re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

It's easy to throw money at the sick and disabled but there is a country full of other people to consider as well

re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

..and I heard someone banging on about companies giving loans to employees to buy travel season tickets - no mention of trying to reduce travel costs :mad:

when they go on about "the motorist" and "becoming a cyclist" etc I think they have this vision of some guy in flat cap and driving gloves in a Morgan - Worthers originals in the glove box and all the time in the world as he leisurely joy drives his way around the place using up fuel reserves - no mention of Tesco lorries and freight haulage fims :mad:

re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

I think you think they have that vision...

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

Are we electing bankers now, I knew we elected something sounding like banker but this new revelation is brilliant, let's see how they like working for the little man rather than their bonuses

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

Anyone who wants an election where there is a return of a Tory/Coalition government is totally mad in my view and has no conscience of what is happening in todays world.

They 'claim' that the plan is working, how can it be. We have the dreadful Bedroom which is hitting the low paid and on benefits. Its even hitting me and l have a job.

We have DWP forcing the sick back to work if they can walk, they are allowing further immigration into a country that is toppling over and taking any measly paid job going.
There is nothing for the young kids of this country to get proper training and work.

Cameron, and Clegg is looking after his own and the rest can jump. We have people committing suicide as they cannot cope with the dreadful actions that are being taken.

The Universal Credit is becoming a farce, and we have sick items coming up where an out work guy had his benefit stopping as he was out collecting money for the British Legion.

YET, Cameron and Osborne is proud to say that they will continue to spends billions of OUR money to overseas countries - but the voter in this country can take a run.

In January you will probably have all the voting slips coming out for the election in 2015

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

I don't see that ANY party doing any better after the next election - you?

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

Same here, not with Milliband at thee Helm.

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

1,
The plan IS working Arthur, it just doesnt do what you want it too that's all. Your grievances mire virtually every post you make.

2,
If immigrants come here to take measly paid jobs, then it just shows the lack of moral fiber our out of work young have. Take a low paid job and get top ups or have no job at all, I know what I would do. Cant blame that on the gov.

3,
Apprenticeships, plenty of them out there to get the lazy oiks doing something.

4,
If he can collect money for the BL (regardless of how helpful that is) he can work, I would say that his illness therefore is a sham.


Get a life Arthur, post after post it's becoming boring, Milliblands personal PA, that's a job you could have.

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

Another coalition government? Let's hope not whatever the make up of said coalition.

However unless voter apathy improves I think it's very much on the cards.

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

I agree. I have come to dislike coalition government intensely. We need a single party in charge, which can then be judged by voters on the basis of its performance against its published manifesto, rather than a murky, flexible agreement thrashed out in the cabinet office broom cupboard.

As for voter apathy, well I'm afraid so much day-to-day stuff is now surrendered to Brussels there is no immediate solution to voter apathy. The cry of "they're all the bleeding same" has a resonance to it, not because it is true, but because whoever is in charge, a large percentage of decisions affecting us simply aren't made in Westminster any more.

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

I just dear old Arthur would one day put forth a reasoned argument with fact, examples and quotes instead of ranting Labour = good / Tories = Bad all the time.

Labour in their current guise surely can't win, I look at Ed Balls and look in his eyes and you can see it's all going helter skelter in there. He is the proverbial rabbit in the head lights. He's not fit to hold the shadow post let alone the actual job. If he was in charge of the country's finances I shudder to think.

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

Well you see he's lost his 'flatline' sound-bite and his 'reprogramming' by Red Len hasn't gone at all well...

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

Well perhaps Arthur if you had voted for Labour rather than the Lib Dems in 2010 we wouldn't be in this situation you so obviously hate?

Re: Autumn Statement: 'The Plan Is Working'
 

No, we are electing those who change the rules of the banking system (in favour of the bankers usually).

So do I.
That's politics. When you are fighting for power, you promise anything that might sound interesting to the voters (lower costs, fighting the utility companies for consumer rights, big business bad, small business good etc) in the hope you'll get into power.

When you get into power, you realise that you can't actually (be bothered to ) do a lot of what you promised, so quietly forget it and hope everyone else does. In the mean time, where something does go wrong, you blame the previous government no matter how far into your term you are.

Then, the next guy does exactly the same. Sadly, this is how politics works.

I sometimes like to wonder what would happen if somehow (maybe a change in constitution), politicians ended up with a legal responsibility to carry out their promises. I suspect we wouldn't have many politicians left.
See above.
The problem is that a lot of the problems the country faces are not going to be solved within a single (or even 2 or 3) term of government. For instance, the state of our railways. This is gradually improving, but we have had nearly half a century of underfunding. It's going to take decades to correct the problems caused by that. Politicians like to take credit for things, so they might be tempted to stay away from something that's going to cost hundreds of millions a year to do and not going to show any positive outcome for 15 to 20 years (which may be long after they've retired or died).

Similarly, there are problems with society. David Cameron identified a section of society where families have been on benefits for generations, and a *lot* of these people do think that life owes them something, and they shouldn't need to work.
The problem with OpenSource software is that in any medium or large deployment, the cost of licencing is only a small percentage of the costs of deployment and maintenance. Support is the primary cost (it's easier, and cheaper, to find support staff who are able to support Windows and Office purely because they are two of the most widely used programs available).

Also, there's the problem that if there is some sort of problem with the software, who do you go to? Most companies (the one I work for included) like someone they can hold responsible and ultimately take action against if the product fails. Buying a product gives you both someone you can hold responsible (the manufacturer) and several tools you can use against them, including the Sale of Goods act. Don't get me wrong. I like Open Source software and, if it weren't for Outlook (which I have to use because of Work), I'd ditch MS Office totally and go for Libre or Neo Office (I use a Mac).
Personally, so would I. However, you might want to watch Panorama from last Monday. It seems a major reason for both our current high energy prices and future brown outs (which they are predicting for next winter) is a major lack of investment in the power infrastructure in (you guessed it) the last 50 years or so. I hold both Government and Private industry responsible for this.

Not sure I agree here.. While it's nice to think that we'd end up with a state of the art rail network that's going to serve every single area of England, Wales and Scotland with a good service, the fact is, we don't have the money to do that, so choices have to be made. So you have £10 million to invest in a railway project. You have two. One is to improve the rail connections between 2 towns and will benefit a couple of thousand people a day and one is to re-open some of the old Beeching lines and (obviously) repair and improve them to bring them up to modern signalling, power and safety standards. They would benefit a few people, but nowhere near 2 thousand a day. Which would you do?

I will say that when the then Labour government fired Connex and re-nationalised the South Eastern railway franchise it became a hell of a lot more reliable, consistently reaching standards of reliability that the current operator Southeastern Railway frequently fails to meet.