Oh, enough of this!

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24 years 2 months

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My apologies to other forum members and mods if this has already been aired in past threads, but I'm fizzin this mornin!

I have just sat through an interview on Sky News, with reference to the proposed cuts to the Police force. The figures being talked about are in the region of 28,000 personnel! I don't know about anyone else here, but I've just about had enough of this b****y government, and the one previous to it in its death throes, bombarding us with how parlous a financial state this country is in. And yet with all this rhetoric about 'no money in the pot', 'tightening belts etc, what do we see? Our government is funding an un-winnable war in Afghanistan, costing millions of pounds every day, and more importantly hundreds of young lives, I'm talking arithmetic here, not the rights or wrongs of it. The country's infrastructure, schools, hospitals, roads etc, is degenerating to levels we have not seen here for 50. yrs. Irrespective of all this, while we can't even give our war veterans a decent deal, our 'learned politicians' carry on financing benefits to immigrants who come here purely to get them. I've nothing against them as individuals, and some cases may be very deserving, but we just can't b****y well afford it! This government continues to finance, with our money, aid programmes to countries that at the same, build nuclear weapons and put satellites into space, while their populations starve. We can also be cheered up by the fact that millions that we supposedly don't have, are to be spent on a referendum about the changes to the electoral system. Oh yes, and lets not forget financing the research into how happy, or otherwise, we all are! Er,yeah, Mssrs Cameron and Clegg, have a think about that one. It seems that they can't waste our money quickly enough. Its the economics of the madhouse with a sense of priorities to match.
I have a neighbour across the road in his late 50s. He can barely walk and has advanced prostate cancer. He has recently been turned down for Disabled Living Allowance. He had to wait almost a year to have a wheelchair ramp to his back door, along with grab rails. You guessed it, the council had no money!

Geeez, I had to get this off my chest, sorry if I've bored you folks, but I'm sick and tired of us all being taken for mugs. Whats worse, is that I can't see anyone in the echelons of power with the balls to call an end to it!

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14 years 2 months

Posts: 1,259

I had enough when we found out my wife is facing redundancy from the NHS, my teaching hours are cut due to changes in higher education, sure start centres for my daughter are closing, my cousin was due to enter the RAF to be a pilot...and that's just for starters this week it seems to be getting worse.

Member for

13 years 9 months

Posts: 8,306

I have posted your exact words on this forum mant times, not all at once, but bit by bit when I have thought it relevant.
Yes, I agre it's very frustrating, My mother died of Cancer and dementure. We tried to get DLA for her and to be able to get Carers allowance, but they came up with more reasons to say NO, than you can shake a stick at.
I am sure there are many members here who have a parent or friend, who as special needs, but has a difficult job getting it.
And believe me AGE doe's come into it, yet again, a couple of nights ago, I had to go to my local Hospital, whilst I am not going into it, but I have to drink 3 ltrs of water, pluus, my many cups of tea.
All day long I had been following Drs orders, and drinking, the bummer was I was in retention, and in agony.
One of the female nurses who had attended me, was speaking to another female nurse, and I could overhear the conversation, part of which was "The silly old B***** can't even "P".
I would like to think I have all my marbles (Some may disagree!!). but is there a need for ageism in any way shape or form, I left school on the Friday, started work on the Monday, and never had a day out of work in all my working life until I retired.I have earned my free prescriptions and Pension, which is more than some of the people you have mentioned can say.I now realise why I like Alf Garnet, and Victor Meldrew so much.
So I know your frustration,we are too far laid back in this Country and accept everything any Governments tell us as Gospel

Lincoln .7 ;)

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14 years 5 months

Posts: 4,956

And so having made your points with great strength, what would would you all do? I know it's difficult to exclude politics, but just taking the amounts of money involved, how do we reach a point where we are not continuously borrowing more than we earn, or at least, reducing the deficit to a point at which the interest ceases to accumulate so that we can at least service the debt, comfortably.

Member for

13 years 9 months

Posts: 8,306

And so having made your points with great strength, what would would you all do? I know it's difficult to exclude politics, but just taking the amounts of money involved, how do we reach a point where we are not continuously borrowing more than we earn, or at least, reducing the deficit to a point at which the interest ceases to accumulate so that we can at least service the debt, comfortably.

Who is your "Quote for S.H. ?.

L.7

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14 years 5 months

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All of you, that's why I said "you all".

Member for

13 years 11 months

Posts: 1,335

i was forced off incapacity bennefits ( inbetween two opperations and phisio )

put onto jobseekers allowance and told to find work

spent ages struggling finding work and financialy because i can only do certain work because of dissabillities

keep getting told it pays to work or at least they'll make it pay to work

yet after a full month of work and grabbing as many hours as i could

i am around 300 quid worse off than when i was out of work

i love the work but if the situation continues i am going to be in debters prison so to speak

yet her next door that got herself bratted up has a whale of a time funded by the state a life of drinking , smoking , foreign hollidays , nights out at night clubs

thanks once more government for getting the wrong ones

my friend was also told his council job is in danger ( he dellivers books and hearing books for the dissabled in the community ) yet at the same time he was told this the councill said they were cutting head of departments as well ( guess what !! there were 3 bosses in his department , they did get rid of those positions but with a crafty reshuffle and renaming jobs ....tada !! they now have 7 bosses !!

and i look on it as bog simple home ecconomics if you don't have enough money to look after your own affairs you don't take in a freeloading lodger or give money to those accross the road to spend on a plasma TV

Member for

13 years 11 months

Posts: 1,335

And so having made your points with great strength, what would would you all do? I know it's difficult to exclude politics, but just taking the amounts of money involved, how do we reach a point where we are not continuously borrowing more than we earn, or at least, reducing the deficit to a point at which the interest ceases to accumulate so that we can at least service the debt, comfortably.

the trouble began by getting rid of our national industry and putting it in private hands

it had a short term bennefit by bringing in money from the sale

but the regular money that did come in was paying for many things

we forever got the government mantra ( we can't afford to keep it going )

well if they couldn't how come all these private companies are continualy boasting about millions of proffit for their shareholders accounts !!

i worked for british railways in the early 80's i remember doing a survey on a line they intended to sell ( bear in mind privatisation wasn't till the mid 90's )
they were monitoring the busiest line on the network with plans to sell on

i was surveying passenger counts

the unbelievable excuse for looking to sell was it was unviable

laughably this system is ( even in the worst recession in decades ) being extended !

and look at the investment price for the work

http://www.urbantransport-technology.com/projects/manchester/

it goes back many years blame the crooks in charge that lined their own pockets whilst giving the population the bird !!

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13 years 11 months

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there is the argument the government gets the tax !! and it is partly public sector

but looking at the huge sucess of this venture , look at the bigger picture they missed !!! even to me mereley pressing a counter button

it was patently obvious they were selling the wrong asset !!

Member for

14 years 5 months

Posts: 4,956

Having quoted my post, you seem to have another good old rant about why it's all wrong and who's to blame, but I asked people how they would deal with the problem. So far no one has responded.

It is good and proper to criticise and complain but I think that in doing so we also need to have some idea of how the problem shouild be solved.

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But, Sky High, you know full well what the answer will be from the usual suspects.

An uncontrolled, ill-mannered and virulent diatribe about immigration.

A proposition that those of a different ethnicity should be returned to the land "from whence they came" even if they were born in the UK.

A rant about spongeing and the 'benefit cultcha.'

A rant about the "Government", of whichever political persuasion.

Personal attacks on anyone with a mildly opposing viewpoint to their own.

I'm sure I've missed a few things out.

Regards,

kev35

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13 years 11 months

Posts: 1,335

Having quoted my post, you seem to have another good old rant about why it's all wrong and who's to blame, but I asked people how they would deal with the problem. So far no one has responded.

It is good and proper to criticise and complain but I think that in doing so we also need to have some idea of how the problem shouild be solved.

the bitter truth is there is no real solution we are being put into a situation of vastly diferring wealth

where the poor ( working or not ) are getting ever nearer to the third world

whilst the rich bragg about millions doing nothing in a bank

bankers are still not being held accountable and are still smirking at getting millions bonusses whilst refusing to loan and watch people go under

( how can there be no money but they can still draw huge bonusses ?? )

my ideas would be

1 reduce our dependancy on oil by electric/ hydrogen vehicles or even working closer to home rather than travelling ( sound impossible huh ?? ) just one example whilst working for a local council two of us lived at opposite ends of the bourogh so had to use cars ( two trips per day ) yet if we'd been allowed to job swap ( did ask but refused ) we could have cycled

this could in time allow withdrawl from the middle east and let them get on with killing each other rather than us the more killed means less comming here ( or it would if we grew a pair of balls like australia did !! )

the thing is we are told we are there because of terrorism ( i don't remember ever having any till we went in )

bring property down to a realistic price .... with heavy fines if the buyer does not live there for a minimum of 3-5 yrs

so the young can buy realisticly priced property to get started in life ( and have money left to spend in the ecconomy

a standard terrace where i live has gone up from 25000 in 1997 to 125,000 now yet wages have been fairly static then thick arses wonder why houses don't sell

people can't afford them retards !!

the greed in the uk has forgotten the biggest factor in any deal ( something is only worth what a customer/potential buyer will pay and not on pie in the sky valuations

i have a feeling money is still there but through todays greed everyone is asking too much for everything but at the same time they are exceptionaly shy at paying out

for money to exist it has to circulate it isn't doing its job sat in banks with everyone clenching and not spending

Member for

13 years 9 months

Posts: 8,306

I have, Sky High, stated this before, but to refresh your memory. This is what I would do.
Stop Overseas aid, stop the war in Afghanista, we are fighting an American Vietnam, and will never win, bring our lads home, Even the Attourney General who advised Blair at the time, that this was was illegal he still went ahead, WHY?.
Thin out Whitehall by about 20% or more.
Cut M.Ps in Westminister
Put the rest on the average National wage, and make them pay for their expences, including running their OWN car/s.
Sort out the Bnefit cheats and spongers, and help those genuinly in need of help,
I have a friend who was on DLA and had a Carere to look after him, but because he was able to use a computor, he had all his benefits stopped, being told, if he could operate a comp, he could get an office job!!

And my pet hate, illegals who many of which have been found to not be eligible to be here under any circumstances, have slipped under the radar, and even use several different names and addresses to get loads of money out of a terribly oganised organisation.

Why not sell Westminster to some rich Arab, he may pay enough to clear our National Debt.
I could go on, but whatever is said, it just aint gonna change S** all.

Lincoln. 7 ;)

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13 years 11 months

Posts: 1,335

But, Sky High, you know full well what the answer will be from the usual suspects.

An uncontrolled, ill-mannered and virulent diatribe about immigration.

A proposition that those of a different ethnicity should be returned to the land "from whence they came" even if they were born in the UK.

A rant about spongeing and the 'benefit cultcha.'

A rant about the "Government", of whichever political persuasion.

Personal attacks on anyone with a mildly opposing viewpoint to their own.

I'm sure I've missed a few things out.

Regards,

kev35

not necessarily kev it goes deeper than any one of those reasons alone

i feel the main biggy in the west is our unbelievable greed and shallowness

for instance when i go round to my local indian takeaway grandad is sat in the corner watching sky and chatting to people

you just know if it was a british fish and chip shop the numbties would have grandad in a home , be shut for most of the day , then charge more when they were open to pay for grandads home

wich does make you wonder wich culture has got life right !!

Member for

14 years 5 months

Posts: 4,956

Tornado - I know you slapped my wrist last time I struggled to read one of your posts, so I won't criticise, only say I wish I had time to do so....:)

Linc - yes, you have indeed, although not in this thread. And I agree with much of what you say although some of the items are not going to deal with the problem with any speed. And I presume you have not researched it all enough to know what would be saved and when - I certainly have not.

I would immediately stop all payments to the EU until all the problems we have with it and its offices are resolved. That's £750 million each MONTH staying in the kitty. What do you reckon?;)

Member for

13 years 9 months

Posts: 8,306

Tornado - I know you slapped my wrist last time I struggled to read one of your posts, so I won't criticise, only say I wish I had time to do so....:)

Linc - yes, you have indeed, although not in this thread. And I agree with much of what you say although some of the items are not going to deal with the problem with any speed. And I presume you have not researched it all enough to know what would be saved and when - I certainly have not.

I would immediately stop all payments to the EU until all the problems we have with it and its offices are resolved. That's £750 million each MONTH staying in the kitty. What do you reckon?;)


Peter. I agree with what you say in it's entirety.As regards the £750 Mill I didn't know that.
I must con fess in all honesty, I do not delve into Google, to make sure the item I am replying to is 100% correct. My postings and replies come from MY lifes experience.
Like in a previous posting, I did see a LIVE program on telly,re Afghanistan, where our Aircraft carry 4 smart bombs,each, costing £750,000 per shot, and they go out on several missions a day, what a good saving that alone would be!!
Whilst I do respect Kevs comments on the forum which allways make sense, I honestly believe he lives a very sheltered life, and must have pots of money;)

I.M.H.O. anything that can save money, must be good, It's just up those in charge to get their act together, and sit around the table, with a group of people who I admit, are far better off with words,than I, such as Moggy, G.A. Kev, and Sky High, who I am sure could tell them and put forward a better case for all the Joe Bloggs.

Lincoln .7;)

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14 years 5 months

Posts: 4,956

Kev can defend himself and although I only know him from his posts on this forum I don't think your remark was in particularly good taste. Surely the point is, and in a sense the point he was making, is that we all want different cuts. We all have different priorities and Kev was merely echoing what even you could not deny the thoughts of many of the members on this forum.

I do try to do a bit of research and often come unstuck against people who know more trhan I do bu thsat way wer all learn.

It is interesting that we all seem to accept that cuts are needed. I'll dig out a piece about public sector pensions which you will enjoy............

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Linc - the piece on pensions I mentioned............

Herein lies the great conundrum for David Cameron and his team. The pensions regime in the public sector cannot continue as it is. The case for change is powerful, yet in order to make it, Mr Cameron needs to stoke up the resentment felt by those in the private sector at having to pay for the continuation of “gold-plated” schemes they themselves no longer enjoy. For a Prime Minister whose favoured phrase is “we are all in this together”, this is hardly a palatable option.

There are six million public sector workers and 23 million in the private sector, so there is little doubt where the majority of sympathies will lie. But if the row over pay and conditions becomes tied up in the wider controversy about reform of the public services, then things might not look so straightforward.

The most important first step is to make the case for pension reform in the public sector, where retirement promises were recently described in a report for the Centre for Policy Studies as a “Madoff-style pyramid, now collapsing under the weight of insufficient contributions, rising longevity and an ageing workforce”. The author, Michael Johnson, said that unless the problem is addressed, Britain faces a “societal division” caused by the gulf between private and public-sector pension provisions, and the “disproportionately high pensions paid to high earners” in the Civil Service. Without reform, these divisions will be entrenched between the generations.

More than three-quarters of civil servants are in a final salary scheme, compared with less than a fifth of private-sector employees, with the taxpayer providing almost 80 per cent of all public sector final salary contributions. In 2009, the state paid £14.9 billion towards the £19.3 billion cost of the UK’s four largest civil service schemes, while staff provided £4.4 billion. By 2016, according to National Audit Office projections, the taxpayer is likely to be contributing an even larger portion as the state makes up a projected £10.3 billion shortfall between total contributions and total payments. The total unfunded UK public-sector pension liability is estimated to be up to £1.18 trillion – 80 per cent of GDP or £47,000 per household.

The system is a total mess and should have been sorted out years ago but successive governments were too terrified to address it. How will Coalition ministers, assailed on so many fronts – opened up, it must be said, by themselves – succeed where their predecessors have failed? Have they the stomach for such a fight? Already they have promised that final salary schemes for existing employees will not be withdrawn, but can that really be sustained, either politically or financially, when these so-called defined benefit schemes have almost disappeared in the private sector?

It has become impossible any longer to defend a system in which private sector workers are required to pay more in taxes to fund public sector pensions than they manage to save for their own retirement. Thanks largely to the depredations inflicted on their pensions by Gordon Brown when, as Chancellor, he jacked up the tax on dividends received by pension funds, millions in the private sector have seen their value plummet. They might wish to top them up, but cannot afford to.

More than that, the old rule of thumb that a good pension was the reward for years of poor pay in the public sector no longer holds true. Official figures show that graduate public sector workers are paid better than those in the private sector throughout Britain, apart from in London and the South East. Add in the pension, retirement at 60 or younger, job security and holidays, and you have a package that surpasses most equivalent jobs in the private sector.

The mighty expansion of the public sector under Labour – with about 800,000 more employees than in 1997 – has made matters worse. Mostly, they have gone into jobs with unfunded, final-salary pension schemes. On top of that, people are living longer. Recent data from the Government Actuary’s Department show that, as recently as 1990, the average employee lived for 15 years after retiring; now he will survive for 25 years, with obvious consequences for long-term pension commitments. Some public sector workers will spend 30 years in their job and a further 40 years on a fully-funded pension, with the option of starting a second career.

It is understandable that people in public sector jobs want to protect the benefits that they were led to expect when they signed up. But millions of private company workers were promised final salary pensions as well, and they were simply removed from under their noses. Try getting them to sympathise with the plight of a council official or police officer enjoying a better deal for which everyone else is paying.

Of course, another reason that little has ever been done to sort this system out is because those in a position to do so are themselves its beneficiaries – the MPs and civil servants who all enjoy the security of generous final salary schemes, the highest of which give annual payouts well into six figures.

For Mr Cameron, who has all the other problems on his plate while trying to hold together a Coalition of left and right, this poses a monumental political headache. He likes to present himself as a One Nation Tory; yet what will be exposed this week is how divided we have become. He is a party leader whose overtures to his opponents encapsulated a belief in consensus politics, yet in order to do the right thing he needs to engineer an equality of misery.

If nothing is done to rectify matters, then those in the private sector will become increasingly resentful at the costs they are having to bear. But if radical reforms are pursued, then those who lose out will be left feeling bitter and betrayed.

We may indeed be all in this together; unfortunately, we’re not on the same side.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,886

But, Sky High, you know full well what the answer will be from the usual suspects.

An uncontrolled, ill-mannered and virulent diatribe about immigration.

A proposition that those of a different ethnicity should be returned to the land "from whence they came" even if they were born in the UK.

A rant about spongeing and the 'benefit cultcha.'

A rant about the "Government", of whichever political persuasion.

Personal attacks on anyone with a mildly opposing viewpoint to their own.

I'm sure I've missed a few things out.

Regards,

kev35

Lincoln, I hear your comments mentioning that you have made these points before, and I apologise for repeating them:)

kev, I'm sorry mate, and I really intend no offence, but IMO its a bit of a non starter to resort to those items that you have listed, seemingly in order to make some of us with differing views to yours appear to be being anti immigration and wanting mass deportations etc. In the days when the country was enjoying better times, they would be very valid and sacrosanct points that you make, and rightly so. I can't say that I remember any occasion when I have personally attacked another forum member for holding a different point of view to my own, and I would frown on anyone who did. But lets leave that to one side. The landscape in this country is now a very different one to what it was only a relatively short time ago. Whatever platitudes certain individuals, both at government level, or indeed on here, may utter, the pure and simple fact is that the country is BROKE!

SH. I'm not qualified to sort out this economic mess, which is a direct result of the business practices of parasitic idiots who call themselves bankers and financial 'wizz kids', and I suspect that you might not be qualified either, although I'm fully ready to be corrected on that. The consequences of the decades of seeming economic and political incompetence are now very profound. As most of us are not qualified in the fields that I've mentioned, we are in the unfortunate situation of relying on others, purporting to be experts (politicians), who we are supposed to trust to keep this nation on an even keel. The results of that are self evident. I don't feel that its ducking the issue to highlight the points in my original post. If we were to run our homes and businesses in this fashion, we'd be out on the streets. I get heartily sick and tired of politicians, most, but not all of which, seem to be self serving hypocrites (piggies at the trough), failing to address the blatantly obvious problems that we as a nation are facing. Its does not take the mind of Einstein to see the phenomenal waste of public money that is crucifying our country, and a great percentage of the people who live in it. This a direct result of the failure of the politicians to face up to the mess that a lot of them have been complicit in creating, along with their friends in the city.

The points that I raised in my original post, are all capable of being addressed by politicians, well those small number who have the guts, determination and real concern for the country's wellbeing to do so. Maybe real experts in various fields, with no political flag to fly, could also be called upon to help lift the country out of this mire. IMO a major contributory factor to the state of this country, is the innate short termism and personal 'nest feathering' that has blighted our political system for decades. The results of our leaders repeatedly burying their heads in the sand, in the face very real, profound and obvious problems, are now obvious for all to see. What matters to the 'ordinary joe' in the street IS fighting others peoples wars that we will never win, it IS a perceived huge number of benefit grabbing immigrants, benefit scroungers and frauds, it IS a very real and understandable fear of the consequences of swingeing cuts in public services, and it is a fully justified sense of disgust, that those who brought us to this awful state of affairs have, after all this time, still not been held to account. A very important factor that any politician, irrespective of his party, ignores at his peril, is the one of a growing number of ordinary people, feeling totally powerless and ignored, in the face of what they perceive as a very frightening set of circumstances, not of their making. Because one day, someone might just come along and offer a perceived panacea for all those fears, and those very same people will like him. History shows, its happened before.

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13 years 9 months

Posts: 8,306

Hi S.H. Very interesting reading indeed, apart from the coppers pension. I and others paid 11.5% of my wages into Superannuation, and with 3 kids, this was a lot of money in 1966 when I joined.I even had to have a Moonlighting job.to make ends meet.
Also, unlike .P.Ms who If I remember correctly under Labour, gave themselves TWO pension rises in the same year, and no doubt their pensions are ring fenced.:mad:
The Police, still pay a fair bit of their pay into supperanuation, but, when they leave, there is no guarantee they will get a rise every year, even though they have paid into the scheme.
Last year the pensioners never got a rise, and I don't know if we will this year.
So Pete there are as you state, unless we all stand up and be counted nothing will ever happen, and this is just what the Polititions, regarless of Party rely on, I am not saying go into the street and cause mayhem, like as in Egypt, but it's a shame that no one represents Joe Bloggs,the ordinary man in the streets, Oh, dammitt, we have, don't they hang around in a place called Westminister?.

Lincoln .7