Then you'll always be fighting a war you can't win. We live in an aspirational consumer society, any party which wants to govern these days has to be 'conservative' to an extent. Idealism is fine but practical reality will always win in the end. Even if the Tories were ousted tomorrow their replacements would still need to face the realities of the economy and continue with cuts and public expenditure reforms. The world changes, for better or worse, sometimes you just have to accept it and adapt accordingly.

lets have some actual figures, what was the rent compared to the mortgage?
in 1996ish i was paying around £220 per month on a mortgage with interest rates at 7% which was around 25% of my income. but i didn't get 33%-50% discount on the purchase.
so, you're a wage slave if you have a mortgage to pay but not a wage slave if you have rent to pay.

If you need to work to pay either, you're pretty much a wage slave. After all no landlord has ever evicted a tenant for not paying rent, have they?

The difference being; until relatively recently rents, especially council house rents, were considerably lower than mortgage repayments. Councils, as landlords, were also more sympathetic to their tenants than private landlords. My early mortgage repayments were considerably more than friends who lived in council houses paid in rent. To achieve the mortgage we not only had to show we could afford the 20% deposit and the repayments, we also had to show two years of regular savings with the building society. A condition that few first-time buyers could meet today.

But housing cost (rent or mortgage)is only one aspect of wage slavery. Since the 1980s there has been a massive increase in non-mortgage personal debt. Debts that are used to buy cars and other consumer goods. When I applied for a bank loan in 1982 to buy a new (to me) car, I had to stump up 20% deposit in cash before the bank would entertain me. Now if a deposit is required, the lender will accept payment by credit card for both deposit and repayments. It's barmy.

Did anyone see The Big Question today. One was 'is it ok to celebrate someones death' and Nadine Dorries had said that the protesters should think of Thatchers kids and how they are feeling, one of the guests was Benjamin Zephaniah and he said 'why, Carol Thatcher thinks people like me are gollis and her son is an arms dealer'. The conversation after that was something like

Dorries: 'I thought better of you Benjamin'

BZ: 'why, are you saying she never said it'

ND: 'I thought you were better than that'

BZ: 'are you saying she never said it'

ND: 'I just thought better of you'

BZ: 'did she say it, did she say it'

ND: 'well, yes she did'

I magine if you or I said it, we would (quite rightly) be prosecuted.

Don't talk soft. It was a stupid comment made off hand to some colleagues. She got sacked over it. The notion that the police should be investigating that and pursuing a prosecution is ridiculous.

If she's said it directly to a person to cause offence and the person complained then she would be prosecuted, but in those circumstances no one would be. She was punished far worse than virtually anyone else would have been. If anyone else had said it the other people would think she was a tvvat and maybe distance themselves from her, but that's it.

And it's a remarkably trivial offence to deserve the celebration of her mother's death

I suppose the level of triviality is dependent on the skin your wearing.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/14/thatcher-is-dead-but-who-reinvented-her-life?CMP=twt_guThatcher is dead but who reinvented her life?[/url

It may be to you but to those who experienced suffering at the hands of her policies or who lost loved ones as a result it's not.

No, it's trivial whatever your skin colour is.

Tebbit comparing here to Jesus Christ



I wish she was the same as Christ, it would have meant she had never existed.

Seriously? You really think it's trivial to refer to black people as 'gollis'?

Your probably wasting your time, he's nipped out for a chinky or to the Paki shop.

Picketing is ok if it doesn't cause an obstruction or intimidation or violence. The fact that you use the word "preventing" shows your lack of democracy. Once pickets move from persuation to prevention you have stepped over the line.

I do not regard standing round a brazier as working.




What are you talking about?

So you didn't vote for 13 years?

Because people are FORCED to borrow aren't they?

This may describe your experience of working life but don't put the "vast majority of ordinary workers" into the same helpless pot as yourself.?

So why did the BP & Esso drivers go on strike for a 40% increase in 79?

Because they could

So you think this is reasonable, rational, acceptable behaviour?

I think referring to a black person as a golli is wrong, stupid, offensive and ridiculous. But this was a private conversation where I believe no black people were present.

The notion that the police should be investigating her use of the word and prosecuting her is ridiculous. There are probably 5 million crimes far more serious than this that they have to deal with. They don't have time to dealing with burglaries, robberies and muggings, but hey, the hated Prmie Minister's daughter said "Golli" and it's in the papers so let's rush in there and create a crime that we can solve. WTFever.

I think the BBC were probably right to fire her over it. I don't know what type of shows she was involved in or whether she did a good job on screen, but anyone caught using language like that is risking their job.

Do I think her using the term once gives justification to the s who are publicly celebrating Thatcher's death? No. They were going to celebrate anyway, whether Carol Thatcher was the greatest women who ever lived or just an average person with flaws. It was a lame justification.

Withdrawing labour is entirely reasonable, rational and acceptable behaviour

I've never understood the indignation wreaked by the public over Carol Thatcher's sacking, and the calls for her to be reinstated as it was private converstion that was leaked. Thatcher's defence was the same, and I don't think she ever actually acknowledged that the use of the word was wrong.

Regardless of whether the word was uttered live on air, in a private room, to a black person or amongst friends is irrelevant, the fact that it passed her lips in the first place demonstrates the way her mind works. She's racist.

No one has touched your posts.

Agreed - so is not withdrawing your labour, would you not agree?

The notion of secondary picketing is an interesting one, it is basically saying that withdrawing ones labour is sufficient to win the argument so I need to disrupt other people who are not directly involved and who have not voted to strike.

Scabs are people who you have not managed to convince of your argument and like you they have made an independent decision to keep working which as you have suggested is "entirely reasonable, rational and acceptable behaviour" So why do you find this so abhorrent?