c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jun 12, 2024 16:43:35 GMT
is it a good party if you can remember what you did tho’? I can always remember what I did. Well that’s easy if you didn’t do much |
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Post by jen on Jun 12, 2024 16:45:49 GMT
I can always remember what I did. Well that’s easy if you didn’t do much I can see you are talking from experience. In my world things are different. |
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Post by Rafwan on Jun 12, 2024 16:52:00 GMT
I guess you werent around / adult at the time this change was going on, but you are badly wrong. I cant remember a serious mutual bank except the one that failed in business terms - the CoOp and had to seek external help. What happened with some of the mutual building societies ( Nationwide for one is still mutual and there are others) was that the Banks were allowed to issue mortgages and as banks always do, they made a mess of it and destroyed the market the BS were dependant on. That is the market where you had to save for your deposit with a BS to even get allocated a mortgage. The existing members of mutual BS got shares in the business and had to vote to change status - the " wealth making opportunity for those allready rich" is simple prejudice on you part. As is the rest of the hard left polemic in your post. As for council houses you clearly dont remember the complete mess they made of maintenance, the councils that collected just a minor proportion of the rents, the squalor of many sink estates. That said Thatchers plan to turn tenants into owners was political gaming for party advantage just like Blairs daft idea of 50% graduates. I guess you dont remember the destruction of industry by militant unions either - the Jack Jones, Red Robbo, Scargill, Upper Clyde shipbuilders, Meriden, Hailwood etc. Yet we are about to let them back into action under Labour. Well, I think that is one of the most profoundly and insidiously horrible posts I have seen on this site for some time … In fact, I remember all that very well. As a youngster, I lived on Bellfields Estate near Guildford. It was the first time my parents had running hot water and a fridge. The houses were well looked after and managed (both by tenants and local council) all under the benign and popular eye of local Labour councillor Bill Bellerby. But I still remember the nasty false whispers from snobs and toffs, fuelled by their rage, fear and jealousy, that we didn’t look after our homes properly or pay our rent on time. It came flooding back, hence my intemperate response this morning. Much later, in the seventies, me and mrs R bought our own home. With a 100% mortgage provided by the local council! Imagine that! Some years later we moved to another house and got another mortgage from Leeds Building Society. Excellent. But then the Leeds was taken over by Halifax, and soon after ‘demutualised’. We all got a fat bribe for this (in our case, £3000). Just funny unwanted money, we stuck it in a stocks and shares ISA. In the following years it survived the dotcom crisis and the merger with Bank of Scotland to form HBOS. Over ten years, we watch baffled and slightly horrified by this uncalled for venture into capitalism. The value doubled to over 6k by 2007. And then there was the banking crash, where HBOS of course was one of the major villains, and its value fell to pennies. Over the next ten years, it eventually ‘recovered’ to about £500, at which point takeovers obliged us to sell it and we passed the money to a local charity. The main profiteers of this destructive period had of course long previously taken their money and run. So yes, give me the Coop and building societies and local authorities any time. |
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Post by Lakeland Lass on Jun 12, 2024 16:52:37 GMT
todays least surprising news......
Are we seeing the "Foxification" of UK broadcasting ?
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Jun 12, 2024 16:53:52 GMT
When I worked there I used to walk to The British Oak in Stirchley at lunchtimes. When they merged with Schweppes around 1980 the Social Club started selling booze. I don't think I said they were socialists, I was just challenging jen's assumption that they were solely motivated by profit in treating their workers well by the standards of the time. Someone else said that Owen was one of the precursors of socialism, which was what I understood too. Peace. Not a Stalinist anti-fascist tirade. Genuine question... In a capitalist society, what possible motive can there be for improving workers' conditions other than increasing profits?As an aside, I postulate as a theory, that the reason productivity in the UK is so poor is that in the post-Thatcher times we treat workers like shit, and if they dare complain about it, we make them a political football. In the case of the Quakers and some other non-conformists, sincere religious belief based on their interpretation of biblical teachings. Robert Owen is a different case (not religious for one thing). I think after a certain point in his life you can't call him a capitalist at all. He kept trying to found socialist co-operative communes in which to live. Sadly none of them worked. |
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mercian
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Post by mercian on Jun 12, 2024 16:54:49 GMT
Thank you, but have you ever thought to tone your stuff down a bit? To be fair, you have slightly but it doesn't take much to send you off into a tirade about fascists, Nazis and so on. I am surprised that no-one in real life thinks of you as a lefty. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here who thinks that. Perhaps you move in very politically-circumscribed milieu? Or perhaps they think you're a Stalinist or something? I'm not too well versed in the nuances of left-wing ideology but I think he's not nowadays considered to be a paragon of the left? Quite funny. btw, the less evil shit you post, the less I feel compelled to shoot it down. Quite simple really. And tone down my opposition to misogyny, racism, xenophobia, transphobia and lies? You've got to be kidding. It's the duty of every decent human being. And hey, you didn't answer my question (chapeau, almost like a professional politician!)... Ian Gribbin, Refuk candidate for Bexhill and Battle, IS a Nazi apologist. It's not a tirade, it's not even an opinion, it's a well documented fact. You think opposing his views is Stalinist? I suppose I'd better get in the queue behind Churchill and Montgomery... Someone else posted about the Reform candidate and I answered them. I try not to keep on posting the same stuff though I fail sometimes. I didn't say you were a Stalinist, I said that maybe people in your circle might think that because it was the only reason I could think of that would make them think you weren't left-wing. Anyway enough of this. |
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Post by robbiealive on Jun 12, 2024 16:56:06 GMT
Do you have to join a party to go to one of your gigs Jen? No you have to be willing to "have a party". (honestly, I thought that was obvious.) You know, the usual stuff, booze, sex, fags... No drugs - I know that booze and fags are drugs and that people can become addicted to sex, but you know what I mean. Some Rock Babe you are. Or are these'50s Nostalgia Parties. |
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Post by jen on Jun 12, 2024 17:03:15 GMT
Quite funny. btw, the less evil shit you post, the less I feel compelled to shoot it down. Quite simple really. And tone down my opposition to misogyny, racism, xenophobia, transphobia and lies? You've got to be kidding. It's the duty of every decent human being. And hey, you didn't answer my question (chapeau, almost like a professional politician!)... Ian Gribbin, Refuk candidate for Bexhill and Battle, IS a Nazi apologist. It's not a tirade, it's not even an opinion, it's a well documented fact. You think opposing his views is Stalinist? I suppose I'd better get in the queue behind Churchill and Montgomery... Someone else posted about the Reform candidate and I answered them. I try not to keep on posting the same stuff though I fail sometimes. I didn't say you were a Stalinist, I said that maybe people in your circle might think that because it was the only reason I could think of that would make them think you weren't left-wing. Anyway enough of this. Apologies. I must have missed your post about Refuk's support for Hitler. |
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Post by jen on Jun 12, 2024 17:11:03 GMT
No you have to be willing to "have a party". (honestly, I thought that was obvious.) You know, the usual stuff, booze, sex, fags... No drugs - I know that booze and fags are drugs and that people can become addicted to sex, but you know what I mean. Some Rock Babe you are. Or are these'50s Nostalgia Parties. Yes, I know what you mean. That some unqualified politicians (who are barely literate) get to decide what drugs are legal and what drugs aren't on the basis of what they think will pan out well at an election rather than on any scientific evidence. And no nostalgia here. |
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Post by barbara on Jun 12, 2024 17:12:54 GMT
Well, I think that is one of the most profoundly and insidiously horrible posts I have seen on this site for some time … In fact, I remember all that very well. As a youngster, I lived on Bellfields Estate near Guildford. It was the first time my parents had running hot water and a fridge. The houses were well looked after and managed (both by tenants and local council) all under the benign and popular eye of local Labour councillor Bill Bellerby. But I still remember the nasty false whispers from snobs and toffs, fuelled by their rage, fear and jealousy, that we didn’t look after our homes properly or pay our rent on time. It came flooding back, hence my intemperate response this morning. Much later, in the seventies, me and mrs R bought our own home. With a 100% mortgage provided by the local council! Imagine that! Some years later we moved to another house and got another mortgage from Leeds Building Society. Excellent. But then the Leeds was taken over by Halifax, and soon after ‘demutualised’. We all got a fat bribe for this (in our case, £3000). Just funny unwanted money, we stuck it in a stocks and shares ISA. In the following years it survived the dotcom crisis and the merger with Bank of Scotland to form HBOS. Over ten years, we watch baffled and slightly horrified by this uncalled for venture into capitalism. The value doubled to over 6k by 2007. And then there was the banking crash, where HBOS of course was one of the major villains, and its value fell to pennies. Over the next ten years, it eventually ‘recovered’ to about £500, at which point takeovers obliged us to sell it and we passed the money to a local charity. The main profiteers of this destructive period had of course long previously taken their money and run. So yes, give me the Coop and building societies and local authorities any time. - " the squalor of many sink estates."These kind of estates were a direct result of Thatcher's right to buy policy along with her refusal to allow councils to use the receipts to build more houses: 1. Once people who could afford to buy had done so and the council housing stock was reduced, then many decent hard working families could no longer get a council house as there weren't enough to go around. So councils had to prioritise those families most in need/largest number of children/unemployed etc. This over time changed the nature of council housing to become only available to very poorest. 2. As the nature of the estates changed, those who had bought their houses decided they no longer wanted to live there and sold their houses to Buy to Let landlords who had no connection to the estates their houses were located on and whose only motivation was to make as much money as possible. 3. A large part of their income came from providing accommodation for councils who could no longer fulfill their social and legal responsibilties to house those most in need. 4. So we come full circle except instead of councils using the rents to maintain their properties and the estate as they had previously, they end up paying inflated sums to these landlords. It was a blatant piece of electioneering bribery on Thatcher's part with no thought of the consequences for those who she didn't consider to be "one of us". Two nation Toryism at its worst. (cf 2010 - 2014). When I was growing up many of my friends in primary school lived in the adjacent council estate to my own modest private one and my Aunty and Uncle lived in a council house all their lives after marriage. They were decent respectable places, allowing post war families to escape the inner city slums and private landlords which under pre -war Tory governmennts had proliferated. And still people like you - tied into your narrow Tory world of 'I'm all right Jack' continue to peddle the myth that poor people who can't afford to buy a house are feckless. Shame on you. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jun 12, 2024 17:13:39 GMT
Well that’s easy if you didn’t do much I can see you are talking from experience. In my world things are different. Well you say they’re different, but you edited your post to agree with me about not remembering. Have you ever gone leafleting? |
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Post by jen on Jun 12, 2024 17:17:18 GMT
Peace. Not a Stalinist anti-fascist tirade. Genuine question... In a capitalist society, what possible motive can there be for improving workers' conditions other than increasing profits?As an aside, I postulate as a theory, that the reason productivity in the UK is so poor is that in the post-Thatcher times we treat workers like shit, and if they dare complain about it, we make them a political football. Robert Owen is a different case (not religious for one thing). I think after a certain point in his life you can't call him a capitalist at all. He kept trying to found socialist co-operative communes in which to live. Sadly none of them worked. And you think that the increased profits were of no consequence? (or maybe that's just what they told themselves?) And if their religious beliefs were sincere, how on Earth could they become capitalists in the first place?! |
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mercian
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Post by mercian on Jun 12, 2024 17:19:28 GMT
When I worked there I used to walk to The British Oak in Stirchley at lunchtimes. When they merged with Schweppes around 1980 the Social Club started selling booze. I don't think I said they were socialists, I was just challenging jen's assumption that they were solely motivated by profit in treating their workers well by the standards of the time. Someone else said that Owen was one of the precursors of socialism, which was what I understood too. Peace. Not a Stalinist anti-fascist tirade. Genuine question... In a capitalist society, what possible motive can there be for improving workers' conditions other than increasing profits? As an aside, I postulate as a theory, that the reason productivity in the UK is so poor is that in the post-Thatcher times we treat workers like shit, and if they dare complain about it, we make them a political football. Well, assuming that you accept that people such as Cadbury were capitalists, I answered the question yesterday. A lot of the 19th century good employers were Quakers for instance who wanted to improve peoples' lives because of their faith. |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on Jun 12, 2024 17:20:46 GMT
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Post by jen on Jun 12, 2024 17:21:05 GMT
I can see you are talking from experience. In my world things are different. Well you say they’re different, but you edited your post to agree with me about not remembering. Have you ever gone leafleting? When I get reminded, I remember! Don't forget I am of a certain age haha! Leafleting? I did that as a job when I was a child. For a carpet shop. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jun 12, 2024 17:25:32 GMT
Well you say they’re different, but you edited your post to agree with me about not remembering. Have you ever gone leafleting? When I get reminded, I remember! Don't forget I am of a certain age haha! Leafleting? I did that as a job when I was a child. For a carpet shop. when one still gets reminded years later, even by people who hardly know you… because lots of other people still remember… 😮😮😮 So you didn’t do leafleting for a party then? Well that’s something else we have in common… |
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Post by jib on Jun 12, 2024 17:30:14 GMT
The SNP have had a good, common sense, campaign. The Labour tsunami may be a bit of a let down north of Hadrian's Wall. |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on Jun 12, 2024 17:31:57 GMT
todays least surprising news......
Are we seeing the "Foxification" of UK broadcasting ?
"When our voting intention is broken down by respondents’ primary newspaper or magazine news source, a majority of Daily Mirror (53%), The Guardian (52%), and The Observer (51%) readers will vote Labour.
Among readers of The Sun, whose endorsement Tony Blair heavily courted before the 1997 Election, a plurality of 43% say they will vote Labour on 4 July, against only 22% who will vote Conservative and 17% who will vote Reform UK.
Even among voters whose primary source of print news are conservative publications like The Daily Express (28%), The Daily Mail (25%), and The Telegraph (22%), the Conservative Party does not break 30% in our voting intention poll."
redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/westminster-voting-intention-by-media-consumption-7-10-june/ |
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mercian
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Post by mercian on Jun 12, 2024 17:32:04 GMT
birdseye - " the squalor of many sink estates."These kind of estates were a direct result of Thatcher's right to buy policy along with her refusal to allow councils to use the receipts to build more houses: I bought my first house before Mrs Thatcher came to power. It was an ex-council house because Birmingham Council had a period when they were allowing tenants to buy their houses. It wasn't the roughest council estate that I've seen, but I was the only person in the street with a job, and I had to run the gauntlet of a pack of feral dogs every morning when I went to work and my house was broken into by the local kids. So the rose-tinted memories of council houses in the golden era of pre-Thatcherdom certainly weren't universally true. |
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Post by jib on Jun 12, 2024 17:34:39 GMT
Yes, he's at it again!
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jun 12, 2024 17:34:40 GMT
birdseye - " the squalor of many sink estates."These kind of estates were a direct result of Thatcher's right to buy policy along with her refusal to allow councils to use the receipts to build more houses: I bought my first house before Mrs Thatcher came to power. It was an ex-council house because Birmingham Council had a period when they were allowing tenants to buy their houses. It wasn't the roughest council estate that I've seen, but I was the only person in the street with a job, and I had to run the gauntlet of a pack of feral dogs every morning when I went to work and my house was broken into by the local kids. So the rose-tinted memories of council houses in the golden era of pre-Thatcherdom certainly weren't universally true. High unemployment? Well it began rising significantly in the oil crisis that began in 1973, (though there’s a bit of a blip just before as well, probably when the economy took a bit of a hit after the secondary banking crisis, following Heath’s early move toward the neoliberal with some banking deregulation)  |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on Jun 12, 2024 17:34:48 GMT
The SNP have had a good, common sense, campaign. The Labour tsunami may be a bit of a let down north of Hadrian's Wall. |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on Jun 12, 2024 17:44:18 GMT
"The Gambling Commission is understood to have launched probe after Craig Williams, PM's parliamentary private secretary, placed bet with Ladbrokes on Sunday 19 May.
Sunak made surprise announcement that a general election would be held on 4 July just three days later."x.com/PippaCrerar/status/1800938430685381044
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Post by nickpoole on Jun 12, 2024 17:49:54 GMT
"The Gambling Commission is understood to have launched probe after Craig Williams, PM's parliamentary private secretary, placed bet with Ladbrokes on Sunday 19 May.
Sunak made surprise announcement that a general election would be held on 4 July just three days later."x.com/PippaCrerar/status/1800938430685381044 I’m sure there’s an honest explanation |
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Post by jib on Jun 12, 2024 17:52:06 GMT
They bet against the country and make millions, why not bag a few £ here too. Shameless.
Rishi Sunak aide placed bet on election date days before announcement
Exclusive: £100 bet placed in Montgomeryshire – the constituency of Craig Williams – over July poll
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Post by Rafwan on Jun 12, 2024 17:52:41 GMT
domjg“Ultimately I don't really care that much, it's you and others like Rafwan who seems to attach a great deal of importance to this.” Yes, I do. Actually though, I suspect there is barely a cigarette paper between my political commitments and values and yours (and barbara’s, pjw1961’s and probably most other poster on this site). I didn’t vote for Corbyn’s leadership; I just thought him and the PLP would be a gigantic car crash. But when he won (roundly, on a high turnout), I did hold out the tiny hope that from this conflict might arise some genuine and positive new dynamic, perhaps best summed up in the Hegelian idea of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. This glimmer grew into a huge ray with the 2017 GE result (and come on, please folk, that was extraordinary by any fair criteria). Success could and should have been built from this. But factionalism brought it crashing down, and what especially grieves me is that the factionalism was driven by a falsehood, namely that Corbyn’s leadership had fostered antisemitism. Keir Starmer had to map a way out of the appalling mess that followed and it seems he has done so very successfully. I certainly do not hold him responsible for the vilification of Corbyn. So why is it important? Corbyn’s name has become synonymous with radical policies that need to be pursued by the forthcoming Labour government and every denigration of him amounts to a call for dilution of them. I would much prefer that we moved on, and I never refer to him, save in response to someone else’s denigrating post.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2024 17:57:36 GMT
UK Forecast still seem stuck on a huge Labour majority but, even though I get daily updates from them I’ve no idea about their methodology.
“ UK Forecast
Party % Vote Forecast Change on 2019
Labour 42.3% (+10.2%) 461 - 477 +261 to +277
Conservatives 21.8% (-21.8%) 101 - 111 -270 to -260
Reform 15.4% (+13.4%) 3 - 5 +3 to +5
Liberal Democrats 9.2% (-2.4%) 29 - 33 +20 to +24
Green 5.5% (+2.8%) 0 - 1 -1 to nc
SNP 2.9% (-1.0%) 18 - 20 -30 to -28
Plaid Cymru 0.5% (+0.1%) 2 - 4 nc to +2
Speaker 1 nc
Northern Ireland 18 nc”
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Jun 12, 2024 17:58:36 GMT
In the case of the Quakers and some other non-conformists, sincere religious belief based on their interpretation of biblical teachings. Robert Owen is a different case (not religious for one thing). I think after a certain point in his life you can't call him a capitalist at all. He kept trying to found socialist co-operative communes in which to live. Sadly none of them worked. And you think that the increased profits were of no consequence? (or maybe that's just what they told themselves?) And if their religious beliefs were sincere, how on Earth could they become capitalists in the first place?! Not everyone would regard making modest levels of profit level as immoral, although profiteering (exploitation of customers) and profit maximisation through the exploitation of labour would always be. After all, even co-operatives sell their produce at above the cost of production in order to allow the co-operative to be maintained - the profit going to the members of the co-op rather than an owner of capital of course. Our local philanthropic family in Braintree were the Courtauld family. They were Huguenots (French Calvinist refugees from persecution of their faith in that country) and establish textile mills in the town. They got rich themselves in the process, and kept a good deal of it, but they also endowed a hospital, public gardens, a theatre, and assorted other public buildings, which they didn't have to and obviously many wealthy people don't. That isn't the way I would organise society, but I can allow that the Courthauld's belong to a different social order to someone as disgusting as Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who despite being rich beyond the dreams of avarice, exploits his workers ferociously, evades tax on an industrial scale and entraps customers and suppliers by devious means. There are degrees of evil in capitalism (as there are in socialism). |
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Post by graham on Jun 12, 2024 17:59:20 GMT
The SNP have had a good, common sense, campaign. The Labour tsunami may be a bit of a let down north of Hadrian's Wall. Beware of the House effect here. Ipsos Mori have consistently over the last 18 months given higher ratings to the SNP than other pollsters - indeed this is their first poll not to show an SNP lead over that period. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2024 18:06:41 GMT
Just speed-read an obscene story in the G about a weird eating competition held annually on Coney Island (home of the hot dog apparently) and learned that the world record of SEVENTY ONE hot dogs was set two years ago by the current champion. He talked about about being “in training” for the competition which has huge audiences with contestants having “fans”. Meanwhile, much of the world starves.
What a truly weird country America is…I read yesterday about members of a crowd at a bull riding competition there being injured when a bull crashed through the barricade.
FFS!!!!!!!!!! Bulls are not designed to be ridden, it’s just horrific animal cruelty but - again - it draws crowds and probably most of them are bible bashing nutcases who claim to believe in a “god”.
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