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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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Fine, let's write off the 70s and just look at the 80s onwards, once Maggie had come to the rescue and been in office at least a year. Are you honestly saying that average incomes, job security, and housing and pension provision are all better now than they used to be? And that nobody should be complaining much about anything, as of course we'll never end up like <Insert name of far more tinpot country here>. What's your magic formula? Any tips you can give me? Should I be buying gold, or tinned food, or both? |
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sheikh radlinrol
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 1222 Location: Spain
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Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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fluffyhamster wrote: |
Fine, let's write off the 70s and just look at the 80s onwards, once Maggie had come to the rescue and been in office at least a year. Are you honestly saying that average incomes, job security, and housing and pension provision are all better now than they used to be? And that nobody should be complaining much about anything, as of course we'll never end up like <Insert name of far more tinpot country here>. What's your magic formula? Any tips you can give me? Should I be buying gold, or tinned food, or both? |
Sorry Fluffy, but I stopped reading your comment when I got to the word Maggie. We are a nation of 65 million people. BTW I am NOT a supporter of the party now in power in the UK. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 10:24 pm Post subject: |
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Nothing wrong with calling politicians by their first names (or worse) when they're not present. Or nowadays, even when they are. Call me Dave and all that. Doubtless Thatcher (see how the shift to that seems a bit cold, at least in the present informal context) would've preferred to be addressed like royalty in any case (quoted book published 2003 by EUP):
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Margaret Thatcher's celebrated (and thoroughly mystifying) pronouncement that 'we are a grandmother' has had her audience speculating ever since about exactly which group she thinks she belongs to. It is often suggested that she is using the royal 'we', giving rise to speculation among some commentators that she was under the impression that she had acquired the states [status? - FH] of royalty. |
( https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=df9eX-aWIOcC&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q&f=false )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_we
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/401700.html
etc
Call we Hamster, by your logic? Saint Fluffy of Hamster? Ah yes, that all feels much better. Now, where were we, and what questions did you decide not to answer, Sheikh? |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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BTW I am NOT a supporter of the party now in power in the UK. |
Very few are. Only about a quarter of the population and at most a third of the turnout, IIRC. FPTP, best system in the world. Anyway, how then are you managing so well? It's a reasonable question, surely.
The ones who are doing "best" seem to be those closest to the levers of power. 'Twas ever thus, but at least nowadays we can catch glimpses of them being pulled and clanked around. Or do you dispute even that? If so, please write to the ICIJ expressing your immense indignation. How dare they! Shoot the messengers, why don't you. |
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Dedicated
Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 972 Location: UK
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 4:05 am Post subject: |
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gregory999 wrote:
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...the UK slips further down the international league tables of corruption... |
This is simply not true. According to Transparency International on 27th January 2016, the UK was ranked No 10 in the league tables with a score of 81/100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
This marks the first time the UK is in the top 10 in 8 years, having been as low as 20th in 2010. This is probably the effect of the Bribery Act 2010.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/12122323/Mapped-The-worlds-most-corrupt-countries.html
However, what should concern us is that Britain is at the core of this shady 'tax haven' world. It's no coincidence that more than half of the companies listed in the Panama Papers are registered in the UK or its overseas territories. The City of London and Britain's network of tax havens, from Guernsey to the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda, make us the world leader in the money-laundering trade.
Many schemes described in the Panama Papers involve anonymous shell companies, whose real owners hide behind hired 'nominees'. Such vehicles are known as the ' getaway cars' for tax dodgers, launderers and crooked officials. It is time to untint their windows by creating central registers of beneficial ownership that are open to tax officials, law-enforcers and the public. The penalties for lying when registering a firm should be stiff. Britain and a few smaller countries have led the way in this. Others should follow.
To be fair to Cameron, he has tried to tackle this problem. Three years ago, he put trade and transparency at the top of the G8 agenda for the first time. But he needs to get far tougher at the global anti-corruption summit to be held in London in May 2016. It's outrageous that according to Transparency International, 36,342 companies covering 2.2 square miles of London are owned by anonymous offshore companies. |
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Knedliki
Joined: 08 May 2015 Posts: 160
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 4:53 am Post subject: |
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Britain’s higher ranking was attributed by the watchdog’s director Robert Barrington to “good rhetoric” from the government on fighting corruption, though he added that stopping the UK from being used to launder money, cleaning up politics and improving government openness were all areas which needed work.
From the report mentioned above. Someone said they were getting tough on corruption and it's taken as fact!
How do you quantify corruption anyway? Britain might not be corrupt in the way that the public can bribe minor officials, yet we have no problem talking about political lobbying from big business. Basically a euphemism for corruption. |
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sheikh radlinrol
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 1222 Location: Spain
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 11:44 am Post subject: |
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fluffyhamster wrote: |
Nothing wrong with calling politicians by their first names (or worse) when they're not present. Or nowadays, even when they are. Call me Dave and all that. Doubtless Thatcher (see how the shift to that seems a bit cold, at least in the present informal context) would've preferred to be addressed like royalty in any case (quoted book published 2003 by EUP):
Quote: |
Margaret Thatcher's celebrated (and thoroughly mystifying) pronouncement that 'we are a grandmother' has had her audience speculating ever since about exactly which group she thinks she belongs to. It is often suggested that she is using the royal 'we', giving rise to speculation among some commentators that she was under the impression that she had acquired the states [status? - FH] of royalty. |
( https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=df9eX-aWIOcC&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q&f=false )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_we
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/401700.html
etc
Call we Hamster, by your logic? Saint Fluffy of Hamster? Ah yes, that all feels much better. Now, where were we, and what questions did you decide not to answer, Sheikh? |
What logic? I think you´ve misunderstood. I don´t mind whether you refer to the old girl as Maggie or Thatcher but I tend to lose interest in discussions as soon as her name is mentioned as it means, in my experience, that the discussion is going nowhere.
Regards
SR |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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The reason the discussion is "going nowhere" (or rather, has got away from you) is that supposedly apolitical devil's advocates or denialists or indeed apologists like you and Phil are refusing to acknowledge that things took an undeniably wrong turn from the 80s onwards, and a lot of that can indeed be attributed to Thatcher's and similar governments. The woman was clearly deluded, and therefore dangerous. Probably most politicians are or become so, once they get to a certain level and lose touch with the populace. And you can hardly accuse me and others like me on this thread of being militant unionists or whatever, as I for one was less than 10 at the time, and the only general election that I was of age and present to vote in was the 2010 one (just please don't ask which way I voted LOL. Suffice it to say I was very naive, but did what I thought was fair and "right for the country". Not that it really made a blind bit of difference in a constituency where the Conservatives had a majority of tens of thousands anyway! And what would you know, the constituency where I now live was redrawn in time for the 2015 GE, changing it from a Labour to a Tory stronghold, though with the Tory majority far larger than Labour had had. Gerrymandering much?). Ask yourself why it should be that people have had it with the "status quo". It is no longer a social contract, or even a fair work contract. I enter into evidence the following for you to again blatantly ignore or deny:
The well-known and despicable antics of ATOS
Workfare
Unpaid internships
Zero hour contracts
The then proposed cuts to working tax credits
IDS, huge cost of Universal Credit, proposed cuts to DLA that even gave Tories pause
Refusal to build affordable let alone social housing
Bulldozing of entire estates, with new builds to be sold back to residents at a higher price than their previous homes fetched
Denying Labour its traditional funding, but no questions asked about anonymous donors to the Tory party
I could go on. Work makes you free? Don't make me laugh, work now IS free, or near enough. Slavery's the word. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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The last paragraph of the following article sums up things very well I feel (and fear):
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The idea that Britain – where people traditionally paid tax relatively willingly – could ever end up anything like this was unthinkable only a few years ago. It is now rather more thinkable, with the accretion of endless stories about Google, Amazon, the Panama Papers names … Never mind the details. Over time, overall impressions are taken. In the end, ordinary people will only know what they believe, and the fear for society is that they will begin to act accordingly. |
( http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/08/david-cameron-tax-dodging-cover-up-labour )
Note also the penultimate paragraph. It isn't that the clear majority of posters on here necessarily want to be tribalist or "pointscore", but what else can we really do against these obvious excesses? If the Tories and whoever else is in or aspiring to be in the 1% want to preserve the wider society and institutions they claim to cherish, they're the ones who most need to change. We are simply begging that they do (push comes to shove, we may eventually be demanding - and yes, that we includes even the tabloid readers, when their final pennies also drop, or will every last turkey vote for Christmas?), and hopefully before it's too late. |
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gregory999
Joined: 29 Jul 2015 Posts: 372 Location: 999
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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fluffyhamster wrote: |
Ask yourself why it should be that people have had it with the "status quo". It is no longer a social contract, or even a fair work contract. I enter into evidence the following for you to again blatantly ignore or deny:
The well-known and despicable antics of ATOS
Workfare
Unpaid internships
Zero hour contracts
The then proposed cuts to working tax credits
IDS, huge cost of Universal Credit, proposed cuts to DLA that even gave Tories pause
Refusal to build affordable let alone social housing
Bulldozing of entire estates, with new builds to be sold back to residents at a higher price than their previous homes fetched
Denying Labour its traditional funding, but no questions asked about anonymous donors to the Tory party
I could go on. Work makes you free? Don't make me laugh, work now IS free, or near enough. Slavery's the word. |
These are the signs or sins of a capitalist system, what can you do if the British people voted to adopt this system?
What economic/political system do you suggest as an alternative (assuming the Britsh people will back you up in this! ) to improve the life of the British people, fluffy?
Sine the iron woman (not dangerous!) failed, where is the iron man who can save the economy of the British? |
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Knedliki
Joined: 08 May 2015 Posts: 160
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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The people vote this way because it's the only option they currently have. Proportional representation would be a much fairer system but the change would have to be sanctioned by parliament. And the majority of turkeys aren't going to vote for Christmas. So we carry on as we are, for now! |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 10:10 pm Post subject: |
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@Gregory999: No, the British people (that is, the majority) didn't vote for all this. (Capitalism needn't be so cutthroat. What we need is social democracy, it seems to work elsewhere in Europe). I mentioned some rough figures about our elections in a previous post. As Knedliki says, PR would be a fairer system than FPTP. Until we have that, any supposed consensuses or coalitions will be a joke (just like in 2010), as any kingmakers have been away so long from the table they'll be desperate to go along with anything and everything just to get their breadcrumbs. AV would've possibly been an improvement or at least given us the best of both worlds, but the electorate rejected that, go figure. Doubtless the majority were holding out for the offer of PR and the minority wanting to cling on to FPTP. But that's the UK for you, now a nation only ever offered shabby deals and apparently unable to find compromises or solutions that will benefit everyone. |
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gregory999
Joined: 29 Jul 2015 Posts: 372 Location: 999
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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fluffyhamster wrote: |
@Gregory999: No, the British people (that is, the majority) didn't vote for all this. (Capitalism needn't be so cutthroat. What we need is social democracy, it seems to work elsewhere in Europe). |
Many commentators insist that social democracy as a social movement and a political tradition has lost its vitality and is destined to wane as a political force in Western Europe. I wonder if it would work in the UK?
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/16323/depleted-capital-the-state-of-european-social-democracy
Well, the democratic socialists (which are opposite to socialist democrats!) do not believe in maintaining the capitalist system. Are they the THIRD way of political system in Europe? |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 2:50 pm Post subject: |
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I wouldn't presume to say that what the UK needs is socialism per se - there's slightly too much of "The electorate has been brainwashed, isn't thinking the right way" on CiF for example. A little bit more of the social and of the democracy would be nice though, and there are at least a few sectors where re-nationalization or non-privatization would surely be the right thing to do. Unless of course you are e.g. a finance type who doesn't mind defrauding the now highly-expensive railways while on your way to and from work which involves stitching up the NHS or schools. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 3292 Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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