Huguenot

I don't like to see Wan Chai getting a pasting [sic], but...... that is rubbish isn't it?

I didn't think a thread could drift off-topic in the lounge! Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Where do you think the faithful are on this? Poor old Monica wnet through Denial swiftly, and her protest against DM is right hot in stage 2. Anger, in its many guises, is designed to shut down the messenger. Doesn't change the message though. Head, pudding, snorting. BTW, Declan's spot on, JL and GG you just don't like to see people upset - but that doesn't mean you can 'shut down the thread'. Little Jimmy's been eating worms, and it won't go away becuase we don't talk about it.

Well, only 70% are sustained? I think we should throw out the justice system and go back to pitchforks.

"Quite clearly therefore you agree that the area desperately needs this service" That's just rubbish R&A, and poor technique. It seems a bit like sounding clever is more important than honesty. If you go back over this and threads passim, my main complaint is that we actually don't know whether the area needs this service more than than any other area needs their service. There are fixed budgets here, and the rail authorities need to provide a reasonable service to all. Instead of facts and clear explanation we've had highly polarised arguments based on self-indulgence. This change in scheduling has been represented as service cutting by faceless administrators with a grudge against Southwark residents. I've questioned the motivation behind such an unreasonable approach. I propose that if we're a little more grown-up about it, we'll find that everyone is working hard to find the best-fit solution that takes into account everyone's needs. That means less agitation, and more open-minded investigation. That may not suit the needs of local politicians as election day approaches, but it is more likely to create better solutions.

I don't think there is a case for the cutting of train services, quite the opposite. I'm thinking that the most likely reason for the change in services was to maximise the 'people miles' travelled at a better efficiency - hence to improve the overall service. The unfortunate side-effect was that the maximum success didn't necessarily deliver the maximum service to Denmark Hill. I'm thinking that the result of single-issue lobbying for Denmark Hill is possibly a degradation in the service overall, a decrease in efficiency. I had mates who used to travel the longer distance beyond Southwark and London. Guess what - their services were cramped and inefficient too. The rail authorities are unable to please everyone. My experience of Denmark Hill and the SLL was that outside of rush hour the service was virtually empty. I was often one of only four/five people in a carriage. Thus a campaign for an all-day service is simply convenience, the indulgent equivalent of buying a Rolls Royce and 24 hour driver when you only go to Sainsbury once a month. So since the service is poorly used outside of rush hour, it strikes me that a campaign like this might be more about house prices than hospitals.

I wasn't saying it was commercially ludicrous, I was saying that it's perfectly plausible that it could be. Tessa and Eileen have taken a very close focus on the desires and prejudices of local people in the immediate area. Conversely the rail planning authorities also have to consider the requirements of travellers based outside the area who are in transit. My understanding with the proposed changes is that they are a response to the practical challenge concerning platform availability and train density. I'm sure that TJMP and Eileen won't give a flying fig about people outside of Southwark, as it gains neither votes for the former or neighbourly accolade for the latter. Maybe I'm just less self-serving? There is an underlying tone to this campaign which portrays rail planners as cost-cutting faceless administrators employing a personal grudge against the people of Southwark. Most of the demonstrators seem to be saying "I don't care what the needs, requirements and restrictions of the transport infrastructure are, I just want what's right for me". It's particularly self-indulgent and leads to bad planning.

I heard rumours that there was still new money being pushed into the market. I understand that last month HMG bought another 35bn quids of shares in RBS and Lloyds. There's also the fact that they provided 600bn (now downgraded to 280bn) quids worth of 'insurance' against bank assets. Should one go to the wall, that's at risk.

That's against the very spirit of party politics though isn't it? It's the comparative prioritisation of investment and cutbacks that define the ideology of the party. Besides, some of them may be more or less deserving of cutbacks. For example pension expenditure may only include a fraction on administration. Hence if you want to cut the overall spend by 10% then you have to ask for a 10% reduction in pension payments. From Grandma? That'll go well with voters. Likewise, do you cut benefits such as disability and welfare by a blanket 10% (penalising both the scroungers and the needy), or try and cut out the liggers by introducing an identity card system? Often the most efficient systems are unpopular. Voters demand performance from politicians and then tie their hands...

It's clear UK Plc. needs to do some paring down, as government receipts are down. Where would you make the cuts? In order to make this moderately realistic I've attached a map of current government spending, rules being that you can't score big points for cutting something that doesn't have much cash allocated!

What concessions, that they are reviewing alternatives? They would have been doing this anyhow. They are now burning up resources exploring and possibly delivering solutions that may be commercially ludicrous for the benefit of an action group. This is why lobbyists should be banned from parliament.

:)) There's nothing emotive intended about teachers and nurses (I didn't discuss those anyway, I said education and healthcare), it's simply a statement of fact. There simply aren't sufficient quangos and people 'living off the state' to make a difference to government spending. For example, the majority of welfare spending is pensions (not scroungers) - so the only way you can significantly reduce spending is to reduce pensions. Something the tories have a track record in. Housing benefit only represents 2% of all government expenditure - and you have to recognise that some of that is reasonable. So a moronic attack on scroungers cannot deliver any significant savings. The entire Dept for Environment, Food and Rural affairs only accounts for 0.4% of governmeent spending, and those 'potato marketing boards' that tories love to hate are a tiny fraction of those. So shutting down all of those quangos cannot deliver any significant savings. So where are the places that cuts can be made - Education, Healthcare, Pensions and Defence These are simply facts, it's the tories that are bullshitters. Tories historically don't cut Defence because it's in the family and part of their vanity. So at the end of their last tenancy hospitals and schools were crippled and pensioners lived in squalor. If the population want cuts in these areas, then that is entirely their decision, but it would be a tragedy if they went into this with their eyes closed. I attach a government spending map for your illumination.

"Doesn't the fact that a fellow forumite feels like this tell us something about our own behaviour? No forumite should be made to feel that his/her opinions are worthless - and Monica's are as valid as anybody else's. This forum is about inclusivity, not the reverse." I don't think it's reasonable to take this as a blanket rule. Anyone who had a younger sister will be familiar with tactical squeals of 'victim, victim' whilst evil lurks beneath. There are plenty of adults who haven't grown out of such manipulation, and more than a few on here ;-)

;-) I don't mind Eileen having an opinion, but it's both lazy and poor etiquette to start a new thread every time - it makes it confusing to follow the story. Having worked alongside various transport outfits for a number of years, my experience was that they're dedicated, intelligent, generous people who try to find the best solution. The arguments for the redistribution of the service have been patiently laid out in threads passim, but conveniently mislaid by Eileen's strategy of starting a new thread every time. There may well be opportunities for tweaking, but the 'power of the protest' is facile in this case. Nobody's trying to rip anyone off, and 'protesting' creates confrontation where none is reasonable. Some people just like confrontation because it makes them feel cool, don't they reggie?

Magpie & MM, the challenge is that all the tories are saying is "I think some savings could be found" and then listing emotive issues like "quangos and formfillers". The reality is that whilst emotive, these "quangos and formfillers" don't exist in a meaningful economic way. You can't cut them and impact on the tax bill by more than 0.5%. (Wierd that you lumped 'outreach' into that, presumably you hate all those dedicated types who speak to poor people or disabled people? Let them rot, eh?) The ONLY way you can cut the tax bill meaningfully is to slash core spending. The last time this was done it meant destroying schools and hospitals, and it means the same this time. It's why tories are predominantly 40+ and rich: their kids have left school, and they pay private health insurance. re. Singapore taxation - it's a city state; I once saw a calculation that explained if 'London' was a country then its residents would pay 0% income tax. Nevertheless, SG provides for its citizens on much the same basis as the UK, including the NHS, at higher quality. However, I didn't come here for the tax - I spent 2 years in Beijing at a higher tax rate than the UK. I'm simply requesting the Tories to be honest, they mean to slash funding, and they don't care because they've already had the benefits and don't want to keep paying the premium.

BTW 56% voted against, and yet they got every one of their manifesto commitments through? Something evil this way comes....

Crikey, you guys have no idea whether it's right or wrong. You just want to protest it. I'd like to protest Eileen starting a new thread every time she has an opnion.

Chuckle. Devious? They're Tory inventions. Are you arguing thus that reducing taxation on the 'rich' will have no impact on government funding, thus we must reduce taxation on the rich? MM, you give away your game! In the end, you argue as always for reduced government funding. Tell us, sweetheart, what do you fancy? Less nurses? Less police? Or as my father had to do under the last tory government to pay his teachers, sell the school playing fields? Because that's what happens. This time all the playing fields have gone, so what.... no books? Or the end of universal healthcare and education? The reality is you don't give much of a monkeys - your kids are educated and fled the home (on someone elses taxes), and you dont't want to pay the bill. You deny climate change, because you'll have expired before it has an impact. Gosh mate.

So you delivered all your manifesto commitments despite not having been elected to do so? And you're proud? You stole control? Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh I'm so outraged I can't even express myself reasonably, I've had to edit this several times. I call that Wankshaft. Corruption. Theft of liberty. You widdled in the face of the public. Not that I don't agree with a LibDem point of view, but I prefer democracy, and despise those who smugly subvert it to fit their own agenda. I've defended you previously when I thought you were getting an unnecessary shoeing, I should have walked on by. I don't know when you lost your moral judgement mate, somewhere where you lost interest in the people and got into point-scoring?

Indeed, it's a bit like a lottery. You pays for a ticket, and you pays your bid for the product. The number of bids more than pays for the retail price of the product. They may even not have it in stock. They can buy it over the counter with the ticket revenue and dispatch to the highest bidder. Neat idea. It really depends on how many people are bidding. The more, the less your chances of winning. If the number of losing bids exceeds your 'discount' then you're losing.

*Cathy Come Home

;-)

Good God, was that batdog? He must have been after a squirrel.

Sure, sure, it's a bit like that denial thing. In refusing to accept criticism of Padre Pio there is the same abrogation of duty that allowed those terrible crimes to flourishin Ireland. QED Here's the quote... "If anyone thus speaks, that the Roman Pontiff has only the office of inspection or direction, but not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church spread over the whole world; or, that he possesses only the more important parts, but not the whole plenitude of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate, or over the churches altogether and individually, and over the pastors and the faithful altogether and individually: let him be anathema."

Apparently the popes themselves didn't think very highly of Padre Pio. Aren't they supposed to be infallible? In fact wouldn't disagreeing with a pope be considered anathema? In the light of such influential views, one can understand DM believing she had the endorsement of the highest offices of the Catholic faith?

This is the same Catholic Church that told 1 billion Africans and 400 million South Americans that condoms can't stop AIDS? Over 25 million have so far died of AIDS in Africa, how many millions of those would not have died if the Catholic Church hadn't told those lies? You don't think that mass murder on that scale is inherently evil? What absolutely beggars belief is that such a huge constituency of adherents to this sociopathic organisation are prepared to deny the truth, and both diminish and indulge these crimes because the flower-arrangers are nice people. It's like the mother of a serial killer refusing to accept that little Jimmy could have done terrible things because he's such a nice boy. I'm not necessarily restricting my criticism to the Catholic Church, I feel as strongly about all organised religion. Also please don't confuse my criticism of the organisation with a prejudice against the followers. I regard them largely as victims.