Mouser

I think this comment makes you look daft.

This comment makes you look like a daft sycophant.

hodgy0_2

What I find interesting is that the credit rating agencies threatened to downgrade us three years ago for not following austerity measures

They are now threatening to downgrade us for following those sames policies

They sound like the sort of people who just sit on the sidelines throwing stones

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

I was watching the news round up of all this this morning and laughing as usual at our pathetic politicians.

On one side we have Ed ***** saying that Osborne's policies aren't working and he has lost all credibility and then telling us how different it would be if he were chancellor.... oh really? What? Even more of a mess maybe? He seems to have forgotten completely the part his party's policies played in getting us here! It's like he has amnesia

On the other side you have George Osboirne saying he is not going to listen to a man whose party is repomsible for us being here which, while in part true, fails to mention or take any account of a massive global financial crisis' part in this mess yet he then states the problem wth our recovery is that it is being hampered by the Eurozone crisis

When will they ever try telling the whole truth for once and stop playing party politics with our lives?

I have no time for any of them and the above demonstrates perfectly as to why that is!

TelBoy

I agree, i'd hate to spend my professional life just trying to score points. I guess it must become a way of life but spending all your time talking negatively of other people, that's something that must drag you down in the end, surely.

urban

iTrader: (1)

Just look at the way some people on here post comments.

Anyway, I guess we will continue wasting money in other peoples wars, and foreign aid.
He should have cut a lot more out of foreign aid than he did.
The rest of that money would go a long way to improving things in the UK

Martin2005

Overseas aid = 0.7% of GDP, hardly going to make a lot of difference here, could make a big difference to people really in need it elsewhere.

urban

iTrader: (1)

12 billion would be a lot better used in the uk, than given away.

David Lock

UK aid, if used properly, can make a big difference and is an excellent way of keeping UK sweet with foreign countries.

dl

urban

iTrader: (1)

Yes David, but if........
I worked in Tanzania for a reasonable period of time(can't say who), but their government were totally corrupt from a financial point of view.
Money was not being spent where it was supposed to be spent.

Martin2005

That's a good argument for spending the foreign aid money more sensibly

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Well i'm 46 and i've voted 3 times, 1: Thatcher, 2: Ashdown, 3: Blair. and i must say i still fail to notice a difference to the man on the street after Thatcher, who did me the biggest favour out of the lot of them, by letting me buy a house.

I voted for Thatcher because my mother told me too, and if you knew her back then you would do whatever she said.

I voted for Ashdown because i thought he was the only honest politician i ever saw.

And i voted for Blair because he stood the best chance of getting the
conservatives out.

I'll never vote again, they are all a bunch of self serving (insert expleative of your choosing).

hodgy0_2

i just don't get this, democracy is hard fought and easily lost

I have felt disenfranchised recently (and still do to a certain extent) - but will always vote, if only to register a spoilt ballot

TelBoy

And i don't get this either! Who cares about a spoilt ballot paper apart from you gnashing "that'll teach them" to yourself on the way home? Nobody, that's who.

hodgy0_2

Chairman Mao once said "even the longest journey begins with the first step"

TelBoy

Yep and he'd be deader than he is now if he could see what they're doing to his beloved China.

Mao is perhaps an excellent example to use for why you should always use your vote, in my opinion. We take democracy for granted.

hodgy0_2

- my point precisely


why bother voting labour in the Royal Borough Of Kensington and Chelsea

why bother voting convservative in the peoples republic of Brent

you will only go home -- gnashing "that'll teach them" to yourself on the way home?

i suppose "bothering" is the key here

Jimbob

iTrader: (13)

Well said imho.

Lmfao, lost in the sea when Kinnock fell over!! lol.

hodgy0_2

Mark my words – history will be kind to Kinnock


“irrelevant to the real needs, and you end with the grotesque chaos of a labour council, a LABOUR COUNCIL hiring taxis to skittle round the city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers” – utterly brilliant oratory

And his speech on why he was the first Kinnock in a thousand years to rise above then cess pit of ignorance and get an education, a speech so powerful that Joe Biden the american vice presidential candidate shamelessly plagiarised it



http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&h...&v=0Rkoqglq9dU

and

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday,

I warn you.
I warn you that you will have pain–when healing and relief depend upon payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance–when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty–when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay.

I warn you that you will be cold–when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.

I warn you that you must not expect work–when many cannot spend; more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.

I warn you that you will be quiet–when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.

I warn you that you will have defense of a sort–with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.

I warn you that you will be home-bound–when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up.

I warn you that you will borrow less–when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday–
- I warn you not to be ordinary
- I warn you not to be young
- I warn you not to fall ill
- I warn you not to get old.

a manifesto for aspiration not entiltlement

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Crikey hodgy stop it, back then we had a Labour Party

Martin2005

and no chance of winning an election

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Yep as that's what it's all about. F**k what you stand for as long as you get elected whereupon you can line your own pockets and say f**k it to the rest of the populaton like eevry government since Thatcher

Leslie

At last a bit of common sense!

What can we possibly expect after NL borrowed us into a state of penury in order to buy votes and basically just wasted all the cash which they borrowed. Our grandchildren will be paying the interest charges on the money they borrowed.

Just what do the complainers think he should be doing differently. How can he even start when the NL treasury secretary leaves a note to the Conservative man when he took over to say "Sorry, there is no money left!" What else can he do to avoid some austerity when there is no money to work with? Don't bother to suggest we borrow even more!

Its a complete waste of time trying to criticise Osborne's efforts. Ed ***** stands up and starts braying on about it but he does not mention that he was partly responsible for Brown's disastrous policies while NL was doing its worst. So far he has not been able to suggest a more effective plan to counteract his and Brown's gross errors when they ran our economy. I wonder why!

Les

hodgy0_2

Kinnocks famous 1985 conference speech, (the first in my post)

was a turning point for Labour -- and laid the foundations of an electable party

http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.or...htm?speech=191

Martin2005

I agree. I really liked Kinnock, he was a brilliant orator and moved Labour towards desparately needed reform.

He was destroyed by the media though. And if anyone wants to know why New Labour decided to get more control of their communication and message (spin), the destruction of Kinnock is a good place to start.

Martin2005

Usual panto stuff I see

Dingdongler

Oh yes, lovely Neil and Glenys. They really are a great example of conviction left wing socialist politicians. And they definitely have risen from that 'cesspit' that their ancestors seemed to be trapped in 'for a thousand years'




Neil Kinnock and his wife Glenys have amassed six publicly- funded pensions between them, which are worth some £185,000 a year, it's reported.

Good luck to them, some will say. But the Kinnocks are an interesting study. They began as Left-wingers who sought to abolish the House of Lords. Now they're in the Lords.

They were once anti-Common Market, but have since enjoyed careers in Europe - he as a commissioner, she as an MEP and now as Gordon Brown's new Europe Minister.

Apart from their salaries, both Kinnocks have enjoyed generous expenses. They each claimed a housing allowance, although they shared the same property. It's estimated they have collected about £12million in pay and allowances.

They've managed to employ - at public expense - both their son and their daughter.

Having failed as Labour leader to defeat the Tories, Neil Kinnock's consolation prize was a position in Europe, although he'd voted against joining the Common Market in 1975.

Glenys was compensated, too, by being put on Labour's Member of the European Parliament list.

Now Neil Kinnock is a Labour elder statesman in the Lords. He argued forcibly in Gordon Brown's favour when the Prime Minister sought support at a party meeting last week.

He could scarcily do otherwise when his wife was about to join Brown's Government as Minister for Europe.

But their political trajectory seems particularly cynical and self-serving. How will Neil explain to old friends who wanted (like him) to abolish the Lords why he and Glenys (soon to be ennobled) both became peers? How do they explain their privileged lives to others with whom they debated the need for fairness?


Their generous package of salary and perks included:

A total of £775,000 in wages for Lady Kinnock and £1.85 million for her husband, adding up to £2,625,000.
Allowances for Lady Kinnock’s staff and office costs of £2.9million.
A £64,564 ‘entertainment allowance’ for Lord Kinnock.
A total of five publicly-funded pensions, worth £4.4million, allowing them to retire on £183,000 a year.
A housing allowance that allowed them both to claim accommodation costs although, as a married couple, they lived in the same house in the Belgian capital between 1995 and 2004.




Back when he was a young gun revolutionary Neil Kinnock left us in no doubt as to how he felt about the House of Lords, describing peers as an assortment of “brigands, muggers, bribers and gangsters“. He seems to have mellowed with age…

New figures show that Lord and Baroness Kinnock claimed over £66,000 in Lords expenses in the last year alone. Despite speaking on average just once a month, Kinnock has regularly been claiming his £300-a-day expenses allowance, topping up the £10 million in salary and pension benefits the couple enjoyed on the EU gravy train




I feel a tear coming to my eye, I think I might break out into a rendition of The Red Flag

TelBoy

Vacuous crap, i prefer to call it.