Brown's spend, spend, spend during his Chancellor's days has brought us into the current economy we are facing today. His appeal at a Downing Street meeting for the lenders to pass on cuts appeared to fall on deaf ears with HBOS, which owns the Halifax, increasing its rate on some mortgages from 6.09 to 6.59 per cent. Borrowers taking out this type of deal will now pay 46 more a month. On a two-year tracker, the rate will increase from 1.49 points above base rate to 1.99 points, giving a current rate of 6.99 per cent.

Other lenders are expected to follow Halifaxs lead.

If the Government wants the banks to lower mortgage rates to home owners - why not just offer them through Northern Rock? Everyone would rush to the Rock to get the loans forcing banks to match the rates or lose the business? Or maybe the government would then run into bigger credit crunch?

The RMT is once more bahaving badly. They have held London to ransom over two drivers who were sacked.

One driver was sacked over opening the doors on the wrong side of a Victoria Line train & then lying about carrying out safety checks and the other was sacked for theft.

The RMT said they would strike unless the drivers were reinstated.

There are many kids doing GCSEs this week and having terrible journeys to school as the buses are completely full and the bus queues huge. The roads are jam packed as well. The estimate is 100 million cost to London due to the strike.

Just to stir things up a bit............

I think we are all agreed that the current problems are the result of greed and stupidity. Stupidity is not the reserve of any political party, they are all blessed with more than their fair share.

Greed on the other hand became powerful as a political and business sentiment in the golden days of Gordon Gecko. When we were all offered shares and council houses for the price of a pint, and encouraged to look simply at the bottom line.

And who was in power then? The Magatron.

If you see Sid - tell him.

not greed aspirations!! Council houses with smashed windows and rubbish dump gardens suddenly got double glazing, nice gardens and a coat of paint. gimme gimme turned into pride of ownership. The big mistake was not to build more council housing and not to stop people who bought for a snip selling at a massive profit. Maggie got people off their backsides earning and making money---after the first dose of union smashing and nasty medicine!! Here we go again--full circle London held to ransom.

Told you I can stir things up a bit.

Aspirations????

In a time when property was already very cheap, these people had happily rented for 30 years. Not much aspiration there. Or perhaps they could not save for a deposit.......so they were uncreditworthy, as we have now found out with deposit free mortgages.

The double glazing / coat of paint / nice garden thing is a utopian dream. What people actually bought was new cars and Spanish holidays. And what made them suddenly capable of spending money, even if it was on paint and gardens? Equity gifted from the government and banks greedy to lend and make money.

The Magatron actually put more people on their backsides by closing whole industries and commiting 3 million to the dole.

We never really made money. To make money, someone has to lose money. Either that or you must buy and then sell at a profit, or manufacture something. What we actually did was to convince each other that what we had was worth more. We did not make anything - The Magatron saw to that. No-one lost because our property, gifted to us by a benevolent leader was going up in value. We didn't buy and sell at a profit. All we did was export the mirage, and charge people for the priviledge of it.

We will never see eye to eye, but frankly, London being held to ransom for 2 days is not important to me, especially when compared to an entire area of the country being held hostage to misplaced political ideals for over a decade..............

What we did was increase exports by huge amounts and create new jobs. Large number of new businesses started up. The council house purchase is still a success now for many.

And a disaster for many more.

What we did was close down the industries that any country relies on, and create new jobs that really were created, if by created you mean they were unnecessary and there to reduce unemployment.

Just when we need it we have no fuel industry worth talking of, our car industry is reliant on the goodwill of other countries, our utilities are owned by anybody but us, we have to import much of our gas and electricity, almost all raw materials come from elsewhere and to solve the housing problem we are having to replace that which we sold at a discount over the last 30 years.

All we have left to export now is beaurocracy in spadefuls, call centre administration and a few retail chains. The success story was financial services which we now realise, at the wholesale end, was the emperors new clothes.

If the country is to generate wealth it must sell abroad and bring in the bucks. Please tell me what we can now export.

Does "aspiration" amount to how many "wordly goods" one can acquire. I wonder.

Perhaps all trade union members should be put up against the wall and shot. I am sure that will solve all problems.

The Thatcher morality has cause decades of problems for society and is partially responsible for the social problems we have now. Grab everything for yourself and and to hell with your neighbour.

I would gladly have Maggie back.

"If the country is to generate wealth it must sell abroad and bring in the bucks. Please tell me what we can now export."

Very easy answer there - Brown, and all of the other corrupt useless dregs at Westminster. Only leave behind the worthwhile ones like Frank Field, and the lovely Ann Widdicombe.

People forget that Brown and the Labour Party were hated before the expenses scandal.

This thread was started April LAST YEAR.

Or Denis Skinner.................

Expenses leave all parties tarnished, not just GB. Mr C has questions to answer on that one.

The thread could have been started in 1979.

Denis Skinner

Known as 'The beast of Bolsover'

LOL

Also known as a scrupulously honest man, who lived on a council estate with his constituents, was plain speaking and devout to his views (whether you agree with them or not) and always gave a straight answer, even if you didn't want to hear it.

The word I am looking for is honourable. Now how many politicians of any era can lay claim to that epithet.

His policies were dubious, but he was probably the most honest MP of the last century. Perhaps if more on both sides of the house were more like him..............

The Magatron

Known as The Iron Lady. Many early ships were known as this too. Because they were impossible to steer, even when following a ludicrous course, and were usually bound for disaster.

He may be the beast of Bolsover & strong left-wing, but if the reports are true he's totally honest. He apparently, if offered a cup of tea or coffee, etc. during an interview he refuses it so that he is not beholden to anyone.

He's a waste of space!! Lolls on the benches in the Commons shouting out ignorant jibes and contributes very little hence no cabinet post. May well do a lot in his constituency but not for the country! aspirations Fred are when you have hope of improving your quality of life and providing for your family through your own efforts, a job and a chance to keep a reasonable amount of your earnings---rather than be state controlled and queue to be given handouts then wonder what to do for the rest of the day!! Alan you are a devil with a sharp stick --stirring a wasps nest--lol!!

Haystacks, Who are they, they who hate GB and the Labour party?
.
Are they a group, who just want to get their snouts in the trough at the expense of other members of society. Self interested without any policies, other than for their own personal greed and satisfaction.

Protectionist of the rights of those who have, against those who have not? Some of the latter are not capable "legally" of advancing their "quality" of life, but if the perceive an unfair society (as they see it) may resort to "criminal" methods of achieving the "sparklers", goods and lifestyle which the self protecting few have.

interesting discussion--I'm enjoying this! No one can surely doubt that the country is heartily sick of our useless gov but we get sick of all governments sooner or later. Alan has some good points to make but if you are running any business you have to be able to survive. High wage costs, a huge burden of regulation and high production costs meant many old established businesses have disappeared. Gov funding cannot keep them all going so Maggie had to take hard decisions---we are in the same situation today with Mandelson struggling to find the funds to bail our industries out--it might work for a short while so the mess can be taken on by the conservatives yet again. headlines today--500 million shortfall for the NHS to battle with---cut treatment?? or sack thousands of workers?? not nice for anyone to deal with but it's a fact that Gordon has spent all our money--ignoring the expenses row which is tiny in proportion to our overall debt now.

The general public, who are fed up with the usual 'Tax and Spend'.

I'm loving it too, MP.

You make an interesting point regarding regulation, which is probably the single biggest industry in the country. If we discuss productivity, cost and relevance, then surely these areas are the ones to attack with swingeing cuts.


An NHS that spends more and treats less - get rid of NICE
A financial system that has melted down - get rid of the FSA
Do we really need a local governments commission when we can vote the buggers out or see a no win no fee lawyer if its urgent?
Should we really fund diversity QANGO's?
What about an immigration office when we know our borders are as leaky as a leaky thing - get rid.
Overseas aid departments? Close 'em, give 50% of the cost to OXFAM and see more productivity.
660 MP's - sack them. A couple of hundred are enough. They only do what their leader says anyway.

We could go on and on and wipe out any budget defecit. But the only reason it will never happen is because turkeys never vote for christmas. But if we did, the savings in salarys, expensive pensions, buildings to the taxpayer, and ridiculous compliance costs to businesses would be more than Elton John spends on flowers. And if the civil servants were that good to be worth their huge salaries, they will make a killing in industry and improve our business with the rest of the world to boot.
How could anyone object?.............................

I don't think the problem is taxation, but the mispend of the tax income.

I think a lot of this is due to the overvaluation of ourselves and what we can obtain from contributing to society.

Without an organised "humane" society then the ultimate solution is to self destruct.

We may be entering that cycle.