Anyone see the snivelling little twerp on Newsnight last night?

All we saw on the news (not newsnight) all last night was Michael Gove bemoaning teachers and schools being closed. I was waiting for that immortal phrase "you've never had it so good" to come out of his moaning mouth.

The real problem with the economy is that it's not just our economy that matters. If the US is in trouble we're in trouble. We managed to outperform the rest of Europe during the last decade but they weren't doing that bad themselves compared to now. Things have gone so t1t$ up in Europe that I believe there is little any Chancellor here can do to seriously revive the UK without a general world revivial (and in world I mean western europe and the US).

What Osbourne and the Tories need to do is to stop posturing and running around blaming unions and the last Labour government (and by definition all those who are in unions and who voted Labour) and to try and work their way into a second term without the LibDems (which seems to be their only objective as far as I can see), and help people feel better about how bad things are. They have to start by admitting that the recession was caused by global factors and only global factors changeing will really pull us out (they have difficulty doing this because they then can't blame Gordon for destroying the UK economy, which completely by chance went ar$e up at exactly the same time as the US and Euro-zone). Then they really have to start easing the pain of unemployment - not stigmatising people as slackers, workshy, spungers etc. and put a gag on dozy ***s like Edwina Currie. They're doing lots of little things to actually do the opposite, the other week it was sick notes - doctors are writing too many - how dare they! Workshy sicknote scroungers need dealing with.


Unfortunately once again we have a Tory government who are transparently working to usual Tory objectives. This government isn't serving us, it's serving itself. They owe as much to the people who didn't vote for them as to those that did.
I'm sick of these people. They can't even support the people they claim to really be the friend of - business. My industry has simply gone down the toilet. They don't represent industry or business, they represent the guys at the top and the big shareholders, who will all be better off if costs are cut by moving to China or India.

So, [url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/osbornes-impact-laid-bare-the-rich-get-richer-and-the-poor-get-poorer-6270235.htmlthe rich WILL get richer and the poor, poorer[/url

[url=http://www.ifs.org.uk/projects/363IFS Report[/url

Just one for West London should do.

Agree with all of this. Its nice to see people who can see right thorugh what they are trying to do unlike the DM readers et al who drink it all up and take it as fact. I got my knickers in a bit of a twist last night I must admit because for months I've had to listen to people call me a lazy, non deserving, workshy, benefit scrounger who drives around in a £37,000 BMW on the Motability Scheme paid by you the tax payer. On top of this my hard working husband who nobody gave two hoots about last month, all of a sudden yesterday became the scum of this country all because he stood up for what he believed in and took strike action. I'm sick of this government snide, sniping remarks about the honest, hardworking and vunerable people of this country. I'm sick of their we're all in this together attitude. From what I can see we, the ordinary citizens are in this together but exludes the millionaires, bankers and MP's, they're not in this at all.



Rant over, I need to keep my blood pressure at a reasonable level today

It's inevitable in austere times. By making the poorest poor it frightens them and those a bit better off into working harder to get out of / not drop into that situation. Remember the fear of the work house?

Please tell me you're joking



I'd like to know how I could have worked harder not to contract a disease? Oh, I fear the workhouse alright, I fear this will be the next step this government will take for us poor, sick urchins. I've researched the workhouses and asylums as part of my genelogy hobby and believe you me, we're not far off those opening again. I'm of no use to this government, I'm just a burden so in the workhouse I'll go

You mean your hard working husband, who happens to work in a job that the media and government (and therefore the gullible public) think is not needed, takes a day off to protest about his, and others, treatment by his employer, is suddenly seen as an essential worker and how dare he take the day off.

Him?

You mean the one that should taken out, put against a wall, and shot in front of his family?

Quote ="Urmston Wire"And the reasons that the banks caused the recession itself is because they were under-regulated because nobody cared as long as money came into the coffers. '" Not this tired old argument again. It's illegal to kill people but it doesn't stop people doing it. The reason the banks caused the recession is because of what they actually did not because they were not prevented form doing it! If they had not been so stupid as to deal in these ridiculous junk assets and other dubious financial instruments we would not be where we are today. The idea it was regulatory failing is a joke. These are banks who are supposed to be the cornerstone of the financial world not a bunch of crooks and gamblers. As is usually the case regulation follows some sort of disaster and it was completely unrealistic to expect the likes of the FSA to have the resources to keep tabs on the weird financial instruments that were being dreamt up just about every week. Even if they could that assumes this was UK thing and it clearly wasn't. Please tell us how Brown could have regulated the US and other countries banks? To coin a phrase, they were all in it together! Quote The problem with Britain is that we expect the best possible public services but low taxes. '" I don't disagree with that but my argument is the tax burden is biased onto the individual and VAT is regressive. I could not believe it a while back when I think it was Barclay's chairman who said we contribute £2.4bn in tax (or a similar figure) when what he was referring to was the tax his employees paid on the wages Barclay's paid them NOT what Barclays paid in corporation tax. Quote The lost tax revenue is, however, worse than you thought: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11342237'" The 15bn figure is for tax evasion not uncollected taxes such as VAT. That is something that is as illegal as benefit fraud but costs the country 10 times as much. [urlhttp://citywire.co.uk/money/tax-evasion-costs-treasury-15-times-more-than-benefit-fraud/a378274[/url

Quote ="Urmston Wire"And the reasons that the banks caused the recession itself is because they were under-regulated because nobody cared as long as money came into the coffers. '" Not this tired old argument again. It's illegal to kill people but it doesn't stop people doing it. The reason the banks caused the recession is because of what they actually did not because they were not prevented form doing it! If they had not been so stupid as to deal in these ridiculous junk assets and other dubious financial instruments we would not be where we are today. The idea it was regulatory failing is a joke. These are banks who are supposed to be the cornerstone of the financial world not a bunch of crooks and gamblers. As is usually the case regulation follows some sort of disaster and it was completely unrealistic to expect the likes of the FSA to have the resources to keep tabs on the weird financial instruments that were being dreamt up just about every week. Even if they could that assumes this was UK thing and it clearly wasn't. Please tell us how Brown could have regulated the US and other countries banks? To coin a phrase, they were all in it together! Quote The problem with Britain is that we expect the best possible public services but low taxes. '" I don't disagree with that but my argument is the tax burden is biased onto the individual and VAT is regressive. I could not believe it a while back when I think it was Barclay's chairman who said we contribute £2.4bn in tax (or a similar figure) when what he was referring to was the tax his employees paid on the wages Barclay's paid them NOT what Barclays paid in corporation tax. Quote The lost tax revenue is, however, worse than you thought: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11342237'" The 15bn figure is for tax evasion not uncollected taxes such as VAT. That is something that is as illegal as benefit fraud but costs the country 10 times as much. [urlhttp://citywire.co.uk/money/tax-evasion-costs-treasury-15-times-more-than-benefit-fraud/a378274[/url

That's him

That can't be right though, because what you're saying there is that a businessman doesn't know what he's talking about, and as we all know, businessmen are experts in everything.

Or perhaps it's a businessman who prefers to play with the facts a little to support what he wants to claim.

You mean being dishonest?

Can't be. All businessmen are as honest as the day is long. Oh yes.

You are correct.
From memory of Nick Robinson's programme last night ... of the 549bn tax take, only 43bn comes from corporation tax.
The biggest lump by far is from income tax.

I'm pretty certain he does know what he's talking about but he's presenting not-quite-relevant facts to (try to) make Barclays sound as though they are not totally amoral.
Which, of course, they are, otherwise they wouldn't still be in business.

The bankers are none too bright, either. For example that shameless multi-millionaire Hester, who despite trousering £5m or whatever it was from effectively the British taxpayers (who practically own 'his' bank) thanked them by very publicly telling the Select Committee:
"[iI would be interested to see the investor who wants to put more capital towards UK banks at the moment. They are thinking it is a dumb place to put more capital[/i."
... and instantly knocking around 6% off the value of RBS, not to mention the value of other UK banks.

And he's still in a job, and will no doubt trouser a few more million of our money next year. Just think ourselves fortunate we can get a guy of that calibre to run things, I say.

But don't forget, we have to pay the top wages to get the top people in the world to run our big companies. Otherwise we may end up in the... oh.

If we don't pay millions in bonuses for our top executives then we'll have people not qualified to run them instead. And that will lead to... ah.

If we sack poorly performing executives instead of allowing them to leave with a full pension and millions in a golden handshake then we'll never recruit the best executives. And that will cause...

Oh I'll just stop now.
Booooooooooo to people earning well below the average wage for daring to go on strike! Irresponsible the lot of em! If they carry on doing that it'll cause the economy to not grow, interest rates to plummet, unemployment to rise and inflation to skyrocket...

Oh dear.

Why has nobody yet had a pop at those two parasites who managed to throw very nearly the whole nation out of work for a day on 29 April this year? Apart from the greater numbers not working, it also cost us a damn sight more because the vast majority of people still got paid for getting pi[is[/ised

I understand we're going to have another day of inaction on June 5 2012 too, again no moaning about that one

Of course not. But it has been mentioned in the last couple of days by various people - don't worry.

But people go and spend money on those days, in pubs, shops and restaurants, so it's great. Like yesterday in fact, when, for example, there was 33% increase in shoppers at the White Rose centre near Leeds. So just like Royal occasions, the strike may not actually have been so bad for the economy.

You're right (presumably a 'stopped clock' moment). There's no way any regulatory authority could have been expected to see and act against the potential future issues particularly when the actual dubious activity wasn't happening within their country. Only a [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/26/ed-balls-sorry-labour-failuresfool[/url would think otherwise.
Of course the same rational applies to the majority of the banking industry who, like the regulators, simply enjoyed the prosperity and didn't ask too many questions.