Brown to be forced to hand back pension?....
 

So Brown is busy trying to look like the white knight and forcing exec's of 'failed banks' to hand back their pensions, but shouldn't he be handing his back as well for failing the UK economy?!!

Daily Mash have a comedy article along these lines, but I tend to agree with it!

BROWN REFUSES TO HAND BACK PENSION - The Daily Mash

Similar story in the Mail by Littlejohn...

So that's agreed, then. The man to blame for Britain's biggest banking collapse should pay with his pension.

Maybe the a one-eyed Scottish idiot should take a look in the mirror!

mb

Why? Thatcher still got her pension!

Not even in the same league as the lying, underhand, pension-thieving, gold selling, conniving, denial-monkey, unelected Scotch git that is Sh*t Brown;)

I won't waste my time preaching in here, but most definitely in the same league. In fact what we are witnessing right now is the death of Thatcherism - no bad thing in my book.

how on Earth can this be the labelled as the death of Thatcherism?

Thatcher began the deregulation of the financial services, encouraged borrowing and house buying for all, sold off council housing, instilled the 'greed is good' mentality in much of the population and so on and so forth amongst other things of course.

This bunch of incompetents just carried on where the Tories left off and now you have what you see today. Neither party is fit to govern and thye have both made the same mistakes in the last 30 years. People talk about Brown selling off our gold reserves for instance, well what did the Tories do to try and keep us in the ERM .... same s**t, different party.

You can neg my posts all you like, but if you aren't prepared to consider our political history prioer to 1997 and want to view Thatcher's reign through rose tinted spectacles so be it. I will, however , look at the bigger picture. Thanks :D

Have a read here;

BBC NEWS | The Reporters | Robert Peston

And what was it like before Thatcher!?

Ah, that bastion of impartial reporting Mr. Peston! See BBC's 'double standards' after keeping quiet on Mandelson's link to oligarch until now | Mail Online

" ... The Serious Fraud Office has received a letter from Tory MP Greg Hands raising suspicions that Peston has a ‘mole’ inside Downing Street. Peston is a close friend of Roland Rudd, whose firm Finsbury runs PR for Northern Rock and Lloyds TSB ... "

Leading us to Mandelson in new 'favours' row: Heathrow PR pal had six meetings with ministers before new runway go-ahead | Mail Online

" ... Peter Mandelson is at the centre of a 'favours for friends' row over the controversial proposals to expand Heathrow. Details emerged of the extraordinary access the Business Secretary's close acquaintance Roland Rudd - who represents airport operator BAA - had to the top tiers of Government .... "

And he wrote "Brown's Britain", a biography of someone called Gordon Brown ....

I'd leave Peston out of things if I was you ....

Dave

Boooooooooooooom. (Distant sound of f1_fan's argument hitting the ground.

Nice one dave, LOL

OK simple question. Are you saying Thatcher didn't start to deregulate the financial srvices, didn't encourage house buying, didn't sell off the council housing, didn't encourage and make borrowing easier, didn't generate a 'greed is good' mentality?

Simple Yes or No please.

Not at all. The facts about Thatcher's government remain - you may not like it, but they are facts not opinion. The link was just to try and encourage you all to think about a time before 1997 and realise not all the current problems stem from this government. Something many of you seem incapabale of doing.

You can vote Cameron in for all I care, can't be worse than the current lot, but it won't be any better either. Me.... I am off to Aus in two years if I have my way and if so I will be watching the further demise of this country from afar!

Economically it was dire, but at least people cared about each other. For instance kids by and large respected their elders, an old woman would never have to stand on a bus like she does today and so on....

Thatcher destroyed the social fabric of this country and Blair only poured fuel on the fire.

The country is now too far gone and will never recover what it once had.

Can't really argue with any of that.;)

A recent novel summed it up for me, with the thoughts of a fictional DI:

"He knew that at best, his efforts now were confined to mopping up after, since society had hit the buffers in the mid 80's, and there would be no going back to the times before that, ever again".

Funny, thats exactly the sort of thing my grand parents said of the seventies....every generation will have their memories of the "good ol' days", just add mods and rockers, punks and skin heads who behaved just as bad as kids of today. I'm sure our kids of today will have fond memories their childhood and will pour scorn on era of their adulthood. Nothing changes, same type of people except with different faces, attitudes and fashion.

LOL at the negging of these posts. The truth hurts I guess. :D

As a matter of interest is that from a Peter James book?

First of all, I would say to the post neggers - why don't you reply to the posts with your views rather than pressing on a button.
Secondly, I would have to disagree with the comment that Thatcher destroyed the social fabric of this country. I can only assume it was made to get a "rise".
I would say that if any one thing has been responsible for the lack of social cohesion in this country, it would have to be a social welfare system that encourages young single parent families to live without any extended family framework, that encourages people of such a mind not to work and that encourages people not too take any social responsibility, because it is the job of the state.
As Thatcher did not come up with this system, I feel that she is to a degree, mitigated in this area.
Just my opinion of course.

Nope, I don't think so, it's about a DI in Portsmouth, I'll look up the author later, if I do it now and wake the Mrs I'm in sh*t.

She may not have invented it, but she sure as hell used it enough: MILLIONS unemployed, even though the Tories changed the method of counting at least SIX times to massage the figures. We don't still refer to "Maggies missing millions" around here for nowt, you know.;)

And had her government NOT made it as easy for the unemployed as they did, do you not think that social unrest, a la poll-tax riots would have come earlier?

No worries, just I am sure I read a Peter James book a while ago where the DI said something like that, but it was set in Brighton so not the same.

Your last statement is so true. She really did encourage the 'black economy' through the back door.

Look all I am saying in essence is that some of the deep rooted problems with the UK today (not just the economy) are not just the result of the last 11 years of Labour government (although they have certainly played a massive part in fanning the flames or burying their heads in the sand for the short term good etc.) and can be in part traced back to policies pursued by the Thatcher government of the 80s and 90s. New Labour and Thatcher's government are in many ways not that far apart, e.g. massaging unemployment figures, spending millions of our reserves propping up an over borrowed economy, changing laws on rights to protest etc. etc.

It just alarms me that many here seem happy to lambast the current government over everything they do with an almost blind faith that whoever we vote in next will be so much better for the country. All I am saying is that while it is doubtful the successors could be any worse they may well be no better either.

Finally the negging of the posts is interesting. As cster said why not reply to their content rather than neg them. Anyway never mind as this is just a car forum on the Internet, not real life ;) :D The irony is all those negging probably think I am some 'pinko lefty' whereas in fact I am actually about as politically neutral as they come :D

Not really to get a rise, just something I believe to be true.

You are right what you say about the welfare system, but do you not remember how much of what you say was encourgaed by Thatcher's take on the black economy, how the massaging of the figures 'lost' people in the system etc. Sure the current government have grown the fire into an inferno in this respect, but the previous government lit it for sure.

That was quite a rant -- and reasonably accurate as well.

Steve

OK, agree re Thatcher government. The facts are that this govt has has 10+ years to do something good and constructive and chosen not to to which we pretty much all agree.

They (NL) cannot be allowed to continue, it just rubber stamps their policies of meddling and wholley minded planning and feeble, ill thought out policies.

You would think that any decent leader would appoint a cabinet of people who could see the mistakes that had been made in the past and then not repeat them, in fact make things better, OK first 4 years getting settled then after that really making a difference, doing the right things for the betterment of the country and its people.

Conservatives - probably the best of a bad bunch and that is not saying much about the bad bunch is it!

What are the options;
1) let NL carry on
2) Get a new gov't/party in place, ideally the best of the rest.

Not much of a choice really!

No wonder the likes of the BNP are gaining ground

Its certainly not Old Labourism for sure!

Les

It is very dificult to attribute blame for these type of things.
Nothing is black and white.

Thatchers reign was a bit revolutionary and had pluses and minuses.
Some would say for instance that in closing the mines, she destroyed the fabric of the associated areas. Others would hold the view that in doing so she liberated thousands from a form of slavery that spanned the generations.

Personally I don't think things (socially) are as bad as people make out (and I am by nature a cynic). There have always been w@nkers about. As for the economy - well it's broken worldwide. You might argue that if Labour can't regulate the city after ten years, what can they regulate - but that is another matter. We have lived off the fat for a long time and now it is "lean years".
The things I see happenning in this country that alarm me are more to do with bigger government and use of IT and surveillance to facilitate that.
One of the things that attracted me to this country was the laissez faire attitude which allowed people to do what they liked without too much regulation. I for one liked the multicultural aspect of life here.
But these things are being destroyed on the altar of anti terrorism by those with a vested interest (various types of civil servants including politicians and policemen).

I don't know about you, but this is be the sort of thing that will be likely to have me reaching for my passport in the future.

There is a lot of truth in what F1 fan is saying, especially over the "greed is good" syndrome.

She was a strong leader however, which we have lacked for a very long time. She did stand up for this country and she knew what was behind the Eu and had the guts to stand up to them for altruistic reasons. It was a pity she started to get ideas "above her station" and was not prepared to listen to what others-brave men-were telling her.

We desperately need another real leader who will stand up for this country and the British people rather than looking to their own future position in life all the time.

Les

Absolutely Les, I could not agree more. I listened to Obama's speech the other day and while I know a lot of what he said is rhetoric it was interesting to note that you really got the sense he deeply cared about his country and its people. Made me wish we had someone with a similar passion for our country waiting in the wings, but I don't see anyone. :(

Agree with you 100% on that. It is actually quite scary when you look at the intrusions into people's lives by this government.