Christmas Tree

Because its a discussion forum You know as well as I that I could get figures, then you could and so on. I honestly cant be bothered. If im wrong im wrong but my belief over the last 13 years is that Centralised government grew under Labour and that public money was spunked all over the place. Some of it was good, but a lot was waste. Didnt the welfare bill go up by 50% during Labour. Should it have done during boom times? You then hear stories from PP about thousands of publis sector workers in his department sitting around with nowt to do. Basically governments get lazier and more corrupt the longer they are in power and this government was worse than most because it was crippled by infighting from its second term onwards. The figures would be at the Office of National Statistics, wouldn't they? I'd accept them. Go and get them and I'll accept it was true. You won't though. In fact provide any credible source. Ok, had my tea and bored so I'll bite, but im not getting into an evening of statistics This little chart from the "office of national statitics", says the public sector grew by nearly a million, 17% during Labours reign. Citing the public sector growing like it is some sort of dastardly left wing plan to bankrupt the state is laughable. You do understand that the public sector includes policemen nurses teachers dcotors and so on, and that increasing these numbers is a desirable state of affairs?. All good and well if you can afford it. We cant and cuts have to be made. One question CT, do you accept that the tories were pledging to match Labour pound for pound on spending as late as autumn 2008. I think they were up until Lehmans (sp) went pop and they realised a different approach was needed. If you don't accept this as a fact and an important one in the discussion, then you area as intellectually dishonest as the coalition. See Above FWIW I thought hte budget was a pretty impressive political performance. The Tories are being very disciplined in mentioning 13 years of extravagance, and succesfully getting their message over. Seemed to be the overaul analysis on Newsnight tonight They will have shored up the pensioner vote, an increasing demographic who do vote in large numbers. They have managed to create an atmosphere of economic masochism that makes the announcement about health/schools sound positively munificent. Thats because it was. Traditionally strong Labour areas that compassionate Cameron has won over. Even today Labour are saying that he was wrong to ring fence the NHS and protect it from cuts. This is the biggest problem Labour has by trying constantly to compare this lot to the 80's conservatives when a blind man on a galloping horse can see it is a much fairer, compassionate party. If Gideon gets lucky, or is actually right and the private sector generates the jobs he claims, the cuts are acheived and the deficit is payed down, then he will be standing pretty to lavish tax cuts before the next election and stroll back in to power. The plan I fear that the reality will be a lot bleaker. . I worry the economy will stagnate, the tax receipts wont pay of the defecit, and the infrastructure of the country will crumble. (I hope I'm wrong beleive it or not CT) So do I and the truth is this is the big unknown which I think the odds are more in favour of success than failure. Personally I think we will now see a pre christmas mini boom on the economy as people step back from today and realise that the measures taken are not as bad as a lot feared. Originally the talk was about cuts of 25% and these have materialised as 19% Welfare and local government have borne a much bigger share of the cuts than expected which I think will lead a lot of average and middle income familys a bit more confident to go out and spend compared to how they feared cuts over the summer. Some areas will be royally fucked, but the South East will probably be ok whatever happens. To some degree, but all the economists tonight are saying that these cuts only roll the state back to 2007 levels so its not really the bleak picture some have feared / painted I think whatever happens the underclass will be expanded, become more entrenched more disenfranchised and more reviled. Not many will bother or be allowed to vote though, so hey ho. I dont agree. One of the aims of this is to once again make work more worthwhile than benefits. I think the reforms to welfare will be good for the country. My biggest worry though isnt their ideology, though I profoundly disagree with it, my biggest worry is that they are a incompetent. The plans for the health service strike me as horribly rushed, Gove is a joke After Osbourne stopped agreeing with Labours spending plans in 2008 he showed no understanding of the crisis and how to deal with it, and Cameron couldnt win an election in the middle of a recession against the least popular sitting Prime minister since the war. They are just a bit crap All a bit sour grapes really this last bit I do note however you havent said which of the cuts you agree with?

The Tories modernised the steel industry. The Tories and then Labour chose not to subsidise industry. The Germans chose to subsidise their industry and hold off the inevitable, however now that the subsidies have stopped they are closing all their coal mines. Industry, on the hole has gone East and no British government has tried or could change that situation.

I have a friend with a problem......

Tit

Absolutely fuck all to do with mechanisation and the decimation of the Steel industry was only a success in terms of a tiny surviving part of it at the cost of entire towns killed. I don't understand how someone from Shields and living 20 miles from Consett could be so ignorant. Suggest you read your history as well. Ofcourse it was going to lead to job cuts.... Thats what happens when you modernise industry and stop subsidising it. How any one with an ounce of sense thinks this country could have continued with uncompetitive, subsidised industries in the face of the rise of the east, amazes me. Don't need to read it - I lived through it - my best mates were miners. The closure programme took no account of modernisation or investment - and as for subsidies - they were always happy to subsidise the nuclear industry, farming and of coure banks (see Johnson Matthey) with no regard to competition but only to politics. Why do other European countries like Germany still have mines? At 18 or 19 with mates who were miners I doubt that you sat back and considered the arguments of the day. Modernisation was a big part of the initial dispute which is why the brought in the guy who had just modernised the steel industry. Germany still have 8 mines because they did modernise, agree to job losses and have been heavily subsidised ever since. I think you'll also find that Germany has now agreed to close all of its mines as they are unprofitable.

Fucking Hell So George was right then Diminishing marginal utility of wealth CT. The rich won't be affected by this anywhere near as much as the poor. They never are, but thats not what the shit rushed off crappy journalism said.

Absolutely fuck all to do with mechanisation and the decimation of the Steel industry was only a success in terms of a tiny surviving part of it at the cost of entire towns killed. I don't understand how someone from Shields and living 20 miles from Consett could be so ignorant. Suggest you read your history as well. Ofcourse it was going to lead to job cuts.... Thats what happens when you modernise industry and stop subsidising it. How any one with an ounce of sense thinks this country could have continued with uncompetitive, subsidised industries in the face of the rise of the east, amazes me.

Because its a discussion forum You know as well as I that I could get figures, then you could and so on. I honestly cant be bothered. If im wrong im wrong but my belief over the last 13 years is that Centralised government grew under Labour and that public money was spunked all over the place. Some of it was good, but a lot was waste. Didnt the welfare bill go up by 50% during Labour. Should it have done during boom times? You then hear stories from PP about thousands of publis sector workers in his department sitting around with nowt to do. Basically governments get lazier and more corrupt the longer they are in power and this government was worse than most because it was crippled by infighting from its second term onwards. The figures would be at the Office of National Statistics, wouldn't they? I'd accept them. Go and get them and I'll accept it was true. You won't though. In fact provide any credible source. Ok, had my tea and bored so I'll bite, but im not getting into an evening of statistics This little chart from the "office of national statitics", says the public sector grew by nearly a million, 17% during Labours reign.

Before your time I guess better google it

Fucking Hell So George was right then

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). Our over reliance on the financial and wervice sectors are in main due to the Tories decimation of our industrial base in the 80's. That my dear is a FACT. I'll not pretend to be competent, never mind an expert talking about those times, however how you could have prevented the unstoppable march to the cheap wages of the East is beyond me. If it was simply down to the Tories why didnt Labour redress it during their 13 years. How did Germany do it? Much easier to quote what they did and how and then explain why Labour didnt do it, no? They concertrated on quality and innovation and are currently the only Euro country with a trade surplus. What they didn't do which the Tories did was give up and try and compete against the far east with the bargain basement stuff. The also didn't start portrraying workers as the enemy or greedy or unreasonable, the worked with them to develop excellent chemical industry, car industry, and hi tech and engineering products. In England of course we did the opposite, Thatcher started a war with the workers. i'vve read through some fo this thread and although I detect a lot of passion and energy, you really are very poorly informed, regurgitating the worst kind of nonsense. So what do you think were the arguments at the start of the miners strike?? Ian McGreggor who had modernised by mechanising the steel industry (a great success at the time) was brought in to sort the unprofitable and subsidised coal industry. The miners didnt like the idea of mechanisation because they new it would cost jobs. Rather than have union leaders who could see the way the world was going and accept change was neccesary, they decided instead to strike. (Lets not forget they had already brought down the Heath government in 74). The rest as they say is history.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurants-g...re_England.html

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). 2 is an outright lie you've swallowed but never backed up. 1 is the cause of all the problems you now associate with 3 and was largely, if not almost completely, out of the government's control. It's completely disingenuous of the tories to heap everything back on Labour when the tories said nothing in opposition that suggests they would have done any better. Fucking hell Renton What? Every single time they speak, they bring up the deficit as something that Labour was entirely responsible for, which can be shown to be a lie. Seriously? What do you expect them to do? Did I expect you to comment today on all the good stuff that was announced such as tax credits going up for the needy, winter fuel payments to pensioners put in place for good (not just elections - nice one George ) etc etc Ofcourse not.

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). Our over reliance on the financial and wervice sectors are in main due to the Tories decimation of our industrial base in the 80's. That my dear is a FACT. I'll not pretend to be competent, never mind an expert talking about those times, however how you could have prevented the unstoppable march to the cheap wages of the East is beyond me. If it was simply down to the Tories why didnt Labour redress it during their 13 years. How did Germany do it? Much easier to quote what they did and how and then explain why Labour didnt do it, no?

Because its a discussion forum You know as well as I that I could get figures, then you could and so on. I honestly cant be bothered. If im wrong im wrong but my belief over the last 13 years is that Centralised government grew under Labour and that public money was spunked all over the place. Some of it was good, but a lot was waste. Didnt the welfare bill go up by 50% during Labour. Should it have done during boom times? You then hear stories from PP about thousands of publis sector workers in his department sitting around with nowt to do. Basically governments get lazier and more corrupt the longer they are in power and this government was worse than most because it was crippled by infighting from its second term onwards.

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). 2 is an outright lie you've swallowed but never backed up. 1 is the cause of all the problems you now associate with 3 and was largely, if not almost completely, out of the government's control. It's completely disingenuous of the tories to heap everything back on Labour when the tories said nothing in opposition that suggests they would have done any better. Fucking hell Renton

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). Our over reliance on the financial and wervice sectors are in main due to the Tories decimation of our industrial base in the 80's. That my dear is a FACT. I'll not pretend to be competent, never mind an expert talking about those times, however how you could have prevented the unstoppable march to the cheap wages of the East is beyond me. If it was simply down to the Tories why didnt Labour redress it during their 13 years. I would also add that had the unions being more realistic about which way the world was heading (East) surely it would have been better to modernise and at least try and compete. Thats whats happened since in all walks of life. (unsuccesfully in a lot of industries).

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses). 2.'s a lie isn't it? 1. - I'll give you that but we don't agree on who's most to blame. The rest's opinion which we'll never agree on. Could you prove 2 is correct though? With figures. TBH I cant be bothered to look for figures and even if I found some, you would find some others that dispelled them etc etc I thought it was genuinely take for red that Labour idealogically believed in a big state and the Conservatives in a smaller one. I think there are quite a lot of Labour supporters who will look back on Labours reign and think a lot more should and could have been done during the good years. My honest opinion is that the infighting between the Blair and Brown factions prevented a lot of stuff getting done. They started like a house on fire but quickly lost that edge.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...bour-blame-game In a nutshell. This could have being written by Renton. Moaning and crying long after the horse has bolted about how unfair it all is. I think my response to Alex's post gives a fair account of history and really Labour has lost this argument and imo to try and keep on about it will do them no good. Johnson tried this today but it just ended up looking weak and an opposition with no new ideas. A bit like the Tories did in the years following 1997. The bottom line is they lost the election. The public had had enough. I think the gulf between tired old Labour and this new reforming coalition is vast. Some of the things they annouced today to protect the young, old and genuinely needy were admirable. Unfortunately for Labour, not only will the Bankrupt Britain, no money left stigma stick, they have also elected a very poor candidate as their public voice. Unless something goes really tits up, Labour face a long time in opposition.

Surely thats just politics though, nothing new. Blame everything on the last lot and hope it sticks. The truth of the matter for me lies in three parts. 1. A disasterous banking crisis (without getting into semantics over regulation etc) 2. An idealogical decision to vastly increase the public sector. 3. An inability over 13 years to tackle some of the massive reforms of the day. Public sector pensions, welfare etc. Labour inherited a fantastic economic boom time and while doing some very good things (as you can when times are good), also dodged a lot of the big decisions that this lot are now taking, supported it must be said by all sides. Some of those were Labours fault, some wern't but hey thats politics. Did anyone of the Labour benches get up and compliment the coalition on some of the great things that were announced today? Is Jeremy Paxton going to focus on any of the good stuff tonight? Overall, given the job that had to be done, I think today was a spectacular achievement that has put this country on the right path. (And before the usual suspects jump in that does not mean that I am happy about any cuts or job losses).

Labour have made a massive mistake appointing him, he looks and sounds so strange that you dont take in half of what he is saying. If he is indeed the brains of the future he should have recognised his limitations and settled for supporting a commanding leader. As a contrast, Johnson stood up to respond to George and was extremely comfortable and witty. His self admitted weak grasp of economics however meant there was no bite to what he was saying and he ended up looking very clumsy compred to George. Labour defintely need some new blood to come to the front.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...bour-blame-game I'd like CT to answer the points raised in this because he's guilty of repeating the lies in almost every post he makes. Did start to read it but the budget was just kicking off. I will have a look however....Guardian!!!! Its so predictable its going to be anti tory, whats the point. I genuinely like a bit of balance on debate or stories so find biassed articles pretty dull.

Can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink and all that... Just shows how ahead of the curve I was with all this. Once it became apparrent that opposition was not going to change anything they should have taken my advice and built on the good will and member base and delivered a really good supporters club. (something that tbf is scandalous a club like ours does not have). Instead, madness descended, ego battles commenced and I dare say without any change in direction, NUST will vanish without a trace very soon. Its probably a shame that they did not hold the elections, prior to membership renewal, as this would have allowed members to stand who offered something different. Now its probably on mates and apathetics who are left and as such there will be no change. Shame when all is said and done.

Spot on however the loss of Arfa and a decent striking options has dented what could have otherwise being a really decent first season back. Thinks it going to be a horrible scrap and survival will depend mainly on what can be done in January. Definitely shouldnt get rid of Hughton. Let him have a full season at it come what may.

Not as much as new labour