Question time

Wookster

I've come to the conclusion that what this country needs is a labour government.

It has become clear to me that
1. the labour 'everyone can have anything now without paying for it' propaganda machine is far more appealing than the coalition message that one must eventually pay for what you consume
2. the frothing masses with their ever growing sense of entitlement don't see a problem in wanting more than they pay for.
3. the only way that message will get across to the fiscally incontinent is if the UK has a full blown sovereign debt crisis.

TruckerT

Wookster wrote: »

I've come to the conclusion that what this country needs is a labour government.

It has become clear to me that
1. the labour 'everyone can have anything now without paying for it' propaganda machine is far more appealing than the coalition message that one must eventually pay for what you consume
2. the frothing masses with their ever growing sense of entitlement don't see a problem in wanting more than they pay for.
3. the only way that message will get across to the fiscally incontinent is if the UK has a full blown sovereign debt crisis.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the Banking Industry has a lot in common with your view of a Labour Government

TruckerT

Rochdale_Pioneers

"Everything now without paying for it". Isn't that what the free market revolution was all about? Don't just want the latest shiny shiny, NEED it. So buy it on cheap credit and worry about the bill later. Can't afford the credit? Don't worry the bank will give it you anyway, its profitable.

dunstonh

Did you hear the stupid comments made by ATL general secretary Mary Bousted?

She just said on question time that the taxpayer pays for private sector pensions through tax relief and was turning it into an anti private sector rant by making out that private sector pensions cost the Government more than the public sector Unfortunately, she got a round of applause. However, she failed to mention that the public sector gets the same tax relief on their pensions.

Quite disappointed that her comments were not picked up on. Just as disappointed that there were enough in the audience to generate applause.

It makes you wonder how many people making pension contributions via their payslip realise that they are getting tax relief. i.e. a 6% contribution is actually 4.8%.

TruckerT

dunstonh wrote: »

Did you hear the stupid comments made by ATL general secretary Mary Bousted?

She just said on question time that the taxpayer pays for private sector pensions through tax relief and was turning it into an anti private sector rant by making out that private sector pensions cost the Government more than the public sector Unfortunately, she got a round of applause. However, she failed to mention that the public sector gets the same tax relief on their pensions.

Quite disappointed that her comments were not picked up on. Just as disappointed that there were enough in the audience to generate applause.

It makes you wonder how many people making pension contributions via their payslip realise that they are getting tax relief. i.e. a 6% contribution is actually 4.8%.

Pension contributions, and their accompanying tax advantage, are the ultimate in what used to be called 'deferred gratification'

Until you retire, pension contributions are simply a deduction from your income, and nobody knows just how much they stand to gain between retirement and death

TruckerT

chewmylegoff

As usual about half way through I had to turn off out of embarrassment when some idiot started going on about how we should be investing in oil refineries in Africa "like china does".

grizzly1911

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

"Everything now without paying for it". Isn't that what the free market revolution was all about? Don't just want the latest shiny shiny, NEED it. So buy it on cheap credit and worry about the bill later. Can't afford the credit? Don't worry the bank will give it you anyway, its profitable.

Sadly this country, as a whole, has gone from living within its means, apart from the odd world war to one where most live on the "never never". It used to frowned up on now you are seen as odd if you don't.

From savers to debt slaves in a couple of generations.

Wookster - it isn't just labour they all as bad and have all contributed to our fall from the world stage.

Governments have presided over the draining of our national "resources" since the 70's.

Now they can't actually tax us much more they now want to tap our personal coffers, raid the pension funds even more and put our young in to debt before they even start.

Never mind according to a ,Government sponsored, poll 73% of us are happy;)

Wookster

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

"Everything now without paying for it". Isn't that what the free market revolution was all about? Don't just want the latest shiny shiny, NEED it. So buy it on cheap credit and worry about the bill later. Can't afford the credit? Don't worry the bank will give it you anyway, its profitable.

No, that's what labour is about... Keep buying property at ever higher prices and we'll all get richer for ever more. That's what labour are about.

Graham_Devon

I thought Ken Clark did pretty well considering. And he did have the American Guy and the women from Dragons Den on his side.

He would never have got the labour bloke or the union women on his side, they are there to oppose literally anything he says, regardless.

I don't know who the labour bloke was, but he was being pretty silly in some of the twisting and questioning to Ken. I thought Ken was gonna get up and punch him at one point!

abaxas

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I don't know who the labour bloke was,

Token 'minority' to keep the BBC inside equal opportunity spec.

Apart from that, no idea.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Wookster wrote: »

No, that's what labour is about... Keep buying property at ever higher prices and we'll all get richer for ever more. That's what labour are about.

The Tories are against it? I don't dispute that Labour inflated a housing bubble. Its just that when I look back on all those speeches and Tory policy statements complaining that Labour were over-regulating the city and the mortgage markets, its difficult not to conclude that the Tories are also about it.

Unless you're saying that when the Tories (in the 80s and once again now) allowed people to buy their council houses at a whopping discount to immediately profit from the deal and push up house prices, they were doing it to decrease prices and impoverish the people being flogged the half price house....?

A lot of the time your criticisms of Labour are either valid or at least an honest opinion. Its just your insistance that its just Labour and the inferrence that the Tories do something completely different. I thought the reason why the developed world has just imploded was because politicians of left and right have all basically followed the same policy platform which as Nigel Lawson now admits "wasn't thought through".

I absolutely agree with the critique that Labour didn't regulate the city tightly enough. Its just the facts that the Tories created the deregulated structure that Labour then failed to amend AND the Tories criticising Brown for regulating too much that points to it not only being a Labour policy.