to let the deficit increase and Labour are offering handouts.

While one party is lying the other has no choice but to lie also.

What's the solution?

Tax

[terrytini]

We are a staggeringly wealthy country.  But by and large people would rather go to the Villa, the Pub, and have Sky, than make sure they will be looked after with dignity when they are old, or have roads that aren't like Beirut, or have museums, art galleries, or Public Transport, etc etc etc.

[terrytini]

Obviously there are many other aspects - but take a tiny bit of your NHS example - we pay through the nose because so much of it now gets re-routed through private Companies, Agencies etc.  What a suprise !!  Few other countries have quite the snout/trough problem we got from Thatcher and all that followed.

(A lot have state troughs instead ,mind, but they aren't as efficient at nicking the money as the private guys !!)

I cant do a detailed analysis here but it can be done, if Public Service and State Interest hadn't become dirty words, if we weren't engaged in a race to the bottom as regards taxation, if people like the Taxpayers Alliance were challenged rather than lapped up, but most of all if individuals looked past the end of their own nose.

[terrytini]

Mind you there's a lot of nonsense with the NHS too.

I am on a lot of medication so I have a lot of prescriptions, so I have an Annual Card , £120 per year...........for what I get thats a steal, its barmy - there should be some form of means tested sliding scale, I should pay more, and there are others should be still more.  And why on earth am I offered Antihistamenes on Prescription when I can buy them cheaper than the NHS gets charged ?

And, and and, but those things would only dent the issue, its not just the NHS, its whether people want to have, and pay for, a superbly infrastructured country, or buy an extra Starbucks.

[tonyh29]

21 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Tax

and how many people who aren't even self employed took to Twitter when they recently tried to bring one particular tax into a fairer scenario  .. resulting in the tax being scrapped , until the next election at least when that will have been removed from the manifesto  .

 

People can bleat about the NHS  , but whatever the rhetoric , they don't seem to actually want to pay for it

[sharkyvilla]

1 hour ago, Wainy316 said:

Last June the British people voted to strip themselves of free healthcare across Europe.  This June they are going to vote to strip themselves of free healthcare at home

'Bok bok' (or whaevert noise does a turkey makes)

Call me naive, but where has it been said that they're stripping us of free healthcare?  I'd have thought that would be a guaranteed election loser.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

30 minutes ago, terrytini said:

It use to cost every household the price of an Apple a week.  Its all gone, and it wont be back.

Brilliant post.  It's farcical to be fair and I knew absolutely nothing about it.

So they remove safeguards so the population as a whole(From babies to old people)  is put at risk by various practices.  So,  these practises I presume become more and more prevalent and thus,  reverse some of the great moves forward we once made whilst ensuring we all have less money and have to keep on replacing everything at an increasing rate ?

It's always seems to effect the poor more though,  second hand cars,  holidays, food, finding / buying a house, getting things fixed & cheap baby stuff.  These are things the people in the commons (The irony of calling it the Commons,  it's as common as the Queen) probably know little about and care even less.  When politicians say we are working for hard working families,  are they ? 

[terrytini]

5 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

and how many people who aren't even self employed took to Twitter when they recently tried to bring one particular tax into a fairer scenario  .. resulting in the tax being scrapped , until the next election at least when that will have been removed from the manifesto  .

 

People can bleat about the NHS  , but whatever the rhetoric , they don't seem to actually want to pay for it

I'm not disputing how at least some feel about it, but that doesn't stop it being the right answer,

And odd, isn't it, that 'furious reactions' from anti war protesters, people affected by welfare cuts etc, people demonstrating against bankers, never means policies get abandoned ?

The singular damning failure of the 'left' of British politics (admittedly given a hard task by their lack of influence in the media) has been to make the case out, every day, in detail, for the last forty years.

[Demitri_C]

Was debating not voting but the thought of a coalition involving sturgeon for me is the worst possible scenario therefore I think I'm voting conservative although I really do like may.

 

[terrytini]

10 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

and how many people who aren't even self employed took to Twitter when they recently tried to bring one particular tax into a fairer scenario  .. resulting in the tax being scrapped , until the next election at least when that will have been removed from the manifesto  .

 

People can bleat about the NHS  , but whatever the rhetoric , they don't seem to actually want to pay for it

I know a trader who railed against any taxation.

He buys a certain foodstuff from abroad, breaks the bulk and remarkets it in smaller packages.

In the course of my job I had cause to visit him as it had become the case under EU Law that Local Authorities should Risk Assess their food businesses, retailers, importers, wholesalers and visit them accordingly,( long since disregarded with Austerity then the idea of withdrawing from the EU......)  In his case once every 3 years.

He resented the idea of me being able to inspect him.

 I advised him on implementing the Packaged Goods Regulations. (An EU idea from the Seventies)...  He hadn't heard of them, they had been around for years. They enabled him to pack to an average weight system (ensuring weight control by statistical sampling )rather than a minimum weight system, which in turn meant he could lower his target weight.

He reckoned it would save him £20000 per year.

I asked if that was worth an apple a week, he said he'd think on it.

True.

(And he's a Villa Season Ticket holder !! so he may be on here!! )

[terrytini]

14 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Was debating not voting but the thought of a coalition involving sturgeon for me is the worst possible scenario therefore I think I'm voting conservative although I really do like may.

 

Why ? Which of the policies of the SNP do you find would create the 'worst possible scenario ?' if they were in a coalition government ?

Because I have to admit, that compared to Mays "I need a bigger majority" I find most of these compelling, especially if tempered by coalition. 

(From their last manifesto, so cant guarantee all of them)

• Increase the NHS revenue budget
•  expand the Golden Jubilee hospital in Clydebank and establish five new elective treatment centres in Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee, Livingston and Edinburgh
• Implement a new £100m cancer plan to improve prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of cancer
• Create an additional 1,000 training places for nurses and midwives
• Invest £150m in mental health services, with a ten year plan to transform mental health in Scotland
• Protect free prescriptions and free personal and nursing care
• Almost double the amount of free nursery education for all three and four year olds, as well as the most vulnerable two year olds, from 16 hours a week to 30 hours a week by 2021
• Ensure that every child in early education in the most deprived communities will have access to an additional teacher or childcare graduate by 2018
• Deliver £750m in additional investment through the extended Scottish Attainment Fund
• Introduce national standardised assessments in primaries 1, 4, 7 and in S3 to provide better information on how children are progressing
• Oversee a "revolution in transparency" about school performance
• Protect free university education
• Expanding the Small Business Bonus to exempt 100,000 premises from business rates
• Investing in infrastructure to ensure all of Scotland has broadband, building 50,000 affordable new homes and continually improving transport links
• Double the number of living wage accredited employers to 1,000 by autumn of 2017
• Deliver 30,000 new Modern Apprenticeships a year by 2020
• Freeze the basic rate of income tax for the duration of the next parliament and increase the tax free allowance to £12,750 by 2021/22
• Not proceed with the UK government's plan to raise the the higher rate of tax threshold to £50,000
• Abolishing the "Bedroom Tax" as soon as its has the powers to do so
• Not means testing or cutting disability benefits and raising the allowance paid to carers to the same level as Jobseekers' Allowance
• Introducing changes to how Universal Credit is paid to ensure that vulnerable people are better supported
• Implementing the new powers contained in the Scotland Act 2016 and making the case for "even greater powers" over tax, welfare and the economy to be devolved to Holyrood
• Ensuring the UK government delivers in full on the commitments it made for a more powerful parliament and protection of the Barnett formula
• Campaigning for Scotland and the UK to remain in the EU
• Defending the rights and freedoms of trade unions
• Opposing UK government plans to repeal the Human Rights Act
• Arguing for the abolition of the House of Lords
• Opposing plans for a replacement to the current Trident nuclear weapon system
• Deliver superfast broadband to every property in Scotland
• Invest £25m in rural housing
• Introduce a new Climate Change Act, with a new target of cutting emissions by more than 50% by 2020
• Empower island communities through an Islands Bill
• Maintain the Road Equivalent Tariff on all current ferry routes and reduce ferry fares on routes to Orkney and Shetland
• End anonymous ownership of land in Scotland by introducing a mandatory public register
• Ensure there is no fracking in Scotland "unless it can be proven beyond any doubt that there is no risk to health, communities or the environment"

 

Edited April 20, 2017 by terrytini
Added rider re manifesto