The trial of George Osborne

pinno

Is he a tw4t or what ?
I suppose there will be plenty of people who know exactly how the world works and will tell me he is a great guy.

verylonglegs

Well, if you want this to be a thread of substance you probably need to add a bit more flesh to your argument. Any flesh for that matter.

pinno

verylonglegs wrote:

Well, if you want this to be a thread of substance you probably need to add a bit more flesh to your argument. Any flesh for that matter.

This enough flesh ?

verylonglegs

That's a no then. G'night.

alihisgreat

pinarello001 wrote:

Is he a tw4t or what ?
I suppose there will be plenty of people who know exactly how the world works and will tell me he is a great guy.

he's a great guy.

pauldavid

I like him, good guy from what I can tell, excellent grasp of basic mathematics.

Posted on behalf of Ed Balls.

ShutUpLegs

Does a nice line in woodchip

pliptrot

He'll certainly be remembered as the tw4t who finished off what Thatcher started, and rounded off 100 years of British decline with unprecedented levels of poverty and inequality. We need leadership out of the mess, not leadership to the bottom.

tiredofwhiners

pliptrot wrote:

He'll certainly be remembered as the tw4t who finished off what Thatcher started, and rounded off 100 years of British decline with unprecedented levels of poverty and inequality. We need leadership out of the mess, not leadership to the bottom.

Ah, another lefty who believes in the magic money tree and that there is a painless solution. Gordo and Balls spent the oney when they should have been saving it and this is what you get as a result. As all the news commentators have ben keen to point out, Labour have no alternative other than to spend even more money that we haven't got.

Time to tighten the belt folks and learn what 'living within our means' actually feels like.

PS Thatcher only killed off "dead men walking" - the mines cost the taxpayers billions, the car industry couldn't get a car off the production line without already rusting and the railways were the worst in Europe. As a taxpayer, I was glad to no longer subsidising their failures.

We do not have "unprecedented levels of poverty and inequality" - we have what we got for voting Labour in for 15 years and only Polly Toynbee apologists try and ignore the fact that we are in a hole because of Brown and Balls trying to socially reengineer a situation where our brightest and best leave and the only people coming into the country are those dependent upon the welfare state. Don't complain about the medicine for tasting bad - blame Labour who gave the country the clap in the first place.

will3

pliptrot wrote:

He'll certainly be remembered as the tw4t who finished off what Thatcher started, and rounded off 100 years of British decline with unprecedented levels of poverty and inequality. We need leadership out of the mess, not leadership to the bottom.

Yeah, bring back Gordon Brown. He was the bestest e v a r.

bianchibob

tiredofwhiners wrote:

pliptrot wrote:

He'll certainly be remembered as the tw4t who finished off what Thatcher started, and rounded off 100 years of British decline with unprecedented levels of poverty and inequality. We need leadership out of the mess, not leadership to the bottom.

Ah, another lefty who believes in the magic money tree and that there is a painless solution. Gordo and Balls spent the oney when they should have been saving it and this is what you get as a result. As all the news commentators have ben keen to point out, Labour have no alternative other than to spend even more money that we haven't got.

Time to tighten the belt folks and learn what 'living within our means' actually feels like.

PS Thatcher only killed off "dead men walking" - the mines cost the taxpayers billions, the car industry couldn't get a car off the production line without already rusting and the railways were the worst in Europe. As a taxpayer, I was glad to no longer subsidising their failures.

We do not have "unprecedented levels of poverty and inequality" - we have what we got for voting Labour in for 15 years and only Polly Toynbee apologists try and ignore the fact that we are in a hole because of Brown and Balls trying to socially reengineer a situation where our brightest and best leave and the only people coming into the country are those dependent upon the welfare state. Don't complain about the medicine for tasting bad - blame Labour who gave the country the clap in the first place.

+1
Not sure where this recession thing comes from, can't seem to be able to book a restaurant ...all full, same with cinema, local pubs, roads chock a block with new cars, queues every day at petrol stations. Travel agents full of people booking holidays. Bring on the boom times I can't wait !!
Britain seems to be doing better than most Eurozone countries so George Osborne gets my vote.

pliptrot

bianchibob wrote:

Britain seems to be doing better than most Eurozone countries

UK unemployment rate 7.8%, Germany 5.4%
UK youth unemployment rate 19.1%, Germany 11%

An important lesson there in how to run an economy. And the UK figures are after the bonanza of North Sea Oil and Gas, without which things would be much worse in Britain.

tiredofwhiners wrote:

the mines cost the taxpayers billions

The bail-outs to British banks in the last 5 years would have kept the 1984 UK coal industry going without a single job loss for more than 100 years. An industry which provided 100,000 jobs, many of them highly skilled and well rewarded. The "medicine" of which such deep thinkers as those who support Thatcherite simpleton thinking refer no doubt replaced some of those jobs with those selling Chinese shoes and flipping burgers. The last Labour government was doing a reasonable job until external circumstances -corporate greed and incompetence- plunged the world into recession. They made mistakes.But at least they had some vision and ideas. Our current Government is intellectually bankrupt. George Osborne's "unashamedly growth focused" budgets of the last 2 years did what, exactly? To support this lot after what happened in the 1980s shows a view of the world normally only seen by racehorses.

bompington

pliptrot wrote:

The bail-outs to British banks in the last 5 years would have kept the 1984 UK coal industry going without a single job loss for more than 100 years

With the slight difference that, if the banks hadn't been bailed out, the whole economy would have gone seriously down the tubes. I'm not in favour of fat cat bankers getting handouts any more than fat cat miners, sorry, I mean "highly skilled and well rewarded" miners, but I wonder what the alternative is? Never mind the question of whose watch the banks debacle happened on...

finchy

Not just George Osborne, the entire Tory cabinet.

And, for the sake of balance, the Labour cabinet from the previous government.

And the Tory ones before that.

Anyway, on to George Osborne in particular. That man who we have in charge of our economy is the one who said that "Ireland stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking." Even I, with my very limited knowledge of economics, was calling Ireland out as a bubble economy before the crash of 2008, so how Osborne couldn't see it is beyond me.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-s ... -tax-irish

Tom Butcher

tiredofwhiners wrote:

PS Thatcher only killed off "dead men walking" - the mines cost the taxpayers billions, the car industry couldn't get a car off the production line without already rusting and the railways were the worst in Europe. As a taxpayer, I was glad to no longer subsidising their failures.

Can you let me know how to opt out of subsidising the rail industry.

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/html/html/bfee944f-5d61-42ee-a4ad-df41d02ef567

OffTheBackAdam

Trying to clean up the usual mess left by a Labour government, combined with the idiocy of the LibDems, shackled to EU and higher laws and agreements.

Oh, another Lefty pops up.

UK unemployment rate 7.8%, Germany 5.4%
UK youth unemployment rate 19.1%, Germany 11%

Nice cherry picking, let's look at the rest of the tree?

Eurozone unemployment rate 11.6% Youth 22.8%
Greek 25.1% >50%
Spain 25.8% >50%

pauldavid

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Trying to clean up the usual mess left by a Labour government, combined with the idiocy of the LibDems, shackled to EU and higher laws and agreements.

Oh, another Lefty pops up.

UK unemployment rate 7.8%, Germany 5.4%
UK youth unemployment rate 19.1%, Germany 11%

Nice cherry picking, let's look at the rest of the tree?

Eurozone unemployment rate 11.6% Youth 22.8%
Greek 25.1% >50%
Spain 25.8% >50%

You'll not get a reply to this for a while, he's gone to talk to his union about you.

Don't be surprised if he's on strike for three days next week.

finchy

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Trying to clean up the usual mess left by a Labour government, combined with the idiocy of the LibDems, shackled to EU and higher laws and agreements.

Oh, another Lefty pops up.

UK unemployment rate 7.8%, Germany 5.4%
UK youth unemployment rate 19.1%, Germany 11%

Nice cherry picking, let's look at the rest of the tree?

Eurozone unemployment rate 11.6% Youth 22.8%
Greek 25.1% >50%
Spain 25.8% >50%

Do you really believe that the UK's unemployment rate is only 7.8%?

finchy

And on the subject of the UK versus EU economies (this is not a party point, as it concerns the policies of Labour and the Tories as well as socialist and conservative governments across Europe), the UK is one of the most indebted nations on Earth. In the EU, only Luxembourg has a higher debt to GDP ratio than us.

pb21

[shock]Left wing people think they are correct and right wing people are wrong and numptys.

Right wing people think they are correct and left wing people are wrong and numptys.
[/shock]

All parties and governments are to blame (or possibly not) the present Tory, the previous Labour and the previous Tory to that...

pliptrot

Implicit in any comparison between the UK and Greece is an acknowledgement of how far the UK has fallen - before the ascent of the right wing the UK was comparable with Germany. It is shameful to think that the British have let a plutocracy develop under their noses and allowed greed and contempt for others to take control. But you are right to be suspicious of Europe - they are better rewarded, have better health care, better employment protection, better social provision and better pensions. What a bunch of whiners! Let's get even more like the Americans - health care only for the well-off, no employment protection, hey, let's go the whole way and be honest about it; what our current Government -rich, secure people who will never see, experience or have to deal with the consequences of their actions- wants is a free for all for the powerful, with no-one to stand in their way. Back to the 1930s. you should read some George Orwell if you think we're heading in the right direction.

verylonglegs

pliptrot wrote:

Implicit in any comparison between the UK and Greece is an acknowledgement of how far the UK has fallen - before the ascent of the right wing the UK was comparable with Germany. It is shameful to think that the British have let a plutocracy develop under their noses and allowed greed and contempt for others to take control. But you are right to be suspicious of Europe - they are better rewarded, have better health care, better employment protection, better social provision and better pensions. What a bunch of whiners! Let's get even more like the Americans - health care only for the well-off, no employment protection, hey, let's go the whole way and be honest about it; what our current Government -rich, secure people who will never see, experience or have to deal with the consequences of their actions- wants is a free for all for the powerful, with no-one to stand in their way. Back to the 1930s. you should read some George Orwell if you think we're heading in the right direction.

It can't be that bad, plenty of people are happy to move over here and make a life for themselves.

ddraver

pliptrot wrote:

Blah

But you are right to be suspicious of Europe - they are better rewarded, have better health care, better employment protection, better social provision and better pensions. What a bunch of whiners! Let's get even more

blah.

And much higher taxes!(I know, I live there)

You get what you pay for and the British Public want to pay for nothing.

bompington

ddraver wrote:

pliptrot wrote:

Blah

But you are right to be suspicious of Europe - they are better rewarded, have better health care, better employment protection, better social provision and better pensions. What a bunch of whiners! Let's get even more

blah.

And much higher taxes!(I know, I live there)

You get what you pay for and the British Public want to pay for nothing.

This is true, and there are pros and cons to both systems.
The problem is the people who want to get what other people pay for.

finchy

bompington wrote:

This is true, and there are pros and cons to both systems.
The problem is the people who want to get what other people pay for.

I'm happy to pay my taxes as an investment in the future (mine and the nation's), as a safety net and for the provision of essential services. I'm less happy to see money being p1ssed away on free schools, NHS IT projects that don't work etc.

verylonglegs

johnfinch wrote:

bompington wrote:

This is true, and there are pros and cons to both systems.
The problem is the people who want to get what other people pay for.

I'm happy to pay my taxes as an investment in the future (mine and the nation's), as a safety net and for the provision of essential services. I'm less happy to see money being p1ssed away on free schools, NHS IT projects that don't work etc.

This is true, everyone usually acknowledges the need to pay for public services in order to make life better, it's when the question of what is value arises that the differences of opinion appear.

DesB3rd

Current projections don’t have state employment & expenditure returning to 2000 levels until toward the end of the 2015-20 administration; much like the govt of ’92-’97 I would expect this lot to “let off” once the fiscal situation eases - driving that date ever further out. Now granted I was only 20 in 2000 but I feel confident that, far as end points go this one isn't exactly capitalist dystopia.

Think what you like about Osborne’s policies (or Osborne himself, merely on aesthetics he’s very easy to dislike...) but it is hyperbole to describe this administration's aspirations as anything unusual or radical.

pinno

tiredofwhiners wrote:

Ah, another lefty who believes in the magic money tree and that there is a painless solution. Gordo and Balls spent the oney when they should have been saving it and this is what you get as a result. As all the news commentators have ben keen to point out, Labour have no alternative other than to spend even more money that we haven't got.

I don't remember a single Tory who was shouting from the rooftops about saving money during the paper boom under Blair and Brown. To say that is just hindsight shyte to cover their own 4rses when the truth is, they cannot run a chicken down the yard. The present Tory administration is the Elite for the Elite and if you aren't one of them, you have been hoodwinked. If you are one of them, you aint fooling me.

bagpusscp

What the Dickens....Country is in great shape. :evil:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1849

tiredofwhiners

pinarello001 wrote:

I don't remember a single Tory who was shouting from the rooftops about saving money during the paper boom under Blair and Brown. To say that is just hindsight shyte to cover their own 4rses when the truth is, they cannot run a chicken down the yard. The present Tory administration is the Elite for the Elite and if you aren't one of them, you have been hoodwinked. If you are one of them, you aint fooling me.

Let me think - how about Brown tearing the heart out of private pensions to spend the money on the public sector. Nope, everyone was completely silent on that.

How about every budget when public expenditure on staff rose, and the debt levels increased. Nope, complete silence on that as well.

I cannot be bothered to search for any more as your mind is in denial so more fact won't sway you.

What you are getting now is the painful consequences of borrowing too much, spending it on administrative people in the public sector (the drag on the economy) rather than investment in industry to actually bring in more taxes. He encouraged local rates go go up hugely to pay for even more council non-jobs which again tilted the scales to the drag side and he used the public sector as a dumping ground for the unemployed rather than support the creating of wealth creating jobs in industry. He drove the economy to a high speed into the ground and bailed out just before it hit.

But yeah, everyone was completely silent. Nobody complained at all about the continual overspend, the bloating of the public sector. When the Tories are done, the country will be on the verge of there being no deficit and then we'll see how much the public like the idea of going into another deficit boom fuelled Labour bloat given they know what happens when the bill arrives. We might even start paying off some debt. People will have learned that there isn't a free lunch and that those who earn money aren't keen to give it away to politicians to waste on others who haven't earned it. Its why you hear so many screams from Guardianland - they have realised that the 'right of centre' are not in control - but the majority view in the UK has moved right of the middle because so many people have realised how much money the left wing wastes and that the they have paid off the debt that B&B created, they will have a lot more money.

I guess it was hard for you to hear anything as its clear where your head was lodged firmly.

pliptrot

Wouldn't it be nice if people wrote on forums as if they were actually within striking distance of others they were insulting? I doubt the word "moron" would be used so much. Anyway, on the subject of debt, the last Tory Government increased national debt from 27% to 42% of GDP, and in the first 4 years of the Blair Government it was reduced to 32% of GDP. It rose to 35% of GDP until 2008, after which it ballooned to current levels of 75%. one of the principal reasons for this was- you've guessed it- the bank bailouts, which is undoubtedly a case of giving (a lot of) money to those who haven't earned it. Whatever your political persuation, the structural weakness of the UK economy goes back to 1980s Government policy. Nigel Lawson famously remarked that the UK needs no manufacturing industry. An attitude which is imbued in our entire political class, which explains why the investment in industry which we need to get us off our knees has never happened. Has anyone on the front bench - or shadow front bench - ever worked in industry?