Multi-billionaire To Tell Plebs How Much Money They Can Have At 12.30

Discussion in 'Politics 2.0' started by Moose, Oct 27, 2021.

  1. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I find the braying and boasting of Sunak utterly repellent.

    Taking the Johnson cue, blatant untruths about the level of taxation (it’s as high as it has been since WW2) and nothing he has done protects the poorest.

    Next winter looks grim at these energy prices for the poor, old and disabled, but vacuous, self-congratulatory Sunak thinks he has delivered political genius.

    It’s a Party that never changes its spots.
     
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  2. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    The entire performative nonsense of the House of Commons is totally past its sell-by-date and should be done away with. I don't know what work you do but can you imagine behaving like that at your work? Someone makes a point in a meeting and you lean across the table, point and go 'raaaaa-yaaaaah-rrraaaa'. The whole thing needs a total overhaul. Instead of the parties sitting opposite each other, the MPs should sit in the round, not arranged party by party but next to each other according to constituency in alphabetical order. That way a Tory might be next to a Lib Dem, next to a Plaid and so on. The front benchers can still go near the front of the circle but the whole gladiatorial aspect should be eliminated. There should be penalties for braying, idiotic noises. Penalties for shouting over people. Penalties for pointing aggressively or dismissively. Penalties for being Jacob Rees-Mogg. No one behaves like that in a civilised arena of debate. Calling out lying should not be penalised, it should be encouraged. These are supposed to be the people representing us. I look at the House of Commons with embarrassment. I can't think of another country whose Parliamentary business is conducted in such a moronic, rabble-rousing way. Is there one?
     
  3. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Obviously the anecdote is a public sector failing unless you are arguing the public sector have zero accountability about how they deploy their budgets.
     
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  4. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    Not as simple as that, though, is it. Public sector doesn't say: "Yeah, just charge what you like." Public sector doesn't set the prices. In many cases the public sector is presented with tenders from a range of similar cross-sector giants all playing the same game. The systems in place are rigged in favour of the private sector. You don't need to have read Chomsky to know that many functions previously fulfilled at a *reasonable cost* by the public sector have, over the past few decades, been privatised. Once in private hands, the private sector sets the prices and leaving it to market forces means the market collectively decides the prices should be high.

    That's not to say there isn't waste and inefficiency in the public sector. But this is a deep structural issue created over time to funnel public money (ours) into fewer and fewer private pockets with a ready made scapegoat (inefficient, bungling public servants).

    Have a look at who all the companies providing these services are owned and run by and which politicians have links both directly and indirectly to them. I mean, just have a look at Serco as an example and work back from there. This isn't even a party political point. Labour privatised plenty too and we pay the price.

    The public sector is literally us. You and I pay for it. We *should* benefit from it both as employees and 'customers' but instead the public sector has been turned into the boogeyman, the whipping boy, something the private sector and market forces can sort out just by being better. And before we knew it, here we are, with these massive companies literally turning on the hoover to suck up all the money.
     
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  5. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    This isn’t privatisation though. As GOBE mentioned earlier it is public sector wanting to avoid accountability by hiding behind name of Deloitte or whoever so they have someone to blame. Protect the positions. Protect the pension. Private sector does it as well sometimes.

    Bottom line if a public sector organisation (or any organisation for that matter) flushes £4m up the wall then that is on them, whatever you think about private sector behaviour.
     
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  6. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    Fair points. As I said, I wasn't mounting a defence of the public sector or claiming it was perfect, more pointing out that the system is the way it is for a reason. And yes, there are some people in key positions within the public sector who also have an interest in things being the way they are.

    The structural issues are so ingrained, the mesh of relationships between politics and business, public and private, almost too difficult to unpick. My main point was that just pointing the finger at 'the public sector' and claiming there is no accountability is as imprecise an accusation as blaming 'the Government' for everything. It seems to me that Britain is a country that operates on a principle of selective accountability, which is actually more damaging and corrosive than no accountability at all.
     
    Jumbolina likes this.
  7. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    No no. I say you portray yourself as a racist Corbynite. I have been saying for a very long time that you are a closet righty.

    Because despite your claimed leanings, the views you express most strongly and with the most conviction, are very strongly in support of classic right wing positions...

    You complained very vociferously about the UK cutting off access to exploited low paid workers, and laughed at how it would detrimentally affect the economy.

    You have expressed some savoury critical and 'character defining' views on what constitutes the politics of certain ethnic groups.

    You have frequently described Brexit as a failure because it has delivered you no tangible benefits.

    You have rejected all idealogical reasons for Brexit, such as dislike of being part of a wannabe super power with its own mega army, or the way EU election systems seem to encourage tbe involvement of extremist parties in mainstream politics.

    You criticised the Government, I believe describing them as robber barons, for raising taxes to pay for furlough, uplift and COVID.

    You are very critical of a Government which is considered to be, by everyone that does not despise them "because Conservative", more soclialist than tory.

    What else is a person to suppose of you? The only single thing, not including your rather contradictory claims not to be "of the right", that even vaguely seems to suggest you are left wing, is the undeniable fact that you hate the tories. And in reality, it appears that that hatred is the only thing that defines your opinion of where you sit politically.

    Everything else, predominantly the points above, make you out to be the absolute epitomy of a classic Conservative. I don't even think you will disagree with any of the points I make above. You just don't seem to like the label that they suggest.

    I think the same of Moose, and have told him so repeatedly. The opinions do not backup the expressions of ideal. I even started a thread on how the left had flipped to the right, which had some half decent comments on it from a number of people. Except the 'left', who ignored it completely.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2022
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  8. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    Moose, you said last winter was going to be a disaster for the country, queuing for fuel, unaffordable Christmas, etc.

    The clocks go forward next week mate.

    How can we rely on a tupeney hapeney Nostradamus who makes the same prediction every time? And whom, like a broken clock, will eventually get it right because these things always go in cycles. Last time it was under Labour. Even world wide pandemic and Brexit combined has failed to deliver the goods for you so far.

    Its almost as bad as Nath and HB1 in the main forum. Almost.
     
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  9. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Oh dear, when running out of ways to defend his masters, make stuff up.

    Nevertheless, some people haven’t been able to both heat and eat. Shame on you that you don’t care about that.

    Run along and continue to make a fool of yourself on the Brexit thread.
     
    Smudger likes this.
  10. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    Sunak recently implored British businesses to cut ties with Russia.

    Not Infosys, though. Definitely not them. Infosys will continue to operate in Russia.

    In completely unconnected news, Sunak's wife has a £500m stake in Infosys.
     
  11. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    Listening to the Grenfell enquiry currently, it's delving into government departments and why they did absolutely nothing after similar external cladding fires in East London, Scotland, Dubai etc. Answer mainly is that they didn't want to "upset business" and they wanted to reduce regulations in order to "stimulate the economy".

    The government department in charge of building regs was cut by 40% in one parliament and then again by 25% in the next. The remaining civil servants described the department as operating "below bare bones".

    Ministers ordered that they didn't want detailed briefs - just a quick summary. Bullet points, you know. Even the most senior of them laughed at the idea they could ever challenge a minister's decision or bring up their lazy inaction - such as failing to implement the Lacknall House fire coroner's recommendations in the time allowed. Special dishonorable mentions in particular for the beyond parody Execrable Elephantine Eric Pickles and James Purnell (sp?) under Theresa May - useless as housing Ministers. Derelicted their duty.

    Now if we used to be able to afford to have a number of people working in the crucial area of building and construction safety, why can't we now? If the economy used to be stimulated enough when there were regulations to protect our safety, then why do they need to be watered down now to allow a whole range of dodgy operators to throw up Jerry built death traps?

    One example: The fire risk assessor at Grenfell lied on his CV and said he was experienced in doing assessments. He wasn't. Hadn't done it before. He produced hopeless risk assessments with big chunks copied and pasted from assessments for different buildings.

    Everyone (fire brigade, unions, safety organisations etc etc) had urged the govt for years to make an official register to prove assessors are competent and know what they're doing. Government said no. Why? Because the "extra burden wouldn't be welcomed by business".

    I don't know how you protest about this run down of government and the dereliction of duty by those who are supposed to be in charge. I don't know who you vote for in order to fix it.
     
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  12. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    Defund and dismantle the public sector, then blame it for failures. Absolutely standard.

    Got to protect those shareholders otherwise, well, otherwise the wealthy wouldn't continue to add to their wealth, which will all trickle down, we promise.
     
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  13. Politics is just insane these days
    Have you never seen any of the youtube videos of politicians throwing shoes and fighting in parliaments around the world?
     
  14. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    Didn't you know that 'going private' would guarantee real benefits? Unfortunately, not for the public departments involved, but for the suppliers.
     
  15. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    He seems to think that of most people.
     
  16. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    A mate of mine from school got an engineering job at BR after Uni, getting to a reasonable level in the track maintenance division a couple of years before privatisation. Almost as soon as 'Railtrack' appeared, pressure was put on for all employees to agree to join one of various 'approved contractors' (such as Balfour Beatty) who were going to be taking over routine maintenance of the tracks. Such was the pressure for 'investor return' within the main contractors, the practice of sub- and sub-sub contracting grew with tender price (ie low = good) becoming paramount. So concerned was he with the poor quality of training of a lot of the people actually working on the tracks (often sourced from employment agencies by sub-sub-contractors) that he got out of the industry warning all of us who knew him 'there will be a major catastrophe sooner rather than later'. We then had Ladbroke Grove & Hatfield in quick succession.

    Privatisation is not all it's cracked up to be when franchises are won through excessively tight tendering & shareholder return becomes the all-encompassing philosophy.

    It raises an interesting question whether such elements of national infrastructure are actually suitable for private ownership when the need for 'return' can (and does) lead to excessive cost-cutting, impacting upon operational safety.
     
    EnjoytheGame likes this.
  17. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    I'm generally of the opinion that any utility that is essentially mandatory for modern life should be nationalised. Power, water, internet, telephony, transport....basically, any critical infrastructure.

    Between anti-competitive practices, cost-cutting that puts the public at risk, and items of a similar nature it just seems to line pockets of a select few at the expense of the public.
     
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  18. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    Something similar happened at Euston - they were building a shop on the 'wood' 8-11 platforms with a hoarding around it. Lad came down with a long metal pole over his shoulder, dropped it down to go through the hoarding door- straight back on to the 25kv overhead wires. He was on fire and everything. Made it to the hospital, but died overnight.

    At the enquiry, the first question was who had warned him about the wires - answer: subcontractor of a subcontractor of a subcontractor who'd never been near a running line and nobody had thought to warn him about any possible dangers.

    I also left BR just before privatisation as did a lot of very good railwaymen. Many paid off and replaced with bouncing, young graduates who were experts at organising patronising 'customer care' courses, but a bit unsure about which end of the train the locomotive goes on.
     
  19. I long gave up the belief that you can change this by voting for a different government, I’ve tried that for c40 years of voting and watched it fail every time

    Top down change rarely works, it ends up going around in circles on the general

    What I’ve found works best in business is bottom up change where everyone feels fully empowered - people who do the job know the job best

    How you implement that in politics is beyond me
     
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  20. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    The main problem is that politics and politicians are confusing, long-winded and boring and more than that political issues are often deliberately made to feel distant and irrelevant.

    The fact that *everything* is political is not explained well. The jobs we do, our safety and security at work, and how much time off we have; the cost of our accommodation, whether we can take out a mortgage or rent, food, fuel, entertainment; the quality of our food, water and the air we breathe, the way our neighbourhoods looks and who lives there, the sport we watch, the litter in the hedgerow, the potholes in the road and cracks in the pavement, the way we travel, the train delays and traffic jams, the very choices open to us from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed are all the direct result of the way the politics of this country is arranged.

    But we are not, as a society, hugely engaged in that because we feel the same sense of pointlessness, helplessness and end up with the cynical thought of "oh they are all the same" or 'the alternative is just as bad' when actually they are not.

    In 2010, there was an online questionnaire – it was quite detailed and it asked all sorts of questions about what you actually believed in and it matched the answers to the policies published by the parties.

    I have not seen it since but it was fascinating to see some rock solid Conservative voters of my acquaintance fill out the questionnaire and find at the end they should be voting for Lib Dem, Labour or Green – based not on airy-fairy ideas but specifically on their own priorities and beliefs. Of course, there's also the concept of the shy voter who says they believe one thing but in the privacy of the ballot box votes another way and that is absolutely their right, but still it was interesting.

    If you ask people whether they want lower food standards they will say no. But when they come to the ballot box many people who do not want food standards to be lowered will vote for the party that will lead us to lower food standards. That is a simplistic and isolated example but we are all, to a degree, tribal and that is part of the problem.

    But you're right about change being implemented from the bottom up. Some of the best 'politicians' in the country are not MPs. Just off the top of my head, Jack Monroe, for one, is informed, passionate and absolutely fearless in revealing and attempting to tackle poverty and particularly food poverty. She is more value to a large section of society in her campaigning on a critical issue than three-quarters of the fitted suit-fillers in the House of Commons.
     
    Moose likes this.
  21. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    Thing is, the way to hell is paved with good intentions and virtue signalling. You can have whatever policies you want, but they are not guarantees that you will get them.

    For instance, Labour are anti-racist. That, I am sure is their stated policy, and I will put money on it that the research you are referring to, from around 2010(?), would have considered the Conservatives to be the least anti-racist party compared to everyone else.

    Yet since 2010, Labour, the actual party, have proven themselves, to be more riddled with general racism and anti-Semitism than any other party, even an intra-party report highlighting anti-Islamic activity. Then there is the Chakorabarti report on racism in the party, which was described by members as a white wash, and they were found to be practising internal institutional racism. The leading lights of Labour’s anti-racism champions have come out on the side of racist identitarian ideologies as the best means to fight racism. You couldn’t make it up, and clueless IS the word.

    So I am not particularly impressed with Bully showing us what we could have won. Labour did a perfectly good job of that themselves.
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2022
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  22. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    Question is, do the lefties on here come away saying "Hooter has a fair point", or do they just dismiss it as inconvenient; because they can't say it isn't true.

    I think we all know what they will do.

    Ignore it.

    Ask yourself why they might do that.
     
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  23. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    This 'sort of' fits in with the thread title:

     
  24. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Ok, a mere multi-millionaire with 10 homes and an estimated personal wealth of £14m to tell plebs how much money they can have at 12.30 today.

    Yes, it’s the budget.

    Is it fark me, there’s an election coming, throw them a bone, time yet?

    Expect to hear a lot about the Party of Low Taxation from the Party that has brought er, eye-watering taxation.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/homesand...reet-pimlico-surrey-southampton-b1033210.html
     
  25. Heidar

    Heidar Squad Player

    Ah, Budget Day coinciding with the beginning of Banking Crisis 2.0

    Bumpy day ahead
     
  26. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Austerity is back then.
    14E2E034-2864-4871-AEB6-31F37D7AEFE0.jpeg
     
  27. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Can anyone explain to me who these inactive over 50s are and how they are going to save the Nation by going back to work?

    Presumably, (as unemployed claims haven’t risen) they are either long term sick or rich enough not to need to claim. If the former, they will work only if they can. If the latter, then they are still contributing to the economy by spending their savings and pensions, rather than just sitting on them.
     
  28. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Can't speak for the UK, but over here a bunch of people took early retirement when Covid hit and left a big hole in the workforce. I assume if they think it's a thing in the UK a similar event happened in Blighty too. Seems likely there would be data to back up those conclusions.
     
  29. Mr Heron

    Mr Heron Academy Graduate

    big issue in the healthcare sector

    https://www.day-accountants.com/new...the-nhs-pension-tax-trap-and-how-to-escape-it

    the budget is a step in the right direction but reform of the whole system is the correct fix
     
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  30. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    Dunno - I think using the "NHS Doctors" is a bit of virtue-washing to hide a targeted tax cut. A better and more sustainable system would be to train more doctors (and pay them better) so there's a constant/bigger stream of 'new blood' to replace the 'old guard' (many of whom have been literally worked into the ground).
     
  31. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    It's not really a tax cut as such as people were avoiding working more than part time, or in some cases, retiring early as they were in the situation where they would be paid very little or actually nothing for the hours they put in. The limits were a blunt instrument which had these unforeseen (by the muppets in charge) circumstances.
    Now these people can get fair remuneration for their expertise and experience, get taxed on this income, pay into their pensions and invest in the economy and we can also benefit from their services. Yes we also need to recruit more doctors but this should be in addition to retaining the experienced ones.
     
  32. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Theres a good commentry here from the BBC which outlines the pros and cons.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-your-money-64975682

    In my opinion from the peice, the resolution foundation has been aprticulary narrow minded in it's analysis and has not considered the knock down effects but then their focus is on the lower earners directly i suppose.

    This quote particularly stuck in my mind
    Expect that idea to be quietly dropped. It's either a good policy or a bad policy. I can't see labour suggesting that doctors are to be exempt from a cetain taxation policy just because they are doctors. That opens up all sorts of cans of worms.
     
  33. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    If people want to focus on tax cuts look at the doubling of the SEIS limits, which is just an avoidance sheme for the super rich.

    In my opinion overall (apart form the pension legislation) it was a pretty ****** budget, with time delayed carrots that won't be paid for yet and shifty little tax increases so that they can offer cuts before the next election, in the vain hope they can hoodwink people into voting them in again.

    3/10 must try harder.
     
  34. It's because doctors are not that well paid for their experience and skill and responsibility, but their pension scheme is particularly generous, partly in compensation, so there is some justification in trying to incentivise them to keep working. Both my brother in law (pediatrics) and singer in the band I play in (cancer surgeon) are at the limit of their lifetime allowance now. Both are well off enough to pack it in in their fifties, both knackered, and if doing extra shifts actuall costs them money, they are not going to.
     
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  35. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    The Houses of Parliament should be renamed.

    The House of Liars, Cheats and Self-serving thieves. And they wonder why public confidence in them is so low.
     

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