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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 16:13 
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ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:

Yes.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 23:27 
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Grim... wrote:
ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:

Yes.


I have to say, I think Brand's reply is significantly better.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 23:53 
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Curiosity wrote:
I have to say, I think Brand's reply is significantly better.


Indeed.

I honestly believe his heart is in this, and he's already got the facts of the situation on his side - governments are effectively owned (funded) by, and run for, the benefit of the rich with the banks operating as pseudo-governments - the progress of the mid-20th century towards equality has been scarily unwound since the 80s.

For all his flaws, I like Brand, I don't like the guy moaning about his lunch getting cold.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2014 0:16 
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Curiosity wrote:
Grim... wrote:
ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:

Yes.


I have to say, I think Brand's reply is significantly better.


It was a very well worded non-answer to all the points in the first letter though. That's Brand all over, he makes arguments that are difficult to disagree with but often nothing to do with the questions he is being asked.

I think he would make a much better politician than he claims, he's already got the main quality down pat...


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2014 1:21 
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Trooper wrote:
Curiosity wrote:
Grim... wrote:
ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:

Yes.


I have to say, I think Brand's reply is significantly better.


It was a very well worded non-answer to all the points in the first letter though. That's Brand all over, he makes arguments that are difficult to disagree with but often nothing to do with the questions he is being asked.

I think he would make a much better politician than he claims, he's already got the main quality down pat...


Well, the thing is, most of what the guy in the open letter says is bollocks. I've only got up to the 'shouting in the face' bit, which I can't speak to, but by then he's racked up a load of inaccuracies and basically made out as if RBS are massively ethical people who will stop any bonus being paid and will claw back any previous bonus if someone has done wrong or made a long term bad investment, which is obviously a complete, intentional lie.

As for the bailout being an investment scheduled to make a profit, here we are six years on with the bank still at 70% of the value it was bought for. Add on the risk free return rate possible as a worst case and we're still a long fucking time from seeing any return, so selling the bailout as good value is again warping the truth at best.

Between all that and the apparent factual inaccuracies about why Brand was there and what he has tried to do, it just stinks. It's almost as if he showed up without a clue as to what was going on, got annoyed, and then tried to back his workplace against the person annoying him.

But far be it from me to criticise someone who wants to eat their lunch and will blame someone whose fault it wasn't for that.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2014 1:43 
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Frankly I will by default side with a man angry about lunch, to be honest.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2014 1:55 
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I've offed bitches for getting in the way of my lunch before now.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:54 
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Brand's problem is that he can see as well as anyone that plenty of things are wrong and pretty broken. However, what he thinks he has but actually doesn't is any greater insight than my cat or, in fairness, really anyone else as to what to actually do about it. That is despite the fact that many of the issues he raises are already the subjects of active debate amongst many thousands of people far cleverer than Russell Brand, anyone on here or even my cat. His solution seems to be REVOLUTION! and then some John Lennon type bollocks about Buddhism and anarchy and everyone just being nice to each other.

However, where I agree with him is that anyone working for RBS really should wind their fucking neck in. RBS prick got his letter retweeted so much not really because people particularly agreed with his points about the bank but mostly just because they dislike Russell Brand and they thought it was just hilarious that he hinged the whole thing around missing his lunch.

As I recall this rant seemed to go down just as well on Twitter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf7a53y9RRM#t=49


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 0:48 
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Nicky Morgan -- Gove's replacement at education -- seems to have Grayling's habit of Simply Making Shit Up.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 14:54 
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It would appear the government is selling the remaining 30% of its Royal Mail shares.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 16:13 
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Grim... wrote:
It would appear the government is selling the remaining 30% of its Royal Mail shares.

Quoting the press release:

"The transaction will be designed to deliver best value for money to the taxpayer, with further detail on the form of the sale to be announced in due course.

"Shares in the Royal Mail were initially floated at 330p per share, and were trading at 526p at market close yesterday."

Doesn't sound like the initial sale delivered value for money to the taxpayer, does it?

The Royal Mail raised £430m in profit last year, by the way, so is a contributer to the public purse.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 16:55 
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Seems short sighted to me. Much like the ludicrous extension of right to buy.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 17:10 
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Probably the pensions, init.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 17:31 
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Royal Mail pension liability was nationalised in 2012, ahead of privatisation of the Royal Mail itself. The taxpayer is still on the hook for those.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 18:08 
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So retain the biggest liability and sell the profitable part for about 60% of its value.
Can anyone explain how this made sense?


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 20:00 
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If you ask me, I'd tell you that austerity is a lie designed to capitalise on people's misunderstanding of macroeconomics and cloak the implementation of a small-state ideology that would otherwise provoke outrage. But other political opinions exist.

In unrelated news, I may have mentioned before that I regularly walk my dog past Nick Clegg's house. Up until last week, there were always two police officers on guard outside it, 24/7. They're gone now. I find that quite a poignant reminder of the death of a political party; as one wag on Twitter put it, the Liberal Democratic party is now more of a soirée.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 22:22 
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Poor Clegg's been banned from Russia too.

I was off sick yesterday so watched PMQs and the tributes to Charles Kennedy. Clegg made another very dignified speech: I fear we've lost one of the finest politicians of our age .


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Thu Jun 04, 2015 22:35 
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PMQs was interesting, apart from the tedious SNP whose major contribution was saying something about how if the UK government didn't want to do such and such, they knew a parliament up the road that did. This is the standard of things to come, the SNP gurning and carping at every fucking turn. Harriet was very off form, stumbling every time she tried to say 'the last 5 years'.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 6:15 
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So, Charlie wrote to a Labour health secretary arguing against cuts to homoeopathic services on the NHS. But wouldn't that make them more effective?


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 6:45 
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Kern wrote:
So, Charlie wrote to a Labour health secretary arguing against cuts to homoeopathic services on the NHS. But wouldn't that make them more effective?


Oh, well played Sir :hat:

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 8:10 
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Morte wrote:
Kern wrote:
So, Charlie wrote to a Labour health secretary arguing against cuts to homoeopathic services on the NHS. But wouldn't that make them more effective?


Oh, well played Sir :hat:


Genuine brilliance. :DD

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:08 
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Over on 'Wings over Bath', ['a Scottish expatriate' - Ed] has written an intersting piece on Labour. Not sure of all the points, but worth reading, especially for this observation which I agree with:


Quote:
Politicians and most of the metropolitan media lazily and glibly write off UKIP supporters as the drooling, witless racists that many of the party’s candidates are, but that’s a disastrous mistake. The bulk of them are normal people disillusioned by exactly the sort of insular, detached drone politics that the Guardian article depicts, and they’re perfectly capable of arriving at rational decisions.


Oh, and also:
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
Quote:
It’s a bit like saying the real reason Celtic fans don’t support “Rangers” is that public transport around Ibrox is overcrowded on match days or that they don’t like Stuart McCall’s haircut. And don’t get us wrong, it certainly IS a ludicrous haircut for a grown man, but there are rather more obvious factors at play.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:11 
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The first person plural writing style still really grates.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:21 
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Mr Kissyfur wrote:
The first person plural writing style still really grates.


It's more than just him who writes for the site though, innit.

He makes (another) good point in that the Scotland referendum may well have gone the other way if they knew the Tories were going to get in with an outright majority. (WoS has been saying for years that Milliband would lead the Labour party to defeat in the 2015 election.)


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:55 
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Hearthly wrote:
It's more than just him who writes for the site though, innit.
More than one person writes for the Times, it still doesn't use first person plural as a matter of course.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:58 
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Hearthly wrote:
Mr Kissyfur wrote:
The first person plural writing style still really grates.


It's more than just him who writes for the site though, innit.

Is it?

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:48 
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Kern wrote:
Clegg made another very dignified speech: I fear we've lost one of the finest politicians of our age .
He presided over the complete destruction a political party! At the very least, his tactical nous and his ability to read the mood of the electorate are clearly abysmal, and they are pretty important for a politician. I'm not convinced giving a good speech or two redeems him.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 13:09 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
He presided over the complete destruction a political party!


Just like the last senior Liberal to hold power. Though the Goat Lloyd George almost destroyed the Tories too. And knew everyone's parents.

Quote:
At the very least, his tactical nous and his ability to read the mood of the electorate are clearly abysmal, and they are pretty important for a politician.


He made the right call after the election in 2010. He deserves credit for that. We'll have to wait a few years before a full assessment of the coalition, and in particular the operation of the 'Quad' and other machinery, can be made.

Quote:
I'm not convinced giving a good speech or two redeems him.


When was the last great Parliamentary speech? The only one that comes to mind, other than Cameron's set-piece apologies (the Bloody Sunday one in particular), is Robin Cook's resignation speech in 2003. Although Gordon Brown did play a blinder about Murdoch in 2011, marred only by the fact that he did nothing when he had the chance.

If Clegg serves his constitunts well, and stands up for what he believes in Parliament, yeah, that's redemention in my book.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 20:44 
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Was Clegg a dictator in the party? Was there some kind of vote in 2010 in the party if it should form a coalition or not? If the ~50 MPs didn't like Nick forming a coalition, why didn't they leave the Lib Dems?

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 2:43 
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It was the right thing to do - I'm just not convinced they (he) handled it very well.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 8:55 
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Via various links I came across this piece in the 'Huffington Post' about various tweets from new SNP members complaining about the voting procedures in the House of Commons.

Yes, dashing across the building (or London) to walk through a corridor might be archaic, but it has one benefit: it forces all MPs, from the most senior minister to the most junior member, to be in the same place at the same time. You want to raise a concern with someone? That's the time to do it. Take away that contact, vote by pressing a button, and the executive would become even more remote from the backbencher.

I loved the shots in the recent documentary series showing various Tory ministers having to leave a posh dinner to vote, still in white tie, because the whips suddenly realised they might lose.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 10:37 
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Important political decisions being made by 'how many people in a building walk through a certain door' does seem pretty fucking stupid on the face of it. There must be times when someone can't physically be at a certain location (illness, traffic issues, other important shit to do, etc, etc) and a system that might rob an MPs constituents of a voice via their vote because of stuff like that surely isn't brilliant? With the ever increasing communication tools available to us all in this day and age the idea that forcing physical contact is the only thing allowing proper communication just doesn't make sense.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 11:37 
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Bamba wrote:
There must be times when someone can't physically be at a certain location (illness, traffic issues, other important shit to do, etc, etc) and a system that might rob an MPs constituents of a voice via their vote because of stuff like that surely isn't brilliant?


There's a long-established system of 'pairing arranged by the whips of the major parties, so when an MP is absent from the House someone from the other side abstains so as not to affect the outcome of non-major votes.

The Callaghan government fell by one vote because a dying Labour MP could not come down from Yorkshire. Whilst there was no obligation to abstain on a no-confidence vote, his Tory pair offered to do so to the Labour whip but the offer was declined.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 15:43 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
Grim... wrote:
It would appear the government is selling the remaining 30% of its Royal Mail shares.

Quoting the press release:

"The transaction will be designed to deliver best value for money to the taxpayer, with further detail on the form of the sale to be announced in due course.

"Shares in the Royal Mail were initially floated at 330p per share, and were trading at 526p at market close yesterday."

Doesn't sound like the initial sale delivered value for money to the taxpayer, does it?

The Royal Mail raised £430m in profit last year, by the way, so is a contributer to the public purse.


I would certainly agree that the last tranche of government held Royal Mail shares were undersold, probably by quite some margin, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing, Doc. Nevertheless, you're right, as I say. (Of course, the term "profit" is relative, given the multi-billion pound deficit of the RM's vastly generous pension scheme, which once again, the rest of us are going to have to stump up for, despite not having any of the benefits)

In terms of privatisations generally, yes, theoretically at least, it would be best for all concerned to keep healthily profitable, efficient companies within the public sector rather than to sell them, and in so doing keep all the profit *and* corporation tax income streams within the public purse. But of course, that's fairy tale stuff that doesn't happen IRL; public sector/nationalised companies are, by their definition, NOT optimally efficient. How profitable are the privatised power companies as compared to the loss-leading CEGB? There's also British Gas, BT and all the rest, that we really don't need to trot out all over again.

The reasons for this are obvious, and were touched upon in the 'NHS moonlighting' posts in the GE thread. The point, of course, is that if it's a private company, they can go bust, so there's just no way that practices whereby the self same staff could take time off only to magically reappear as "agency" staff being paid multiples as much to do exactly the same job etc., would occur. But if you're owned and underwritten by the government, who gives a toss about costs? From a line management perspective it's just so much easier all round not to resist such things, especially if there's precisely no incentive to do so (and probably a bunch of powerful public sector unions breathing down your neck). Why rock the boat for nowt? It's the same type of deal in a myriad of other ways also, and over time, therefore, a totally inefficient and profit averse company culture develops that's deeply ingrained and near impossible to break.

If the RM made £400m whilst still in the public sector, you can be fairly sure that could've been £800m or more if they were anything like optimally and commercially run. So instead of paying £80m or whatever in corporation taxes it'd be £160m, and year on year too - and that extra tax revenue on profit (in addition to whatever you've made by selling them off) soon adds up.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 16:02 
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Kern wrote:
Over on 'Wings over Bath', ['a Scottish expatriate' - Ed] has written an intersting piece on Labour.


Nicely written as per, but (IMO) it's complete wishful thinking, face-saving, delusional twaddle, of course. One for the "home audience" I suspect; such people need to be comforted and reassured.

Apparently, the SNP's late avowed intention to "lock out the Tories from Westminster" [ergo subvert the democratic will of the English] via the formation of an 'anything but the Conservatives' ramshackle alliance with Labour [with far fewer seats than the Conservatives] had *nothing* to do with the en masse mobilisation of soft Tory support, floating voters and weak/wavering support from other parties, oh no (honest guv), resulting in an unprecedented upset which, okay, old dickheads like me saw coming from a mile off (and said so), but not the professional pollsters. I mean really, I ask you - talk about not wanting to face up to the inarguable reality...

The good people in the Southwest, as generally elsewhere in England, convulsed in sheer horror at the thought of an SNP coalition and all the being held to ransom and chaos that would ensue, which is why it's now a ubiquitous sea of solid, unwavering blue, and we've a Conservative majority government. Hell, Stu should know, as he lives there! A fine, very classy and genteel place, Bath, albeit not particularly renown as an epicentre for crisps and other junk food, mind. Possibly the odd Happy Shopper newsagent still lurking somewhere, selling such Haute cuisine as Pot Noodles or whatever? (Spent many happy years in Bath at the engineering college, enjoying all the fine culture, good rugby, fabulous architecture, gourmet food, drink that great Roman city has to offer. Some of the locals are very easy on the eye too, as I recall...).

Anyway, I digress. It's why the Conservatives, not quite believing their blind luck in what had been a lacklustre, faltering campaign - with Cameron's refusal for a TV debate backfiring badly and Miliband performing much better than anyone had expected - immediately rushed out all those posters of Milipede in Salmond's pocket in all those marginals, most of which were subsequently won. As they would be, of course.

For me, the SNP represent the very worst of chip-on-shoulder, grievance politics - but I'll always bless their little tartan socks for being quite so useless in tactical nous terms, and for overplaying their hand so spectacularly, replete with laughably obvious and entirely predictable outcomes. Bless.

Sincerely, I do so hope they enjoyed their briefest moment of elation at so having utterly vanquished Labour (with the help of ever vocal, ever lobbying Cybernats everywhere), before the awful reality of what they'd incidentally facilitated for their new found political grown up peers finally dawned on (even) them? (Man alive, Mrs C and I drank a fair few scoops between us the following evening I can tell you, and of the copious bubbles, none were to be found in sugar-laden soft drinks...).

No, surely theirs is the most Pyrrhic of all political victories, ever, of all time - a near clean sweep of 56 utterly powerless, useless MPs in a WM Parliament that'll very shortly have electoral boundaries redrawn to more or less guarantee a Conservative majority government for the foreseeable. "Vote SNP, get Tory" was an oft-quoted phrase during the election, but even I didn't realise there was a "forever" missing in there.

De-lish. Thanks, guys, couldn't have done it without you. :kiss:

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 20:18 
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Cavey wrote:
The reasons for this are obvious, and were touched upon in the 'NHS moonlighting' posts in the GE thread. The point, of course, is that if it's a private company, they can go bust, so there's just no way that practices whereby the self same staff could take time off only to magically reappear as "agency" staff being paid multiples as much to do exactly the same job etc., would occur. But if you're owned and underwritten by the government, who gives a toss about costs? From a line management perspective it's just so much easier all round not to resist such things, especially if there's precisely no incentive to do so (and probably a bunch of powerful public sector unions breathing down your neck). Why rock the boat for nowt? It's the same type of deal in a myriad of other ways also, and over time, therefore, a totally inefficient and profit averse company culture develops that's deeply ingrained and near impossible to break.

Point of order - the huge majority of agency nurses aren't also working full time as NHS nurses, or even part time, on the whole. Nurses tend to go into agency work in order to work part time/more flexibly.

Doctors, on the other hand.... Well, they work for both. So, basically, the private and public sector are letting them swan about doing whatever the hell they like, largely. :)

On the rest of it - profitability isn't the metric one should care about for a lot of these things - it's not important how much money is made in health, mail, rail, etc, it's how well the system works. And the two are often part of a zero sum equation. There sure is a lot of waste, inefficiency etc in the public sector, but "private good, public bad" is simplistic at best.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sat Jun 06, 2015 23:58 
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Mr Kissyfur wrote:
Doctors, on the other hand.... Well, they work for both. So, basically, the private and public sector are letting them swan about doing whatever the hell they like, largely. :)


Much respect to the ones that don't take the piss, of course. Particularly my dermatologist who referred me from seeing him privately over to seeing him in his NHS clinic. Directly hitting himself in the pocket because he knew it would be a better fit for my treatment. So there are good unselfish ones out there.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 14:11 
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Mr Kissyfur wrote:
Point of order - the huge majority of agency nurses aren't also working full time as NHS nurses, or even part time, on the whole. Nurses tend to go into agency work in order to work part time/more flexibly.

Doctors, on the other hand.... Well, they work for both. So, basically, the private and public sector are letting them swan about doing whatever the hell they like, largely. :)


Don't get too hung up on specifics here; I used the 'moonlighting' within the NHS as but one minor example of what I'm talking about, whereby precisely the same staff, often doing more or less exactly the same job, on the same ward or whatever, routinely take time off only the reappear as privately employed commanding a much greater salary, and then resume their employment immediately thereafter - as per APoD's original post. It doesn't really matter whether this particular example is widespread and/or not fully valid in your view or experience, the point to note is that if not this, there are plenty of others to choose from. It happens.

For private sector SMEs up and down the land, the very notion is absurd. Can I imagine an employee taking paid holiday and then turn up as "agency" or self employed staff during this time, being paid multiples of their hourly rate, because we were over a barrel? Not on your nelly; pretty soon everyone would be demanding the same, my overheads would go through the roof and we'd all lose our shirts. That's because profit and costs are of vital importance; no-one is underwriting the business and there's no pot of gold to bail us out. If we screw up, we go down.

I'm not criticising those people who do this, who can blame them? Few people value principles above the opportunity that loads of their colleagues also have to make a nice little earner - especially if it isn't even discouraged by management and viewed as 'the norm'. I'm just trying to demonstrate, in response to Doc's original point about retained profits from public sector owned firms like the RM, why it's very likely that selling 'em off to shareholders who are very much concerned about efficiency and profitability will immeasurably improve these metrics. I'm suggesting it's far from a safe assumption to make that existing profits (if any) are optimal or anything like it, in which case the increased tax take from future corporation tax receipts from all such increased profitability must be factored into the overall income stream from privatisation (as well as no liability for future losses), as well as just the initial sale price.

Quote:
On the rest of it - profitability isn't the metric one should care about for a lot of these things - it's not important how much money is made in health, mail, rail, etc, it's how well the system works.


Well clearly profitability is the metric to consider when we're actually talking about the £400m profit of RM, as per Doc's original post above (and is what I'm quoting/responding to).

As an aside though, profitability is generally a good guide to efficiency, though I appreciate it's not the whole story (productivity is also vitally important). I think you're getting a little confused by the NHS example; I'm not talking about profitability in the NHS (or even particularly the NHS, period), I'm merely trying to use this contemporaneously discussed 'moonlighting' example as something that would never occur in a well managed, efficient and profitable private sector company that was making those profits in the face of, and despite real competition - and that's why, I contend, it isn't safe to assume public sector firm profit levels are ever likely to be optimal. In my view, the staff and management culture inevitably prevents this, even though this is not an actual articulated objective, merely an unfortunate, unintended consequence.

Quote:
but "private good, public bad" is simplistic at best.


Hopefully I've sufficiently clarified my position and original examples for you to appreciate I wasn't, and am not, saying that. There are plenty of "bad" private sector companies (most go bust or are taken over), and "good" isn't measured by profit or productivity alone. But we were very specifically talking about the profits of RM, and whether or not it would be better not to sell (and hence retain those profits year on year), or to net a big one-off sale revenue, lose the retained profits but potentially gain any increased tax take from further increased productivity, turnover, profit etc. as a result of better, independent management.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 14:23 
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Some interesting reading about the CEGB hemorrhaging 10% losses during 1979-1980 or thereabouts (£500 million, in the days when that was an awful lot of money, that we the taxpayers had to underwrite), with 12.5% interest rates, spiralling fuel costs and all the rest.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp. ... er=5197834

I was only 12 years old then; I can't imagine what it must've felt like to keep a roof over yours and your family's heads back then in the dark, dark, strike-ridden days of the late 1970s, watching the entire country going to the dogs before your very eyes, wondering where the hell it was all going to end up. No wonder my old man was a nervous, overworked wreck driving round in a 20 year old banger, who as kids we didn't see from one day to the next.

Privatisation = bad..? Yeah, right. Maybe it's my failing memory, but I can't quite recall the last time E.ON came cap in hand to the British taxpayer expecting multiple billions of pounds (in today's money) that they'd spunked away as losses that particular year? Weird, that.

How far we have traveled. Nationalisation, the opposite of privatisation, is surely the very apex of discredited politics of failure.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 16:37 
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Cherry picking unfairly, I know, but 'no pot of gold to bail us out'? You need to work in a bank, then!

:D

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 16:41 
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Curiosity wrote:
Cherry picking unfairly, I know, but 'no pot of gold to bail us out'? You need to work in a bank, then!

:D


:D

Yeah I know mate, my barely disguised envy on that score is a terrible, terrible thing. Lucky bastards! :p

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Wed Jun 10, 2015 8:37 
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The Telegraph, 24 Apr: "If Labour wins, HSBC exit could be first of many." 9 Jun: "HSBC will axe up to 25,000 jobs in $5bn cost-cutting drive."

31 Jan: "Boots boss: Ed Miliband would be a 'catastrophe' for Britain." 8 Jun: "Boots to cut 700 jobs."

That went well, then.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:30 
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Cavey wrote:
Don't get too hung up on specifics here; I used the 'moonlighting' within the NHS as but one minor example of what I'm talking about, whereby precisely the same staff, often doing more or less exactly the same job, on the same ward or whatever, routinely take time off only the reappear as privately employed commanding a much greater salary, and then resume their employment immediately thereafter - as per APoD's original post. It doesn't really matter whether this particular example is widespread and/or not fully valid in your view or experience, the point to note is that if not this, there are plenty of others to choose from. It happens.


What are other examples of this exactly? We've only had one from APoD, which you're saying here not to get too hung up on, but the only other thing to come up is your assurance that 'it happens'. I'm not saying it doesn't, but you're hanging quite a lot of your pro-privatisation chat here on the fact that this moonlighting is widespread in public sector and would never happen in a private company so I think it behooves you to back this claim up even slightly.

And on a related note, I've seen plenty of private IT companies employing contractor staff long term--and thus over-paying massively for a resource when permanent employees would cost them a fraction of the outlay--because they couldn't be arsed hiring to replace the contractors and nothing is forcing them to. Conversely I've personally experienced a public sector development shop where use of contract staff was tightly controlled and managers were literally not allowed to employ them long term precisely to avoid that kind of nonsense. Obviously these are all just anecdotes, but they do play against your weird belief that private companies are all humming machines of efficiency while the public sector is just flushing money down the toilet for a laugh.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:40 
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Bamba wrote:
Cavey wrote:
.

And on a related note, I've seen plenty of private IT companies employing contractor staff long term--and thus over-paying massively for a resource when permanent employees would cost them a fraction of the outlay--because they couldn't be arsed hiring to replace the contractors and nothing is forcing them to. Conversely I've personally experienced a public sector development shop where use of contract staff was tightly controlled and managers were literally not allowed to employ them long term precisely to avoid that kind of nonsense. Obviously these are all just anecdotes, but they do play against your weird belief that private companies are all humming machines of efficiency while the public sector is just flushing money down the toilet for a laugh.


The compmany I work for use a lot of contractors, infact that is how I was employed originally.

Permanent staff don't always cost lett, when you factor in holidays, NI, pension etc. Contracotrs should be a sort term resourse for project or proramme of work, where the workforce can be scalled back after.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Wed Jun 10, 2015 16:37 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
The Telegraph, 24 Apr: "If Labour wins, HSBC exit could be first of many." 9 Jun: "HSBC will axe up to 25,000 jobs in $5bn cost-cutting drive."

31 Jan: "Boots boss: Ed Miliband would be a 'catastrophe' for Britain." 8 Jun: "Boots to cut 700 jobs."

That went well, then.


In fairness, I think HSBC are "only" axing around 8000 in the UK though? (Still a heck of a lot, but not 25000)

I don't move in banking circles, but surely HSBC cutting back here was an open secret for ages, wasn't it? Seems to be the way it's going; I was in London yesterday and glanced at the Standard's 'Bonfire of the Bankers' headline or similar?

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 1:47 

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..........................................

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 9:09 
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"I'd rather have Gordon Brown in charge"

8)

Yup, the man's mastery of economics served us so well after all; widely recognised as the worst PM this country has had for 100 years. Feck me, what can you say, eh.

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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 13:11 
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Stop calling him Gideon. He was thirteen when he changed his name. It's a needlessly cheap shot.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 13:28 
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Hello Hello Hello

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Maybe when the Tories stop taking cheap shots at the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, folks will stop taking cheap shots at Osborne.

And make no mistake, they haven't even got going yet, with an outright majority for this parliament - the fuckers are going to go feral.


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 Post subject: Re: Political Banter and Debate Thread
PostPosted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 13:30 
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What doc said

Hurr hurr, he used to have a posh name. There are plenty of valid criticisms to be levied at Osborne and the Tories, so stick to those. It's about as edifying as 'Gordon Clown'

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