Hockey_saint

Perhaps Labour are rubbish at hiding the figures compared to the conservatives. I mean, come on, all the job losses in the 80's, are you seriously telling me there were more employed in 97 than there were in 79? I don't think anyone wants to "tax the crap out of small business", It's small businesses that built this country....not massive financial giants and tax-dodging multi-nationals who appear to be good mates with this chancellor however. I agree on removing the funding for Trident however as I have a friend who works for the Ministry of defence and he tells me...quite a bit...that it's not even an independent system...we need permission from the US for everything we do with it. Really Whitey Grandad, have you seen this..Brilliant: http://conservativedisabilitygroup.org.uk/ I've tried to eerr away from the using the word scumbag before but I'm afraid that if you agree with the measures they have taken, then that is exactly what you are. The economy is in a state, it's still failing but you've had 7 years to try and fix it and we're still in trouble so who should we still blame then?

They'll be even poorer when everything has been privatised. I mean no insults, but if you think it's ok to take money (significant amounts too) from people already judged by the government's inspectors, unable to work with the reasoning that "it'll make them look for work harder" then I'm afraid you are a very cold individual indeed. I see even the conservatives have said "hang on a minute, this is kinda wrong". http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/17/tory-rebels-osborne-disability-benefit-cuts-just-not-acceptable But I suppose someone I know put it better, with thinking like a few above...well, you'll get yours in the end. Also, you can take your BS figures about Labour's managing of the economy: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/#.dpuf

It's thinking like that that allows them to smash communities in the name of deficit savings. I'm also of the opinion that you clearly are not one of the following groups: council workers, doctors, firemen, policemen, under 25, disabled or poor because I don't think you'd say that if you were. Also, really? You actually endorse beating up on those that cant fight back with the excuse "oh, the other party are worse" how do you seriously justify that?

Only through jerry-mandering the electoral boundaries, removing funding for opposition parties and many other under-hand, doctrine-related activities. It's actually a sad sign that the conservatives are even drawing current opinion polls. It's all going to go t!ts up, it always does with them. I also like how their followers shout "those with memories don't vote labour!" meanwhile, those with even better ones should know better than to vote conservative.

The lifetime ISA for the under 40's sounds interesting and the sugar tax is certainly good. I'd like to know where all these ever-more deeper cuts are going to come from though. Also, remember, he is the man demanding all the cuts from other departments, that, for example are stripping money from the weakest in society to fund them so no. I don't think anyone has really much to cheer about. And, if you're happy to have a tax cut from the already judged to be too sick to work by the government then...well, perhaps you should think about that. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/budget-cut-personal-independence-payments-7568427#ICID=sharebar_twitter

Communism perhaps. But not the idea of socialism. Paraphrasing what you said above though; Queen Victoria didn't want her daughter to marry into Russia because it was a "chaotic and bloody violent place full of despots" Do you really think the introduction of such a revolutionary ideal was best put in the hands of a society such as that? No...Of course it wasn't. I think, if you look at Russia today, it's clear to see that the state of those eastern european countries had much more to do with the type of country occupying it than a bastardised philosophy used by a group of megalomaniacs for their own ends. But it is very easy to blame it all on a philosophy I suppose. (Also, I couldn't imagine Osbourne holding up a copy of main kampf because he's far cleverer than that.....I do see him, Boris Johnson and the PM holding up a dead pig to molest however.)

How very simplistic of you. And frankly BS. These countries were pretty screwed long before communism took a hold. Mainly due to most of their populations being used as subservient to empires like the Austro-Hungarian one (yeah, they were very right wing weren't they?) or the resulting wars caused by just a SLIGHT right wing party known as the Nazis and after that by Stalin's quasi-left rule pillaging at every turn. So nope, at the very least the right and left have conspired at one point to turn those countries into basket cases so I think your answer is frankly far too simplistic. But again, you are just clearly trying to swerve away from the point of this thread you know and everyone else knows that when a man, such as Royston Smith, votes for nothing, is the lowest attendee, but only pops up to vote to take money from already assessed to be sick people, it is frankly shameful and inexcusable.

It's mostly a socialist union so no, I don't think it "out tories the tories". I mean, I failed to understand for a while why the Labour party backed the EU seemingly at the cost of local jobs but one Labour eurosceptic put it succinctly for me: "we looked at what Thatcher offered British workers, the terrible conditions, the historically gigantic job losses, the worsening pay and then we looked at what the EU had to offer which protected the workers of the UK in a multitude of ways which she'd not even contemplate" So no, I wouldn't say the EU was much like the conservative party any how. But you appear to be attempting to steer this thread away from the point, which, as I mention is the usual Tory ploy of making sure we don't see the attempt to drag this country back to the 19th century with it's deserving and undeserving poor. Besides, they've only done this little lot...not much really:

You have an MEP. Bringing this down to the EU eh? I would vote to stay because the results of Britain leaving would be an absolute disaster. I don't agree with mass migration or the odd laws that have been imposed upon us but I will not endanger the united kingdom as a union and our economy as a whole because of these issues. I could give you a list of why we'd be bat**** crazy to leave but like the rest of you Brexit obsessed right-wingers, you'd not listen, you'd whistle about for a while; stick your fingers in your ears and say that everything would be fine if we left the EU. Leaving the EU tore the conservative party apart at the turn of the millenium; one can only hope it does it again...I'll be waiting with the popcorn. but frankly, it has bugger all to do with the issues we've just raised. It's the conservative party who think it acceptable to place the burden of this deficit reduction on the poorest in society whilst giving tax breaks and contracts to the richest not the EU so to be frank, your diversion...and usual right-wing one....of complaining about the EU is a bit tedious.

Ahhh but tax breaks stimulate the economy! Sod the fact it's off the backs of the poorest in society.

I do like how they believe removing £30 a week from a bunch of people already medically assessed as being unable to work will "give them an incentive to work". If you add that to the NHS currently rated as performing the worst it ever has (clearly a plan to run it down to the ground so badly that people will say "it's rubbish, why do we bother" then...wahey! here come their private health insurance mates. Certainly makes sense if you know the Minister for health absolved his duties towards the NHS in the 2012 Health act.) I'll cut Royston some slack as lovely porky Penny Mordaunt and Fred Dinage's daughter also voted for it. Glad to see Alan Whitehead voted against it though.

You know they're caring when the conservative MP who has attended and contributed the least in the house of commons (Our very dear Royston Smith) pops up and makes his only contribution of the year...to vote to take away £30 a week from sick and disabled people. Although it wasn't the biggest cut I see, they're coming up with a lovely new one which will discount most assistance items such as walking sticks to class someone as disabled and in the process saving, in some cases £150 and a billion overall, which, reputedly will be used as a tax break for the middle classes. Please tell me how anyone can still support this fillabusting shower?

Totally this. The right-winger in me get's quite annoyed (come on, I live in Shirley) when I hear newly arrived A8 members say how they feel great about using a free healthcare system...When it's never ever been free, we pay for this throughout our lifetime. Also, on the US subject. I once stayed with a couple who work for US Healthcare company; I was always a bit worried when they suggested that you could probably walk in a busy road...even a non-pedestrian one and just sue if anyone hits you. Scary stuff! I also know their daughter waited 8 hours in an ER department there.

The French model, at the very beginning at least, would cost a heck of a lot more! Also, form filling is pretty standard where ever you go. Ever been treated in a US hospital? I have.

Absolutely this. Jeremy Hunt has argued that localisation of Healthcare is a much better idea. Well, this is all sounding far too familiar to the line taken when the Conservatives were opposing it's creation (they believed councils and charitable organisations were better placed to do the caring (the current incorporation of charities into previously state-run sectors ring any bells?)) There's little on the conservative alternative back then (although it would probably mostly be privately-funded. I mention this article because it winds my junior doctor friends up as well as there is a Bevan quote they're not too fond of ...About stuffing their mouths with gold. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-birth-of-the-nhs-856091.html

I know a fair few junior doctors and we've discussed this quite a bit. What Jeremy basically wants is the French model, which, initially will cost an absolute bomb but will involve more private business picking up the slack for a taxpayer funded system. What I gather from the above article and from these friends is that Jezza absolved his health sec. duties in 2012 and needs to remove these arduous contracts to make them more attractive to companies like Virgin Health but he can't very well sack every junior doctor and re-employ them because they may just bugger off to another countries' healthcare system for more money. I suspect this is also why consultants and senior doctors are backing the hard-working juniors ones....they realise their contracts will probably be next. I mean, the book Jeremy co-wrote makes this a serious conflict of interest but then this government are used to those, what with the housing bill being written largely by private landlords.

Read the first paragraph of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_Social_Care_Act_2012 Particularly the following line: "It removed responsibility for the health of citizens from the Secretary of State for Health, which the post had carried since the inception of the NHS in 1948" This is what this is about, readying the contracts and making them more appealing to private firms...or he'd have to sack all doctors and re-employ them on new contracts. So yeah....cheers right-wingers for voting in a government who basically wanted to kill the NHS off and sell it to private companies all along.

Do something similar on Saints web and you'll basically get the same results. The right wing rule of this message board is shocking.

This exactly. It's fair to say that tax credits have done this but then tax credits would never have been needed if the minimum wage was higher (but then try getting retailers to pay more on the falling profits they have been getting the last few years...it's a chicken and the egg situation and you can't really have one without the other) This here is a good example from John Lewis though: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/25/john-lewis-may-alter-staff-benefits-national-living-wage

I'm not going to spout figures at this time of the night dude but firstly, it's patronising to suggest someone who works a 52 hour week is still on the breadline because they don't have a "Chinese work ethic" it also nicely circumvents the historical tragedy that is that whenever Britain (or the US.....the pacific railroad and the rubber plantations in Malaya for example) needed cheap labour to work virtual slave hours, they brought in Chinese workers. The minimum wage as it currently stands is virtually the same as this proposed "living wage" rate which is just an idea nicked from Labour (however their rate was much higher) so for IDS to celebrate like he did in that article is insulting to a lot of people to say the least. Either way, I think the game of relative poverty has been done to death. I am aware you could live quite comfortably in India, for example on what we call minimum wage. But we're not in India are we? and in that sense why compete? Our cost of living is totally different which is the same for the Chinese.

Can't disagree with you there Sour Mash but I think myself and Hypo agreed earlier that this needs to be a 2 pronged approach of a minimum wage rate that actually people can live on (not whatever this current rate is) and then the removal of working tax credits but since retail, for example, is in such a state and essentially just getting by by paying the minimum wage, I can't see how this single approach can do anything but drive people deeper into poverty....And also not shouting things like "you need a work ethic like the Chinese!!!" would improve people like Jeremy Hunt's standing.

Caring you say? I'm sure most decent people on this board know that working tax credits were not a bride, but rather a indictment of the cost of living in the UK today. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/iain-duncan-smith-claims-tax-6584065

I am disabled and? Does that automatically mean I'm on benefits? I would associate such a comment with the very worst of the right...not from a so-called left winger. Because if that's what you automatically connect the two then I'm sorry but you are clearly one of those plebs that have bought into almost a decade of programs on TV victimising the disabled. Why be so confrontational? I've not called you names I've just disagreed with you.

I've just read your comment on the previous page CB....why be such an ignoramus? I do not claim benefits and I have stated my main concern is the disgusting treatment of the disabled under this government. I am entitled to say if I could sub let a home I would. If you think all lefties are completely to the left 100% or that all right wingers are right wing all the time then you are very much mistaken.

On current deficit figures, I'd call them deluded but probably 20%?....The figure is only low because I think anything higher would mean an absolute slaughter of labour and that did not happen...I.e. I think there are a great many "up the ladder jack and sod the rest" people out there who are quite silent about it). Verbal is kinda right (I really liked John Smith). But it's nonsense like the article below that really gets my goat (comparing us to Chinese workers? most of them who are paid far far below minimum wage....from the richest member of the cabinet...come on...not much caring society there!). http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/05/hunt-tax-credit-cuts-make-britons-work-like-chinese-or-americans