Inequality in Britain

[maxxi]

Perhaps, as Mr Davies obviously has a disabled 'moral compass', he should lead the way and serve the rest of his, hopefully last, term in office by cleaning the House of Commons toilets for ?4.50/hr?

[DJKillaQueen]

Loz Wrote:

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> You mean DJKQ isn't Dave Cameron? Damn. I

> thought I'd sussed him out.

'How very dare you' lol ;-)

[kleinhond]

StraferJack Wrote:

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> good point DJ - ooops

DJ?

Merry Christmas then, Mr Lawrence (tu)

[Laddy Muck]

In any event, people with disabilities often have needs which require more funds than those who don't suffer from disability simply so as to enable them to - somehow - get on with the everyday matters which the rest of us take for granted. So, if anything, in order that a more level playing field may be provided, they should be furnished with additional support - both financial and practical - and not less. To suggest that they should accept less than the minimum wage is inconsistent with this. It is also discriminatory and manifestly unfair.

[Undisputedtruth]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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> I think UDT was referring to the MP making the

> proposal?

Indeed I was. Thank you for clarifying DJKQ

[Undisputedtruth]

david_carnell Wrote:

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> Huguenot Wrote:

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

> -----

> > As a result all countries who have full

> employment

> > strategies, as the UK usually does, and

> Thatcher

> > did in the mid eighties, are the whipping boys

> of

> > the 'productivity' tables. But it's all

> bollocks,

> > as are, frequently, the French ;-)

>

> Sorry - I've just read this bit again. You what?

> Thatcher had a full employment strategy? Did she

> bollocks! Her economic policy was that of

> inflation controlling monetarism. As long as

> inflation remained low, she was happy. The

> resulting unemployment rate reaching an

> unprecedented 4 million was a direct reflection of

> this.

I'm with DC, I remembered Norman Lamont's comment that unemployment was a price worth paying.

UDT

[Huguenot]

That's taking Lamont's quote out of context.

He was not saying in general that high unemployment was a good thing - it was during a period in 1991 when inflation was running at 7.4% and interest rates were running at 12% (later to rise to 17% before pulling out of the ERM).

We'd reached the point where mortgage interest rates were exceeding people's salaries and threatening a collapse in the economic system.

Some of the people on here may be so used to low interest rates that they have no idea of the panic that was being created. We had middle aged family men crying in the office because they were going to lose their homes: despite the impossibility of meeting the interest fees they'd never qualify for welfare or benefits.

The decision was a brutal one: to suffer a marginal increase in unemployment, or a national disaster. Unemployment was in this context 'the price worth paying'.

In the end it would have been better to pull out of the ERM, which we had entered at the wrong rate.

Lamont lost his job for it, so he was demonstrably wrong-headed.

Nothing more to see here.

[Undisputedtruth]

Huguenot, in one post you were claiming that the Tories had a full employment policy yet in your last post it's clear they didn't.

[Huguenot]

That post was about comparing the UK with France on productivity and employment differential in the mid eighties, at a time when the government was aiming to reduce unemployment and had taken it from 11.3% to 6.7% over the period we were discussing. At that period France remained over 12% unemployed.

I was not talking about Lamont's views 6 years later post 'bust' in the middle of a currency crisis, a view which eventually cost him his job.

I illustrated the point with all the necessary data, unlike the prejudiced and unsupported fiction you bring to bear on most issues you touch.

It's clear that like most naughty boys, you resent whoever catches you out telling lies, rather than be shamed by the lie itself. Am I to suffer more of your noisome attention over the coming weeks as you try and wreak a rather limp-wristed revenge?

[Undisputedtruth]

Still no evidence that the Tories had a full employment policy, eh Hueguenot? Now who's a naughty boy then?

It will be a long time before you will ever prove me wrong.

[Laddy Muck]

*pulls up ringside seat*

[Loz]

Anyone can have a full employment policy. The bugger is in actually achieving it.

[david_carnell]

Well quite Loz....and that Conservative administration had no intention of achieving it in my opinion. I don't believe full employment was a political or pragmatic aim for them.

And whilst Huguenot can point out they reduced unemployment from 11.3% to 6.7% he still fails to acknowledge that they were responsible for the rise to that 11.3% in the first place and never managed to bring unemployment down to the level they inherited.

It's a small point and one I'm loathed to focus on given the more important narrative in this thread but deserves to be recognised.

[Huguenot]

I haven't failed to acknowlegde it, I just didn't and don't think it's relevant. I simply wasn't being drawn.

I wasn't trying to discuss Thatcher's performance, I was trying to point out that during periods of employment growth the chief driver is low GDP-generator jobs.

If unemployment in the UK was less than half that of France, France's figures were going to appear more productive simply by that calculation, not because of some ersatz assertion that it demonstrated something innherently productive about the French.

Carnell wanted then, and still wants now, to turn this into a discussion of Thatcher. I don't want to be a part of that conversation (because it draws in spluttering wannabees like UnreliablePrejudice); I merely to point out that the oft-quoted productivity of the French is a load of old bollocks.

[Undisputedtruth]

France has a generous benefit system when compared to the UK. With the Tories introducing JSA in the mid 90s I would have thought this reduced unemployment because unemployment benefit which you could claim for 12 months became 6 months on JSA. I suspect the real unemployment figures are broadly similar between the two countries. The OECD figures do not take into account the difference in these figures nor does it take into the economic inactive total for the productivity figures.

Not only are the French productive it could be argued they have a more balanced and sustainable economy than the UK.

It is untrue that Carnell wanted this debate into a discussions about Thatcher. This was accusation you had made earlier in order to cover yourself from people discovering your right wing agenda. You've been outed Huguenot!

[david_carnell]

I'd rather neither of you tried to tell me what I wanted this to be about.

[kleinhond]

Huguenot Wrote:

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>(because it

> draws in spluttering wannabees like

> UnreliablePrejudice)

>:D<

[Undisputedtruth]

Hi KH,

I wouldn't worry too much about what Huguenot had wrote. He's all mouth no substance once you analyse his messages.

As you are the admin for Nunhead Forum, it seems you must be bored because no one hardly posts there anymore.

UDT

[sagatelsagouni]

No one post's there because they all know about Kleinhond and his dorky ED friends. If the people of Nunhead want to blog they would set a genuine one up.

[Huguenot]

Do you not 'get' that this behaviour marks you as dickheads?

[Undisputedtruth]

Ain't Huguenot the chow wow is very touchy today

[Laddy Muck]

Moving on...

from my favourite research institute, the IFS

[sagatelsagouni]

so a pointless excerise that serves little purpose, and at the taxpayers expense ? what a surprise.

[Loz]

Laddy Muck Wrote:

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> Moving on...

>

> from my favourite research institute, the IFS

But isn't it unfair to examine *changes* to public spending without examining public spending as a whole. For instance, the part of the Fawcett Society complaint was that cutting back public service jobs affected women more as they made up something like 70% of PS employees. But surely that means that women are unfairly benefitting from PS spending as a whole?

Statistics, eh?

[Undisputedtruth]

Loz Wrote:

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> But isn't it unfair to examine *changes* to public

> spending without examining public spending as a

> whole. For instance, the part of the Fawcett

> Society complaint was that cutting back public

> service jobs affected women more as they made up

> something like 70% of PS employees. But surely

> that means that women are unfairly benefitting

> from PS spending as a whole?

>

> Statistics, eh?

Not really, 50% of Public Sectors employees earns less than ?21000 pa and it could be argued that women forms a higher proportion of low income earners.