The General Election Thread

[Schoolmarm]

I am dreading going to vote.
I hate Brown and Janet Anderson our MP.
We are in a target seat.
I don't like the whole animal aspect of Toryboys. They are having a complete a#sewipe for head of all animal things. Nick Herbert. He loves hunting, he will stop the badger vaccination programme and cull them all. I can't in all conscience vote for them

There is no green party candidate so I will have to vote Lib Dem :shock: as they are against hunting. Yes I know they can't run the country.
Yes I should think of the country first etc etc but why should animals pay AGAIN for something for mankind.


Oh I so don't want to vote.
After voting I am going on a very long walk with the dog to reflect on lots of things.

 

[Ushy M]

I look at a lot of my friends who work in the public sector, how easy a life they have, how much they moan, it's about time they were brought into the real world. More than 40,000 jobs would be cut, the rest would be asked to work like the rest of the country... yep they'd moan about how hard life is, but they've had it far too easy for far too long, nows the time to do it.

I was saying much the same today to the girl who peels my grapes. :shock:

Absolutely NOT my experience of working in the public sector. I work hard, as do the vast majority of my colleagues, because I'd rather do a job that tries to improve the environment and people's lives rather than one that lines someone else's pockets (and yes, I do realise that needs doing as well).

Thanks Gareth - useful bit of potential career advice for me if I lose my job. :wink: As the grape-peeling seems to be sewn up, perhaps I could specialise in fanning people with a wet lettuce. I could start with the casino bankers, after all we can't expect them to go entirely unrewarded for sc*ewing the economy, now can we?
:twisted:
Aaah - I've got it - that's what Cameron means by creating 'Green jobs' isn't it?

 

[skier-hughes]

I look at a lot of my friends who work in the public sector, how easy a life they have, how much they moan, it's about time they were brought into the real world. More than 40,000 jobs would be cut, the rest would be asked to work like the rest of the country... yep they'd moan about how hard life is, but they've had it far too easy for far too long, nows the time to do it.

Rather a sweeping generalisation there!

Not at all, it starts with, I look at a lot of my friends, so is in fact depicting just the peole I know, how they view their attendance at the jobs, and how much they moan about it.......
"can't believe they forgot my vegetarian meal request when I flew back from south america, it was first class as well"......... after a recent trip for training, and they aren't even proper veggies. 1 last plane due back from France was running late by an hour, immigration wanted to go home because it was 5pm Xmas eve, so they wanted to divert the plane from Manchester to Edingburgh so they could leave.......... didn't want a couple of hours overtime that night....... but quite happy to take it when they want, getting paid more than double their std pay in overtime each year, not wanting to be promoted as they'd lose the excessive pay packets and holding the country to ransome as nothing comes or goes without them............ I have loads more stories my friends tell me, all good friends, but terrible work ethics.
Yes I know some who work hard and deserve what they get, but most I know need to get real.

 

[Flyfisher]

I could start with the casino bankers, after all we can't expect them to go entirely unrewarded for sc*ewing the economy, now can we?

I've got no great love of bankers but I do sometimes think they're an easy scapegoat for all our economic woes.

One minute they've caused a recession by over-lending against bad assets, the next minute they're prolonging the recession by not lending enough money to get things going again. If people really want to 'screw' the banks for a change, just don't borrow any money - that would soon put them out of business and have them begging for mercy. Of course, it's not that simple, which is why banks exist in the first place.

It all reminds me of people who moan about 'rich incomers' buying up village houses for more than the local youngsters can afford, forcing them to move elsewhere. While I don't deny the issue, who are selling their houses for such inflated prices in the first place? Yes, the locals. They are part of their own problem - as were all those people borrowing 100%+ mortgages on the expectation of ever-increasing house prices.

People can't have it both ways, much as they'd like to.

 

[Moo]

There's a great danger, surely, in using blanket terms like 'public sector'**
I'm sure we'd all agree about front-line workers like the police, teachers, NHS workers etc., but it would be interesting to know what proportion of public sector jobs they represent. A lot of taxpayers have an uneasy feeling about the rest - for example, a lot of the (often highly paid) jobs advertised in the Guardian's job supplement, the workers needed to monitor the cornucopia of rules and regulations imposed on us, and the manpower squandered implementing systems and procedures that could be (and in the private sector, would have been) simplified.

Does anyone have any figures that might prove or disprove that theory?




** and 'single mothers', and 'middle class', and even 'rich', for that matter

 

[skier-hughes]

...the public sector, how easy a life they have, how much they moan, it's about time they were brought into the real world...

If you see a blue flashing light, that's the public sector.
The people dying in Afghanistan, they're public sector.
The people who keep our borders secure? Public sector.
Those who work with violent inmates - public sector.
The people who stitch up drunks at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, they're public sector.
Those responsible for monitoring workplace safety - public sector
Supporting abused children or disturbed teenagers? - a mainly public sector job
Most of us were brought into this world by a public sector worker, and will be taken to our last resting place by one too.

I'm sure that most of these people feel that they are working in a world just as real as anyone else's. How many of them will be sacked to pay for Cameron's £6 billion tax cut for his multi-millionaire friends?

Standard Labour tactics, take something totally out of context....... maybe you need to learn to read in full and quote properly. Yes I know who works in the public sector and at no point did I say all, most, I said
I look at a lot of my friends who work in which means that I am not even saying all of my friends who work in the public sector are lazy gits, just lots of them. Having several friends who work for Border Control I think you picked the wrong one there, as they don't keep our borders secure, how else have we got hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants on our shores.

Save your wow is us, it doesn't work on me, I've seen a lot of the real world and lived in it, unlike some it appears.

And or how is making a public sector worker redundant going to help the economy, well if someone from border control is made redundant, we save their pay, their massive overtime bills, and even when we pay them an overly large amount of benefit we would save tens of thousands per year per person. Give the job to the private sector, pay for it out of the savings made and bingo, jobs done properly, money saved and everyone but you is happy

 

[Flyfisher]

Give the job to the private sector, pay for it out of the savings made and bingo, jobs done properly, money saved and everyone but you is happy

That's an interesting example. It's ridiculous, when you think about it, that public services can be contracted out to a private company that will provide an equivalent service yet be able to do it at a profit. If the public body was just as efficient at providing the service then, with no need to actually make a profit, it should be way ahead of a private company in the competition stakes. Put simply, no private company could afford the contract.

Some people will now be reaching for their keyboards to complain about lower wages and poorer service when the private sector does the job. Well, my wife used to work for a county council. Then her department was 'contracted out' and for the last 10 years or so she has done the same basic job as a private company employee. The county council has a very good manager who ensures good service is provided as per the contract terms and renegotiates renewals, my wife's salary didn't change a bit and has risen over the years as she has taken on more responsibility, and the company she now works for is consistently profitable, in which we have benefited quite substantialy through employee share option schemes.

Why couldn't the county council have provided such an effective service all by itself?

 

[Nigel Watts]

It's ridiculous, when you think about it, that public services can be contracted out to a private company that will provide an equivalent service yet be able to do it at a profit. If the public body was just as efficient at providing the service then, with no need to actually make a profit, it should be way ahead of a private company in the competition stakes. Put simply, no private company could afford the contract.

This is the falacy which those who support large state monopolies in the provision of health and education so often peddle. It is the logic which would lead one to conclude that the recipe for maximum efficiency in any economy was universal nationalisation and central planning. All very logical in thoery but hopless in practice.

Large state bureacracies, with only a few rare exceptions, are very bad at making decisions, breed inefficiency and stifle innovation. In health and education patients and parents, who have the greastest interest in the quality of the inteaction with the provider, have very little influence on decisions as the flow of money to the provider is determined not by them as customers but by the central administration.

Free enterprise is a far more efficient system, even after allowing for the costs of excess capacity (hard to have competition if supply does not exceed demand) and the taking of profit. The incentives generated by the possibility of making profit and the pressure of competition to maximise efficiency and innovation ensure that this is so.

 

[DaveBrigg]

Re: DaveBriggs: regardless of ideology, the reality is that it's not sustainable to spend more than we earn. Of course it's 'good' to have more and better public services to make all our lives easier but if we simply can't afford it then it becomes fantasy.

We could afford a bit more of it if Cameron wasn't giving the money instead to his rich chums.

If you believe Cameron is going to make you £1000 per year worse off, why not just borrow the extra £1000 in order to 'protect' your spending habits, like Brown is proposing to do, and hope that things will somehow improve.

Borrowing extra may not be sustainable, but if I sold everything that wasn't nailed down, took the money and wandered through the village handing it out to anyone who lived in a massive house or with a ring on their finger, I would be a complete f***wit.

 

[skier-hughes]

Re: DaveBriggs: regardless of ideology, the reality is that it's not sustainable to spend more than we earn. Of course it's 'good' to have more and better public services to make all our lives easier but if we simply can't afford it then it becomes fantasy.

We could afford a bit more of it if Cameron wasn't giving the money instead to his rich chums.

We could afford even more when those rich chums provide a load of new jobs for those idiotic Brown supporters, as they would, cos they ain't as picky as some.

 

[DaveBrigg]

All very logical in thoery but hopless in practice.

An accurate summary of rail privatisation.

are very bad at making decisions

unlike RBS or Northern Rock for example?

In health and education patients and parents, who have the greastest interest in the quality of the inteaction with the provider, have very little influence on decisions as the flow of money to the provider is determined

Not true for education. Our funding is based on pupil numbers. Each pupil brings extra money, each one that leaves takes the cash with them. In the longer term, the school is run by governors, most of whom are... Parents!

 

[DaveBrigg]

We could afford even more when those rich chums provide a load of new jobs for those idiotic Brown supporters, as they would, cos they ain't as picky as some.

I'd better move to Belize then

 

[Penners]

Free enterprise is a far more efficient system

If you need empirical proof of this, think back to the downfall of the USSR. Their defeat wasn't military - it was economic. After many decades of socialism (and let's not call it communism, because it wasn't), the state was so bust that could no longer function.

Why? Because the command economy provided no real incentive to improve efficiency, productivity, technology or competitiveness. Without the profit motive, their national business simply festered and crumbled.

 

[LadyArowana]

X

Done!

 

[DaveBrigg]

Standard Labour tactics, take something totally out of context

In response to a standard tactic of taking a handful of people and somehow thinking that they represent what is happening in the rest of the country. If you really were only talking about a handful of friends, what relevance has that to any debate on the future of the country? I get tired of such blinkered ignorance. I've worked in the private sector, arranging mortgages. It was a cushy number, sat in a nice warm office, speaking to polite people on the phone and filling in forms. No pressure, time for coffee breaks, and when I left the office at the end of the day, that was it. No similarity at all to my current job, but I wouldn't use that example to support some specious argument that the private sector was ripe for savage cuts. I've also worked in the private sector selling burgers, working long hours in unpleasant conditions for crap wages while the manager chatted up female employees in his office. I wouldn't use that as an example when discussing the merits of the private sector either.

Cameron has a choice of how to cut the defecit. He could save billions by chasing corporate tax dodgers. He could hold back tax cuts for the rich. Instead, he has chosen to target the poor and those in the public sector. It's easy to target the 'public sector', because it's just a phrase which conjures up faceless beaurocrats sat in offices counting pencils. The reality is a lot different. If he's not going to sack nurses, teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, people who run the passport office, health inspectors, midwives etc, who are these 40,000 people who won't be missed?

Gordon Brown tried cutting faceless public sector workers, and sacked a load of people responsible for some bizarre department responsible for data security. A year later, data started going missing, and the cost of investigating and contacting people affected far outweighed any savings made.

As for privatising the Border and Immigration service...
Group 4 took over Campsfield detention centre to save money - a riot broke out in 1997 due to poor management, and again in 1997 after inmates saw a Group 4 employee strangling someone. The trial of rioters collapsed after Group 4 employees lied in court. Group 4 took over the running of Yarls Wood for profit too. They were told by the fire brigade to fit sprinklers, but didn't, presumably to maximise profits. In 1994 a fire broke out that caused damage estimated at £35 million. Group 4, which is based in an offshore tax-haven, demanded the taxpayer foot the bill. Perhaps you had better look elsewhere for a service that might benefit from privatisation.

 

[DaveBrigg]

relatively ordinary families with homes worth £325k or more for playing by the rules, working and saving.

Where I work, there were 265 houses sold in the last three years. 20 of these went for £325 000 or more; the average was £155 000. It may be 'ordinary' for Tory constituencies, but in this part of the country selecting the richest few for a reward smacks of class war. Where's the reward for the other 245 who played by the rules?

We have a £160bn budget deficit to fill.

So WHY is Cameron making the deficit even bigger by giving money away to those who need it least? Robbing the poor to give to the rich may raise a yawn for you, but it's of greater interest to those who will suffer to fund Cameron's generosity towards his backers.

 

[skier-hughes]

Standard Labour tactics, take something totally out of context

In response to a standard tactic of taking a handful of people and somehow thinking that they represent what is happening in the rest of the country.

I apologise profusely, I thought extrapolation of known facts from a sample was often used, didn't realise that every single cat in the country had tested whiskas and given their thoughts on it, or that 30 millions females had used l'oreal hair dye and agreed that it was so much better. I was under the impression sampling was the way to do it, so I took a sample of my fiends and discussed their work ethic, learn something new every day :roll:

 

[Nigel Watts]

All very logical in thoery but hopless in practice.

An accurate summary of rail privatisation.

are very bad at making decisions

unlike RBS or Northern Rock for example?

In health and education patients and parents, who have the greastest interest in the quality of the inteaction with the provider, have very little influence on decisions as the flow of money to the provider is determined

Not true for education. Our funding is based on pupil numbers. Each pupil brings extra money, each one that leaves takes the cash with them. In the longer term, the school is run by governors, most of whom are... Parents!

Good points! You are making me work!

Rail privatisation is tricky because it is difficult to create sufficient competition. The railways in the UK are still dominated by powerful unions which preserve inefficient practices and maintain artificially high pay rates for many of their members (intercity drivers earn around £70k I am told), and the supliers of rolling stock are so few that they can charge more or less what they like. However since privatisation even this pale imitation of a free market has resulted in more trains, fewer accidents and better services.

Even taking into account RBS, Northern Rock and other spectacular failures over the years the private enterprise system is still more effective.

In state education the question is the degree of real choice that parents have, and the degree of freedom the headmaster and governors have to shape the school in the way they see fit. Nothwithstanding your excellent observations, I would argue that more choice and more freedom is what we need.

 

[Moo]

We could afford a bit more of it if Cameron wasn't giving the money instead to his rich chums ...Cameron has a choice of how to cut the defecit ...
So WHY is Cameron making the deficit even bigger by giving money away to those who need it least? Robbing the poor to give to the rich ...

Have I missed something? I thought we wouldn't know the result of the election until tomorrow morning.

 

[Moo]

If he's not going to sack nurses, teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, people who run the passport office, health inspectors, midwives etc, who are these 40,000 people who won't be missed?

I'd like to know, too, which is why I asked the question in an earlier post.

the average was £155 000. It may be 'ordinary' for Tory constituencies

And it may be 'ordinary' for Lincolnshire, but try getting a house for as little as that in even the seediest parts of SE London!