[Archived] Election

[koi]

'Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left'

Former Chief Secretary Liam Byrne

I wonder why that is Liam?

If David Miliband is the best Labour can come up with I think Dave Cam will be resident in No. 10 for many years to come.

[yoda]

Or x 2.5 and .5 of the missuses earnings. Happy days Yoda ..... thats when people went to pubs when it wasn't their birthday and went to the bar with £notes and not that infernally slow plastic.

btw Unless its settling a 'tab' pub landlords should add a charge to anybody paying with plastic in order to deter em.

The missus refuses to take cards for her business now, the card companies charge to much, which the customer does not see, its had no detrimental effect at all.

Happy days indeed, always had money in the pocket, now the banks invent all sorts of ways to take it from you as did the last "government"

[LeChuck]

What does everyone make of the potential bank reforms? Bit of info here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10130897.stm

Nice to see that Vince Cable is getting considerable clout here. As much as I'd like to see the banks broken up banks into retail and investment, I think that's too radical for the short term.

I definitely agree with the additional tax - if they want bailing out when times are bad then they can pay more when times are good.

Also, the long debated of issues of bonuses is mentioned, but nothing is really said about what will be done. I'd be amazed if the Tories would allow a cap on those, I suspect they will just be linked to long term performance instead.

[ABBEY]

VINCE CABLE is trying to sell the royal mail off GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[thenodrog]

.......Labour and the Lib Dems (both nominally at least to the left of the political spectrum, both very much pro-welfare state and public spending)

.......The Tories are also going to take alot of flak for the unnecessary cuts to public services they are planning.

Public spending!!! Good grief when are you two going to realise that the public sector only exists because of the private sector? The public sector is in place to service the private sector and not the other way around, a bit like fleas on a dog. The private sector could probably manage easily enough without the public sector as we know it.

[jim mk2]

Public spending!!! Good grief when are you two going to realise that the public sector only exists because of the private sector? The public sector is in place to service the private sector and not the other way around, a bit like fleas on a dog. The private sector could probably manage easily enough without the public sector as we know it.

The notion of public service is a mystery to Tories who cannot see farther than the end of the aquiline nose of their avaricious faces. Norman Tebbit came out with bilge similar to this 25 years ago.

And he was a nasty so-and-so too.

[thenodrog]

The notion of public service is a mystery to Tories who cannot see farther than the end of the aquiline nose of their avaricious faces. Norman Tebbit came out with bilge similar to this 25 years ago.

And he was a nasty so-and-so too.

Only if you have not the intellect to cope with his irrefutable logic.

btw Just my opinion but you really are entrenched in the 80's..... you really need to move on Doris. The date now is 2010!

[colin]

Public spending!!! Good grief when are you two going to realise that the public sector only exists because of the private sector? The public sector is in place to service the private sector and not the other way around, a bit like fleas on a dog. The private sector could probably manage easily enough without the public sector as we know it.

I would like to disagree without being disagaeable.

The public sector runs your local council, empties your bins, educates our children, runs your library, funds the police force, the ambulance service, the fire service, the NHS, the coastguard, the army, the navy & the airforce. It tries its best to collect taxes,distribute pensions to OAPs, maintain roads & highways, pay money to the unemployed, stops aircraft from crashing to each other, keeps all national heritage sites going, provides backup service to Government, picks up litter, checks that restraunts aren't rat-infested, destroys Japanese Knotweed, provide advice for British businesses wanting to export goods, deals with Buncefield & Cumbria flooding, looks after the National Parks.......I could go on.

The private sector could probably manage easily enough without the public sector as we know it.

I don't think so. They'd be paying themselves £m bonuses for f***ng up the global economy. And then they would pay themselves some more. Then some more. Then a bit more. Because they are worth it.

[jim mk2]

Only if you have not the intellect to cope with his irrefutable logic.

btw Just my opinion but you really are entrenched in the 80's..... you really need to move on Doris. The date now is 2010!

And you haven't the intellect to see past the end of your own nose, or your 4 toilets and 2 accountants. And it is you that is always harking back to Thatcher, so I don't need lessons in "moving on" thanks. The date today is 22nd May, 2010. Thatcherism and your sort of values are dead.

[yoda]

And you haven't the intellect to see past the end of your own nose, or your 4 toilets and 2 accountants. And it is you that is always harking back to Thatcher, so I don't need lessons in "moving on" thanks. The date today is 22nd May, 2010. Thatcherism and your sort of values are dead.

So is Brownism,

And the Labour party are about to start 4 months of in-fighting in public, that seems like a return to the past for the over spending party.

[jim mk2]

The party that privatised the rail system in 1994 in the name of political ideology, a decision that has wasted tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money and led to Britain having among the highest train fares in the world, is continuing to do what it knows best.

thttp://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23836579-conservatives-refuse-to-reduce-train-fares.do

[1864roverite]

Jinbo

Just concede like your old Labour leader. When he realised he had nowhere else to go he did the decent thing and resigned. It is now time for labour, its mps and supporters to concede defeat and realise they failed.

I dont think for one minute 4yrs isw going to give us all the answers but if you read and listen to Camerons and Cleggs ideas they are attempting to sort out the real issues left by incompetent Labour Leadership.

The childish note and an attempt at humour signifies everything bad about the lack of concern, idealship and thoughts of the COUNTRY when an MP makes a smug mocking remark about there being a lack of money.

Politics needs overhauling, the dross that hang around ministers needs shedding and a whole new outlook needs to be given to our suffering electorate. It is only THEN that they will start to regain our trust.

If you remove your old guard views you will start to see the vision of a future for us all. What you wont see my friend is a Labour leadership in number 10 any time soon. They have blown their chance, the people dont trust them and to bring them back within 5 years would ruin this country, even more so than Mr Browns efforts.

[Sandiway Blue]

I am not bitter and I only reply to your constant jibes at me. I concede I am getting on a bit but I am confident there will be another Labour government in my lifetime - at the next general election in fact. The Con - Lib Dems coalition is causing turmoil among the Lib Dem rank and file who are very unhappy with getting into bed with the Tories and could lead to a big split in the party. Their vote at the next election could well collapse. The Tory grassroots are also extremely unhappy with Cameron for conceding the AV referendum to the Lib Dems and will try to break up the coalition as soon as possible. The Tories are also going to take alot of flak for the unnecessary cuts to public services they are planning. Labour meanwhile will be able to regroup under a new leader - hopefully David Miliband - and prepare for a return to power.

He is a Labour looney,thats bad enough,but sorry i really don`t want to see Gomez Adams in charge...

Altogether now..."he`s creepy and he`s kooky,his brother`s rather loopy,they`re altogether droopy,the Labour family...."

Don`t forget to click the fingers.

[JAL]

The party that privatised the rail system in 1994 in the name of political ideology, a decision that has wasted tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money and led to Britain having among the highest train fares in the world, is continuing to do what it knows best.

thttp://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23836579-conservatives-refuse-to-reduce-train-fares.do

So after being in power for 13 years why didnt your party change it jim ?

Obviously they new labour government 1997-2010 agreed with the outcome.

[jim mk2]

So after being in power for 13 years why didnt your party change it jim ?

Obviously they new labour government 1997-2010 agreed with the outcome.

Labour couldn't renationalise the railways because of the enormous cost and legal complexities, but they did change it.

In the early years of the new Labour government the railways suffered a series of tragic accidents (remember Hatfield ?) caused by the lack of maintenance in the run-up to privatisation and incompetant management at Railtrack (remember that?) more interested in boosting the share price than maintaining the railway after privatisation.

The lack of new train orders in the hiatus leading up to privatisation also led to the closure of most train building capacity in this country (another industry in which we were once world leaders) but that is another story.

Labour eventually dismantled Railtrack and dismissed the incompentant bunglers running it and replaced it with another "not for profit" infrastructure organisation, Network Rail, which while not perfect has managed to get a grip on the vast amount of maintenance work neglected by the Tories from 1979 - 1997.

So, Labour did change it, with the result that the organisation of the railways is still chaotic, a mixture of public and private companies (most of which receive public subsidy) but it is what we have been landed with as result of the idiotic Tory privatisation.

[broadsword]

I don't think anyone could argue that the rail privatisation was a monumental disaster.

The "commanding heights of the economy" should be in public hands. The national rail infrastructure was too important to let the likes of Stagecoach loose on it. Similarly with national utilities. The postal system's been opened up to competition and now the Royal Mail has to take on the non-profitable aspects of other firm's (eg TNT) delivery process. It's absolute carnage.

But perhaps the most damning consideration is that if, for example, British Gas, is in public hands (after all, we pay our taxes so we own it) for it then to be privatised to open up a "share-owning democracy" then it's being sold back, at least in part, to people who already owned it.

[tony gale's mic]

I would like to disagree without being disagaeable.

The public sector runs your local council, empties your bins, educates our children, runs your library, funds the police force, the ambulance service, the fire service, the NHS, the coastguard, the army, the navy & the airforce. It tries its best to collect taxes,distribute pensions to OAPs, maintain roads & highways, pay money to the unemployed, stops aircraft from crashing to each other, keeps all national heritage sites going, provides backup service to Government, picks up litter, checks that restraunts aren't rat-infested, destroys Japanese Knotweed, provide advice for British businesses wanting to export goods, deals with Buncefield & Cumbria flooding, looks after the National Parks.......I could go on.

Good post but it's a shame some people need the obvious stating to them. Theno is some way to the right of the Conservative Party even without the coalition, so the fact he thinks his severely distorted world view is somehow represented by the new administration is laughable.

[thenodrog]

Good post but it's a shame some people need the obvious stating to them. Theno is some way to the right of the Conservative Party even without the coalition, so the fact he thinks his severely distorted world view is somehow represented by the new administration is laughable.

Not represented by the new administration eh? So you think public spending will not be reduced in the coming term?

Just as an aside.... from your contributions TGM I'd suggest that your politics are well to the left of the current Labour party, so whose been representing you these past few years?

[tony gale's mic]

Not represented by the new administration eh? So you think public spending will not be reduced in the coming term?

Just as an aside.... from your contributions TGM I'd suggest that your politics are well to the left of the current Labour party, so whose been representing you these past few years?

All parties said public spending had to be reduced, and due to the external pressures of a world financial crisis having an impact on our economy, I agree. However they differed on the way this was to be balanced with increased taxation (the Tories wanting to cut inheritance tax on the richest 3,000 estates in the country - though this has now been shelved due to the coalition) and also when the cuts were due to be done.

But going back to my initial point which started this, I said that the majority of the country favoured parties which put public sector services at a priority which is true.

Your point about the "public sector only existing to service the private sector" is absolute twaddle as has been shown by colin's post.

It's that which even the Tories would disagree with, well at least in their policies...privately they may well think different things.

My assertion that public sector services should be a priority is something that has been represented by the fact that Labour, although having many, many faults during their time in power, did as a whole improve the NHS, the railways, the education system etc during their team in office. Even the Tories are promising real term increases in NHS spending.

And "current" Labour party can't really be defined until a new leader is elected...

[jim mk2]

I don't think anyone could argue that the rail privatisation was a monumental disaster.

The "commanding heights of the economy" should be in public hands. The national rail infrastructure was too important to let the likes of Stagecoach loose on it. Similarly with national utilities. The postal system's been opened up to competition and now the Royal Mail has to take on the non-profitable aspects of other firm's (eg TNT) delivery process. It's absolute carnage.

But perhaps the most damning consideration is that if, for example, British Gas, is in public hands (after all, we pay our taxes so we own it) for it then to be privatised to open up a "share-owning democracy" then it's being sold back, at least in part, to people who already owned it.

Thatcher's privatisation programme was a national scandal (selling the family silver according to Tory patrician Harold MacMillan) but even the mad old cow refused to privatise the railways. Responsibility for that particular debacle lies with John Major's government when it was thrashing around in its dying days looking for something to do - a good example of a government being in power for far too long.

Railway privatisation was the brainchild of a civil servant named Stewart Robson, who thought it was a good idea to split BR into hundreds (literally) of different pieces in order to encourage competition and drive down costs to the taxpayer. Of course the result was the exact opposite and the privatised railway has cost billions more than BR ever did. Robson later turned up on the board of RBS, and yes he was one of the directors who failed to rein in chief exec Fred "the Shred" Goodwin whose stupidity and hubris led to the bank having to be rescued by the Labour government when the credit crunch hit. Robson has a knighthood; the man should be serving time in jail.

[Paul]

Liam Fox "a broken 13th century state"........lovely people the country elected. Just two weeks and the mask has slipped already.

[roversmum]

The quote actually was

Liam Fox: "We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened."

I believe it referred to Afghanistan.

[Tris]

Railway privatisation was the brainchild of a civil servant named Stewart Robson, who thought it was a good idea to split BR into hundreds (literally) of different pieces in order to encourage competition and drive down costs to the taxpayer. Of course the result was the exact opposite and the privatised railway has cost billions more than BR ever did.

Enough lies from the resident lunatic leftie.

One of the immediate benefits of rail privatisation was the influx of new positive thinking. A "can do" attitude replaced the tired, union-driven British Rail culture of "don't do anything which requires effort".

The company I worked for at the time was an early beneficiary. Heavy industry, near Nottingham, we still moved everything by road. BR had closed our siding in the 70s. But then freeing up the rail industry brought us our siding back (thanks to EWS, at that time owned by Canadian National and backed by Conservative government money (Freight Facilities Grant) to take lorries off roads).

We took thousands of trucks off the roads thanks to that deal. We had trains running to our main export ports (Hull and Teesport). One of my most treasured achievements at "work" is doing the deal that saw the first ever direct rail freight movement from the UK to Kazakhstan, through the tunnel.

On the passenger side, things were going well when the private companies were allowed to make their own decisions. The Pendolino trains which are now operating a fantastic, fast, frequent service from our part of the world to London are all down to Richard Branson - thanks to rail privatisation. A private enterprise scoping out what's needed and delivering.

But since then the Labour government took procurement of new trains away from the operating companies - and what happens?? 100 million quid wasted on the Intercity Express Programme, and Lord Adonis (one of the many unelected Labour knobs, who somehow got the job of Transport Sec) announced weeks before the election that the whole programme is suddenly to be "reviewed". The Labour administration managed to waste 100 million quid on ... ... nothing.

But the main reason that Labour is hated by the entire rail industry is down to the disaster that was PPP - Public Private Partnership - to deliver improvements on London Underground. Gordon Brown invented PPP, and by doing so wasted a criminal - yes criminal - amount of taxpayers money. Metronet and Tube Lines were the private entities put in place by Brown - google either to see the damage he did and the money he wasted - both "companies" are now dead.

Gordon Brown's personal contribution to the rail industry is the biggest waste of public money ever in the rail sector - but at least the concept of deregualtion of rail freight is now embraced throughout the continent.

The final bastion of socialist protection of railfreight is France. You would not believe how many containers my company ships over water via Grangemouth, Greenock, Teesport, Immingham and Hull ... to Belgium ... just to avoid France. And then in Belgium, we put those containers onto trains which deliver to literally hundreds of cities in Europe and beyond.

They should all go through the tunnel, on rail, end-to-end, but the French still embrace the ideology favoured by Jim (f*** the customer, the union is king) ... so whenever we can, we avoid the Tunnel just because it happens to surface in Calais. Great idea, disasterous management south of Folkestone.

Not for much longer hopefully, we now have a forward thinking government instead of a hotch-potch of idealists hell bent on cosying up to a failing PM.

[Neil Weaver]

Enough lies from the resident lunatic leftie.

Oh I don't know, it won't be long before we learn how the demise of English cricket is inextricably linked to the Tories.

[Paul]

The quote actually was

I believe it referred to Afghanistan.

Yep I know. Wise words from the Defence Secretary?