Success In a City Centre--near You ????? |
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rubberknees50
Really Senior Member II Does it have chrome bumpers? Joined: 26-July-2004 Location: Telford, Shropshire Status: Offline Points: 1074 |
Topic: Success In a City Centre--near You ????? Posted: 07-March-2005 at 20:57 |
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I'm with Horsetan, Monster Raving Looney party about as viable as any, think Blair may have done himself and the Labour party enough damage so it'll be hopelessly split. Since they stabbed maggie in back no-one takes Conservatives seriously, and what are they calling LibDem's this week? Any other country they'dve been a coup d'etat by now! |
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IanT
E28 528, E23 735 |
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spokey
Bavarian-Board Contributor Offensive and obnoxious tub of lard Joined: 02-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1948 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 18:20 | ||
I'd not mind, Peter, but our own education system is ... er ... "fraught with challenges", and I'd far rather Laurel and Hardy stopped gallivanting around the world, either blowing up my taxes and yours in foreign climes like Iraq or chucking money into schooling systems other than our own, like in Africa, while there is such a mess here. It sounds very noble and righteous, but actually, it's just massive self-aggrandizement with someone else's money. And where do you stop? You've fed them, given them water, beefed up their infrastructure, educated them, armed them, made them competitive... Next stop British citizenship? All the thanks you will get is people you have spoon fed and made dependent on your welfare, with no incentive to make anything better of themselves -- imagine, a world populated by chavs. And fundamentally, all we are saying is that these people are incapable of making a go of it by themselves. We are encouraging and perpetuating their misery. |
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Ciao,
Spokey |
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Peter Fenwick
Bavarian-Board Contributor Joined: 27-August-2003 Location: Lost somewhere in time... Status: Offline Points: 6484 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 17:27 | ||
Nothing wrong with helping to educate people from other countries. Education is how you get these people to point where they can start to help themselves more. Just because money isn't the whole solution doesn't mean we shouldn't give it. After all we know that simply giving these people food and water will not solve the problem long term, for that they need education!
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Entering an age of Austerity and now driving a Focus Diesel.
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Horsetan
Really Senior Member II Say Neigh to Gatsos Joined: 11-April-2003 Location: Please let it be Ireland Status: Offline Points: 6381 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 17:11 | ||
Vote Monster Raving Loony Party.
You know it makes sense |
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spokey
Bavarian-Board Contributor Offensive and obnoxious tub of lard Joined: 02-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1948 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 11:10 | ||
Sorry, that wasn't my intention. I was going to use Charles Kennedy as an example, but I couldn't keep a straight enough face. |
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Ciao,
Spokey |
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spokey
Bavarian-Board Contributor Offensive and obnoxious tub of lard Joined: 02-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1948 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 11:08 | ||
Gordon Brown's last visit to Africa was not to promote the use of our tax money to feed the starving, nor to purify the water, but to fund their secondary (not primary!) education departments so that, in his words, "they could become more competitive on world markets". And as I said before, even the noble aims of feeding the starving and purifying their water are rarely best served by forking over large amounts of the folding stuff. And even less so when it's one government handing it over to another. |
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Ciao,
Spokey |
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rubberknees50
Really Senior Member II Does it have chrome bumpers? Joined: 26-July-2004 Location: Telford, Shropshire Status: Offline Points: 1074 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 10:29 | ||
I'm not convinced charges work at all, they introduced pay parking in Telford centre some time ago, now we have flat £2 charges at the hospitals. The entrances and exits to the car parks are always jammed as people accidently/deliberately break the machines. It was brought in at the Centre because they put public and private office buildings around the outside of the ring road with inadequate parking and the workers took over the shopping spaces. All it achieved was the workers park anywhere they can, on the grass, the pavements - remember the clamped police car, to avoid paying, thus causing more hassle and hazards. The M6 toll road works well for me, I happily pay to avoid the daily chaos on the main M6, simple volume of traffic causes. There is no easy answer, numbers of cars on the road are going up sharply and the road system on an island canonly be extended so far. A decent amount of the money ripped off motorists spent on the roads would help, round here if you don't get suspension damage from all the spped bumps you get it from the potholes . Public transport in this area isn't too bad, but in others it's terrible and until it's sorted people will use cars. |
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IanT
E28 528, E23 735 |
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Peter Fenwick
Bavarian-Board Contributor Joined: 27-August-2003 Location: Lost somewhere in time... Status: Offline Points: 6484 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 09:37 | ||
Very true. If we, the voters, didn't stand for it they'd have to change. But these days so many people don't care anymore. I have spoken to a lot of people who are of the opinion that it doesn't matter who you vote for because they're all as bad as each other. You do like to plug Micheal Howard! I wouldn't vote for him because I don't agree with a lot of the Tory's policies, nothing to do with his image/past connections with Maggie. Although the fact that he came up with pole tax didn't do him any favours in my eyes. I don't know who I'm going to vote for since I don't have a lot of faith in any of them. |
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Entering an age of Austerity and now driving a Focus Diesel.
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Peter Fenwick
Bavarian-Board Contributor Joined: 27-August-2003 Location: Lost somewhere in time... Status: Offline Points: 6484 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 09:31 | ||
Spokey, with respect to the charity coment. I agree with your point about a lot of the money charitys raise being taken up in bureaucracy. This si the way of the world these days. Every organisation, including the one I work for seems to be sinking into a sea of pointless paperwork etc. However, the contries that the goverment provides aid money too are hardly in competition with us. The money is used to stop people starving, like in Africa, and to stop people dying due to having to drink dirty water etc. I am certainly not aware of them funding any of our competitors and even if getting these countries back on their feet again does mean they may at some point in the future be in a position to compete, well I don't care. I'd rather that happened than we just left them to die. The NHS is the way it is. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. I take the point about government pensions and a lack of tact, but what could they have done to help other peoples pensions? the pension crisis is down to people living to long and the fact they are linked to the stock market, which is unpredicable. How many companies still offer final salary pensions. I know mine doesn't offer them to new employees any more. If we want to have inflation linked final salary pensions then we either need to die younger or work for longer, or pay more when we are working. IMO all the government is guilty of there is being tactless. |
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Entering an age of Austerity and now driving a Focus Diesel.
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spokey
Bavarian-Board Contributor Offensive and obnoxious tub of lard Joined: 02-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1948 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 08:09 | ||
It's only a popularity contest because the voters allow it to become one. Apathy and disinterest in political issues is the single biggest ally of people like Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson. They get their daily political updates spoon fed to them by the Sun or the BBC or the Grauniad or the Telegraph or whatever, and make no attempt to investigate or understand the underlying issues. That is why the culture of spin and sleaze is inevitable. People say they don't see Michael Howard as a credible leader, and they are, of course, entitled to that opinion, but I wonder how much of that opinion is justified by facts and how much is as a consequence of spin and presentation? He may well not be seen as credible as a consequence of his tenure under Margeret Thatcher and the apparent national dislike of anything to do with her, but is it not, for example, possible that an intelligent and experienced politician could learn from his mistakes? I'm not advocating everyone votes Tory, or becomes Michael Howard's best mate, but is it not possible that he might make a good Prime Minister because of the lessons he's learned? There seems to be a certain laziness of thought about politics that really worries me some times. Just to show you how things can move on: does anybody remember Mr T Bliar saying things like "whiter than white" and "not only sleaze-free, but seen to be sleaze-free". You can stop reading now if this is boring or irritating you, but for those who want to see how things are better in line with New Labour's original vision, can I suggest you read this 1994 speech by Tony Blair. To my mind, after 7 years in power, the tables could easily be described as turned. |
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Ciao,
Spokey |
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spokey
Bavarian-Board Contributor Offensive and obnoxious tub of lard Joined: 02-March-2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1948 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 07:53 | ||
I'm terribly sorry, but while I don't have a problem with a bit of charity, I *do* have a huge problem with a government minister spending my tax money to fund up another country to compete against us. I also disagree with the implementation of most charities: they take money, use it to fund bureaucracies and admin, or advertise on telly and do precious little good. Needless to say, government charity performs this little waste of our money at the most professional level, with all the money being spent on funding "development consultants" and very little on actual improvements in the quality of life. Government aid invariably props up some aspect of the receipient's government, rather than feeding or educating people. And before you have a go at me, I have actually consulted to a couple of very low-profile, earnest and sincere charities, and this still happens. I know of which I speak. Practically all the actual development funding actually came from the communities the charities were there to help!
Well, that's been your experience. I've not had a single (not one!) positive experience of the NHS. I've seen doctors in three different counties, God knows how many hospitals and they have all been utterly useless. The last one was when I woke up at 4AM with chest pains and took myself to hospital worried that I might be having a heart attack. Despite the fact that I was the only person in A&E, and I'd told them I was having severe chest pains, they still took 45 minutes to see me. And that was just the most recent experience. I really don't want to get into the stuff that really annoyed me, because I'll get banned again.
I don't have a problem with them earning a decent wage, it is a job I wouldn't want. But it is a bit insensitive for a Labour government to whack up really nice pensions for MPs and not doing anything useful to address the pensions of anybody else. I think, anyway. Edited by spokey |
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Ciao,
Spokey |
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Peter Fenwick
Bavarian-Board Contributor Joined: 27-August-2003 Location: Lost somewhere in time... Status: Offline Points: 6484 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 05:24 | ||
You have hit on the problem with democracy. It has always been that way but it is getting worse. The other problem is that in a free country even the people who's veiws you hate, like the BNP, are allowed to exist. |
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Entering an age of Austerity and now driving a Focus Diesel.
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Peter Fenwick
Bavarian-Board Contributor Joined: 27-August-2003 Location: Lost somewhere in time... Status: Offline Points: 6484 |
Posted: 07-March-2005 at 05:20 | ||
B7VP, I love the way you suggest that I am merely ignorant of the situation. I don't like politicians, whatever party they stand for, and the government we have are far from perfect. However I don't think they are out to screw us any more than anyone else. It is human nature to want more for yourself when you are in a position of power. It happens in every country to a greater or lesser extent. With respect to the money given in overseas aid, well I disagree. The people receving the aid are imeasurably worse off that us and to suggest otherwise is just plain wrong. This point comes down to a difference of opinion. People can harp on about how bad the NHS is all they like, but I've never been private and never had a problme with it, nor have any of my family. There will always be examples of bad service and people who have been let down, why? because there are not limitless resoures and it is run by human beings. The other point is how would you feel if you worked for an organisation that was constantly being used as a political football and having to listen to people telling you how crap it is. It certainly wouldn't motivate me. So politicians get 160K a year. If I was doing that job I'd want that kind of money. How much responsibillity do they have to shoulder? Far more than anyone who uses this forum I'll wager. If you make a mess at work, which everyone does from time to time, is your face splashed accross the front of the paper? these people might get paid a lot but they have a lot less freedom than the rest of us. As for your comments about Europe, this just sounds like 'the grass is always greener on the other side'. Sure living in Europe may have some advantages, but it's swings and roundabouts. If you think europe is so great, will you be voting to adopt the european constitution? If you think MRSA is designed to kill us off a bit sooner then you are indead insane!! A master plan!, I think not. Like I said, bugs are getting more resistant to antibiotics because of their overuse. Sure the problem may not be as bad if say cleaning hospitals was not contracted out, but how many places do you know that dont contract out the cleaning?? Oh and stop refering to Tony Blair as my mate, he's not! Just because i don't think the government are responsible for everything including the recent snow, doesn't mean I like the man. Finally, it would make it a lot easier for me to understand your points if you wrote in a more clear way. Your posts are like a collection of sound bites |
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Entering an age of Austerity and now driving a Focus Diesel.
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Doive
Really Senior Member II Joined: 09-February-2005 Location: Clinging to a turbine, Hexham Status: Offline Points: 1212 |
Posted: 05-March-2005 at 09:58 | ||
I thought her treatment as a parliamentary football has been terrible. Mr Howard has jumped on the bandwagon and used her as a stick to beat Labour with - but the fact remains that in all social structures you will of course have problems. This is why I dislike our brand of democracy, it's all a popularity contest. Democracy in it's essence works well, but here it is corrupted by the very people who are meant to uphold it. I think I'll move to the south of Ireland.
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Coasting
Really Senior Member II www.TOTALTORQUE.net Joined: 05-February-2005 Location: Not with the two-faced bloke. Status: Offline Points: 2125 |
Posted: 05-March-2005 at 08:58 | ||
If you look at my previous post I did actually say I'd prefer to see the harderline - but that it's not as easy to implement as it is to say it. On the Blair getting in by pretending to be friends of Celebs etc - that's just not true. He got in because the British public had tired of Conservative 'in-party' fighting and the absolute lack of a credible leader. That's doesn't mean I'm a Socialist (well, neither are labour..) and it doesn't mean I'm anti-Tory. In fact I'd consider myself very much floating voter at the moment because I always consider each party/leader on their own own merits and policies at the the time of voting. As things stand though, I just don't see Howard as a credible leader and I think he's done himself and his party an incredible amount of damage with the latest Health Service spin of this week. The way they have used the patient in question is utterly appalling, and even the patient has expressed her "disappointment" with the way her case has been used. Edited by Coasting |
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therealmccoy
Really Senior Member II Joined: 27-April-2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 552 |
Posted: 05-March-2005 at 08:53 | ||
It's all very well saying that it is the most cost effective option, but we ALL know it doesn't work. Maybe if people saw that they have to go to prison when guilty, rather than a slap on the wrist, they wouldn't do it? Ok, this is a very naive thing to say, but surely prisons could work as a deterrent??
With regards to your last point, Blair got in by pretending to be friends of Celebrities and putting his face in all the magazines... Most voters are stupid though, a recent poll suggests that they would be more likely to vote Labour with Brown in charge, than Blair. Where have they been for the past 8 years?!?! He's the guy that screws you EVERY DAY!!!! But hey, all we can do is discuss it James |
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Coasting
Really Senior Member II www.TOTALTORQUE.net Joined: 05-February-2005 Location: Not with the two-faced bloke. Status: Offline Points: 2125 |
Posted: 28-February-2005 at 15:31 | ||
Well here are some official figures for you (from the National Probation Service for England & Wales): Cost of a Community Rehabilitation Order and Fulfilment: £1,710 Cost of a Community Pubishment Order and Fulfilment (formerly known as a Community Service Order): £1,500 Cost of putting someone into Prison for a year £22,000 Now, put that into the further context of how much the existing Prison Service costs to run. There are 128 prison establishments with a workforce of over 48,000 staff. Annual running costs? 2003-2004......£2 BILLION So the monies from the Dome would be, well, a drop in the ocean. HM Prison Service actually accounts for 16% of the whole amount spent on the Criminal Justice System! At the end of March 2004 there were 68,500 prisoners in the above. That actually means that the REAL cost of keeping someone in prison for a year is almost £30,000 - and that is without the cost of new prison developments being taken into account. Plus, £224 MILLION was spent on increasing capacities during 2004. So the investment is there. The point is that to do anything more would have to hit the taxpayer - and as you can see the monies are huge! I'm not saying I don't think we should. Personally, I'd like to see harder line. It's just that Mr Howard knows fine well that the true resolution to the problem is a lot harder than he makes it out to be. It's a good vote winner for him if the public are quite so fickle as to believe the headline of what ANY politician says though!
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therealmccoy
Really Senior Member II Joined: 27-April-2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 552 |
Posted: 28-February-2005 at 15:12 | ||
He could use the £20,000,000 he wont spend on the Millenium Dome for a start
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Coasting
Really Senior Member II www.TOTALTORQUE.net Joined: 05-February-2005 Location: Not with the two-faced bloke. Status: Offline Points: 2125 |
Posted: 28-February-2005 at 14:52 | ||
Very!
Ah yes he does...but if he were to get into power (which he won't, but lets just say there is a total block on all labour voting and he does get in) he'd soon change his mind when he found how much more money he was going to have to raise through taxing us to keep them all behind bars.... Everyone wants more prisons - until they find out how much it costs. |
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therealmccoy
Really Senior Member II Joined: 27-April-2003 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 552 |
Posted: 28-February-2005 at 14:30 | ||
Isn't it nice to have a nice, healthy debate without having your car or house brought into the equation!!
Never forget the Michael Howard believes in prisons - not community service... NHS, it's not great but it has always helped me out. Waiting lists are shorter... Because there are more lists! Me ex-girlfriend had to have an operation, she got a letter saying we'll contact you in 6 months to arrange an appointment!!!! It's all spin - in war it's called Propaganda, but now it's ok... Interestingly, regarding Europe... Is it not an infringement of my Human Rights, not to be able to drive me LEGALLY lowered car down any one of the Queen's roads?? Hmmm... |
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