Blah Blah

Indeed. I think there's an element of la la land in council planning.

Check out website megatrain.com as well.

I also wonder why anything but essential repairs are being done given the massive cuts to LAs. Surely the money wasted of some road works could be better spent where it's needed more.

I just find it incredulous that stone has to come all the way from China!

Totally agree guys. They've made a right royal mess of things and seem incapable of seeing that.

As I bite into my lunch, might take a look at twitter. Labour kind of shot themselves in the foot with this ?3 to vote without being a true believer/ member nonsense.

Seems a fair response.

So there is nowhere in the UK that makes kerb stone? Good point Sue regarding Conway. Kind of makes a mockery of the tendering process if the same company always gets the contract.

I agree with all of that Otta except to say that there are currently thousands of children in the UK who are full time carers for a parent and have no choice but to be so. 'I don't consider the Nordics to be socialist. They are free market, capitalist economies with high taxation and public spending. ' I agree with this but we seem to be locked into a pattern of calling any increase in taxation and public spending the march of a socialist movement. You do hit on a interesting conundrum. The care sector creates jobs but it's also expensive because we have to pay people wages. But it is one of those areas were if relatives helped out more, demand could be eased. That's kind of where I'm going with collective responsibility.

Yeah sure. For example, there are many people who choose to put a parent into a care home, over having them at their home simply because they don't want to clean up after them for example. I'm not talking about situations where people have illness requiring specialist care but more the aspect of our culture where grandparents don't live with children under any circumstances, because we think we hold no responsibility for looking after or helping other members of our family. I am of course generalising and know that there are many individual reasons for everything etc etc. But it strikes me that if we had a culture of resposibility, like that found in Asian culture for example, we'd be better off in many ways. I don't know if anyone watched the Chinese school docs on BBC recently, but one of the things the Chinese teachers said about the difference between the attitude and work ethic between Chinese children and British children is that in China, education is the only way out of poverty. There is no welfare safety net. Children know this and work as hard as they can at studies. But in the UK children don't have to work if they don't want to. Obviously I am a supporter of a welfare system for obvious reasons but the comment did strike a chord with me. What I am saying is that we have broken down family connections. And dependency has shifted from other family members, to the state, in matters that could be taken care of within families (and in many other cultures are). Here's a simple example. If an elderly person is living alone and not eating properly, and a family member lives nearby, or even not so nearby, many people would take care of their elderly relative, either by visiting daily to make sure they eat or by moving them closer to them. In some cultures they would move in with adult children. But you would be amazed by the cost to the nation of NHS care and health visitors to make sure that person eats daily whilst family members nearby do nothing.

I knew you'd come back with that (my wife is Swedish btw). Sweden found a more cost effective way to stick by it's principles, that's my point. Denmark is a sucessful example of socialism at work. Even Cuba has no homelessness, and better healthcare and literacy than the USA. Are they perfect systems? Of course not, no system is. But the idea that the free market takes care of all is an equally ridiculous idea not born out in practise. Just as the idea that the best way to live is in a world driven by market forces is also now shown for the myth it is. There was a time when people lived just fine growing their own food and living off the land. Anxiety, stress, depression, people are being driven to an early grave trying to function just to pay tax and bills. What is the point of any of it? A good system will have an economic model at it's core that works by delivering a healthy quality of life for all. And to make that happen means not letting corporate interests have it all their own way. It means changing our attitudes to a whole range of things. Where I do agree is in the realisation that the nicely worked out pyramid that made sense in the post war regeneration no longer applied by the 90s. We seem to have no solutions for that beyond going back to the set up of before, where a few at the top do very well and everyone else becomes enslaved to the system, or dies (with charity being the provider of any lifelines). I don't think Corbyn has any answers to that either (because too much is outside of our control). Those paying the 40% tax rate are just 10% of the population, but they pay 53% of all income tax collected. Our economic system itself isn't working in so many ways anymore. We can't compete with the labour costs of Asia so what do we do? And yet, our policy makers are desperately trying to regain what we had pre 2008 because this time, they won't mess up will they! I can understand why people want to keep hold of their promised pensions. I can understand why people want to strike and unions want to fight for jobs and pay. I can understand why genuinely disabled and unemployed people feel victimised. On the other hand, I can't understand why children think it's the states responsibility to take care of their parents when they become ill. I can't understand why multi-millionaires seek to make more and more for themselves. I can't understand why someone wants the best for their kids but doesn't care if the kids next door get the best too. Winners never want anything to change.

I always respect others views Dave but comparing the uk or anything Corbyn is talking about to Venezuela is equally ridiculous. Let's talk about Sweden instead eh? With it's high taxes and great social care. A failed state? I don't think so. You might think that showing the flaws in what we have is soundbite rhetoric but you don't see the people I deal with every day through my job and how miserable their lives are BECAUSE of the the policies of this country and the trend of the last 30 years, which I will be the first to admit has had positives but equally has flaws that has turned us into a country of self interested individuals that lead to the kind of politics we have dominating Westminster, and the kind of lazyness we have dominating some aspects of our population. It's a quality of life thing. We are not the only country like that. America is even worse. Corbyn wants to have a debate about those things, and suggest another way (whether he is right or wrong). I don't see anyone else in Westminster coming to the fore to raise that debate. ????, I respect and accept all that. And you do engage in a debate which is great. I guess it's just my aversion to seeing politics and economics as black and white. They are not. All any party ever does is tinker at the edges anyway because we are dependent on other things going on in the world, and it also takes a generation or two to change anything. Things come about by stealth and equally tend to be dismantled by stealth. I doubt if Corbyn will be leader by the next election anyway. Cameron has also said he's not going to run another term (we'll see if he keeps to that). Will we end up with Osbourne vs DM? Who knows. It takes time for a party to find a right leader after falling from years in government. It was exactly the same for the Tories after Thatcher, and some might say they still haven't got there yet.

I completely agree Sue. I don't think he's unelectable either. It will all depend on how the next four years go. I think Corbyn can take some of the electorate back to a sense of collectivism, as well as engaging with those that have felt disengaged by Westminster for a while now. Jeremy, the battle between right and left in terms of Corbyn, is something that the right (including some in the Labour Party themselves) have shouted from the rooftops, not the other way round. Only those doing best by the current system think there is no better alternative. No-one in their right mind could argue that society is fairer than 30 years ago, or that prosperity and upward social mobility is something open to the many. There are many elephants in the room that could destroy the myth that the Tories have brought us back from economic disaster. What do you think will happen when interest rates go up for example (as they will have to)? When the housing bubble bursts (and it will)? Corbyn IS going to provide a challenge to every word uttered by Cameron. There will be no opportunity for the Tories to get away with conning the public into believing myths about the economy this time. That imo is a good thing. David Milliband had plenty of opportunity to do all of those things when he was in cabinet. I agree Miga, that is exactly what I think Corbyn will bring in effect to the Labour Party - a slight move away from being Tory -lite. I don't even see him alienating too many Blairite supporters either because as you say, even the middle classes are feeling the squeeze of the costs of housing and living. And change comes usually when the middle classes start to suffer. There's only one reason why the Tories ringfenced all pensioner benefits and shafted the young. Votes votes votes. There's plenty for Corbyn to go after in terms of support AND there are many older people who only have the pensions they do because of the value placed on employee rights by post war governments. His message might strike a chord with them too. DaveR, I can take any reply out of context too. Take a look at the post I was responding to and then tell me who was being dismissive. ???? has a tendancy to completely dismiss views that are not his own. He IS someone who likes the current economic system and I disagree with him, that's all. I was simply throwing back his style at him, which is all anyone can do to a comment like - " = 10 years of Tory rule...but At least you've voted with your conscience based on someone not being one of them but with a bunch of policies which would have us all in penury. Bravo." I find his fear of a fairer society mystifying, just as I find your dismissal of everything he says mystifing. Let's look at this.... "he has exactly the same intolerant, anti-individual, ultimately anti-freedom tendencies as all of his ilk on the left." That's a big statement. Intolerant of what? Isn't it the left that delivers equal rights and fights discrimination traditionally? Anti_individual? Really? When corporate greed has hoovered wealth away from ordinary people? When the planets resources are bing wasted away whilst we engage on a binge of inbuilt obsolescence? When we are increasingly being told what to think, trapped by cameras and surveillance and the options for escape to a free way of life are being increasingly narrowed by falling wages and higher costs of living? We are being turned into robots. What is the individual is a whole debate in itself but communities that work together often function better than ones that hide in gated compounds. Anti-freedom? Again really? The Housing Crisis, the banking crashes of the last 30 years, higher unemployment, the richest getting richer whilst the masses get comparative poorer. These are all the consequences of removing regulation for private corporations, whilst the state increase the regulation on the rest of us, the right to protest, the right to park, the right to even fart. You see how making blanket statements about right and left gets you into trouble? Life, societies and economies are never that black and white. We do need some regeulation back - not all of it of course - but we do need some because we are on a trajectory that is making a lot of ordinary people poorer and ill. And the young, who have their whole lives ahead of them, are looking into an abyss of stundent debt, rip off landlords, low wages, no pension or employment protections and who knows, even a world without state healthcare and welfare. They will kick back and when they do, it won't be pretty.

I disagree ????. I'm voting against the bunch of victorians in power who seem to thinkgs it's ok to take us back to the workhouse, to erode away social services and just about every safety net the most vulnerable have. You strike me as a bit of an I'm all right Jack anyway. Clearly you like inequality, and upward social mobility for the few. You like 90% of the UKs wealth being owned by the 1%. Bravo to you as well.

I think David Miliband is happier where he is stateside. I think I'm going to do it and tick the Corbyn box.

lol but plenty of them live south.

I'm inclined to agree Nigello but there are plenty of local groups that aren't predemoninently middle-class. Some of them are church and charity groups. Others are tenant and community groups. Even traders in Rye Lane have an action group. There are many ways to inform the whole community.

Great project but let's be brutally honest about the film - white and middle-class. Peckham is cockney, african, west indian, asian, chinese, turkish, young, old and that's just for starters. Needs an approach that reflects that.

I LOVE honest burger. Been to their Brixton outlet many times. Blenheim Grove makes sense though, with the urban arts scene there and the Student/ bar nightlife.

Let's ask ourselves, why did religions (faith evolve)? They evolved in two ways, in trying to address aspects of human nature that were viewed as destructive, and in trying to explain the wonders of the world that science hadn't yet explained. We can easily reject much of the latter and label those who ignore scientific evidence as ignorant (and this is what Dawkins attacks). But there is some value in the former. Nothing indoctrinates us more than advertising. There are billboards on pretty much every street corner and in every sitting room via the TV. So although I'm an athiest, I would be slow to reject all religion as BS (there are far more dangerous forms of brainwashing out there). There is a philosophy in amongst religions which is the reason there are foodbanks for people to go to (where would they go without that?). And most religions, not just the monotheist ones, demand giving to and feeding of the needy. Many religious festivals are based on some form of giving or forgiveness, which has it's sole aim in well being and harmony. These are not qualities found amongst the cold capitalists of the city and government. Materialism has never made up for a lack in human relationships, or a lack of community.

My wife assures me that in no way is ironing more pleasurable than the EDF. And she knows best :D

I think it does raise the issue of whether we want to genuinely provide decent quality of life for all or whether we continue to push some matters into the hands of privately run charities. Most charities start with committed people determined to change something for the better, but why does that still remain the case in 2015? I agree that failings can be fixed with a change in management. The closure of yet another lifeline for those it helped is just indicative of the way we are going as a government and society.

red devil Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Spoken like a true Capitalist :) > Of course it matters. I know, let's have a state > owned company that makes profit on the back of Far > East sweatshops too... What sweatshops have to do with state owned utility companies I do not know. But seeing as plenty of private market corporations seem to get away with that then another defence of the poor ethics of the free market perhaps? We have an education and health system that are both state funded, so that EVERYONE can have access to education and good helathcare. And we have that within a global capitalist free market economy....shock horror! A healthy economy can be a healthy mix of ideas from several 'isms'. It doesn't have to be one or the other. These things are not about capitalism over socilaism (or vice versa), they are about recognising what is important for the mass and about also recognising that some things have to be people before profit and not the other way round. Need I remind anyone that the energy compnaies are under investigation for price fixing? I really don't understand anyone who uses socialiam, or the left, as some slur. You went to school didn't you? You've had to use the NHS at times haven't you? These things didn't exist at one time. And the outcome was awful.

It doesn't matter how the French produce energy, the fact still remains that a state owned energy comapny can trade internationally as part of the global free market and make good profit. I don't think for one minute that Corbyn will mean a huge enough swing to Lib dems to revitalise them. Corbyn may mean a slift shift in the type of people that support Labour, but they need that anyway after the shift away from them to the SNP and UKIP.