Stop voting for fucking Tories

[tabascoboy]

Pensioners don't have to show pension restraint I see.

Absolutely nothing to do with this...I'm sure

[fishfoodie]

One of the reasons why Labour never gets into power, is their members preference for fight like cats in a sack, & their complete inability to maintain message discipline !

Look at the Tories; they fucking hated the NI tax raises, & they mumbled a bit about it; but they knew that they had to put them in, so that they could cut taxes before the next GE. They hated them, but they kept their gobs shut do that they could improve their chances of winning the next GE, & continuing to loot the public purse.

Why don't these thick Labour cunts understand that if they don't do similarly, this shit will just get worse, & they'll remain impotent ?

[GogLais]

Pensioners don't have to show pension restraint I see.

It's verging on the embarrassing tbh. Some form of means testing is one answer but that's too 1930s. We could do with some long-term bipartisan agreement on these issues, no chance of course.

[sockwithaticket]

[Ymx]

That’s a pretty dumb response by RMT.

[fishfoodie]

That’s a pretty dumb response by RMT.

Accurate though !

Or they could have just asked how big a payrise MPs gave themselves this year; or indeed, how many of actually pay tax in the UK ?

[I like neeps]

One of the reasons why Labour never gets into power, is their members preference for fight like cats in a sack, & their complete inability to maintain message discipline !

Look at the Tories; they fucking hated the NI tax raises, & they mumbled a bit about it; but they knew that they had to put them in, so that they could cut taxes before the next GE. They hated them, but they kept their gobs shut do that they could improve their chances of winning the next GE, & continuing to loot the public purse.

Why don't these thick Labour cunts understand that if they don't do similarly, this shit will just get worse, & they'll remain impotent ?

Tories come out in the press daily against the tax rises though. It's just not described as a civil war in the press.

[Ymx]

That’s a pretty dumb response by RMT.

Accurate though !

Or they could have just asked how big a payrise MPs gave themselves this year; or indeed, how many of actually pay tax in the UK ?

Comparing lump sums vs those made in perpetuity is just moronic. But I’m sure it will garner morons to support this

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Okay but if you don't support workers getting a payrise during huge inflation (and remember rent and housing costs aren't including in the figure) what do you support?

Avoiding the still more damaging consequences of stagflation. It's shit, but there aren't any great options available

Sure but Labour aren't in charge they don't need to enact on the policies. They just need to look like they have a plan/aren't a bunch of Johnson's who will say whatever is needed to get into power. There will be a lot of strikes this year - labour need a response.

He needs a coherent vision for the country. He doesn't have one. This is an example of that.

He being Starmer?

The problem is any sensible plan for this comes with significant pain, will prove damaging in the short to medium term, will annoy many voters, will split any partly let alone one with many people who (very oddly) think Corbyn wasn't a retard.

This situation comes on the back of decades of mismanagement, and there simply isn't a click of the fingers policy that can possibly address the situation. And if you do set out policy which considers this will take years to address you're going to start a bunch of fights and lose votes by being honest as well as dividing the party.

[SaintK]

It's verging on the embarrassing tbh. Some form of means testing is one answer but that's too 1930s. We could do with some long-term bipartisan agreement on these issues, no chance of course.

Ken Clarke agrees., I don't particularly need it either or the Winter fuel Allowance I get each year. But they seem to think I'll stop voting for them if they do away with it above a certain income level!!!

He said criticised the fact that the government’s cost of living support helped people like him, instead of being more focused on people in need. The government had to “protect the poor”, he said.
You’ve got to protect the poor, stop giving me money to pay my power bills. I’m not rich, but I got £1,100 pounds out of the government in the latest package. It’s absurd. I’ve got two houses and I’m a pensioners. Very nice, but I don’t need it.

[fishfoodie]

It's verging on the embarrassing tbh. Some form of means testing is one answer but that's too 1930s. We could do with some long-term bipartisan agreement on these issues, no chance of course.

Ken Clarke agrees., I don't particularly need it either or the Winter fuel Allowance I get each year. But they seem to think I'll stop voting for them if they do away with it above a certain income level!!!

He said criticised the fact that the government’s cost of living support helped people like him, instead of being more focused on people in need. The government had to “protect the poor”, he said.
You’ve got to protect the poor, stop giving me money to pay my power bills. I’m not rich, but I got £1,100 pounds out of the government in the latest package. It’s absurd. I’ve got two houses and I’m a pensioners. Very nice, but I don’t need it.

They should consider it a kind of apology for killing so many of their peers, with their half-assed handling of Covid

[Hal Jordan]

I’m not rich...I’ve got two houses

I suppose there's a comparator.

[Lobby]

I’m not rich...I’ve got two houses

I suppose there's a comparator.

In 2010 he was reckoned to be worth around £2m, so Clarke’s net wealth is now likely to be somewhere between 5 and 10 million at the very least (and probably much more). This would place him comfortably in the top 1% wealthiest people in the UK (the threshold is £3.64m). But apparently he still thinks he is ‘not rich’.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

I’m not rich...I’ve got two houses

I suppose there's a comparator.

If Ken isn't a millionaire he's been spending a lot of money on cigars, whisky and rare jazz records that don't retain value . So I suppose it depends where one starts to think of oneself as rich

[fishfoodie]

I’m not rich...I’ve got two houses

I suppose there's a comparator.

If Ken isn't a millionaire he's been spending a lot of money on cigars, whisky and rare jazz records that don't retain value . So I suppose it depends where one starts to think of oneself as rich

He's in the top 1% of the population, but probably only in the bottom 5% of the Tory MPs, & Lords

"Public Representatives"

[salanya]

Going back to the strikes, it's interesting how arguments get twisted.
Seeing the numbers I did think most train staff seemed to be paid pretty well for what they do, but then to see the note on them getting a 3% pay increase with redundancies as a proviso and suddenly the plot thickens.

Anyway, my questions to the Tories after seeing the Grant Shapps interview:
1. He was making the point of how high the median pay was for railway staff, and increasing pay too much would be bad for inflation and our economy. But two months ago the Tories had this big pledge for a 'high wage' economy - what has changed to that vision, or is it only certain people who are allowed to have a high wage?

2. Coming back to the 'high wages' for railway staff, and Shapps making this big point that railway staff median pay is over £40k, whereas nurses are around £30k, and general NHS staff well below that. Did he not consider that this doesn't reflect poorly on the railway staff, but on his government and the poor treatment of our 'NHS heroes'?

[fishfoodie]

Never trust a Politician with statistics; they never show their workings !

I can guarantee they've rigged the data to give exactly the answer they want.

I'd guess in one case they've included all senior grades,or maybe just London workers, to bring up the median wage; & on the NHS side, they're only including the lower grades, & the nurses, or they've included all regions, & hey presto, they say that Nurses have a lower median wage that the Rail workers.

For three years I had a job where I had to check statistics generated by Engineers, & sign off on them; you wouldn't believe how many chancers tried to rig the numbers, just because I was a junior technician.

[Wrinkles]

Never trust a Politician with statistics; they never show their workings !

I can guarantee they've rigged the data to give exactly the answer they want.

I'd guess in one case they've included all senior grades,or maybe just London workers, to bring up the median wage; & on the NHS side, they're only including the lower grades, & the nurses, or they've included all regions, & hey presto, they say that Nurses have a lower median wage that the Rail workers.

For three years I had a job where I had to check statistics generated by Engineers, & sign off on them; you wouldn't believe how many chancers tried to rig the numbers, just because I was a junior technician.

They’ve certainly included drivers but ignored the fact they’re nearly all in ASLEF, not the RMT, so not actually on strike. Take drivers out of the equation and average wages in the railway drop by at least 10 grand.

As Salanya pointed-out, the Tories want a high wage economy but only for the right sort.

[tabascoboy]

Leaving aside for a moment the rights and wrongs this particular dispute, it's all clearly showing that "high skill, high wage" is totally meaningless without a very clear definition. What of millions of jobs that will never be regarded as "high skill" but are nonetheless essential? And the other services that we benefit that may not be essential or "high skill" but are still in demand? Is it simply a means to justify earnings disparity by claiming that low paid work must be "low skill"? Or if a high majority or all workers somehow miraculously move to "high skill" labour who is going to do the low paid, low skill work in employment where margins are very likely to be too low for companies to afford "high wage"? Just where is the explosion in GDP going to happen to subsidise this across all sectors?

The aspiration by itself is fine but without a clearly set out plan it's just more blather.

[petej]

Leaving aside for a moment the rights and wrongs this particular dispute, it's all clearly showing that "high skill, high wage" is totally meaningless without a very clear definition. What of millions of jobs that will never be regarded as "high skill" but are nonetheless essential? And the other services that we benefit that may not be essential or "high skill" but are still in demand? Is it simply a means to justify earnings disparity by claiming that low paid work must be "low skill"? Or if a high majority or all workers somehow miraculously move to "high skill" labour who is going to do the low paid, low skill work in employment where margins are very likely to be too low for companies to afford "high wage"? Just where is the explosion in GDP going to happen to subsidise this across all sectors?

The aspiration by itself is fine but without a clearly set out plan it's just more blather.

It is just bullshit from the chief bullshitter.

[sockwithaticket]

Going back to the strikes, it's interesting how arguments get twisted.
Seeing the numbers I did think most train staff seemed to be paid pretty well for what they do, but then to see the note on them getting a 3% pay increase with redundancies as a proviso and suddenly the plot thickens.

Anyway, my questions to the Tories after seeing the Grant Shapps interview:
1. He was making the point of how high the median pay was for railway staff, and increasing pay too much would be bad for inflation and our economy. But two months ago the Tories had this big pledge for a 'high wage' economy - what has changed to that vision, or is it only certain people who are allowed to have a high wage?

2. Coming back to the 'high wages' for railway staff, and Shapps making this big point that railway staff median pay is over £40k, whereas nurses are around £30k, and general NHS staff well below that. Did he not consider that this doesn't reflect poorly on the railway staff, but on his government and the poor treatment of our 'NHS heroes'?

1) And how can they continue to call for no one else to get a payrise when ministers, already among the higher earners in the country on just their base salary, have had a significant increase?

2) Unfortunately, crabs in a bucket thinking seems to make many people jump to rail staff shouldn't be paid more than nurses rather than nurses should get pay bumps. It's a nonsense and the government are absolutely responsible, but people do buy that line.

[sockwithaticket]

That’s a pretty dumb response by RMT.

It's not the best, but it's valid to point out the gall of the government trying to invoke the NHS as a reason not to exercise your rights as a worker when the government have done a good deal more to harm the NHS and risk patients than the rail unions ever will. The frontline staffing crisis could really have somewhat alleviated with the billions spaffed away on dodgy contracts for mates and party donors.

[SaintK]

Despite the fact that rhe Tories have been in power for 12 years
It's all Labour's fault

[Raggs]

Despite the fact that rhe Tories have been in power for 12 years
It's all Labour's fault

It's such an extraordinary view, and yet there's apparently people out there that believe it. 12 years in power, huge majority at the moment, how the hell can this possibly be labours fault.

[salanya]

Despite the fact that rhe Tories have been in power for 12 years
It's all Labour's fault

It's just so blatant - they're not even trying to hide how they're in cahoots with the tories.

Brexit issues, Northern Ireland problems, looming recession, failing NHS, strikes and cost of living crisis, but it is all the opposition's fault - nothing to do with the party that's been in charge for over a decade.

With most media so heavily biased, not sure how we'll ever have a respectable and healthily functioning democracy.

[sockwithaticket]

They did have a spell of going quite hard at the government over the billions wasted on bogus PPE contracts, but then they've swung right back into staunch support. Think it was SaintK who told me they've had a recent change of editor whcih is what's brought them back to their bootlicking, Daily Heil worst.

[tabascoboy]

[SaintK]

They did have a spell of going quite hard at the government over the billions wasted on bogus PPE contracts, but then they've swung right back into staunch support. Think it was SaintK who told me they've had a recent change of editor whcih is what's brought them back to their bootlicking, Daily Heil worst.

That was when Geordie Greig was editor. He's long gone and Dacre protege Ted Verity is now in chharge
Dacre's fingerprints are all over this change of direction and also for the pulling of the "Carrie needs a high paid job" stories
We know why that is...................he's going to get that peerage he's been so needily desperate for

[Lobby]

They did have a spell of going quite hard at the government over the billions wasted on bogus PPE contracts, but then they've swung right back into staunch support. Think it was SaintK who told me they've had a recent change of editor whcih is what's brought them back to their bootlicking, Daily Heil worst.

Correct. Geordie Greig, the Mail's editor between 2018 and 2021 had previously worked at the Independent and Evening Standard, and supported Remain in the referendum. He was instrumental in making the Mail's coverage less extremist and more critical of the Government, particularly during the pandemic.

Unsurprisingly, the Mail's former editor, swivel-eyed loon Paul Dacre, absolutely loathed him and claimed that Greig's editorship would be commercial suicide (despite this, under Greig's editorship the Mail overtook the Sun as the UK's best selling paper).

Following Dacre's unsuccessful attempt to be appointed as Chairman of Ofcom, he returned to the Mail Group as its editor in chief, and shortly afterwards managed to get rid of Greig. The new editor, Ted Verity, is close to Dacre, and also hated Greig. Since taking on the editorship, he has returned the Mail to its natural home as the most extreme right wing national paper.

[JM2K6]

They did have a spell of going quite hard at the government over the billions wasted on bogus PPE contracts, but then they've swung right back into staunch support. Think it was SaintK who told me they've had a recent change of editor whcih is what's brought them back to their bootlicking, Daily Heil worst.

Correct. Geordie Greig, the Mail's editor between 2018 and 2021 had previously worked at the Independent and Evening Standard, and supported Remain in the referendum. He was instrumental in making the Mail's coverage less extremist and more critical of the Government, particularly during the pandemic.

Unsurprisingly, the Mail's former editor, swivel-eyed loon Paul Dacre, absolutely loathed him and claimed that Greig's editorship would be commercial suicide (despite this, under Greig's editorship the Mail overtook the Sun as the UK's best selling paper).

Following Dacre's unsuccessful attempt to be appointed as Chairman of Ofcom, he returned to the Mail Group as its editor in chief, and shortly afterwards managed to get rid of Greig. The new editor, Ted Verity, is close to Dacre, and also hated Greig. Since taking on the editorship, he has returned the Mail to its natural home as the most extreme right wing national paper.

It's full on Fox-style now, just parrotting whatever the latest attack line is from Tory HQ.

[SaintK]

They did have a spell of going quite hard at the government over the billions wasted on bogus PPE contracts, but then they've swung right back into staunch support. Think it was SaintK who told me they've had a recent change of editor whcih is what's brought them back to their bootlicking, Daily Heil worst.

Correct. Geordie Greig, the Mail's editor between 2018 and 2021 had previously worked at the Independent and Evening Standard, and supported Remain in the referendum. He was instrumental in making the Mail's coverage less extremist and more critical of the Government, particularly during the pandemic.

Unsurprisingly, the Mail's former editor, swivel-eyed loon Paul Dacre, absolutely loathed him and claimed that Greig's editorship would be commercial suicide (despite this, under Greig's editorship the Mail overtook the Sun as the UK's best selling paper).

Following Dacre's unsuccessful attempt to be appointed as Chairman of Ofcom, he returned to the Mail Group as its editor in chief, and shortly afterwards managed to get rid of Greig. The new editor, Ted Verity, is close to Dacre, and also hated Greig. Since taking on the editorship, he has returned the Mail to its natural home as the most extreme right wing national paper.

It's full on Fox-style now, just parrotting whatever the latest attack line is from Tory HQ.

Richard Littlejohn, Peter Hitchens, Amanda Platell and Sarah Vain say hi!!!!

[sockwithaticket]

Nice to see.

[Hal Jordan]

I see Dacre has been offered ermine. I wonder why?

As for the ECHR, just Tory scum being Tory scum.

[Paddington Bear]

Despite the fact that rhe Tories have been in power for 12 years
It's all Labour's fault

Don't necessarily subscribe to everything on this thread, but a party in government for 12 years blaming the opposition for strikes over actually staggeringly reasonable pay demands is a symptom of a party that has given up trying.

[Hugo]

That’s a pretty dumb response by RMT.

It's not the best, but it's valid to point out the gall of the government trying to invoke the NHS as a reason not to exercise your rights as a worker when the government have done a good deal more to harm the NHS and risk patients than the rail unions ever will. The frontline staffing crisis could really have somewhat alleviated with the billions spaffed away on dodgy contracts for mates and party donors.

Well said. I see Tobias Ellwood accused the striking workers of "doing Putin's work for him". These are vile, disingenuous people who try to frame British workers as traitors when it is them who have been selling out the country for decades.

[JM2K6]

Fucking lol

Jonathan Gullis (Con) says that when he saw the deportation flight to Rwanda being halted he was so frustrated he said the UK should withdraw from the European convention of human rights. But he says he wants to say now that he was wrong. Having engaged with Dominic Raab, he now accepts that the principle set out in the bill of rights bill is a better way of dealing with the problem.

In fact, Gullis withdrew his call for the UK to leave the convention within about an hour of his making it on social media late at night on social media last time. Gullis reportedly had a rethink after recalling that the ECHR is an integral part of the Good Friday agreement, which the government supports. Gullis is parliamentary private secretary to the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, and presumably should have realised this in the first place.

[Biffer]

Going back to the strikes, it's interesting how arguments get twisted.
Seeing the numbers I did think most train staff seemed to be paid pretty well for what they do, but then to see the note on them getting a 3% pay increase with redundancies as a proviso and suddenly the plot thickens.

Anyway, my questions to the Tories after seeing the Grant Shapps interview:
1. He was making the point of how high the median pay was for railway staff, and increasing pay too much would be bad for inflation and our economy. But two months ago the Tories had this big pledge for a 'high wage' economy - what has changed to that vision, or is it only certain people who are allowed to have a high wage?

2. Coming back to the 'high wages' for railway staff, and Shapps making this big point that railway staff median pay is over £40k, whereas nurses are around £30k, and general NHS staff well below that. Did he not consider that this doesn't reflect poorly on the railway staff, but on his government and the poor treatment of our 'NHS heroes'?

The median pay thing was funny - they took the medians published for four different job groups, added them together and divided by four, and called that a median.

[C69]

The facade of no government pressure on the railway negotiations has been torn assunder by Merseyrail and their staff agreeing a 7% pay deal.

[I like neeps]

Watching Mick Lynch swat away all the gutter journalist and gormless Tory and Labour MPs today has been glorious.

A lesson for Sir Beers.

[Ymx]

Despite the fact that rhe Tories have been in power for 12 years
It's all Labour's fault

It's just so blatant - they're not even trying to hide how they're in cahoots with the tories.

Brexit issues, Northern Ireland problems, looming recession, failing NHS, strikes and cost of living crisis, but it is all the opposition's fault - nothing to do with the party that's been in charge for over a decade.

With most media so heavily biased, not sure how we'll ever have a respectable and healthily functioning democracy.

Come on there are plenty on anti Tory news publications
Guardian
Mirror
Independent
BBC
…