badgerx16

An open and honest admission on SWF, whatever next !

Explain the councils with 28%+ cuts in 2011/2012 as compared to 2010/2011, ( due to the 'front loading' of the 7% compounded year on year for due for the next 4 years ), and 19% average cuts across central government from April 1st. Hardly small beer.

A spell checker ?

Sometimes I wonder why we vote for any of them. They are all self serving dissemblers, whatever colour rosette they might wear.

They would have looked stupid had they won ! And remember, the CONservatives didn't win either.

At least I'm in a job

"Mr Osborne told MPs last month the deal was done on the basis of the EU’s qualified majority voting, which meant Britain could not have vetoed it without the support of other countries." So without the French and the Germans, AD could do nothing. And from the comments under the article : "There are many good and able lawyers in the FO and the Exchequer. They will know that In English law "he who adopts consents" (see Sedleigh-Denfield v O'Callaghan and Leakey v National Trust)) Therefore, unless the LibDemCon Conspiracy reverses the agreement entered into by Darling, which they are legally entitled to do, they will be adopting and consenting to it. Criticism of Darling will therefore be no more than a smoke screen to hide the LibDemCon's part in the great EU conspiracy. I agree with Douglas Carswells - it would be very surprising indeed if Darling agreed to the EU bailout in the interregnum knowing that in reality he had no political mandate and was merely continuing in office as a trustee custodian. The constitutional convention is that in such circumstances outgoing ministers either do nothing or follow the position of the incoming government if they have one. I strongly suspect that Osborne's position at the time was rather more equivocal than he is now claiming."

Why are you such a pr!ck ? ( And why do I bite ? )

62% of those on the electoral role did not vote for this Government, tbf.

Das Boot.

I suppose that the OP, and especially Dunce, won't actually have listened to the speech, and instead prefer to get all their 'facts' from the Torygraph. What he said was "We come in the tradition of those who marched before us,......", "Our cause may be different, but we come together today to realise our voice, and we stand on their shoulders, we stand on the shoulders of those who have marched in the past". You may interpret that as you wish, but he most certainly did not make a direct comparison between the Hyde Park event and other much more historic episodes. It would have been vain and naive in the extreme to have gone that far. Other selected lines, probably completely ignored by our totally unbiased media: "David Cameron, you wanted to create a 'Big Society', this IS the Big Society"; "We speak today for the mainstream of Britain, because we ARE the mainstream of Britain"; "I beleive there is a need for difficult choices and some cuts, but this Government is going too far and too fast"; "I say to David Cameron, the hundreds of thousands of people here reject your attempt to divide our country".

No, no, no ! Bridge you are so wrong ! It was all the fault of Blair & Brown, haven't you been keeping up ? The bankers were all innocent victims of their gross incompetence.

The Treasury is estimated to have spent £27Bn propping up the Pound during the 1992 crisis. And as for the mess 'inherited', try reading the other current discussion on this thread, you may actually learn something if you remove your blinkers for a minute.

And of course 'Black Wednesday' was down to Labour's mismanagement of the economy, wasn't it ? £3.4 Bn down the drain due to Tory incompetence. George Soros saw it coming, so why not the Treasury ?

Don't leave yourself open to such easy ripostes : If the public weren't so gullible Maggie would have only served one term. Labour were in power for 13 years for the same reason the Tories were in for too long before them - voter apathy and the venal failings of FPTP.

Are we now, de facto, 'allied' to the opposition ? We seem to be clearing the road for them. Also, as put to the head of NATO this morning, and he tried all he could to avoid a straight question, does anybody think that if the rebels were to threaten civilians in some or other way, we would start bombing them, as the UN resolution dictates ? I rather suspect we would find any excuse to avoid it.

Trying to get back to the core discussion of the thread, what was the point of the 1p off fuel duty ? I went past a garage today where it's gone UP 3p per litre since Friday morning. An utterly pointless piece of propaganda posing by Georgie Porgie which the press fawningly spewed all over their front pages - "Britain you can drive your car, beep, beep, yeah" as the Sun put it.

no more

imperialism

If your 'field' were in the public sector, than the raving right on here would justify this on the grounds that they were overpaid 'bloat' and the cut was making them more 'efficient'.

trouble

That's democracy for you, ( or at least the FPTP version ), sometimes the other person's view holds sway, and you just have to accept it.

But you are also hamstrung as to that input, as it is strictly controlled by the Exchequer. The public sector lack the commercial flexibility of private companies, who can put on a penny here or there if they can accept the risk that the consumer will bear it, or can decide to up sticks and transfer production to Thailand or China. The point being debated is the relative merit and level of salaries in both sectors, and that fact is that for my specific job, a technical and professional role with the necessary qualifications and experience, the private sector pays more, and this is the case for most roles where a direct comparison can be made.

company

But what private company is anywhere near as complex, or open to public scrutiny, as Birmingham City Council ? Also, Councils don't have the ability to pick and choose their markets or customers.