Merryn Somerset Webb and Kirstie Allsop on R4

heathcote123

atush wrote: »

Not at all. They hate them

As an american I find this quite funny. The whole Class thing. Silly.;)

Then why this seeming moral requirement for the rich to care about the poor?

It all seems a bit one sided.

ruggedtoast

Cleaver wrote: »

I always find this an odd line of argument. The same thing is always thrown at Cameron. "He's a rich toff and a millionaire, why does he care about the poor?", you hear people say. Now, I disagree with a great deal of Cameron's policies and views but I won't accuse him as not caring about the poor because he's rich. I don't know the man, so who am I to judge? Just because someone is rich or from a privileged background it doesn't mean that they can't show compassion or understanding to those that don't.

I fully understand why people don't like Kirstie Allsop and that's fine. And by all means disagree with her points. But assuming that she can't empathise with different people because she had a certain uprbinging is a bit subjective, and a little bit insulting to be honest.

If Allsopp does have strong feelings about the plight of those less well of than herself, then she has managed to conceal them artfully under a longish career gleefully celebrating more and more of them being priced out of property ownership and forced into private rentals.

I hardly feel as though I am criticising one of our nations great philanthropists.

As far as David Cameron goes, I would be more inclined to believe he cared about the poor if he wasn't shoving so many of them into penury.

the_flying_pig

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Honestly, it really doesn't matter what Kirstie Allsopp thinks about anything. The woman is a member of the privileged elite. She has never had to worry about money in her life, nor is she probably even on speaking terms with anyone who has. She has not even the vaguest clue what it might be like to worry about retirement or not be able to pay a bill, or what leveraged property ownership over 25 years might mean to a person who actually has to work for a living.

She dropped out of A levels in her exclusive private school because she was too thick to do them and couldn't see the point anyway, a fact she has occasionally joked about on TV, without any apparent irony.

Due to her connections, plummy voice and reasonably pleasing visage she landed a selection of media jobs and ended up on TV plugging property, as at some point two synapses in her brain had overcome their genetic torpor and evolved to connect together with the understanding that in a rising housing market, making a house a bit nicer makes it worth more.

That as far as I am concerned is the sum total of her knowledge in economics. She just doesnt have the wit or the brain power to defeat Merryn, either in the arena of political debate, or in my putative mud wrestling contest.

Kirstie’s membership of a “privileged elite” is, whilst relevant to many things, a bit of a second-order issue IMO.


Even if it wasn't, a quick listen to their accents & glance at their wiki pages reveals that both women have extremely privileged backgrounds .


The key differences between the two are in the area intellect and experience.


MSW is Oxbridge educated [in economics] & has held down serious jobs in the City.


KA, on the other hand, is more or less a complete fool. If you gave her a pen/calculator & piece of paper, or a spreadsheet, or whatever, I’d be stunned if she had even the very faintest beginning of an idea of how to calculate the 5-year, or 10-year, or lifetime, or whatever cost of various forms of housing tenure. When she talks about an issue such as this she’s doing so out of pure hunch, instinct, and personal prejudice.


Obviously, the waters are muddied by both having fairly strong professional vested interests for one reason or another.

geneer

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Yep.
Just confirm he's talked bullsh!t for the last two years or is doing so now as he realises his last two years of prediction are unlikely to be fullsilled.

How would you fullsill something Light? :rotfl:

Rookie mistake to make Light. Property ownership doesn't neccesarily impose a philosophical viewpoint on those capable of rational though.

Which is why, despite my HomeOwner status I was adequately qualified to deconstruct the spurious, often ludicrous, arguments of a number of less rational individuals.

FTBFun

brit1234 wrote: »

Oh isn't capital gains on buy to let going from 28-40% in April.:D

Err, no.

I don't know how this would put off a BTL investor anyway - it certainly didn't during the boom when capital gains tax was up to 40%.

Road_Hog

ruggedtoast wrote: »

You do realise that not everyone who works in the public sector works for your council?

Can I have my 25% of council tax that pays for your pension, back please. I see comrade that you do not deny that you work in the public sector? You may give it another name, local government, civil service etc., but it is all the same.

Now, can I have the several hundred pounds a year back, that you take for your pension? I don't expect you to contribute to mine, so why do I have to pay for your gold plated pension?

ruggedtoast

Road_Hog wrote: »

Can I have my 25% of council tax that pays for your pension, back please. I see comrade that you do not deny that you work in the public sector? You may give it another name, local government, civil service etc., but it is all the same.

Now, can I have the several hundred pounds a year back, that you take for your pension? I don't expect you to contribute to mine, so why do I have to pay for your gold plated pension?

Look. I don't work for the council. I am not a net beneficiary of your council tax.

Even if I did work for a council, it is somewhat unlikely that I'd work for yours.

And if I did work for your council, I would cut your water off and mess with your bins.

doire_2

How did Krusty get the gig on LLL anyway? Is she qualified in some way or did she do a few *cough* favours?

Road_Hog

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Look. I don't work for the council.

You do work for the public sector though, don't you?

Please can I have my 25% back.

ruggedtoast

Road_Hog wrote: »

You do work for the public sector though, don't you?

Please can I have my 25% back.

No.







....