General Election 2015

[Herr Tubthumper]

What a mess:

UK productivity in the UK is 27-31% below that in Germany, France and the US. The gap with the rest of the G7 is 17 percentage points, the widest since 1992. Only Japan among the leading western industrial nations has a worse record.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

It takes a special type of person to teach and be able to teach effectively and not crack under pressure. A lot depends on what school you end up at as well. If you have nightmare kids it makes the job even harder on top of the governments interference. Doesn't matter what party it is, they keep messing around with things and moving the goal posts. How about doing something simple and sticking to it, like asking the teachers what they need and keeping bloody politicians out of the classrooms.

It's very rare I agree with you but on this occasion I do 100%.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

What a mess:

UK productivity in the UK is 27-31% below that in Germany, France and the US. The gap with the rest of the G7 is 17 percentage points, the widest since 1992. Only Japan among the leading western industrial nations has a worse record.

I really wish some government would put more emphasis in promoting manufacturing in this country. Sad to see Parker Pen gone, flattened ready for more housing in Newhaven. A local employer who used to employ hundreds of people. Now the pens are manufacturerd in France and you guessed it China.

A proper manufacturing base in this country would change everything in my opinion, specially for young people leaving school. Where do they go now really, in to the service sector if they are lucky enough to get a job.

My first job when I left school was working in a factory and it was for all my friends. You could either stay or use this a stepping stone to further education. To defeatest in my opinion to say we just can't compete, I believe we can. Airfix the model makers came to Newhaven in 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/13/hornby-model-railway-sales-profit-fall

http://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news...s-at-parker-pen-factory-in-newhaven-1-6077777

 

[Westdene Seagull]

the 'dependency' on food banks is down to human nature, if it's offered , people will take it, no more , no less.

Are you seriously suggesting people use food banks by choice ?

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

I really wish some government would put more emphasis in promoting manufacturing in this country. Sad to see Parker Pen gone, flattened ready for more housing in Newhaven. A local employer who used to employ hundreds of people. Now the pens are manufacturerd in France and you guessed it China.

A proper manufacturing base in this country would change everything in my opinion, specially for young people leaving school. Where do they go now really, in to the service sector if they are lucky enough to get a job.

My first job when I left school was working in a factory and it was for all my friends. You could either stay or use this a stepping stone to further education. To defeatest in my opinion to say we just can't compete, I believe we can. Airfix the model makers came to Newhaven in 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/13/hornby-model-railway-sales-profit-fall

http://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news...s-at-parker-pen-factory-in-newhaven-1-6077777

This old chestnut. Fair enough, have a manufacturing base but for to be anywhere near competitve you'll need to pay £3ph otherwise its going to be cheaper to get it done in China. There is a market in the UK for advanced manufacturing e.g. Car production but pretty much all economists are of the opinion that as an economy grows it moves towards the service sector as it has the higher value add i.e. You design the product but get someone else to make it

 

[Mileoakman]

See the thing that worries me about the Tories is that they keep on trumpeting how they have turned the economy around and reduced the deficit when in fact the national debt has risen from £851bn when they took office to £1500bn now. In other words a national debt that took nearly 100 years to accumulate has been doubled in just 5.

Sorry but there seems to be a rather strange imbalance to me in what they are claiming and what has actually happened.

Perhaps one of our blue friends can put me right.

 

[Man of Harveys]

This old chestnut. Fair enough, have a manufacturing base but for to be anywhere near competitve you'll need to pay £3ph otherwise its going to be cheaper to get it done in China. There is a market in the UK for advanced manufacturing e.g. Car production but pretty much all economists are of the opinion that as an economy grows it moves towards the service sector as it has the higher value add i.e. You design the product but get someone else to make it

Why doesn't that old chestnut apply to Germany? They manufacture loads, export loads of it around the world and afford themselves a better social state than here.

 

[Ernest]

See the thing that worries me about the Tories is that they keep on trumpeting how they have turned the economy around and reduced the deficit when in fact the national debt has risen from £851bn when they took office to £1500bn now. In other words a national debt that took nearly 100 years to accumulate has been doubled in just 5.

Sorry but there seems to be a rather strange imbalance to me in what they are claiming and what has actually happened.

Perhaps one of our blue friends can put me right.

You won't get a straight answer from them or the likes of Cameron and Osborne in debates, they would rather resort to petty insults such as wishing to gas Ed Milliband's wife in her oven (imagine a left wing columnist had said this about Cameron's wife ?) in the national press instead of a truthful debate by both sides.

 

[Bozza]

See the thing that worries me about the Tories is that they keep on trumpeting how they have turned the economy around and reduced the deficit when in fact the national debt has risen from £851bn when they took office to £1500bn now. In other words a national debt that took nearly 100 years to accumulate has been doubled in just 5.

Sorry but there seems to be a rather strange imbalance to me in what they are claiming and what has actually happened.

Perhaps one of our blue friends can put me right.

First why don't your red friends explain how the Tories "cut too hard, too fast". Sounds like you're suggesting the Tories have been on a massive spending splurge.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

This old chestnut. Fair enough, have a manufacturing base but for to be anywhere near competitve you'll need to pay £3ph otherwise its going to be cheaper to get it done in China. There is a market in the UK for advanced manufacturing e.g. Car production but pretty much all economists are of the opinion that as an economy grows it moves towards the service sector as it has the higher value add i.e. You design the product but get someone else to make it

This old chestnut. Look across the continent and see how you can have a booming manufacturing sector exporting to the world.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I really wish some government would put more emphasis in promoting manufacturing in this country. Sad to see Parker Pen gone, flattened ready for more housing in Newhaven. A local employer who used to employ hundreds of people. Now the pens are manufacturerd in France and you guessed it China.

A proper manufacturing base in this country would change everything in my opinion, specially for young people leaving school. Where do they go now really, in to the service sector if they are lucky enough to get a job.

My first job when I left school was working in a factory and it was for all my friends. You could either stay or use this a stepping stone to further education. To defeatest in my opinion to say we just can't compete, I believe we can. Airfix the model makers came to Newhaven in 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/13/hornby-model-railway-sales-profit-fall

http://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news...s-at-parker-pen-factory-in-newhaven-1-6077777

Again, I agree.

As an aside I worked at Parker Pen for a summer. And briefly at Bevan Funnell. Loved working in the pen factory. Bevan Funnell made my hands sore though.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

This old chestnut. Look across the continent and see how you can have a booming manufacturing sector exporting to the world.

Indeed. Only Germany has a bigger Industrial Sector than us in continental Europe. I'm personally quite happen with the balance of our economy as it suits our better creative skills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector_composition

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

See the thing that worries me about the Tories is that they keep on trumpeting how they have turned the economy around and reduced the deficit when in fact the national debt has risen from £851bn when they took office to £1500bn now. In other words a national debt that took nearly 100 years to accumulate has been doubled in just 5.

Sorry but there seems to be a rather strange imbalance to me in what they are claiming and what has actually happened.

Perhaps one of our blue friends can put me right.

You have to have a surplus before the national debt will fall - which is a Tory aim - until that time it will continue to rise. The debt as a share of GDP has fallen in five years.

Look at the US, when Clinton left Office thy had a surplus and no national debt, now its out of control.

 

[Simster]

First why don't your red friends explain how the Tories "cut too hard, too fast". Sounds like you're suggesting the Tories have been on a massive spending splurge.

What is sounds like is that their policies haven't generated anywhere near enough tax revenue to reduce the deficit, which is what they promised.

 

[Uncle Buck]

 

[spring hall convert]

This is astonishing. 40% of new teachers quit within a year under a Tory watch. I dread to think how much money this chaos is costing us, and the effect it has on the children. It's a shocking figure.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/31/four-in-10-new-teachers-quit-within-a-year

Blimey.

 

[Gwylan]

Look at the US, when Clinton left Office thy had a surplus and no national debt, now its out of control.

Neither of those statements is true: Clinton didn't get rid of the national debt (it was $5,8 trillion at the end of his last year) and, rather being out of control, US government spending is lower than its been for years - a deficit of $468 bn, pretty much what it was in the last years of Dubya. It's true that national debt has gone up considerably under Obama (that's what you get when you pursue Keynsian macroeconomics and fight a war) but it's increased by 53%, lower than the 100% increase under Bush

 

[Deleted member 22389]

Again, I agree.

As an aside I worked at Parker Pen for a summer. And briefly at Bevan Funnell. Loved working in the pen factory. Bevan Funnell made my hands sore though.

Worked at Parkers too, packing pens after I lost my main engineering job as that company went in to liquidation. Same old story cheaper to manufacture the valves abroad. Used to manufacture hydraulic valves for CAT, JCB, Massey Ferguson, John Deere. I joined Parkers when they where slowly going downhill, but even my the short time working there I could see what an excellent company it was. They even had a proper canteen where you could get hot food. It's nothing compared to what others told me about, working at Parkers you had a job for life with many benefits. I know this will never come back, but we can certainly do a lot better in this country. Governments just focusing on the banking sector, I tend to think the lack of real investment in Mechanical Engineering has come to bite them all back on the arse now. We have fallen behind. I don't buy this high tech industries simply because not everyone has the capacity to go in to jobs like this.

 

[Mileoakman]

First why don't your red friends explain how the Tories "cut too hard, too fast". Sounds like you're suggesting the Tories have been on a massive spending splurge.

Sorry Bozza but thats not the point. Labour hasn't caused the national debt to double but the Tories, who proclaim to have saved us from ruin, have. Thats whats difficult for me to understand.

You could argue that cutting taxes for their wealthier friends has meant not raising enough revenue from those who can afford it the most to help to balance the books that way.

I suspect that the Tories did cut too fast and too hard at the wrong end, (i.e the disabled and others needing support), rather than where it could be easily absorbed, i.e the better off.

 

[BLOCK F]

Simster has addressed 2010 but this myth also needs to be examined too. The UK had been borrowing from the IMF to meet shortfalls (or to pay its bills as HG puts it) since the Tory government of 1956, so it's not just a Labour phenomenon (see here for some detail)

Admittedly the 1976 crisis was a bigger scale of borrowing and for a longer period but that's an indication of the deep malaise in the UK economy at the time. However, Balogh, the chief economic adviser to the Wilson government suggested that applying to the IMF would probably be necessary in December 1975, just a couple of months after Wilson had his majority government. The idea that any government, Labour or otherwise, could reduce an economy to penury in just a few weeks is laughable. Balogh pinned the blame on the boom-bust policies of the Heath government - in particular on Barber.

It's true that Healey's talk of squeezing the rich until their pips squeak would have scared off investors and not helped the economy and it's true that the unions were pushing for inflation busting pay rises. But the Labour government was doing pretty well in bringing inflation down and the IMF loan provided some stability for the process.

The Labour government wasn't the total disaster that people seem to think it was. Thatcher won a narrow victory but that was almost certainly due to the levels of industrial action in the winter of that year (and the exceptionally harsh winter). Don't forget that opinion polls at the end of 1978 had Labour narrowly in the lead, scarcely a reflection of economic chaos

Don't want to get into a heavy political debate here, but from what I recall, when Mrs.Thatcher won the election in 1979, the unions were wielding far too much power in the country and the 'winter of discontent' just about characterised this.
Things had to change and although it was tough for some, I fear that had the Labour party remained in power, this country would have been dragged down for many years.