General Election - 8th June 2017

[deyres42]

Tories 4/6 to win Oldham East and Saddleworth, 6/4 Labour, 66/1 Dems.

[24hoursfromtulsehill]

I don't get the piss boiling about public sector pensions. (Actually I do and I really enjoy it...up to a point.)

 

Public sector pensions are high partly because of unionisation...but mostly because the employers have historically placed a high premium on retention. Other sectors price retention differently...whether it's financial services or entertainment or whatever. For the sake of chilling your piss a little, just accept that we have a pluralistic economy in which different actors have different priorities and strategies, which means people in those economies benefit in different ways.

 

Your piss boiling isn't really about that though, is it? Your piss is boiling because the right wing press have told you for decades that someone over there has something that people over here might quite like. You won't lift a finger to help people to get that thing they want...but you're extremely energetic about getting it taken away from the people who have it. 

 

THAT makes MY piss boil. 

 

Anyway...I'm told we have a successful and dynamic personal financial services sector...so it's really anomalous that loads of people don't save for pensions, isn't it? Could it be that the supposedly burgeoning personal financial services sector is in fact a scandal-riven cesspool of shysters and confidence merchants in which no one has any trust? I'm just trying to square the circle of the savings gap and a reputedly successful sphere of enterprise. Grateful for any help. 

[disjointed]

1 hour ago, deyres42 said:

Labour 8/15 to win Heywood and Middleton seems more than fair.

 

I did get 14/1 about them winning Croydon North until Willy Hills saw the error of their ways...

If labour don't win middleton and heywood it is time to pack it in.

[deyres42]

27 minutes ago, disjointed said:

If labour don't win middleton and heywood it is time to pack it in.

Nearly lost it to UKIP in by-election few years back, increased majority in 2015.

 

In all my time I can't remember seeing so much as a blue leaflet dropping through the door.

[frizzell54]

54 minutes ago, disjointed said:

If labour don't win middleton and heywood it is time to pack it in.

 

UKIP and Cons both standing, so Lab will walk it owing to split vote.

[blueatheart]

4 minutes ago, frizzell54 said:

 

UKIP and Cons both standing, so Lab will walk it owing to split vote.

UKIP won't get more than 2000 votes.

 

Edit: In that consituency!

Edited May 19, 2017 by blueatheart

[24hoursfromtulsehill]

1 hour ago, frizzell54 said:

 

UKIP and Cons both standing, so Lab will walk it owing to split vote.

 

I agree. The UKIP / Tory split vote is over. UKIP are fucked electorally...and yet still prominent on TV and the dead tree press. 

Edited May 19, 2017 by 24hoursfromtulsehill

[GlossopLatic]

5 hours ago, mikeroyboy said:

Agreed. There was no plan but aspiration in shed loads. Aspiration to do your best at school, get a job (often any job you could get your hands on) and move up from there. And untold millions did just that.

 

My wife and I did something exceptional, even for the mid-60's. We removed ourselves from the swinging 60's and saved every penny we could for a year. I was an apprentice, she a factory worker. 12 months later we bought a two bedded, flagged floored, outside tipple toilet, coal fired, terraced house for £600 cash, over a third of our combined income for the year.

 

Both our families had nout and at the age of 20 and 18 we paid for the wedding as well. The morning of December 18th 1965 we were scraping ice off the inside of our bedroom window, not in Barbados or Florida - totally skint.

 

It felt entirely normal and we really didn't realise what we had achieved until many years later. We were back in work Monday, with our two mouths to feed and a bag of coal to fund life went on and it never occurred to us anyone should help us.

 

 

I'm sure their is alot of truth in that but I couldn't help but think of the below Monty Python sketch when I read it.

 

We were so poor

[mikeroyboy]

1 hour ago, GlossopLatic said:

 

I'm sure their is alot of truth in that but I couldn't help but think of the below Monty Python sketch when I read it.

 

We were so poor

 

Remember it and just watched it again, very funny.

While hilariously exaggerated many of my post-war peers will easily remember pulling ourselves out of working class poverty without any form of expectation of getting a leg up from anyone, least of all our parents.

[frizzell54]

This election seems to be a choice between Nu Labour Conservative and Corbyn's Comrades.

[singe]

16 hours ago, mikeroyboy said:

Final salary pensions (common in local government for none producing workers) have always been manifestly unaffordable as well as heavily subsidised by rate payers.

 

I

 

Such a yuuuuge generlaisation, straight out of the Daily Mail.

I've worked in the private sector for 27 years, 2 year in Local Govt, and 2 in Non Profit but Profit making arm of local Govt (too complicated to go into here.)

Of course, there are some local government employees who have it cushy, but many many do not.

There are some private employees who do too.

It is facile to lump them all together as you have, and categorise them as you have, that is just borne out of ignorance.

 

[singe]

19 hours ago, HarryBosch said:

 

Hang on - "meagre"? Fucking meagre? 

 

Are you taking the fucking piss? 

 

 

As I clearly said, where I work. I did not say all local Govt employees.

 

But, as you made the point how much do you think a Catering Assistant working 30 hours a week (having had their hours cut from 37.5), another working 37.5, and a Cook working 3.75 hours with no break actually earns in this part of South East Engalnd where a 3 bed semi costs the best part of £300,000?

Give it your best shot.

[Magister]

24 minutes ago, singe said:

As I clearly said, where I work. I did not say all local Govt employees.

 

But, as you made the point how much do you think a Catering Assistant working 30 hours a week (having had their hours cut from 37.5), another working 37.5, and a Cook working 3.75 hours with no break actually earns in this part of South East Engalnd where a 3 bed semi costs the best part of £300,000?

Give it your best shot.

How much does the catering assistant working in Weatherspoons in the South East of England earn?

[mikeroyboy]

7 minutes ago, singe said:

Such a yuuuuge generlaisation, straight out of the Daily Mail.

I've worked in the private sector for 27 years, 2 year in Local Govt, and 2 in Non Profit but Profit making arm of local Govt (too complicated to go into here.)

Of course, there are some local government employees who have it cushy, but many many do not.

There are some private employees who do too.

It is facile to lump them all together as you have, and categorise them as you have, that is just borne out of ignorance.

 

 

Are you saying where they apply they are affordable?

 

And a national political generalisation on a football forum is down the Daily Mail?

 

I read far more unbiased and accurate assessments of profitability, both company and governmentally than a political biased tabloid. Nor have I mentioned any bias in my recent posts.

[Magister]

My favourite public sector anecdote......having sat through a meeting of 18 people who had been discussing for 75 minutes which staff toilets transgender members of staff should use I asked " how many transgender staff have we got?" The reply of " none" did not stop the discussion.  That is a true story from January 2013

[GlossopLatic]

1 hour ago, mikeroyboy said:

 

Remember it and just watched it again, very funny.

While hilariously exaggerated many of my post-war peers will easily remember pulling ourselves out of working class poverty without any form of expectation of getting a leg up from anyone, least of all our parents.

 

Oh indeed. Last year we put my Grandad to rest he grew up in Chadderton in the 30s it was a tough time especially when my great Grandad was out of work during the depression he pulled himself up by his boot laces in the 40's and 50's as an engineer then a college lecturer. Dare I say it the generation before that who had to go and fight at the somme probably found all those problems trivial.

 

While my generation doesn't have those types of problems millenials today have different challenges The problems of massive student debt after being sent to university and a degree doesnt get you very far when 40% of people have them then saving up for a deposit for a house. £600 you paid for a house you would need 20 times that just for a deposit for that same house these days. We've all faced a decade of pay freezes and in an age where I can now sit and talk to you on a computer which I can fit into my pocket which is more powerful than the spaceship that took us to the moon. We now have technology that is moving so fast it will wipe out many jobs that are around today.

 

I've no doubt it pisses older generations off when they hear 18-25 year old today winging about the cost of their film studies degrees it does me I'm 34. But no doubt in years to come they will be ridiculing future generations for their problems.

[mcfluff1985]

Massive student debt? It might be a big number but it's not like you're gonna be paying 100s a month off.

 

If you earn 21k you'll be paying about 25 quid a month. The more you earn you'll pay more. But then you're earning more so...

 

You should be benefitting from the degree so it works both ways.

 

Get the education u need then pay back tiny chunk when you're earning enough

[leeslover]

Cunt's trick excluding Scotland from the removal of the winter fuel allowance. A millionaire in a nice gaff the northern side of the border needs it more than an old dear in a leaky old cottage in top of a hill in Snowdonia?

[ChaddySmoker]

50 minutes ago, leeslover said:

Cunt's trick excluding Scotland from the removal of the winter fuel allowance. A millionaire in a nice gaff the northern side of the border needs it more than an old dear in a leaky old cottage in top of a hill in Snowdonia?

You would have to pay me a lot more than £300 per annum to live in bleeding Scotland

[disjointed]

12 minutes ago, ChaddySmoker said:

You would have to pay me a lot more than £300 per annum to live in bleeding Scotland

The Gorbals in November has a sort of wintry charm I'm sure you will agree.

[Magister]

2 hours ago, leeslover said:

Cunt's trick excluding Scotland from the removal of the winter fuel allowance. A millionaire in a nice gaff the northern side of the border needs it more than an old dear in a leaky old cottage in top of a hill in Snowdonia?

Raises some really interesting issues this....how can Scotland afford this free tuition fees and free prescriptions? .is the Barnet formula a joke? ....where does England's money go?  Etc etc

[jimsleftfoot]

On 18/05/2017 at 1:47 PM, HarryBosch said:

I think Labour's biggest problem is that very few people recognise this miserable existence they're going to rescue us all from...

 

 

It's extremely apparent in the centre of Manchester. The amount of homeless people on the streets has increased significantly in the last few years. I'm not talking about second hand figures either, it's clearly visible.

 

My sister in law works in Social Housing. Its not a particularly nice job to work in given the lack of such housing available. 

 

Although I seem to be ok I know some colleagues who are facing redundancy on the back of Brexit and the Tories nonsensical policy of reducing student immigration (you want to trade with the world, let's stop a very good income stream and then pretend that immigration has been cut, when they would have gone home anyway). 

On 18/05/2017 at 2:44 PM, HarryBosch said:

 

I thought I'd read they were pledging an extra £4bn for education?

 

 

 

Do you know that they are changing the funding formula for Schools and many will lose out as a result (often in the North strangely enough). My wife's school is looking to cut staff as a result. 

 

I'm not sure on the details exactly but I have a strong feeling the 'extra' money is actually filling a whole they had already created so will not be extra at all. In fact I've just read an article that suggests in real terms, it could actually be a reduction (and with a 4 year old and 4 month old, affects me again).

 

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by jimsleftfoot

[Diego_Sideburns]

I've found a voice that sounds like me:

 

[Diego_Sideburns]

 

[Diego_Sideburns]