[Politics] Surprising Allardyce press conference

[s5.bha]

 

[vegster]

Good for Sam, yes maybe overpaid and knows the value of a Pound but fair play to him for talking about the issue, would be nice if more of those who command great wealth and businesses got in touch with their conscience. Forget politics and Brexit, Food Banks are rapidly on the increase in the 5th/6th biggest economy in the world , the figures speak for themselves but we seem to be accepting of this without question. The more this is highlighted the better, this has to change.

 

[goldstone]

The posts on this thread confirm that, as well as the dick-heads, there are a surprising number of thoughtful and intelligent people on here.

What they also confirm is that the problem has little to do with politics. The lefties however continue to believe that if there was a labour government in power then "Wooosh", no more foodbanks, no more homeless, everything free for the feckless. Fairyland.

 

[vegster]

The posts on this thread confirm that, as well as the dick-heads, there are a surprising number of thoughtful and intelligent people on here.

What they also confirm is that the problem has little to do with politics. The lefties however continue to believe that if there was a labour government in power then "Wooosh", no more foodbanks, no more homeless, everything free for the feckless. Fairyland.

You were doing so well up til then. Poverty is not a career choice.

 

[Bob'n'weave]

It's a very slippery slope when we make comments about poor people having too many children. Firstly. I'm not sure that many poor people actually do have 5 children anymore. The average is still under 2 per family across the country and there's no indication that it's disproportionately higher in less well-off households. Secondly, unless you are super-rich I reckon that purely finance-wise it's never wise to have children. I agree that if you're really struggling financially then that does need to be taken into consideration in a big way, the thought of some sort of eugenics is beyond the pale. Speaking personally, I'm from a family of 5 children, we were dirt poor growing up and no doubt my family got more from the system than we put in during that time but all of us are now adults, we're all taxpayers and repaid that and then some.

Single mothers are the scapegoats but they really aren't the problem and I'm absolutely positive that most of them don't deliberately set out to be in those circumstances. I used to work for a housing charity and during that time did some voluntary work helping tenants with budgeting, understanding their bills and suchlike. The claims that they've all got the latest phones, high-end flat-screen TVs and designer clothes wasn't something I saw very often.

The issue, as both Larus and I have argued, is big business not paying their full whack and the government not having the balls to tackle the problem. There's around 3,500 people employed specifically to prevent benefit fraud whilst only 700 to prevent tax fraud. Benefit fraud is estimated at £1.3bn whilst the 'tax gap' (what should have come in versus what actually did) is estimated at £36bn a year. The focus is clearly arse about face but all the while we get the red top scare stories about benefit fraudsters, public anger is diverted.

Another issue is the disparity between the penalties and interest charged to big businesses and those given to small businesses. Vodafone, Starbucks and Google have gotten away with next to nothing in the way of punitive charges and even have enough clout to negotiate how much of their unpaid tax they are prepared to pay. It's a totally different story if you're a hairdresser, taxi driver or another of the businesses that HMRC regularly investigate (small businesses that have significant unreceipted cash income). I'm all for more transparency to show that we are all treated equally in the eyes of the law and would make it law that all HMRC decisions on tax evasion, the penalties imposed and the rate of interest charged are published. We need to start getting angry with companies that generate significant profits from the UK but who pay negligible UK tax.

The most sensible post on this thread. If HMRC adopted a 'public benefit' approach to their decision making (like the CPS have to), then maybe we would see a fairer result.

 

[Dave the OAP]

The posts on this thread confirm that, as well as the dick-heads, there are a surprising number of thoughtful and intelligent people on here.

What they also confirm is that the problem has little to do with politics. The lefties however continue to believe that if there was a labour government in power then "Wooosh", no more foodbanks, no more homeless, everything free for the feckless. Fairyland.

I don't necessarily think that is correct. The " left wing" have a more joined up society view, but as all socialist parties have found, you heed a capitalist spine to provide the finance in taxes and wealth creation to make socialist policies to work.

It was the old argument about communism...we all know that communism should be an ideal, where everyone equal in a society, but again, that doesn't take into account human nature and the need for humans to better themselves, or be better than someone else. It also doesn't take into account that some people are lazy ad work shy and some peopke are high flyers and want to over achieve.

The trick is to get somewhere in the middle......the problem with our society is that we have lost our manufacturing base, our traditional industrial heartland and rely on services. Be it financial or retail..all which need sone form of foreign investment. We have very few British companies now.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

The trick is to get somewhere in the middle......the problem with our society is that we have lost our manufacturing base, our traditional industrial heartland and rely on services. Be it financial or retail..all which need sone form of foreign investment. We have very few British companies now.

Manufacturing contributes £6.7tn to the global economy. Contrary to widespread perceptions, UK manufacturing is strong with the UK currently the world's ninth largest industrial nation. Manufacturing makes up 10% of GVA and 45% of UK exports, and directly employs 2.7 million people.

Yeah... ok. And if I remember rightly manufacturing was up this year, sure they mentioned it on LBC.

Source: https://www.themanufacturer.com/uk-manufacturing-statistics/

 

[Buzzer]

We have very few British companies now.

Well that's simply not true. The UK has 25 companies in the Fortune 500 list, we're 6th on the list and Germany and France are only slightly further ahead with 29 each. As importantly though, as we are world leaders across the whole finance industry, in medical research, artificial intelligence and our aerospace industry is the second largest in the world. On the Brexit thread, I posted the latest acquisitions and mergers report where we are back up to the 3rd most attractive country for foreign companies to invest in and figures for 2017 are up 120% on the same period in 2016.

The UK has long since diversified away from manufacturing where we have been unable to compete with India and the Far East for decades. Where we still have a manufacturing industry it's niche and we are also very good at it, for instance electronics.

I've never quite understood why the finance industry gets such a poor rep whereas manufacturing makes people go misty-eyed for halcyon days of shipbuilding on the Clyde.

 

[vegster]

I don't necessarily think that is correct. The " left wing" have a more joined up society view, but as all socialist parties have found, you heed a capitalist spine to provide the finance in taxes and wealth creation to make socialist policies to work.

It was the old argument about communism...we all know that communism should be an ideal, where everyone equal in a society, but again, that doesn't take into account human nature and the need for humans to better themselves, or be better than someone else. It also doesn't take into account that some people are lazy ad work shy and some peopke are high flyers and want to over achieve.

The trick is to get somewhere in the middle......the problem with our society is that we have lost our manufacturing base, our traditional industrial heartland and rely on services. Be it financial or retail..all which need sone form of foreign investment. We have very few British companies now.

This. Through hard work I had a reasonable life, bought a house and brought up my family. I did a 40 hour week but if times were hard and I copped for a big bill or needed a new second hand car,overtime was available. At times I was doing a 60 hour week and at one point a few 70 hour weeks. It was hard and grinding but It was time and a half or sometimes a little double time and we got through it

. Nowdays in my job overtime is limited and the boss would prefer to give time off in lieu plus due to redundancy and re employment my earnings have gone down intermittently. In my day you could genuinely walk out of a light manufacturing job on a Friday and start another one Monday morning, that has changed as all we seem to do is sell coffee rather than make anything. The result is that it genuinely seems we are working harder for less unless you get in to the right business early in your working career. There is obviously money out there, but working hard will not necessarily bring it to you if you are in the wrong place.

 

[Wardy's twin]

Amazing - Sam Alladyce initiates a deep and meaningful political discussion.

Whilst like a few on here I am a bit suspicious of this I am certainly prepared to put all that aside because it has re-awoken this pretty serious issue.

There are some valid points on here from both sides there is no one simple answer but we need is concensus on an approach not cheap political gains if we are to remove the need for food banks and address homelessness

 

[beorhthelm]

...the problem with our society is that we have lost our manufacturing base, our traditional industrial heartland and rely on services. Be it financial or retail..all which need sone form of foreign investment. We have very few British companies now.

part of the problem is romanicism about industrial work. it was hard, dirty, often unsafe work, for not great money. we've moved up the value chain, more economic value is created through services than digging rocks, smelting them or bashing them into shape. but the cost of manufacture these days is a small % of the total value, even high ticket items like mobile phones of cars. i lament the loss of British products but where a good comes from is increasingly unimportant, because its the same thing where ever its made and it the services that we value and pay for. its no conicidence that what we do make is often highquality, best of class, goods where the value isnt just in the utility of the product.

 

[Sussex Nomad]

This. Through hard work I had a reasonable life, bought a house and brought up my family. I did a 40 hour week but if times were hard and I copped for a big bill or needed a new second hand car,overtime was available. At times I was doing a 60 hour week and at one point a few 70 hour weeks. It was hard and grinding but It was time and a half or sometimes a little double time and we got through it

Good God, you sound like an advert for Hovis!

 

[vegster]

Good God, you sound like an advert for Hovis!

We couldn't afford Hovis !