cannot see anything wrong with any party being nationalists if that means putting your own country first. people should love their country even if there are things about it you,d love to change, but its the only one we have got unless you can afford to jump ship or get work permanently abroad. seems more acceptable now to fly a palestine or ukraine flag than the union or st.georges flag. be interesting what other countries these people love would do for them or their country if we got into a big mess. not a lot i think.

Anyone who has ever worked in the private sector can see what’s going wrong in the NHS but you can include any government department, too many pen pushers.

yes, the pen pushers were always the weakness of nationalised industry,s and council run organisations. in favour of them if they were run by people from the private sector at the top layers.

Yes empty tin, When Labour lost power in 2010 the message to their successors, which were a coalition of Tory and Lib Dems, was the tin is empty. It was a Global banking crisis in 2008, just like we have recently had a global health crisis with Covid and a Global economic turmoil caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Global events have caused the tin to be empty twice. If Labour get in it will be their job to fill the tin up again. The question that poses is, have they got the policies, will and talent to take awkward but necessary decisions to achieve that???

Yes union membership is not what it was but the reference to Robbo and Arthur was a direct link to the comment that the Tories decimated manufacturing in this country, to which I commented that the unions led by people like Robbo and Arthur also played their part in the demise of manufacturing. The demise of manufacturing was caused by inability to compete on the World Market due to incompetent management, irresponsible unions and refusal of government to bail failing industries out or subsidise them as other countries were doing. Have you forgotten the three day week, and the Miner's year long strike. Do the unions still have the clout to influence Labour policy??? We might have to put that question to the test in the not too distant future. Labour have distanced themselves from the recent industrial action, giving credence to the theory that they no longer represent the workers.

The choice at the next election is quite simple, as you rightly point out.
The choice comes down to who does each individual voter think is best placed and capable to make things better. Can the Tories turn it round or do we trust another route.

Personally I am yet to be convinced that the opposition are the best answer because Labour, for me, are just Tories in disguise. Therefore do I vote for imitation Tories or real Tories.

Like I said earlier it's like choosing between staying in the frying pan or jumping in the fire. There doesn't appear to be much future in either option.

mention trade unions and everyone think of scargill and red robbo as if these people were rife in the union or the union itself. was always a big union man who ended up as a shop steward everywhere i worked. our working lives would be much worse without them and the people who spent hours of their spare time at local level doing their upmost for their fellow workers but got little credit if any for their efforts. never understand the union is crap brigade as they were never bothered to put any efforts into it apart from spouting off.

Yes but there was a lot of apathy from membership, especially at branch level. Same old faces turned up to meetings unless it was something really important like redundancies, closures or pay talks.
I wish I had a tenner for every time a member has said, no point in involving the union they never do owt. A bit like what the public opinion of the Police is. I've met some clever negotiators and really dedicated officials but also those who were in it for themselves. Bit like all walks of life really. Arthur Scargill didn't do without like his members had to. He was a brilliant orator though and when speaking usually had his audience spellbound. However he wasn't as clever or as wily as Joe Gormley. Unions are an asset to both management and workers alike if they are both committed to accepting or promoting confrontation as a last resort. Scargill thrived on confrontation in my opinion without realising or actually concerned with the hardship it caused.

Very true, the unions were a necessary to protect workers rights, the Tories want to scrap all ones employees protections whilst the U.K. were in EU, holiday pay, sick pay etc, Mogg said why should you get paid when you go on holiday.
Younger element of today don’t realise that unions were just not about Red Robbo or Scargill although the right wing media will have them believe it. In my day taking the shop stewards job was some times the kiss of death with regards to future employment, employers didn’t like people standing up to them.

or for some they used it as a way to gain promotion. those who did do it by going down that road were the real bastards to work for being far worse than those who were always in management. i got promoted from being a shop steward at the time but not the only reason and much to some who didn,t like my approach i never once forgot my roots and lads worked for me unlike they did for the other types.

https://youtu.be/4-PvvPe3cWQ?si=jUKf6pSK-oMYiW4-

Excellent speech

Aye they used to call it poacher turned gamekeeper but like you say some of them became good supervisors because they knew how to handle the people in their care. The bastards who you refer to knew all the tricks, skives etc and exploited that knowledge. It's all about trust and that trust has to be built and worked at. It's not easy but a lot easier when trust is created.
One of the biggest enemies to the relationship was the us and them concept. Where that is prevailant there is no trust.

Proper politician

He says it as it is. There are probably millions who agree with him but very few of them are MPs. If every one of the people actually take the plunge and follow their instinct, Reform are a shoe in but it might be too early.

Waffle away and ignore the real background to events.
Try reading up on your history sunshine, Hitler was following the line of Mussolini who had been in charge with a fascist government since the early 20’s.
He was a benign fascist, ‘made the trains run and time’ and had no problem with Italy’s Jewish population . Italy had a king and the Pope to deal with and Mussolini was the founder of fascism… but never used the word socialist to describe his party.
He influenced Hitler and wanted to rid his country of Church and Monarchy, not the signs of a budding capitalist, he was in all intents and purposes a socialist godfather…like Stalin. Hitler was better organised but despised capitalism and the clues in the name as he called it ‘socialist’ to the people.
I can recommend several hood books on the subject and it’s a bit more bounced than the than it first appears.

Your having a laugh even the journalists were laughing at him, he asked them what they were laughing about.Tice was on edge, Anderson is a loose cannon, Tice had to step in when he didn’t want to or couldn’t answer the Sky journalists question on what people would think about him hopping from party to party.

Is there two of you, or are you schizophrenic….because you’re now praising them…..get in out of the sun man, mad dogs and Englishman etc.

There was one person who sniggered, a guy called Harry. If Rigby had asked me what people would think of me hopping from party to party I would have replied "why don't you ask them ???" It was fairly obvious that his reason for party hopping was he wanted to be in a party who put Country first. Don't let your hatred of the right cloud your judgement Jamie.

I don’t hate the right but I do struggle to think why I should favour them for what they have done for me in the last 14 years more so Truss whose disastrous short tenure collapsed peoples investments including mine substantially and forced interest rates to such a level people are struggling to pay their mortgages.

You a Labour voter worried about their financial investments being reduced is like a dog walking on its back legs, a novelty but not normal.

Investment I mean savings some of which are invested or aren’t we Labour voters allowed to have a small amount of savings which some are invested which are called investments not in a savings account. Of course I am concerned this is money I have earned during my life, no one gifted it to me working long hours, 6/7 days a week, some of it was wiped out by Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer. It’s money I might never get back as it took me 50 odd years to save it and is intended for my retirement years.

Tony Blair told all our kids heavy industry and trades was old hat and the future was getting a degree and computers were the future…..we’re paying the price now with profiteering uni’s on every corner and because he made decent trade jobs look second class…… that was the biggest sea change in employment, funny you never noticed it happen.[/quote]

Of course I noticed it happen, polytechnics became universities, the only reason apprenticeship trades disappeared is because companies like ICI, British Steel, the pits shipbuilding etc disappeared. The kids had no alternatives, it wasn’t because trades were second class, there just wasn’t apprenticeships available on the scale they were before.
They were convinced get degree no matter what it was and there will be jobs galore unfortunately some of the degrees they created were worthless.
Of course they created a new version of an apprentice, office junior can now be called an apprentice like a shelf stacker in the supermarket devaluing the word apprenticeship.[/quote]

I was an office junior and made it to Works manager and shelf stackers can make it into management. Both are necessary and important jobs. Don't forget the affect trade union power had on the manufacturing industry with Red Robbo, Arthur Scargill et al doing their bit to make the sector uncompetitive. For the last two years we have had multi organised and co ordinated strikes from numerous sources, which is the Unions contribution to getting rid of the government and pave the way for Starmer. If or when they achieve that there will be a pay back time in which we will all suffer as Starmer, or his successor ( more likely) will be held to ransom by the same unions. Rachel Reeves is already making excuses for Labour's likely inability to reverse or even make an impact on the economy. Labour left the tin empty in 2010, now they are likely to see and experience the effects of an empty tin, they are getting the jitters. As it is going to be the rest of us who will reap the consequences of their inability to organise a piss up in a brewery, it is us who should be getting the jitters. This scenario is also worth our attention and notice. The notion of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire is very very real.[/quote]

Empty tin? Maybe you missed the worldwide recession in 2008. As for the union’s membership it has halved since the days of Red Robbo and Scargill. The choice in the election is simple, if after 14 years of conservatism if you’re happy vote for more of the same.[/quote]

Yes empty tin, When Labour lost power in 2010 the message to their successors, which were a coalition of Tory and Lib Dems, was the tin is empty. It was a Global banking crisis in 2008, just like we have recently had a global health crisis with Covid and a Global economic turmoil caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Global events have caused the tin to be empty twice. If Labour get in it will be their job to fill the tin up again. The question that poses is, have they got the policies, will and talent to take awkward but necessary decisions to achieve that???

Yes union membership is not what it was but the reference to Robbo and Arthur was a direct link to the comment that the Tories decimated manufacturing in this country, to which I commented that the unions led by people like Robbo and Arthur also played their part in the demise of manufacturing. The demise of manufacturing was caused by inability to compete on the World Market due to incompetent management, irresponsible unions and refusal of government to bail failing industries out or subsidise them as other countries were doing. Have you forgotten the three day week, and the Miner's year long strike. Do the unions still have the clout to influence Labour policy??? We might have to put that question to the test in the not too distant future. Labour have distanced themselves from the recent industrial action, giving credence to the theory that they no longer represent the workers.

Y

The choice at the next election is quite simple, as you rightly point out.
The choice comes down to who does each individual voter think is best placed and capable to make things better. Can the Tories turn it round or do we trust another route.

Personally I am yet to be convinced that the opposition are the best answer because Labour, for me, are just Tories in disguise. Therefore do I vote for imitation Tories or real Tories.



Like I said earlier it's like choosing between staying in the frying pan or jumping in the fire. There doesn't appear to be much future in either option.[/quote]

You do know that the note left saying there was no money left is a bit of a tradition and the conservatives have also left a note like that?

Ah, so you are a Labour voter……you should have put in pensions, I did, safe as houses.
Playing the markets and speculating ain’t my style…too Tory….but too Labour now as well

What tradition was that then
Can you give me a reference to it?
Because to be brutally frank I’ve never heard of it.

Unfortunately, when I opened it, it was a one-sentence letter which simply said: 'Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left,' which was honest but slightly less helpful advice than I had been expecting."
The letter recalls a similar note left by Tory Reginald Maudling to his Labour successor James Callaghan in 1964: "Good luck, old cock ... Sorry to leave it in such a mess."
Byrne said the message was meant in jest. "My letter was a joke, from one chief secretary to another," he said. "I do hope David Laws's sense of humour wasn't another casualty of the coalition deal.

Gullible people who are led by the nose quote that letter a lot

Accounts vary about what Maudling meant, Callaghan thought he was referring to the state of the office but saw it as no consequence.
Equally so the 2010 version was after the 2008 crash so I’d be surprised if there was even any biscuits left.
People would have laughed in 64, the present day media would smelt blood.

Well given the meltdown over a royal picture everything is microscopically analysed these days. Every Twitter post from 10 years ago dredged back up so either side can call each other snowflakes or demand sackings. Strange times.

[quote="Rinkender"]Gullible people who are led by the nose quote that letter a lot[/quote

As you quoted a similar letter written by a Tory are you also led by the nose and gullible.

I wasn’t the one quoting it twice only the easily led and gullible do that

Nothing to do with the gullible and easily led, that’s just a smokescreen.
The only gullible figure was Liam Byrne to say it in the first place, nothing wrong with saying it, but the ‘meeeja’ don’t have a sense of humour and he never realised it.
He probably regrets it on reflection.

I was enjoying the irony of a probable Labour voter accusing anybody of being easily led and gullible.

Err never voted Labour in my life, maybe you think your little factory floor to works manager story has fooled people into thinking you’re clever, oh dear.

Now I have a problem. Do I take what you say at face value, like I did with the message in the empty tin or do I dismiss it in case it leads to someone accusing me of being easily led and gullible.
Decisions.
Point of order though. I went from Office junior to works manager, not from the factory floor.
Am I clever to have done that. That's for others to decide but you appear to consider such an achievement worthy of consideration as clever.
I have never seen it written as possibly being clever, until now. What is clever to one person might not even be noticed by another person. It paid well though which was very satisfying. It was just the beginning as I went on from there to become a Director of an oil and chemical distribution company as well as owning a third of it. That paid even better. I retired aged 58, 21 years ago and am looking forward to my 80th birthday later this year. If that makes me easily led and gullible, I haven't done bad out of it, so maybe I'll just keep it up for a little while longer. You keep trying to lead me down the garden path and I'll keep pretending to fall for it and we can have some fun.

Roll with blows mate, it was a joke on Derwent part.

Snowy your money isn’t safe as houses in a pension scheme, people like Maxwell who siphoned money out of the company pension scheme, in the 2000 IFAs persuaded people to move their money from a company scheme to a private scheme earning the IFAs loads of money in commission, this was outlawed eventually.
Pension funds managing vast sums on behalf of retired people across Britain came close to collapse amid an “unprecedented” meltdown in UK government bond markets after Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget, the Bank of England has said.

During the Truss debacle emergency intervention was needed to calm turmoil in financial markets, the central bank said pension funds with more than £1tn invested in them came under severe strain with a “large number” in danger of going bust.

I stopped contributing to my private pension when I opted back into SERPS after reading an article referring to tax relief on contributions is tax deferred. I drip fed money into several different unit trusts advised by IFAs, I never speculated over the years the same as pension providers do where I could access my cash not like a private pension scheme where it is locked away with no access to it until you buy an annuity or cash it in, cashing it in apart from 25% means you have to pay tax on it. If you haven’t assigned your PP to anyone when you die the pension provider keeps it.

With the new pension increase it could take some people on the new State Pension Scheme introduced in 2016 months over the tax threshold meaning they have to pay tax on their State Pension and also their PP.

I very much doubt it, if that scenario came about the country would collapse.
Luckily my pensions aren’t all from the UK…..but let’s be honest…..whoever got the job after Boris was going to fail unless it was Sunak, he was the chosen one and that’s why the Tory party grass roots membership are watching Sunak sink slowly into the quick sand and looking the other way after they were ignored and basically insulted.
I reckon the whole drama was managed.
Turned out well in the end…my arse it did.

Well I did deliberately go in a bit studs up as I hate being pigeon holed, I’m sure you’re thick skinned enough to take it although you did go very defensive with the reply. You’re not the only one to retire in your 50’s. Also sorry for ruining your well polished empty tin anecdote.

agree with all that but somehow i just cannot see him and farage holding hands for the good of the party. both i feel want to be a top dog and can see some fur flying in the coming months. also feel tice will end up too weak to do anything to stifle either and reform could go the way of those party,s of the past by eating itself alive and be consigned to history. even if they can form a united front in the present voting system being runners up to the main 2 will give em zero seats.

I thought pigeon holing you would hit a nerve. You were actually pigeon holing others as easily led and gullible, so I tried it in reverse and, as usual, it worked.

Skin thick as a Rhino my friend.

Absolutely not the only one to retire in my fifties, would never dream of claiming that.

No need to apologise for ruining my anecdote, you were actually highlighting it by giving it air.

Actually I was convinced you were on the wind up at my expense and that doesn't bother me one bit. You're not the first and won't be the last.

Good bit of banter, free from animosity or abuse, just the ticket.

James O’Brian has a new book out, How They Broke Britain, 10 chapters highlighting politicians, Labour and Tory, journalists, Dominic Cummings, Rupert Murdoch, Matthew Elliot and in O’Brians opinion what damage they have caused the U.K.
I have just started reading it so can’t form an opinion as yet, not normally my type of book.

James O'Brian. Absolutely the epitome of everything that is wrong with the political establishment. Britain hating, white guilt riven, middle class lefty, toss pot. Makes me shudder.

Can’t stand the smug git. He can strut sitting down, he’s that arrogant.

I was wondering what attracted Jamie to the book, your answer is giving me food for thought.

I was going to ask you if you be so kind as to read it, Snowy but your above answer is encouraging me to swerve that idea.

We have loads of smug gits on here who hide behind a keyboard,read the book before making an opinion Snowy, I can take or leave the fella at times, I have downloaded a sample, not bought it yet though.

I will try and read it, O’Brian not my favourite journo, 10 people in his opinion why the U.K. is in the state it is, have a go at it Derwent.

Come on Jamie I used to listen to him on LBC after Nick Ferrari ( a class act) and the difference was startling…you don’t follow his view he belittles you in that smart arse laid back man of the world 1970’s style with little respect for those he seems to look down on…..namely those who don’t share his viewpoint.
There for the grace of God, goes God.

Spot on. He is feckin toxic.

No thanks Jamie, I'll give it a miss.

I expect his Publishers will be ‘Landfill Books & Crayon Corp’ publishers by appointment to the illiterati.

You probably like Ferrari as he leans to the right of politics where as O’Brien is a bit to the left, yes he can be toxic, but he does tell it how it is, I have never known him been libelled for anything he has ever said.
People tend to like or dislike others who have different opinions from theirs.