this government

Nick: Can I run an idea past you Dave, you know, that idea that I would get the royal succession changed, you know so women did not get sidelined, it was a nice idea but you know, getting all the commonwealth countries to do it at the same time, well, basically i think we need to let that one die quietly, so I've been thinking about other exciting ideas to make the coalition popular with voters, so how about...
Dave: well go on
Nick: Well how about we give out all those bank shares to the population. share owning democracy and all that. remember how the old battleaxe got lots of cred for selling off council houses and selling the utilities?
Dave: Great idea Nick. Get on with it. Off you go.
Exit Nick, wagging tail
Aide: why the xxxx did you to agree to that Dave? It's an insane idea. Imagine the costs of distributing dividends for a start. Mrs Edna Winterbottom owns 10 shares. A dividend of 2p is issued. It would cost several quid to get the 20p to Mrs W. The banks would never be solvent again. And don't we need to sell those shares when the price is high enough to, you know, pay of some of our debt?
Dave (sniggering): well it keep him busy for a couple of weeks. How are you doing on that list of other "bright ideas" . Doing well so far. Keep feeding them through. He obviously thinks he came up with them himself.

Love it, JessM.

Brilliant, and so clever of Nick to come up with it. This will solve all our financial problems, so reassured that we are all in the hands of such a competent Leader, I can sleep well at night now.

Concerned about the coalition? I am terrified with the whole bunch of them, I have little faith, and as for the economy, they have made a bigger mess, and these things he starts and changes his mind, I am worried for our future and our childrens futures with this rabble that is suppose to be running the country.
I think before long we will have a huge strike in every city in the towns far bigger than the last strike, we can't let them bully us like this????? Yes, Cuts need to be made, we know that, because we are told about it, just about everyday like a non stop record player, every chance they get they mention it, but you know what, ask yourself how much money this goverment has wasted, since it came into power, with these U turns. Mr Cameron made sure they was thousands in the pot for a new kitchen in number 10, that could have waited, as could lots of other things, he is messing about with the NHS, by the time its finshed we will have no NHS its going to the dogs a lot of people have paid N I contributions for years and years, some have never taken a penny back, just paid in and paid in, and when we need it, it will be gone, along with hospital car parks, an someone tell me please where does this money go???? We need to be strong and united.

audnay; hurrah! I was just pondering on the Bombardier situation and wondering why the people of Derby aren't marching in the streets over what's happened..and then I read your post. What has happened to us as a nation..why are we just taking everything that's thrown at us? And, I'm not saying everyone go on strike [although I'm not against that either..]but we could all stand together, not let our employers treat us like expendable objects, but also work as hard as we can to get the country out of the mess it's in. I know this sounds like a dichotemy [if that's the right word?] but the old industrialists like Titus Salt realised that people worked harder and better if they were happy and well cared for.We're in a downward spiral, and there has to be a way up somehow. Start by giving people hope other than 'tighten your belts there's no money'.

audnay Never forget that NI contributions were just another piece of tax. They were never ring-fenced but just went into the general coffers. That you had to have some record of NI contributions to qualify for a state pension was irrelevant – and don''t forget Chancellor Gordon Brown deciding that it would be acceptable to the population to increase NI contributions to pay for extra support for the NHS. That was never what they were supposed to be for but it seemed more acceptable (popular, good for re-election) than an increase in the base rate of income tax – BUT IT WAS THE SAME THING.

GKal, I couldn't agree more. It is divide and rule! They are setting the old against the young (hooddies, idle), the young against the old (too expensive, your taxes pay for their care), Employed against unemployed (your taxes pay for their lazy lifestyle), able bodied against disabled! The last article I read on the subject of Motability was a disgrace! "Cut-price BMWs for relatives of disabled"(Title, Sunday Times). It was nasty, inaccurate, but would have made people with no knowledge of the scheme look suspiciously at any disabled driver! A disgrace. When are people going to realise that during our lifetime we will probably belong at some point to most or all of these categories. We are all in it together, any help/benefit/care withdrawn from one section of the population, in the name of budget deficit, is withdrawn from us all.

David Cameron was in Derby recently saying that our manufacturing industry would be what would get us out of the recession; well Mr C, save it then.

Yes, I heard this as well! But where are the skilled workers going to come from? Production was moved abroad in the name of ever higher profits, difficult to bring it back. And who are we going to sell to? It's not the production that brings in money, it's the selling of the produced goods.We can't compete with third world wages (or maybe we can, and this is the agenda? Very Tory after all to drive wages down), and nobody in this country has the spare cash to buy stuff. Like the rest of their policies, it's all back of the enveloppe stuff, an idea that sound good on the surface, but falls down if you look any deeper. Like the NHS reforms, the cap on benefits, the Big Society , the Academies...

If there aren't jobs like that for people, what are they going to do? We can't be a nation of accountants or bankers. Can't even be a nation of shopkeepers..all the shops are closing down; no one has any money to spend! Once an industry goes, it doesn't come back. What do we advise out grandchildren to do career wise? Where are we actually going?

too true!

sadly Brilliant!

Sadly agree, - the problem is that our political system has been captured by a a wealthy minority with a cluster of almost neo-con values, virtually since the days of Margaret Thatcher, inherited by Blair and owned by Cameron. Between them all legitimate insitutions with other values have been eliminated or sidelined, and those same purely capitalistic (minus democratic) values incorporated into what were public services health and education, - with public service public interest values. I spend a lot of time in Germany, -they think they have problems, - yet they have a very active democracy, unions and companies have to work together, companies are loyal to their communities, communities have stakes and influence over companies, - and yes, they can still make excellent trains, and governments care that their decisions are strategic, especially in terms of supporting local business, -within EU rules. The southern based elites have no concept of the needs for a ballanced economy, - and for years, the politicians have not cared, - accountable (with our disenfranchising corrupt electoral system) to Rupert Murdoch, not the ordinary electorates (of the north or the south).

I agree with Davref and previous posters. I am looking at Britain from abroad too - Australia. I think both countries have similar problems; our Labour government is about as true labour as our cat - and we know how selfish a cat can be!!

The loss of manufacturing to cheap overseas labour is a fact of life here too. Not only are young people with a less than academic backgrounds denied work, they are denied the civilising effect that going to work used to have. Being in close company with older adults used to rub off the rough edges from youngsters with a bad background. Also, job security used to help people settle down and make plans. All these short term contracts take away the last vestiges of hope for the future, putting people into more of a survival mode frame of mind.

The neo-cons have won, and it's devil take the hindmost.

For the time being.

The southeast does dominate doesn't it, despite devolution. And I'm not sure that's got Wales and Scotland anywhere. They get more to spend on public services but this presumably gets soaked up due to high numbers on benefits and politicians buying votes with things like free prescriptions. Meanwhile in Wales the education system is doing a poor job. Spending that money on IT in schools for instance might have been more sensible.
The south east centric thinking does influence policy. The american influenced mantra about "choice" is one example. Not much point in having a choice of secondary schools, or competitive market between them, if you live somewhere like Ludlow is there.
Is there anything to be cheerful about? Was there even, before the recession?
The NHS was in good shape and now those idiot boys are going to have a massive, disruptive, expensive reorganisation. No one will be able to make any difficult strategic decisions about the health service. And the return of the postcode lottery issue is predictable.
Education did improve. Not as much as it needed to. But schools have far more resources in them in England than they did 14 years ago. Sadly there are still a few that are falling down and wont now be replaced.
I would say that business is portrayed as evil in the media and there are lots of good, ethical, businesses and business people out there. The country needs to start valuing them and encouraging ethical young people to work in business, rather than trying to put them off. Because if businesses don't thrive then we really will be in trouble. Been enjoying Evan Davies's series this month on this very topic.

Devolution has got Scotland an SNP government with an overall majority in spite of the fact that the electoral system for the Scottish Parliament was designed to prevent any one party being able to do that. Whether one agrees with the SNP or not, that result says something about Scottish voters' feelings about the government south of the border.

And, Baggy, it says a lot about Scottish feelings about New Labour. The Labour Party had taken Scotland for granted for too long and Alex Salmond is an astute politician, probably the most astute on these islands.

Yes, Annobel, I think that feeling might be expressed as "Bloody Blue Labour!"

davref That was an interesting point you made about Germany, companies and manufacturing. Another and hugely important way it differs from the UK is that the salaries of executives, while larger than those of the shop-floor workers, are nowhere near the multiples of the average wages that they are here.

Engineers and engineering has/have always been repected in Germany, unlike over here where even a highly qualified engineer is regarded as inferior to an accountant [or banker!]. We are fighting for the survival of our train making industry here in Derby; still waiting for some sort of reply from Cameron. Another thing I don't understand is that we are supposed to be one of the richest nationals in the world, are we not? And yet, when there is a league table of best countries for education, health etc, we seem to lurk somewhere near the bottom. Where does all the money actually go?

Something else we agree about baggy. People complain about the Health Service but don't think about where the money comes from.

JessM Agree - especially about ethical businesses. The Prince's Trust is doing some good work in supporting this kind of venture. The bottom line though is about ordinary people being prepared to pay a little more or have a little less in order to contribute to a more ethical society. If mainstream businesses lose profits because people shun them over their ethics then even empires like Murdoch's can wobble and possibly fall. Governments have always been in the business of supporting their cronies and haven't sufficiently given enough weight to the ethics of business.

I suppose my concern about devolution is whether the devolved govs are doing things that will either develop the regional economies, either in the short term, or in the long term - by developing education and skills. Or are they spending the extra money they get per head on vote winning policies.
Businesses dont have to have "ethical" written all over them to be a good thing. Ordinary British businesses create jobs and the wealth to fund public services and the vast majority of of them are not full of the evil people that the movies and Tv would have us believe. Not many films about heroic business people, or scientists, or engineers for that matter.
On of the things that governments don't get is that most people in the private sector work in small or medium sized businesses.

I saw a strong contingency of 'Grannies against Cuts' outside the Lib Dem annual conference today on the TV news. WELL DONE to them. We are not 'all in this together' as David Cameron claims but if we do all stand together, this coalition government will have to take notice.
As grannies, we have seen it all before and know what damage can be done.
How good it would be if Grannies against Cuts could let their voices be heard in every big town in the country.

Strangely enough, grannygrunt, a very large proportion of political party members are getting on a bit. My DSs' generation seem to be simply too busy making a living and paying a mortgage to have time to get involved, no matter how strongly they may feel about the issues. That being so, I am at a loss to explain why they are not taking the problems of an ageing population more seriously.