I really hate this country ....

I seem to recall that the overall tax bill never really droppped until the Tories. We were just taxed differently as indeed we are now...

Yes the headline rate for income tax has fallen since I started working but National Insurance contributions have gone up from 7.5% to current levels. Also personal allowances have been gradually eroded by successive governments. VAT was 10% when it was introduced...

Thatch had the windfall from North Sea Oil, Gordon had his £20Bn from the mobile phone companies. What has that all been spent on? Road tax and high levels of tax on fuel

Can I have my £500 back now?

quote:

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Originally posted by seagull:

Thatch had the windfall from North Sea Oil, Gordon had his £20Bn from the mobile phone companies. What has that all been spent on? Road tax and high levels of tax on fuel

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Thatchers oil money was spent on unemployment benefit and tax breaks for the rich.

Browns millions has been spent on health/education/transport/tax breaks for families and lower paid people/environmental issues.

Choices, choices.

Stephen

quote:

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Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:

I didn't know I had any choice.

cheers

Nigel

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You do. Vote Labour or Tory.

Regards

Stephen

quote:

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Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:

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You do. Vote Labour or Tory.

Regards

Stephen

You think that is choice?

cheers

Nigel

If you have more than one possibility, you have a choice.

You may not like your choices of course....

Stephen

How about the Lib Dems?

Mathew

quote:

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put towards a second holiday or you'd like the government to use that money to improve healthcare for poor, black and asian people in Hackney you are unlikely to ever meet.

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it`d be nice if the extra taxes levied by nice Mr Brown actally went towards the Good Causes advertised. In fact the lion`s share seems to be swallowed up by the hordes of extra beaurocrats who can smell a new gravy train a mile away...I see it happening time and time again, each time the government announce a new wad of cash for some public service or other.

Very little of this extra actually filters down to those used to justify it being levied in the first place

From where I stand, thereis nothing "NEW" about this particular socialist government...just good old fashioned Stalinism, replete with 5 year plans, targets, and damnation for anyone in the system who voices the obvious "King`s New Clothes" criticism

In my own institution, staff have been clearly told that raising any comments percieved as "negative" at meetings will likely result in loss of the "performance" related elements of salary.....in fact this has actually occurred in a number of cases, so is no idle threat....it makes me chuckle when I hear Tony Blair decying "repression" in OTHER countries

Laurie S


Laurie S

quote:

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Originally posted by JonR:
How about the Lib Dems?

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Lib Whos?



Oh, if we had proportional representation perhaps.

Stephen

quote:

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:
it`d be nice if the extra taxes levied by nice Mr Brown actally went towards the Good Causes advertised.

Laurie S

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I see investment in Universities, increased buses and Hospitals in my area. There's knock on effects on Jobs - more builders, nurses and so on. This is my personal experience.

This has only happened since Labour got in. It's true that the years of neglect by the previous administration means that many improvements are often just 'catching up', but, for all the current governments faults (and there are many), it's hard to deny the increased investment.

Regards

Stephen

I used to work for the Lib Dems and then helped a different political party fight them in local government. Over the past ten years they have been one of the most malign forces in British politics. Their holier-than-thou attitude at national level is at odds with the sheer venality and nastiness of what they do at local level.

Laurie has a point about some of the money getting through in the NHS, but the health service really has seen a huge shift in capacity. Ten years ago the Mail or the Standard would run a big story if someone waited longer than 48 hours in A&E, or more than two years for an op. Now it's a scandal if they wait longer than four hours in A&E, or longer than six months for an op...

Tim

quote:

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Over the past ten years they have been one of the most malign forces in British politics. Their holier-than-thou attitude at national level is at odds with the sheer venality and nastiness of what they do at local level.

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Tim I would utterly endorse these comments

quote:

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Laurie has a point about some of the money getting through in the NHS, but the health service really has seen a huge shift in capacity.

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Th e thrust of my comments were aimed mainly at Education....there was much wrong with it 10 years ago, but what has happened in the last 5 years is absolutely scandalous IMO

I feel sorry now for the students who now feel obliged to go through this hell of a system and get the requisite pieces of paper which turn out to be mostly worthless

laurie S

"it`d be nice if the extra taxes levied by nice Mr Brown actally went towards the Good Causes advertised. In fact the lion`s share seems to be swallowed up by the hordes of extra beaurocrats who can smell a new gravy train a mile away"

This of course happened under Conservative governments as well -- remember the ludicrous "Internal Market" reforms in the NHS? -- it's just that the overall amount of money in health and education has gone up by BILLIONS under Labour. They have built and modernised lots of new hospitals that, if we had had a Tory government, would still be falling down.

One can hide behind specious arguments about improving efficiency and public vs private but the bottom line is the Tories will not provide anywhere near the amount of funding and there is exactly zero evidence (indeed quite the opposite) that they would manage the resources any more efficiently or effectively.

Matthew

Matthew

quote:

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but the bottom line is the Tories will not provide anywhere near the amount of funding and there is exactly zero evidence (indeed quite the opposite) that they would manage the resources any more efficiently or effectively.

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In principle, I agree.....the Tories were no better in principle when it came to waste...human nature does not change. However, at least I, as a taxpayer, wasn`t robbed to anything like the same degree to pay for all the waste, so at least I still had some vestige of choice left on how my money was being spent(er...wasted)

PS I suggest that your comments are something of a classic red herring, Matthew;

Answering criticism of the New Labour goverment by suggesting that the Tories were worse...two wrongs don`t make a right, and all that...


I am no flag bearer for the Tories...I hold Ms Thatcher and her band of moneterist maniacs in the highest possible contempt.

Wasn`t it Plato who said that anyone who actually WANTED power shouldn`t be trusted with it?..


however I guess we are stuck with a choice between the two...which is why I find it so hard to go and vote with any real enthusism

laurie S

[This message was edited by Laurie Saunders on Wed 09 June 2004 at 12:18.]

Many people rationalise the fact that they would rather have more money for themselves than pay for increased services by hypothecating (as it were) the extra funding into the waste and pretending it doesn't actually provide any benefit at all.

If put waste at 30% (say, and using arbitary figures) then 70% of £100bn is still a lot more than 70% of £80bn.

Matthew

BTW I have, via my employer who effectively gives me no choice, a generous private medicine insurance package. My experience of this and the NHS during the last year since I was diagnosed a diabetic is that the NHS is better run and provides *massively* better service.

I am not arguing with the stated "ideals" of labour....compassion for all etc etc, just the naivity and crassness of their view of human nature, and the clumsy way that these ideals are implemented. What is often forgotten is that one "unfairness" ironed out in one place simply reappears in another form elsewhere in the system ....the word "fairness" being touted, misleadingly, as if it were something objective, must surely rate as one of the greates con tricks ever played by politicians (of ALL colours)

Laurie S

Hi,
Quite interesting haw someone mentioned the 'performance' word. Ironically that has led from having streets patrolled by traffic cops, to the introduction of speed camera's as a more 'cost effective' way of policing speeders.

So whilst we get hammered for exceeding the speed limit, the drivers who drive like idiots, without due care and without doc's are finding it easier to do so.

This is partially because the govn't are having to target specific area's because of cost constraints placed on the public services, and the result of that is some area's suffer. This is a fact, which I have practically experienced, whichever way you like it.

andy c!

Health
The NHS is excellent at some things and seriously underfunded/resourced at others.

I do not like the two tier system we have but admit that we have used it. My son needed a minor operation, he was put on a waiting list to see the surgeon (we were told it would probably be at least two years before my son could be operated on).

We invoked my employer's private health insurance and were asked if we could see the same surgoen that afternoon and would next Wednesday be ok for the operation.

That was under the Tories, I don't think things have changed.

Education

Where is the money going? Certainly not to the sharp end. I have been a School Governor for the last 7 years and underfunding is still the second biggest headache we have (the biggest being staff retention but that's another issue).

Transport

Locally, we had a large amount of money spent on putting in a bus lane recently. This has stuffed the local traffic and been the cause of several near accidents due to the sudden breaks in the bus lane and traffic veering from one lane to another.

We have been promised a bus every 6 minutes. The buses run virtually empty because they don't go where people want to and there are only three an hour and you never see one after about 6pm.

performance
Clearly every time the Government set targets then the affected agencies then strive to meet them to avoid the consequences of 'failure' which affect other areas.

An education example. A local junior school has been consistently coming out on top in the local league tables for SATs results. 'My' school was near the bottom of the list, mainly due to having a unit for children with learning difficulties who counted towards the headline figures despite being well below the level of being able to take the SATs. We always emphasised the 'value added' (horrible term) i.e. how well the individual chioldren progressed. Because of the league tables many parents with 'bright' children sent them to the top school so the figures stayed high.

Last year the figures were published showing value added. Suddenly the school that had previously been the 'top' school was near the bottom of the heap, much to the consternation of many of the parents. What they had been concentrating on had been to get children to level 4 (the target level), those who could do better and achieve a level 5 were largely left to drift and many didn't attain the level they should have so although they had a high percentage of level 4s they had a low percentage of level 5s.

Definitely a case of method of the measurement distorting the results.

Finally 'cos this has taken so long to write and there have been other posts in the meantime...

What is fair? It's fair when we benefit, unfair if someone else benefits who doesn't "deserve" it.

quote:

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underfunding is still the second biggest headache we have (the biggest being staff retention but that's another issue).

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Well isn`t it the same issue? The Government claim that extra £millions are being put int education. Where is it all going?

Just take a glance at the jobs pages of your local paper.....myriad "consultants" and "advisers" and "coordinators" on fat salaries.

Like I said above beaurocrats (mainly employed by Goverment departments have a knack of sniffing out a good gravy train

Laurie S

quote:

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Last year the figures were published showing value added. Suddenly the school that had previously been the 'top' school was near the bottom of the heap, much to the consternation of many of the parents.

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Taking into account "value added" is equally misleading.

Crony B.Liar once trotted out that Grammar Schools don't add as much value to a child's education as Comprehensives.

Mathematically the statement is correct but the conclusion to be drawn is highly misleading. Grammar Schools have an obviously higher number of students whose TMGs (target minimum grades) are the maximum grade that can be awarded, i.e: A* at GCSE or A at A Level. It is impossible to add value to a child's education when they are expected to achieve the highest grades from the outset.

Thus if the TMG is A* and the child gets an A* then the value added is zero. A child with a TMG of F but actually gets a D nets a value added score for his/her scool of +2.

The statement is obviously in support of his Socialist agenda for a one-size-fits-all education system that promotes equality of outcome over equality of opportunity.



Regards,

Steve.

quote:

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The choice we have in the UK has always been less tax + less public spending (Tory) Vs more tax + more public spending (Labour).

New Labour was never about changing that but about keeping the Labour party's nutters away from anything they could mess up. The Tories, by contrast, have put their nutters in charge.

Overall, It's really about whether you want us to be more like the US or more like Scandanavia.

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The above is all fair comment, and was the basis for my voting Labour back in 1997.

Major was a nice enough bloke but he was weak, and his government was rather corrupt. Kenneth Clark was a great chancellor, probably the best we've ever known, but Gordon Brown was talking the same language and he promised to make the Bank of England independent of direct government control - a great move, and one we cannot possibly regret.

I was in favour of the National Minimum Wage as the UK was the only Western country not to have it and to me this was shameful. It didn't bring about an increase in unemployment as the Tories feared.

I believed that by keeping the economy sustainably bouyant and strong by avoiding boom/bust (and Keynsian-style borrowing to smooth out the effects of bust) Labour could deliver improvements in healthcare, education and infrastructure without having to raise taxes directly or indirectly.

I agreed that it was better to improve public services than to cut taxation further.

However, taxes have gone up, and if they continue to do so they will squeeze the life blood out of the economy so that the flow of cash into treasury coffers will actually fall instead of rising with the increasing fiscal burden.

The ideology of Socialism did not die with New Labour, and the longer they remain in power the more their ideological instincts will adversely influence their judgements - the economy will eventually fail as a result. It won't happen quickly, but it will happen eventually.

Meanwhile there is the gradual erosion of civil liberties, but that is another matter....

It is time for a change, and whilst Howard is no angel either I feel he does have principles. He is also tough enough to face off Blair unlike his two predecessors.

Regards,

Steve.

[This message was edited by Steven Toy on Thu 10 June 2004 at 4:07.]

When history records what occurred in the world in the early part of the twenty-first century, and the UK's part in it, it will, I'd wager, not make mention of PFI, Petrol Duty increases, top up tuition fees, foxhunting, speed cameras or a whole pile of other things.

It will focus on the UK's involvement in US-led "wars": against terrorism (indeed the preposterousness of waging "war" on a state of mind) and Iraq (or the wider Middle East/Islamic-led world). It will record our culpability in facilitating what I suspect will become the bloodiest civil war in history.

History will paint Blair as a fool for failing to show any contrition for getting it wrong. It will paint us - with incredulity - as greater fools for re-electing him.

Worse will befall Bush and the Americans, but that's small comfort.

When I travel abroad now I tell people I'm Scottish. I am more proud/less embarrassed of my grandfather's nationality than that of the rest of my family. Vast percentages of the population of the globe hate us. And frankly, I'm not sure I don't agree with them.

quote:

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Originally posted by Laurie Saunders:

Well isn`t it the same issue? The Government claim that extra £millions are being put int education. Where is it all going?


Laurie S

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Laurie, I suggest you go down to your nearest University to see where, at least some of it is going. Here in Norwich, UEA has new buildings, residences, lots of new staff, equipment and researchers - it's the same with our new teaching Hospital too. All done with government funding.

The University was stagnant before Labour came to power. Some things need state funding. When people say 'Where is all the money going' I do wonder if they ever use public services at all.

Regards

Stephen

quote:

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Originally posted by Steven Toy:
It is time for a change, and whilst Howard is no angel either I feel he does have principles.


[This message was edited by Steven Toy on Thu 10 June 2004 at 4:07.]

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I agree. Didn't they belong to Margaret Thatcher?



Stephen

Stephen- I agree. I had 7 major school extensions to do last year (mainly sports halls), I have three school extensions on site currently and 2 university blocks to design this summer. There is a massive amount of cash going into schools.

quote:

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Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
Dom,

_no taxes and I'd not have to work either._

I don't believe you've thought about this very carefully.

_I'm not going to feed you;

and I think that pooling my efforts and results with Matthew R and Alex G (?? why not??) will put us in a stonger position to survive. Obviously you don't want to share in this, or similar enterprises_

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Well, I've no problem with killing an animal to eat it. As for "survival of the fittest" - if that still happened now I'd be dead within 2 days of birth so I'd not be here in this thread anyway, so that's irrelevant!

Don - re your question on my short term solution for the overpopulation - that's easy. Do the Dead Kennedys thing and "kill the poor" (and chavs) Just kidding. No, I think Nature will find a way personally; HIV didn't work so it'll produce something like a far more robust version of the Plague within a few years. Watch and see - Nature always self regulates sooner or later.

__________________________
Don't wanna be cremated or buried in a grave
Just dump me in a plastic bag and leave me on the pavement
A tribute to your modern world, your great society
I'm just another victim of your highrise fantasy!