Vote: What /Who will you be Voting for Election ?

[Alan Medic]

Villager Wrote:

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> Alan Medic Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > To use a football analogy, I hope that Teresa

> May

> > is to elections as BFS was to England

> management.

> > I will vote for anyone with the best chance of

> > stopping another Conservative government. I

> > seriously hope the opposition do not continue

> to

> > rule out a coalition, if that's what it takes.

>

>

> BFS?

>

> WIFS is BFS?

WIFS?

[JohnL]

BFS = Big Fat Sam :) :)

[natty01295]

Update - VOTE ?

[Ms Blueberry]

I've joked that I'm voting for George Clooney. Seems like best option at the moment.

[uncleglen]

The Monster Raving Clooney Party?

Every comment criticising mine (which are all true- first hand knowledge and experience btw) just goes to prove that the majority of ED residents on here who are homeowners want to preserve their personal positions and sit back with their ?1 million houses with umpteen extensions (a result of cut price concreting over, blots on the landscape, dust in the air 24/7...).

The moronic actions of Blair demanding Education, Education, Education meant that Labour FAILED to maintain a work force in construction because it was a sight cheaper for Labour to send unsuitable students into academia instead of training them in a trade since he had plans to allow the UK to open doors to the European Labour market 2 years before France and Germany.

Anyone who thinks that Labour would do anything other than massive vote-catching exercises if they get in is sadly mistaken.

[stringvest]

How will labour buy back all the companies that were privatised? How will they pay? I was fed up of all the rail strikes, power cuts, piles of rubbish filled the streets. I felt sorry for the starving miners on strike, while full-up scargill went around winding them all up. The unions are part to blame for the privatisation of everything, keep holding the public and government to ransom, the amount of times I had to walk from Trafalgar square to Dulwich ....

The farmers all think the common agricultural policy is a joke, investors buying fields and getting paid to leave them set aside, while the farmer is not allowed to plant in them ???

A friend in the Judiciary waiting to sentence the men who decapitated the soldier, waiting for a directive on sentencing from Europe because a "whole life sentence without parole" is inhumane ?????? ....

Oh dear.

[Lisa.M]

I will vote labour! Corbyn is fighting for everything we need as a country. Don't listen to the media slurs!! Anything other than a labour governed Britain will lead to a facist Britain! None of us want that! Wake up guys!!! Labour labour labour

[jaywalker]

I am considering voting Green. Do we have a candidate here?

They seem to be rather more ??point than the Lib Dems. I fear I will have to resign my membership.

[????]

Lisa.M Wrote:

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> Anything other than a labour

> governed Britain will lead to a facist Britain!

> None of us want that! Wake up guys!!! Labour

> labour labour

"If you call everyone Hitler eventually Hitler ceases to exist" ....are you about 13?

[jaywalker]

Hitler could not exist now. If the identical genome was replicated today (from some fragment that survived the cremation) it would not result in Hitler. He would probably grow up to be a minor artist, kind to his animals (as he was). I do think we should stop thinking of named people as in-themselves-essentially anything to do with historical processes. For example, read Bauman - The Holocaust and Modernity.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

"How will labour buy back all the companies that were privatised?"

The rail network is all publicly owned. The private companies operate as concessionaires for a time limited period. As I understand it, Corbyn is just proposing to let the franchises expire and then not re-tender it.

[malumbu]

Go back a 100 years and see how the masses were treated in the factories and mills my friend. That is not rhetoric that is fact.

I've been a trade union member for 30 years, and went on strike for one day as a protest against changes to the pension scheme. Please refrain from talking about us and them, and a myopic view of the 1970s.

That's not pretending its all good. But having arms severed on the factory floor, or no support to widows and dependents after a work fatality is thank God a thing of the past.

And also have a look at agriculture over a similar time period, to a time when there was no subsidies and protection for farmers, and we produced much less of our food, and almost starved to death in world wars.

Come back when you have an informed view and we can have a proper debate. For example when our rail engineering was the most advanced in the world, under the state, in the 1970s, electricity generation, telecomms and no doubt more. All sold off for a quick buck and votes for the Tories who promted greed and selfishness.

[malumbu]

That last post was a response to Stringvest. To Uncle Len. My dear man. Blair was a disicple of Thatcher. We lost the engineering and manufacturing bsse mcuh earlier. She shagged the NW, the NE, the Midlands and South Wales then. He may of finished it off, but certainly didn't start it. And until Lehman Brother etc (and I am sure that others better placed to say the warning signs were there) things had in deed Only Got Better. Well ignoring the illegal war and selling off even more public assets.

But if we are beter at doing things than making things then so be it. If my kids don't know what a lathe is, does it matter?

[stringvest]

Informed view ??? Oh dear again. Anyway I'm off to bed with a Hitler book, got to send kids up t'mill int morning!

[rendelharris]

stringvest Wrote:

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> A friend in the Judiciary waiting to sentence the

> men who decapitated the soldier, waiting for a

> directive on sentencing from Europe because a

> "whole life sentence without parole" is inhumane

> ?????? ....

Didn't happen. Adebolajo had his appeal against his whole life term rejected by the court of appeal, never went to Europe. In other appeals against whole life terms the ECHR upheld the UK's right to impose them. The sentencing judge in the Lee Rigsby case certainly didn't wait for a directive on sentencing from Europe, as no judge in the land ever has. If you're going to make stuff up try to make it at least vaguely believable.

[Duvaller]

malumbu Wrote:

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Blair was a disicple of

> Thatcher. We lost the engineering and

> manufacturing bsse mcuh earlier. She shagged the

> NW, the NE, the Midlands and South Wales then. He

> may of finished it off, but certainly didn't start

> it. And until Lehman Brother etc (and I am sure

> that others better placed to say the warning signs

> were there) things had in deed Only Got Better.

>

> But if we are beter at doing things than making

> things then so be it. If my kids don't know what

> a lathe is, does it matter?

It's just not right to blame Thatcher for the UK's industrial decline. It was/is a trend that has shrunk manufacturing in many developed countries as production moved to lower cost countries. I recall visiting Buffalo NY state in the late 70's and saw mile after mile of abandoned steel works and factories- since called the rust belt.

As our standard of living has improved in the UK, it is simply not feasable to pay a miner a sensible wage to dig coal out of an underground pit when coal can be imported from open cast mines at about 20% of the cost. Thatcher did not cause that and shouldn't be blamed for it.

There were other significant factors that accelerated the UK's industrial decline and I will mention one here now. Having started out with a major motor manufacturer in the mid to late 60's, I saw it all unfold over the next thirty years. The single biggest tipping point was the crippling effect of militant unions running wild under a Labour government.

The never-ending strikes crippled the car/van/truck/bus manufacturers financially and product quality deteriorated. Loss of profitability led to lack of product and facilities development. On top of this, we lost our export markets as cars from Japan and elsewhere were much better value.

This led to the eventual demise of much of the Midlands based vehicle manufacturers with knock-on effects to associated manufacturing companies. Five jobs are lost at suppliers for every job lost by the car manufacturer., so the effect is leveraged across the whole industrial sector.

Blame most of it on the likes of "Red Robbo", Arthur Scargill and other union leaders who were power hungry and had ideological and political ambitions. These are the ones that cost me my job and my pension when my employer folded.

The tragedy is that younger voters have no direct experience or even knowledge of such issues. That's why Labour is always keen to lower the voting age.

[Cardelia]

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

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> "How will labour buy back all the companies that

> were privatised?"

>

> The rail network is all publicly owned. The

> private companies operate as concessionaires for a

> time limited period. As I understand it, Corbyn is

> just proposing to let the franchises expire and

> then not re-tender it.

What about the rolling stock? That's all privately owned.

[Cardelia]

malumbu Wrote:

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> Come back when you have an informed view and we

> can have a proper debate. For example when our

> rail engineering was the most advanced in the

> world, under the state, in the 1970s, electricity

> generation, telecomms and no doubt more. All sold

> off for a quick buck and votes for the Tories who

> promted greed and selfishness.

Intercity 125s were introduced in 1976 and had a top speed of, well, 125 mph. Or 200 km/h in metric.

We were beaten to the 200 km/h mark by the Americans who commercialised 200 km/h in 1967, the French (also 1967) and the Japanese (1964). So we were a long way from the "most advanced in the world" in the 1970s.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Cardelia Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > "How will labour buy back all the companies

> that

> > were privatised?"

> >

> > The rail network is all publicly owned. The

> > private companies operate as concessionaires for

> a

> > time limited period. As I understand it, Corbyn

> is

> > just proposing to let the franchises expire and

> > then not re-tender it.

>

> What about the rolling stock? That's all privately

> owned.

Just carry on leasing it, I suppose. Prices have never been lower, apparently.

[JoeLeg]

stringvest Wrote:

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> Informed view ??? Oh dear again. Anyway I'm off

> to bed with a Hitler book, got to send kids up

> t'mill int morning!

Great arguments there mate. Pretty much sums you up.

Carry on making stuff up that fits your world narrative, and when in five years time nothing has changed and those nasty brown people are all still here, feel free to keep crying.

[????]

Malambu can you remember what it was like trying to get a phone installed or repaired before privatisation? ? weeks on wednesday 3pm and they they didn't show 50% of the time - the railways were sh1t too, crappy timetables that were ignored, rude staff was the general default, awful rolling stock, don't even mention flying when there were only publicly owned choices . I think a whole generation who weren't there seem to think nationalised industries were great (they were not at all) or some older posters have some very selected memories.

[rendelharris]

???? Wrote:

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> Malambu can you remember what it was like trying

> to get a phone installed or repaired before

> privatisation? ? weeks on wednesday 3pm and they

> they didn't show 50% of the time - the railways

> were sh1t too, crappy timetables that were

> ignored, rude staff was the general default, awful

> rolling stock, don't even mention flying when

> there were only publicly owned choices . I think a

> whole generation who weren't there seem to think

> nationalised industries were great (they were not

> at all) or some older posters have some very

> selected memories.

Definitely right about the railways, they were bloody awful, but that doesn't mean they have to be awful when nationalised, just run by better people. I've never understood why we can't nationalise things and pay the going rate for experts - I wouldn't object to the head of a nationalised rail service getting ?2M a year or whatever if s/he made them work properly.

As for the telephones, I'm willing to stand corrected but I think a lot of the problem back then was just inherent to the nature of the pre-digital age, wasn't it? Everything had to be mechanically set up...I remember in the '70s we were the first on our street to get an extension put in upstairs and visitors would actually go out of their way to look at it!

[Villager]

???? Wrote:

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> I think a

> whole generation who weren't there seem to think

> nationalised industries were great (they were not

> at all) or some older posters have some very

> selected memories.

I can think of several others that were dreadfull before privatisation.

First to come to mind is BRS ( British Road Services) who operated virtually all the truck fleets. You could never depend on them turning up or making deliveries on schedule. Lts of disputes and go slows. Absolutely dire.

[jaywalker]

Wasn't it a bit like the food - bloody terrible then? I remember it well: no avocados, no olive oil, parmesan more like sawdust than cheese.

This was nothing whatsoever to do with the relations of production: just a long time ago before IT, before the switch to a service-based economy (in school calling people by their first names rather than surnames) etc.

So we have from the Tory party (what a surprise) an atavistic reactionary stupidity against any progressive re-imagining of civil society (where we might work together to get to work on time on, say, trains).

[stringvest]

"Great arguments there mate. Pretty much sums you up.

Carry on making stuff up that fits your world narrative, and when in five years time nothing has changed and those nasty brown people are all still here, feel free to keep crying."

What nasty brown people? This is ridiculous. The sentencing issue was on Radio 4 at the time. Bullied away ....