Postpone some of the cuts?

moggylover

StevieJ wrote: »

The irony is it will still be theories even after it has happened, 'it happened because' 'No it didn't'

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: :rotfl::rotfl:

Graham_Devon

Anyone watch the second half of question time last night?

Andy Burnham suggests cuts are bad.....bad bad bad, all cuts. Massive clapping from the audience. Cheers too.

Audience member later on attacks Andy Burnham, stating that if his party hadn't spent what we didnt have, we would be having all these cuts. Massive cheers and clapping from the auidence.

Seems the public hasn't really got a clue. Don't like cuts and will cheer labour on attacking the cuts. But don't like spending too much and will cheer on people who attack labour for spending too much.

Meanwhile, Damien Green was getting absolutely slated, by an apparent "economist" who basically suggested you need to spend more than you have to provide growth. Refused to suggest how. Did feel a bit sorry for Damien Green last night. Had labour MP, a labour supporting economist, and talk of cuts, and was in a labour supporting area. Was like a lamb to the slaughter. No point in him saying anything or asking any question on where the money was supposed to come from, no one was interested, just get it and spend it, and dont cut anything seemed to be the theme.

I do wish the presenter had allowed more to be made on the point of where the money would come from, but seemed to move the convo on then, and back on track twice when that came up. Was a bit annoying really, as it's a question on here no ones willing to answer, so to have it on the screens, and moved along quickly when it came up was a little dissapointing.

Really gave the impression that cuts were bad and there WAS another reasonable way of doing things. We just didnt have the chance to find out what that was. Neither was anyone forthcoming.

Wookster

Hahahaha it is official.

Laura is the village idiot.

Wookster

Graham, I've watched a few QTs recently and it really it could be named bash the tories live'.

That having been said, they don't really make a very forceful case for cuts and they blithely let Labour get away with rubbish without even questioning it.

They are losing the argument on the case for cuts, that's for sure.

chucky

StevieJ wrote: »

These shares will not be sold at a loss.

you are correct

there will be a combination of processes occurring.

the number of shares available post-nationalisation is massive compared to pre-nationalisation - share buy backs will probably be the preferred option and thus maintaining the share price in the process.

Graham_Devon

Wookster wrote: »

Graham, I've watched a few QTs recently and it really it could be named bash the tories live'.

That having been said, they don't really make a very forceful case for cuts and they blithely let Labour get away with rubbish without even questioning it.

They are losing the argument on the case for cuts, that's for sure.

The coalition was always going to lose the war on cuts. There is no way to win.

They need help with presentation at the moment. They need to step away from the party political stuff, of which I must say, Damien did quite well last night, though you could see he was getting disheartened.

Theres not much you can do when everyones attacking you, yet the one extremely important question, no ones willing to answer, neither do you have the chance to ask it. At that point, all you can do is sit down and shut up.

With reference to the forests, you could tell his heart wasn't in it, and the coalition need to give that one up. They are just wrong on that and will cause themselves a headache and a loss of supporters, for no real gain, apart from muscle flexing.

However, he got pretty slated for the big society, no one gave him chance to really answer it.

Thing is, he got attacked for not explaining what the big society was. Attacked by the audience, and attacked by the panel, including Burnham.

Later on, it was suggested that the labour council pulling out of the big society WASN'T party policitcal, it's, (in Burnhams words) the fact that they cannot carry out what the big society requires with the money.

You can't have it both ways, yet this appeared to fly over the heads of the audience. Either labour DO know what the big society is, and can therefore pull out because they cannot undertake it with the money OR, they don't know what the big society is and are just pulling out cus they can for party political reasons.

Can't attack for not telling us what it is, and then defend for not having enough money to carry it out. Though it seems the audience would applaud both.

Thankfully, another panelist did pick up on this. She didnt get applauded for it either.

chucky

Wookster wrote: »

I've watched a few QTs recently and it really it could be named bash the tories live'.

do you think the opinion polls that the tories are being bashed up in are also set up, as well as the QT audiences to bash the Tories.

it is what it is, it's reality and what there is - they will end up being as bad as Gordon Brown's lot.

POPPYOSCAR

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The coalition was always going to lose the war on cuts. There is no way to win.

They need help with presentation at the moment. They need to step away from the party political stuff, of which I must say, Damien did quite well last night, though you could see he was getting disheartened.

Theres not much you can do when everyones attacking you, yet the one extremely important question, no ones willing to answer, neither do you have the chance to ask it. At that point, all you can do is sit down and shut up.

With reference to the forests, you could tell his heart wasn't in it, and the coalition need to give that one up. They are just wrong on that and will cause themselves a headache and a loss of supporters, for no real gain, apart from muscle flexing.

However, he got pretty slated for the big society, no one gave him chance to really answer it.

Thing is, he got attacked for not explaining what the big society was. Attacked by the audience, and attacked by the panel, including Burnham.

Later on, it was suggested that the labour council pulling out of the big society WASN'T party policitcal, it's, (in Burnhams words) the fact that they cannot carry out what the big society requires with the money.

You can't have it both ways, yet this appeared to fly over the heads of the audience. Either labour DO know what the big society is, and can therefore pull out because they cannot undertake it with the money OR, they don't know what the big society is and are just pulling out cus they can for party political reasons.

Can't attack for not telling us what it is, and then defend for not having enough money to carry it out. Though it seems the audience would applaud both.

Thankfully, another panelist did pick up on this. She didnt get applauded for it either.

I really agree with you on this one.

Labour sold the 'family silver' now they intend to sell our national heritage. They are all as bad as each other as far as I am concerned.

System

My 2 cats are called Poppy and Oscar, are you them?

julieq

The coalition are actually right on forests. Despite the emotional guff about ancient woodlands, most of the FC land is an industrial softwood factory, and the remainder gets more protection under the proposals than it has now. 82% of forests are not subject to the proposals anyway. And the FC buys and sells land already - under the proposal commercial woodland can only be leased to ensure it doesn't get trashed.

The best way of making the point is to ask whether it would be a good idea to take 18% of all farmland into the ownership of DEFRA. If not, then there's no real logic to having 18% of Forests under the stewardship of the FC. The rationale is that it's better for Governments to govern than to attempt to run businesses, which is a basic Tory tenet and perfectly reasonable. It isn't a sin to have an ideology, though I think anyone with a PR head on might have figured out that this particular proposal might have been better deferred.

However there has been an extremely effective campaign against the proposals based on complete misrepresentation. I felt sorry for Damien Green in his exhortations to people to actually read the document rather than facebook campaigns or newspaper articles, but it's naive to think anyone will. I rather agree with Graham here, the public wants it all ways now and isn't prepared to put the effort into understanding even marginally complex issues (such as the fairly basic fact that if the state spends something, it has to be paid for out of their own wages at some point).

That "economist" woman was unspeakably vile though. I can't really take Andy Burnham seriously, he has such lovely sad doe like eyes you just want to hug him better. Damien Green came out of the show quite reasonably I thought. The Daily Mail witch did what it says on the can.