General Chat

Over the years I have been personally affected by budget and political decisions by all parties but one in particular. It doesn't matter which one.

Since I married (I wasn't old enough to vote when I married) and could vote, I have always voted for the same party as my husband but neither influenced the other. That is until we moved to where we live now and started to vote tactically. I have voted in every local and general election.

Next time? I won't be voting. Close the bar in the Houses of Parliament and let them all go home after work and be ready for work the next day. Let them think about what they really believe in rather than what is good for each of them personally or will look good. Let them look at their families and see how things affect them. Go into hospital (try Good (No) Hope) in Birmingham for 24 hours. Live on a pension for a month. Come to work with me for a couple of days. Face reality and then make political decisions.

The Budget? Probably good for someone. Maybe good for others in a year. Bad for some immediately. Any different to usual? No.

Joy, I am not callous .
Where have I said we should not look after the truly sick and dying.
The word I used was WORKSHY.

Their are some valid points on most post's but i despair at politicians who in opposition slate the administration of the day on every point but then have no answers them selves and also refuse to say if they got in power they would not reverse the said proposal, if thats the best they can do i don't understand why the media even give the the time of day.

And as for GREED i have said before on this forum that i left school at 15 with no qualification

but even i new the banking crisis would happen sooner or later but these so called university educated politicians say that they never saw the banking crisis coming

It was obvious to me in the early 2000's that government should not allow financial institutions to sell people the idea that they could take the equity out of the homes to spend today because people failed to realise that they were effectively selling their home and then buying it back at a higher price later so it always was going to end in tears


Roy

I don' t think there's a person on earth who would begrudge the GENUINE a penny Joy...certainly not me.

But I have to be honest here........I am appalled by the amount of arrogant *well i won't do that job why should i* types round here that seem to live a life out of reach for us when my poor OH has to work in a cr***y factory.up at 4 am ...twelve hour shifts day AND night.

Labour traditionally leave the country bankrupt...Tories traditionally turn it about........I DO NOT like the current Government one bit......too diluted and tame to make the decisions needed..but we've got what we've got.....which is imho a damn sight better than the shower we booted out.

I will never forgive Gordon Brown for raping my fathers pension...or indeed our precious gold reserves just to buy votes.

But hey. that's just my opinion x

Thanks for backing me Roy, We , the backbone of the country, are a dying breed. You will soon see by the replies that we will soon get.

I am a pensioner that has worked all my working life from shovelling S**t if it was required, and never earned any more than the average wage but was brought up to work hard and be proud of what I did.

Roy - I read your opening post and thought "Good, a great budget" - since reading that I have watched the news and seen the reality - you must be living on a different planet from me

Petrol going up yet again and road tax - the knock on effect of that alone will cause increased prices everywhere

what about the truely sick and dying Harswell

those who worked before becoming ill
some where in the higher tax brackets
payed their way its not their fault they are ill

not every one is work shy
they to are affected by the budget to

Shouts hear hear and bangs on table :-D

well said Harswell

Roy

GREED!! GREED!! GREED!!
That is all I see in these columns. If you had the chance to earn the money that high earners get, would you turn it down(would you turn down a lottery win if you had won it) NO!!
Nobody has to have children and expect other people to pay for them but they do.
How many people on benefits could go to work and will not because they get more on benefits . Which leaves the non workshy to pay for them.
How many people go onto further education to better themselves instead of blaming everybody else when they cannot get a job.
There are still people like me who still believes that if you want anything you have to earn it. But many more who believe that everything should be given to them free and then some more.

Labour favours the workshy, Tories everybody but the people like me.
Other parties have never proved what they can do but will pander to the greed to get the votes.

What hope have we non workshy got?

It lit a fire under Ed Milliband

Unfettered greed, is about right..
You only have to look at the outing of our politicians with all their greed and dishonesty, and they are still being a load of greedy ba*****s, all of them whatever party.

George

Following on from Teresa, if I may, It has always been the govt' of the day's 'mandate' to blame everything on the preceding govt ( even the Conservatives under Major blamed Maggie having got rid of her lol) I do wish they would all stop doing that... what I want to hear is the politician who doesn't do that...who says "This is where we are NOW and what is past is past" and then gets on with it!

But Eldrick you are right ( well at least I agree with you so that might make us both wrong ;-) ) that it has been down to unfettered greed at all levels.

That concept of 'greed is good' grew into a monster very firmly under Mrs T's watch! Many people benefitted greatly but forgot that it might not always stay that way....property prices boomed and then bust very fast ( I know because I was lucky enough to benefit 'just in time' in 1990). The same has happened again and the banks let it...

I don't have any answers, my political head has shut down rather ;-) but I do know I don't trust 'smarm and charm' to have my best interests at heart ;-)

I think Eldrick has summed it up beautifully. Back in 2005, at my nephews wedding, it hit me like a sledgehammer - his wife had just bought a new car (small but new). They were both in the hospitality industry and he earned a pittance, she a bit more but not fantastic money. They had managed to get thousands in loans, very easily, and I thought then that we are living with a time-bomb if credit is this easy to come by! And yes, they were both hopeless with money and he is still in deep doodoo (but divorced).

i blame the labour government for the mess the countries in now
but feel the conservative government lets down the poor to

as for the NSH more cover ups than Watergate
to many white collar workers not enough nurses or doctors

and why do MPs that are paid stupid amounts of money
need cut price drinks in the bar of parliment
two homes plenty of boarding houses in London

We;ll it weas labour who let it happen, it was on their watch and they took the blame. But the root cause of the recession has been lost and forgotten. Toxic debt caused by greed. All round greed, from the man in the street to the wealthiest tycoon. Banks, shareholders, everyone. Greed, pure and simple. And when the toxic debt could no longer be serviced, the whole pack of cards came a tumbling down.

Now we expect a government to wave a wand and fix it, but we still ask for more money, pay rises, higher this and more of that. Its a great opposition sound bite to shout more jobs, less tax. They can say what they want and so they will in an attempt to get back in power. But they haven't got any answers - no one has. There is no magic fix for this and everyone has to tough it out until the corner is turned. Or we turn into a communist state - which is not something I would enjoy very much :-)

And why were the waiting lists that long in the first place Roy? I was living in Essex when at last 18 years of tory rule came to an end. By that time THREE orthopaedic hospitals had been closed and the orthopaedic facilities had been 'centralised' into Broomfields Hospital in Chelmsford, then wards had been closed, beds had been closed.

Let's not mention the state of hygeine in the hospitals. \it was the Tories who started the trend of cutting employed hospital cleaners and using contract and agency cleaners to do half the job. Yes I know Labour did it too, or allowed the hospitals to continue to do it, but I remember cleaning staff outside Addenbrokes in Cambridge for YEARS protesting against it...and now look! MRSA, C.Dif, rife!

So, when does this government stop blaming labour for everything that is wrong and start looking back further to their own previous policies?

As I said I am not trying to advertise for Labour, heaven forbid!, but successive governments have slowly brought this country to it's knees between them. Labour had 18 years of tory mess to inherit, the coalition had 8 years of labour mess to inherit, and the next government will inherit a right royal mess from this one, and so it goes on.

aside from wars , I think its important to put the economic situation here in a wider context...it was a recession that hit worldwide not just the UK,,, I am not saying that Labour was 'good' or the Conservatives 'bad' ...I have no doubt though that had the Con-dems been in power when the recession hit they would be seen in much the same light as Labour...ie the ones who let it happen....

Back later, got to go out but will catch up soon

Roy

RamblingRose, The gap between the rich and the poor got bigger under the last labour government and that is probably the main point as that cannot be fair

I have nothing against any one who makes money through their own hard work and good luck to them but we do have plenty of wealth people who are greedy and don't share with the work force by way of fair wage for a fair days work.

I worked for a man he was the 8th richest man in Cheshire and he used the recession to cut every ones pay and then boasted to the press about his increased profits an extra 2 million 12 months later

now that does need to be looked at and i wonder how many more companies did that?

18 consecutive years of conservative government i note Eldrick answered that

Roy

because they lost the confidence of the people. Same reason as why Labour were voted out last time - thats the system!

Nothing, not even religion, raises passions like politics! I love a good old political row, lol.

Personally speaking, IMHO Blair should be in prison for war crimes. How he got away with lying to the country and to the government to justify his crusade into Iraq is beyond my comprehension. Then we would have had a real tory government in power who would have been able to do something about this mess before labour managed to screw everything up.

Discuss :-D :-D :-D :-D