Archive for February 2014
Retirement and the Redistribution of Wealth.
Retirement was being discussed at work last night.
Apart from the obvious retirement age constantly rising, work ‘til you drop etc. etc. I said that in the 1970s I genuinely believed by the time I approached retirement, the age would be around 50 with final salary pensions, opening up jobs for the young and giving those that had given most of their time during adulthood to their employer some relaxation in their later years and the money to enjoy it.
It would be paid for via the redistribution of wealth.
Instead the retirement age increases while holidays, wages and pensions decrease.
The only thing I got right was the redistribution of wealth- THE WRONG WAY!
Today I have been discussing politics in the pub with an old pal, who could be described as fairly right-wing.
EDL-style, anti-foreigner; I spent three or four hours with him, and while I have known him for years, I think he was really coming around, realising the way to a better world is not through marginalising or enslaving or killing those we do not like, but perhaps try to understand them.
He always worked, earned good money in the building trade, but I think he is starting to realise, now he is out of work how government policy, despite their rhetoric, is anti-us, anti worker and pro low wage and low benefits.
I explained how low wages, low benefits put him out of work; for sure, if people cannot buy their house, who needs him to build them; if councils are not building houses to rent, why would there be work for him?
I have, though my small efforts at least made somebody THINK!
Why I carry on blogging, hoping to change at least one person’s opinion.
Democracy- if you can afford it.
This week Danny Alexander announced another ‘fall’ in jobless figures. The best Miliband could do was say it’s good news. No attack on the policies that force poor folk into virtual slavery, required to work for their entitlement taking them out of the equation.
And this is opposition?
Let’s have done with this farce of democracy; let’s have done with the illusion of choice.
The choice is accept this THREE party right-wing coalition or support a democratic socialist state where the rich and powerful cannot usurp democracy to their own ends because they cannot stand for election.
Flooding: Why is the taxpayer picking up the tab? There’s an EU fund!
The Conservative response: David Cameron swans around the Somerset Levels in his wellies while local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger (second from left) tries to get a word in edgeways.
It seems that David ‘Money Is No Object’ Cameron is unnecessarily forcing British taxpayers to fork out for flood relief while European officials scratch their heads and wonder why he isn’t taking advantage of a huge EU fund that is available to us.
We should all know why the comedy Prime Minister is avoiding Europe – he doesn’t want to lose face.
Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party across the UK criticise our membership because we pay so much in and take so little out (in their perception); this argument would be defeated if Cameron actually used the fund in the manner for which it was created and he would then lose support from members of his Parliamentary party.
Also, at a time…
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Council privatises children’s playground and charges £20 for children to play
Some Tory councils are now charging children to play.
Conservative-controlled Wandsworth council bulldozed a public playground in Battersea Park, spent £250,000 on building a new one and then handed it over to a private company which is going to charge parents £20 for each child to use.
Here’s the full story from the London Evening Standard:
The council playground in London that costs £20 a time.
Is there anything the Tories won’t sell? Their own grandmothers? Oh hang on, no – they’ve already done that.
via Council privatises children’s playground and charges £20 for children to play.
The Fight For Hearts and Souls part II
I had a few words with a Sun reader in the pub Saturday afternoon; well, to be honest, I don’t know he was a Sun reader, but all his comments lead me to believe him to be so; I say comments because that’s all he did- made statements with no evidence to back them up while I argued evidentially, to which I got the repeated question “Who?”, “What?” and “When?”
For example, when I said things need to change and proposed there were mumblings among the populace to the effect that change may be on the horizon and not necessarily peaceful, he said it would never happen, people won’t stand up to be counted and the government know this. When I said that is exactly what Tsar Nikolai thought in 1917 he said “Who?”
When he claimed his English heritage and blamed the country’s ills on foreigners I argued he wasn’t English, he was Italian, German and French to quote but three invaders of Britain that pushed the English into Wales, he said “What?” when I said the Norman conquest of 1066 to say the least he said “When?”
The essence of his argument was I am English and if we kick out the foreigners, all will be well. When I asked him to describe ‘English’ he couldn’t, beyond ‘well, I’m English’. When I introduced the above argument, he attempted to ridicule it; when I asked him where we would draw the line of who was English and who was not, he was lost, except to repeat, well I’m English despite my arguments to the contrary.
This is what we’re up against, ignorance propagated by the popular media. Ignorance that will not argue its case, merely repeat their ‘evidence’; ignorance that will not hear reasoned argument and will not hear the evidence that contradicts their arguments.
I could have continued the argument, effectively to a reasonable person, but because he was becoming offensive and I was getting angry, I chose to take my custom elsewhere rather than smack the twat in the gob!
Now, over the road in another pub are several young people I have got to know over the weeks; young people who really do listen to what I have to say, are of, if not the same, a similar opinion; very refreshing.
There is hope and the fight for hearts and souls is not lost. I am glad I left the old fart over the way to his ignorance, where I am sure he denigrated me, my arguments and my opinion to anybody who would listen, probably with plenty of Sun quotes.
