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Johnson and Truss's favourite pub (4,3,7)
Johnson and Truss's favourite pub (4,3,7)
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- Slug and Lettuce
How is the Tory Government Doing?
+19
Sluffy
Norpig
Cajunboy
gloswhite
Hipster_Nebula
boltonbonce
karlypants
Natasha Whittam
finlaymcdanger
Soul Kitchen
scottjames30
wessy
Whitesince63
Growler
Feby
wanderlust
okocha
Ten Bobsworth
Bolton Nuts
23 posters
Message [Page 19 of 50]
362 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Mon Oct 24 2022, 08:28
Soul Kitchen
Ivan Campo
Whitesince63 wrote: Please enlighten me. Everything I’ve written is a fact. Tell me a Labour government that left not crashing the economy. Who sold off our gold reserves at an all time low? Who presided over the winter of discontent, the 3 day week and left rubbish piled high in the streets. Despite 3 terms in office they never commissioned a single nuclear energy plant and their inept handling of the banking system led to the credit crunch in 2008/9. Please don’t even try to tell me that things would be different this time because Labour have no plans, no experience and no ideas other than more woke and an even bigger rush to net zero and silly wind and solar farms. You think the Tory’s are bad? Wait until you see what this lot would do, or hopefully not. I think it’s you who’s deluded mate.
So sad to see intelligence insulted by the Tories and the effective use of a bus!!
363 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Mon Oct 24 2022, 16:40
okocha
El Hadji Diouf
Eat nowt to help out...
364 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Mon Oct 24 2022, 16:54
Whitesince63
El Hadji Diouf
okocha wrote:Eat nowt to help out...
365 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Mon Oct 24 2022, 17:07
karlypants
Nat Lofthouse
Certainly fishy Rishi
369 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Fri Oct 28 2022, 09:44
Whitesince63
El Hadji Diouf
boltonbonce wrote:
Nice one Bonce, might just give it a go myself, do you think Lusty, Wessy and Karly would support me?370 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Fri Oct 28 2022, 11:13
Sluffy
Admin
Have you sent back your membership card as you said you were going to do if Rishi became PM, 63?
Fwiw I think he's the right man (along with Hunt) to make the best go of getting us out of the financial mess we are in - made extremely worse by Truss - (I don't often do 'told you so's' but I did tell you and everyone else when she was standing to be the next PM that her economic plans were clearly bonkers and couldn't possibly work and anyone at all with a knowledge of how public sector financing works would know that).
Saying that though I never in my wildest dreams expected her to implement them - I thought she was just saying them to get people such as yourself to vote for her to become PM.
Anyway it happened and we can't change that but the damage has to be repaired.
One of the things that need to be done is not to give the inflation percentage rise to us pensioners under the triple lock pledge - frankly it is madness to do so with the government savings that urgently need to be made right now to plug the £40 billion (or whatever it is) blackhole Rishi/Hunt find themselves with - but whether that will be politically acceptable to do so is quite a different thing to deliver.
Fwiw I think he's the right man (along with Hunt) to make the best go of getting us out of the financial mess we are in - made extremely worse by Truss - (I don't often do 'told you so's' but I did tell you and everyone else when she was standing to be the next PM that her economic plans were clearly bonkers and couldn't possibly work and anyone at all with a knowledge of how public sector financing works would know that).
Saying that though I never in my wildest dreams expected her to implement them - I thought she was just saying them to get people such as yourself to vote for her to become PM.
Anyway it happened and we can't change that but the damage has to be repaired.
One of the things that need to be done is not to give the inflation percentage rise to us pensioners under the triple lock pledge - frankly it is madness to do so with the government savings that urgently need to be made right now to plug the £40 billion (or whatever it is) blackhole Rishi/Hunt find themselves with - but whether that will be politically acceptable to do so is quite a different thing to deliver.
371 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Fri Oct 28 2022, 11:16
wanderlust
Nat Lofthouse
Not sure if this is right but the missus said they are thinking of raising the pensionable age to 70.
372 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Fri Oct 28 2022, 11:31
karlypants
Nat Lofthouse
If they do that they can fuck off.
This will be the 3rd time they have done this in 12 years if your Mrs is correct?
The conservatives only ever seem to screw the working people and give their buddies tax breaks and whatnot.
A GE can't come quick enough!
This will be the 3rd time they have done this in 12 years if your Mrs is correct?
The conservatives only ever seem to screw the working people and give their buddies tax breaks and whatnot.
A GE can't come quick enough!
373 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Fri Oct 28 2022, 11:53
Sluffy
Admin
wanderlust wrote:Not sure if this is right but the missus said they are thinking of raising the pensionable age to 70.
For now the legislation is that pensionable age will rise to 68 by 2046.
It would certainly make social and economic sense to bring that forward and set a further rise to 70 some years thereafter in that the UK age demographics show that the percentage of people reaching current pensionable age is growing (and pensioners are living longer!) and conversely the percentage of people under that age (and who basically fund our state pensions via taxation) is decreasing - which will obviously have financial consequences in some way or other down the line.
Again whether doing so is politically acceptable is another matter entirely.
The question as always is do you do the best thing for the country, or do you do the best thing for your political party?
Politics is all about obtaining power and thereafter retaining it.
It isn't about what is best for the country - it is about what is best to win the votes to get into power and stay there.
That's why I stay out of politics - the Tories, Labour, SNP, Sinn Fein, Ulster Unionists, etc, are all the same - they put their political supporters above everyone else's and that's why we get the stupidity and senselessness of the political deadlock in northern Ireland, Scotland trying to break away from the United Kingdom, everything Tory is bad and everything Labour is good (Wanderlust), and everything Tory is good and everything Labour is bad (63) - or in other words the blinkered bigotry of supporting 'your' party above anything else.
It is the country that ultimately suffers (which ultimately means ALL of us) in the end because of all the stupidity of flying the flag for your section of voters rather than everyone acting for the greater good of us all.
374 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Fri Oct 28 2022, 13:21
wanderlust
Nat Lofthouse
Rejoining the EU has now taken a 14% lead in latest polls 57 - 43
376 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Fri Oct 28 2022, 22:41
Whitesince63
El Hadji Diouf
Nope, I haven’t chucked in my card yet Sluffy, I’ll see how things go before I decide on that. As far as not doing “I told you sos” you just did but you’re way off beam. Nobody anticipated the rush to do so much in the mini budget and if she’d just stuck to what she’d advised she would do there would have been no panic and she and Kwasi would probably still be in No10 and 11. So we weren’t conned and nothing she actually projected to do would have caused a problem. Clearly she went far too far and it cost her.Sluffy wrote:Have you sent back your membership card as you said you were going to do if Rishi became PM, 63?
Fwiw I think he's the right man (along with Hunt) to make the best go of getting us out of the financial mess we are in - made extremely worse by Truss - (I don't often do 'told you so's' but I did tell you and everyone else when she was standing to be the next PM that her economic plans were clearly bonkers and couldn't possibly work and anyone at all with a knowledge of how public sector financing works would know that).
Saying that though I never in my wildest dreams expected her to implement them - I thought she was just saying them to get people such as yourself to vote for her to become PM.
Anyway it happened and we can't change that but the damage has to be repaired.
One of the things that need to be done is not to give the inflation percentage rise to us pensioners under the triple lock pledge - frankly it is madness to do so with the government savings that urgently need to be made right now to plug the £40 billion (or whatever it is) blackhole Rishi/Hunt find themselves with - but whether that will be politically acceptable to do so is quite a different thing to deliver.
As for the pension increase, it would actually be madness not to uphold it. The point of the triple lock was to ensure pensioners didn’t fall behind again so it must stay. It’s already the lowest in Western Europe and we wait longer for it so keeping up with inflation is essential. When you consider that even at 10% it’s only a £920 rise compared to £2,090 for those on the average full time wage at 5.5%. Expensive or not the government need to find the way to fund it.
377 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Sat Oct 29 2022, 02:30
Sluffy
Admin
Whitesince63 wrote:Nope, I haven’t chucked in my card yet Sluffy, I’ll see how things go before I decide on that. As far as not doing “I told you sos” you just did but you’re way off beam. Nobody anticipated the rush to do so much in the mini budget and if she’d just stuck to what she’d advised she would do there would have been no panic and she and Kwasi would probably still be in No10 and 11. So we weren’t conned and nothing she actually projected to do would have caused a problem. Clearly she went far too far and it cost her.
As for the pension increase, it would actually be madness not to uphold it. The point of the triple lock was to ensure pensioners didn’t fall behind again so it must stay. It’s already the lowest in Western Europe and we wait longer for it so keeping up with inflation is essential. When you consider that even at 10% it’s only a £920 rise compared to £2,090 for those on the average full time wage at 5.5%. Expensive or not the government need to find the way to fund it.
You're a likeable poster 63 but economics is economics and not politics and you can't seem to accept there is a massive difference between the two.
Put simply Truss and Kwarty put forward an unfunded budget of something like £45 billion. It makes no difference if they did it straight away - as they did, or did it slowly as they have tried to spin it - the result is still exactly the same - it is still £45 billion unfunded.
Think of it as a bit like you building your daughter her own full staffed and equipped hospital - you order the works - but no one will touch it because you haven't shown how you can possibly pay for it irrespective if you tell them to build it today or do it slowly over the next five years.
Either way you can't back up your plans because you simply haven't got the money to guarantee you can pay back the loans you need to build it.
You can say once the hospital is built it will run as a profit and you can pay your loans back that way but for those who may loan you the money that is a massive risk and they would only take that chance if you pay eye-watering interest rates on the loans - that in effect is what happened to the economy following the mini budget and would have forced pension funds to go bust (as they primarily deal in guilts) and force banks to stop their lending - and that's why mortgage offers were suddenly withdrawn - unless it was totally stopped - which Hunt did
The bottom line is Truss and Kwarty's plan was pie in the sky politic rhetoric and simply wasn't grounded in financial reality.
I told you this long before it happened.
That wasn't me simply having a lucky guess, you know.
As for pensions the same thing applies.
The money for pension increases have to come from somewhere - there isn't a magical money tree.
That money either comes as increasing government borrowing - at a time when we already have a black hole of something like £40 billion to find from somewhere - cuts in services clearly will have to be made sooner or later - and/or rises in taxation.
There's no point increasing the borrowing black hole by giving us pensioners a nice 10% rise when we already know savage cuts to services, increases in taxation and no doubt freezing of the public sector pay will undoubtably be on its way sooner rather than later.
Yes the Conservatives don't want to lose power so we will get a rise - maybe even the full 10% but the bottom line is that somebody somewhere will feel the pain in having to bear the brunt of funding for this rise.
There has to be cuts, there will be tax rises - we are in debt - that is the economic reality we are in.
That's the real world we are living in and not some political rhetoric wonderland as many people seem to believe - including you.
378 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Sat Oct 29 2022, 10:16
Whitesince63
El Hadji Diouf
I’ll ignore the abuse Sluffy and I’m not living in wonderland just reality. I’m perfectly aware of the cost of providing the pension increase but it’s a question of where the money the government has (our money) is best distributed. I worked all my life, never claimed a penny in any kind of benefit and paid into both a private and state pension to enjoy a decent life in retirement. Many pensioners, especially single women staying at home to look after family or those on low wages where private pensions weren’t available couldn’t. It’s a generational thing and these people exist only on the state pension and other benefits. They still pay the same for energy, food, clothing and anything else they buy as those on the £38k average wage who will receive a £2,090 increase compared to the potential £930 of the pensioner, so even with the 10% rise they’re actually falling behind in real terms.
Consider also that we were penalised last year with only a 3.1% rise when inflation was way above that and and increasing and has reached where it is now and we’ll suffer that until April next year. In reality the 10% increase only goes halfway to making up for the loss of last year so I’m sorry, if the government has to find the money to effect it, then that’s what they need to do. Maybe they can start by removing the cost of housing, feeding and warming illegal immigrants, or cutting the number of high salary non efficient jobs created in the health service with climate, net zero and now defunct pandemic linked managerial jobs. I’m sure you’ve trimmed as much waste as you can to cover the rising costs so that’s where the government should be finding the money to support pensioners and the other more needy not by preventing them from living a decent level of existence. We’ll never agree on this Sluffy so don’t even think of getting on your high horse again to disagree.
Consider also that we were penalised last year with only a 3.1% rise when inflation was way above that and and increasing and has reached where it is now and we’ll suffer that until April next year. In reality the 10% increase only goes halfway to making up for the loss of last year so I’m sorry, if the government has to find the money to effect it, then that’s what they need to do. Maybe they can start by removing the cost of housing, feeding and warming illegal immigrants, or cutting the number of high salary non efficient jobs created in the health service with climate, net zero and now defunct pandemic linked managerial jobs. I’m sure you’ve trimmed as much waste as you can to cover the rising costs so that’s where the government should be finding the money to support pensioners and the other more needy not by preventing them from living a decent level of existence. We’ll never agree on this Sluffy so don’t even think of getting on your high horse again to disagree.
379 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Sat Oct 29 2022, 12:54
Sluffy
Admin
For a start I never abused you.
I attempted to point out your lack of understanding how the economy works - as you clearly blur what is political dogma and what is hard economic reality.
In short the country runs at a debt - meaning all "our money" as you put it doesn't pay for all what 'we' spend it on.
That means we have to borrow the money on the world market through government borrowing known as guilts.
The effects of the mini budget which necessitated the government to borrow a further £45 billion on the international market with no means shown to pay it back basically had the effect that the world told the government NO they wouldn't loan us the money as it was too great a risk of being repaid AND that they weren't going to be buying any more guilts for the time being because clearly the government was in a financial mess.
That's why the Bank of England had to step in and buy the guilts in order to keep the country's borrowing going. If they didn't the whole economy would have collapsed - that is how serious this was.
It is now an open secret that even after scrapping virtually all of the mini budget that a black hole of something like a further £40 to £60 billion of debt currently isn't able to be repaid when it falls due (and that's why Truss and Kwarty clearly (hid) could not and did not show how their additional £45 billion mini budget was going to be funded).
This £40 to £60 billion is still there and that is why the government's imminent financial statement has kept being postponed and put back in the last few weeks.
When it finally arrives it will tell us how not only they intend to fund whatever polices the Rishi government may want to enact for the next two years of government (ie a replacement of the mini budget of Truss) but additionally how they intend to plug this massive blackhole they've inherited.
Expect big cuts in services and increase in taxation with a few sweeteners thrown in.
They might stick with the triple-lock pension increase but that simply will increase the size of the financial black hole which means something else will suffer in order to fund it!
My view is that pensions will rise in line with the cost of living and NOT inflation.
The best for the country is to freeze ALL benefits and pension increases but that isn't politically acceptable (they will lose the country if they did that).
Which brings us round to the question do politicians do the best for the country or the best for themselves - which can be looked at in a more personal way - do we want the best for the country or the best for ourselves? How many of us would dream of saying the country is in a financial mess and we wave our benefit and pension increases until it is sorted out?
Very few if any I would suggest.
So the government has to balance a hard financial economic reality with a pragmatic political agenda and please both elements at the same time to solve the financial mess whilst trying to remain in power.
And finally, if you think I'm on my high horse, well at least it gives me a position where I can see what is coming and I rather be there than in my bunker believing it's all the fault of funding some asylum seekers and other penny ha'penny costs that we currently may have.
I attempted to point out your lack of understanding how the economy works - as you clearly blur what is political dogma and what is hard economic reality.
In short the country runs at a debt - meaning all "our money" as you put it doesn't pay for all what 'we' spend it on.
That means we have to borrow the money on the world market through government borrowing known as guilts.
The effects of the mini budget which necessitated the government to borrow a further £45 billion on the international market with no means shown to pay it back basically had the effect that the world told the government NO they wouldn't loan us the money as it was too great a risk of being repaid AND that they weren't going to be buying any more guilts for the time being because clearly the government was in a financial mess.
That's why the Bank of England had to step in and buy the guilts in order to keep the country's borrowing going. If they didn't the whole economy would have collapsed - that is how serious this was.
It is now an open secret that even after scrapping virtually all of the mini budget that a black hole of something like a further £40 to £60 billion of debt currently isn't able to be repaid when it falls due (and that's why Truss and Kwarty clearly (hid) could not and did not show how their additional £45 billion mini budget was going to be funded).
This £40 to £60 billion is still there and that is why the government's imminent financial statement has kept being postponed and put back in the last few weeks.
When it finally arrives it will tell us how not only they intend to fund whatever polices the Rishi government may want to enact for the next two years of government (ie a replacement of the mini budget of Truss) but additionally how they intend to plug this massive blackhole they've inherited.
Expect big cuts in services and increase in taxation with a few sweeteners thrown in.
They might stick with the triple-lock pension increase but that simply will increase the size of the financial black hole which means something else will suffer in order to fund it!
My view is that pensions will rise in line with the cost of living and NOT inflation.
The best for the country is to freeze ALL benefits and pension increases but that isn't politically acceptable (they will lose the country if they did that).
Which brings us round to the question do politicians do the best for the country or the best for themselves - which can be looked at in a more personal way - do we want the best for the country or the best for ourselves? How many of us would dream of saying the country is in a financial mess and we wave our benefit and pension increases until it is sorted out?
Very few if any I would suggest.
So the government has to balance a hard financial economic reality with a pragmatic political agenda and please both elements at the same time to solve the financial mess whilst trying to remain in power.
And finally, if you think I'm on my high horse, well at least it gives me a position where I can see what is coming and I rather be there than in my bunker believing it's all the fault of funding some asylum seekers and other penny ha'penny costs that we currently may have.
380 Re: How is the Tory Government Doing? Sat Oct 29 2022, 14:39
Whitesince63
El Hadji Diouf
Inferring I’m financially illiterate compared to you Sluffy and that I live in some kind of wonderland is both insulting and abuse as far as I’m concerned. I have a different view to you that’s all. Enough said on that so can we just pose our views without attempting to discredit other please. Like many others, you’re completely overstating the Truss/Kwarteng issue. Yes it’s damaged the economy, it was naive and rather stupid to attempt to implement all those measures, especially without first explaining where the money was coming from to pay for it. Nobody’s disputing that but Truss never indicated all of those changes during her run to be PM just the key measures of NI removal, Energy support and the 1p tax reduction. These were not only supported by the majority of the public but also Tory’s and Labour. Rishi had a different view which was to continue taxing to spend despite the already high burden.
My feelings on this are that the very reason the country’s in the mess it is financially is largely down to the Tory party’s move to the left. Of course the effects of the credit crunch in 2008 are still with us and the borrowing that ensued as well as the money printing and suicidally low interest rates. I accept that some it was necessary to take action to keep the economy going but it went on too long and during that time, despite austerity, too much government money was spent without cutting waste. That has continued through the pandemic and now the energy cost increases have made things even worse. At least Truss recognised that we need a major change in how government operates and was attempting to do something about it. What she didn’t recognise was that this will take decades and to try to tilt things so quickly was just mad.
I do agree with you that state support needs to be reduced but not on pensioners, most of whom have no way of increasing their income. Supporting the in work is where the biggest cuts should be. Why should the state pay peoples wages when the employer isn’t. If it’s just to make the employment figures look good then it’s wrong. If the jobs not viable then cut it. The import of cheap immigrant Labour has severely damaged this country and needs to stop. Similarly the number of state employed has grown far too much, including the far too generous pensions that go with it. The country needs a true Conservative government not a Sunak led pseudo Labour one which we’ve suffered for the last decade. For the moment I’ll back Sunak but only under sufferance because I know how much worse Labour would be.
My feelings on this are that the very reason the country’s in the mess it is financially is largely down to the Tory party’s move to the left. Of course the effects of the credit crunch in 2008 are still with us and the borrowing that ensued as well as the money printing and suicidally low interest rates. I accept that some it was necessary to take action to keep the economy going but it went on too long and during that time, despite austerity, too much government money was spent without cutting waste. That has continued through the pandemic and now the energy cost increases have made things even worse. At least Truss recognised that we need a major change in how government operates and was attempting to do something about it. What she didn’t recognise was that this will take decades and to try to tilt things so quickly was just mad.
I do agree with you that state support needs to be reduced but not on pensioners, most of whom have no way of increasing their income. Supporting the in work is where the biggest cuts should be. Why should the state pay peoples wages when the employer isn’t. If it’s just to make the employment figures look good then it’s wrong. If the jobs not viable then cut it. The import of cheap immigrant Labour has severely damaged this country and needs to stop. Similarly the number of state employed has grown far too much, including the far too generous pensions that go with it. The country needs a true Conservative government not a Sunak led pseudo Labour one which we’ve suffered for the last decade. For the moment I’ll back Sunak but only under sufferance because I know how much worse Labour would be.
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