donkey

Think yourself lucky you are allowed to complain about "minor abuses", where I lived the Police were like an occupying force, if anyone complained they disappeared.

 

You are very lucky appreciate it.

 

.

We aren't 'lucky'. We have rights because our forebears fought for them and paid for them in suffering and blood.

Get over it. Thank god you do not live in a country where you might get locked up for a year for nothing. I lived in one, believe me its heaven here.

So you aren't bothered about people suffering minor abuses at the hands of the police.

BUT... you are apparently bothered if someone complains about it.

Intersting viewpoint.

This thread reminds me of that old Aussie joke:

Q: How do you know when a plane load of Pommies have arrived?

A: You can still hear the whining after they switch the engines off.

Well said.

Then some of the morons on this forum wonder why some soldiers don't wear their uniform in public, any wonder with the vitriol they may receive just for serving their country.

If you were genuinely concerned for the welfare of soldiers, you would be more interested in stopping them being sent to these places. Doesn't have the same jingoistic, tabloid bum wipe type appeal as waving flags and going on about 'heroes' though, eh?

The real heroes who knowingly put their lives on the line to defeat despotism in WW2 would be revolted to see the cause they fought for being put on a par with today's - at best - contraversial military occupations, which have no popular support, no consensus and no democratic mandate.

Well who is going to protect us .If you have nothing to hide why should you be worried.I seem to always get pulled aside at airports I could not care less its for my own protection..They don't do it enough in my opinion.

Like I said things are only going to get worse.

You mentioned police state not me.but if that's what it takes.

Baaah, Baaaah.

The best way to help the 'heroes' would be by not sending them out to get killed and maimed fighting wars of extremely dubious moral justification in the first place.

A very large proportion of homeless people have mental health problems. Simple (minded) solutions such as billeting them with lefty liberal, do-gooder, terrorist appeasing tree huggers - or whatever offensive term is currently in vogue to describe anyone who doesn't concur with the psychotically venemous views of our disturbed right wing zealot friends - just aren't good enough to solve such a complex problem.

Judge Alan Goldsack QC, retiring is quoted in the star:

 

a frightening thing is the number of people I see who are the grandchildren of the people I have prosecuted and defended 40 years ago – because crime runs in families in the same way that being a doctor, teacher or lawyer does.

 

“We have to get in on the ground and remove young babies from the families that are going to produce the next generation of criminals, and that is why I did family law right up until the end because I think it is very important work.

 

 

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/crime/remove-children-from-criminal-families-says-sheffield-judge-1-5708134

 

whilst I can see his point I would doubt that it would work particularly well.....

If the judge had taken a minute consider the high proportion of people who have been brought up in care who also end up in the criminal justice system, he would never have made such a ridiculous suggestion.

Would it be cynical of me to point out that the names of the victims don't sound like native North Londoners?

Native north Londoners? Are they the ones with the bones through their noses? And what is it that distinguishes them from native south Londoners? Is it the designs of their facial tatoos? 'Oh, roll aaht the barrel...'

At least she only sold the silver. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair sold all the gold at a bargain price

True, and the point is they were following in her footsteps. Thatcher was the first person Blair went to see when he became PM. She in turn, thought he was a splendid fellow.

---------- Post added 09-04-2013 at 21:30 ----------

I didn't need to study history to know that every company I have worked for treats their employees well, I don't know anyone that says the company they work for treats them like crap. It’s more likely a myth perpetuated by union men to try and regain the power they lost.

 

And it was O levels in my day.

History is a myth perpetrated by union men? Don't really think there is much point trying to debate on that level. Which reminds me, time to feed the goldfish.

Not in my experience, every company I have worked for and the ones my son as worked for, treat their employee well, without any union involvement.

I take it you haven't studied history up to GCSE standard then?

While her and her policy makers were chucking millions on the dole,destroying manufacturing industries and selling off assets,the germans built thiers up with investment and modernisation,and are reaping those benefits now,as we still pay for the mistakes that lot made through higher gas and electric prices,and those parked on disability benefits that her government initiated.

It is good, at last, to see more and more people challenging the lies we've been interminably spoon fed for the last 30 years, concerning Thatcher's economic legacy.

McMillan was right when he said she was "selling the family silver"

Her 'good years' were financed by the sale of national assets, public housing and North Sea oil. As soon as those revenues ran out, we were back in recession.

Two thirds of her term as PM were marked by recession, falling living standards and political unrest. Yet she is remembered in the media for the short boom experienced across the developed world at that time - not just in Britain - and which mostly benefited a small minority anyway.

It wasn't an economic miracle. It was effective propaganda. The Tories hired the best advertisers and marketing firms in the country. They entered into unprecedented alliances with the like of Rupert Murdoch and paved the way for the tabloid excesses of the next three decades, in exchange for a steady stream of crude but effective propaganda. That legacy lives on. Cameron is an ex media PR man.

But the true legacy of the 're-structuring' and 'de-regulation' championed by Thatcher and Reagan is what we are experiencing now.

I'm sorry I thought this was a place for an intelligent discussion.

 

Clear that I am not going to find it here.

 

Seems to many of you that the violence last night is acceptable.

So you are saying you support mustard gas attacks on innocent civilians? I notice you haven't condemned it!

So that makes the violence last night acceptable?

 

---------- Post added 09-04-2013 at 20:30 ----------

 

 

A few?

 

Brixton, Liverpool, Glasgow, Northern Ireland.

 

Again you are defending this violence. As said before, the rest of the world is looking at us and making arrangements to send their money elsewhere.

So you are saying Hitler was right?

The alternative was that you continued to live in a country with uncompetitive industries run by trade unions as you continued in your decent to oblivion.

 

Power cuts, the Winter of Discontent, British Leyland, British Steel and British Rail were an advert to the world of what was no longer good about Britain.

 

Thatcher's policies reversed the trend and brought investment from the likes of Honda, Toyota, and Datsun. Without them you wouldn't have a motor industry any more.

 

You have lost a great leader and a great statesman.

Well done for once again trotting out the well worn mantra dreamed up by the new breed of marketing men and propagandists who reshaped the face of British politics at Conservative Party HQ 30 years ago. Joseph Gobbels would be proud that his lessons have been learned so well and carried forward into a brown new era of disgusting hypocrisy, lies and greed.

If you ever have any original thoughts on the matter, let us know.

Is it also disgusting to use that principle, not to honour a person's memory, but for the cheap political ends of suppressing any opposing negative view, and writing an overly rosy view of a person and their ideology in to the history books?

Spot on!

All the predictable tripe from the Thatcher lovers, up to and including them pretending they aren't Thatcher lovers at all by prefacing their hypocritical, politically motivated moralising with such tripe as..

"I'm no great fan of Thatcher myself but..."

The worshippers of selfishness and greed attempt to take the moral high ground? I don't know whether I to laugh or puke.

Ding Dong The Wicked Witch Is Dead!

There wouldn't be chemical weapons in Syria if it weren't for Russian government intervention. So whoever it was that fired them (it seems more likely to be the government, as they have all the stockpiles) the Russian interventionists are ultuimately responsible for providing the materials and know-how in the first place. Maybe RT should mention that in their reports - if they ever get a break in their hectic schedule of queuing up to kiss Putin's ass, that is.

Churches provide a social support network. Take this positive aspect and extend it to people who don't believe in gods, so that they may enjoy the benefits without having to endure the bit they don't want. Why not? Nobody has to go who doesn't want to!

............................

The failings of the NHS are massively exagerated, and have been for years, by a bunch of right wing zealots who can't wait to sell it off so they can get a piece of the action, while at the same time doing away with any last vestiges of a society with an ethos of doing things for each other without there neccessarily being a profit in it for the wealthy.

The fact that Murdoch's comics have led the chorus of professional moaners in their ceaseless dirge against the NHS should be enough to alert anyone who isn't either a complete thicky or blinded by their own dogmatic fervour, that there is an agenda behind all the negative press.

Any organisation the size of the NHS is - by the law of averages - going to be involved in some major blunders from time to time. However, an objective examination of the facts demonstrates that' compared to the fully privatised US health system, we get far better value for money, and the NHS also compares favourably (pound for pound) with the far better resourced health services in France and Germany.

Much of the data we are fed about the health service is cherry picked to present the worst possible picture.

All this is irrelevant, however, as to whether the Tories should privatise the NHS. The fact of the matter is, they didn't put any such proposal in their manifesto, because they know the vast majority of the public are utterly opposed to any such move. Therefore they have no mandate - and no right - to do it. I don't suppose that will stop them trying though. And yes, Labour are just as bad. None of the three main parties are in any way representative of ordinary people any more. They all represent broadly the same interests, and all the rest is just window dressing to give people the illusion they are exercising some fundamental choice every four or five years. Hilarious!

I wouldn't narrow down your options. Keep an open mind about going for any make (except ones that get uniformly slated in internet reviews) and you are more likely to get value for your money. That said, transits and LDVs with transit engines are usually the cheapest and I've always found them reliable. If you will be doing a lot of mileage, most mercs are meant to be very fuel efficient, but they are expensive and so are their parts.

This did happen in 1985 after deregulation and it was chaos with buses using cardboard signs taped in the window as a destination board,dirty buses polluting,no timetables,and a logjam in the High Street.

Those problems stem from poor regulation. If you let your operrators use polluting busses with cardboard signs in the window, they will. Obviously strict regulations and independent managagement of the system would be required.

Turkey are poor systems to advocate,unless you want rickshaws and dolmus traval.

Are you suggesting that if we adopt a similar system of public bus regulation as in India, we will have to have rickshaws as well? Will we also have to revere cattle?

It is the norm for public services to be chaotic and unreliable in poverty stricken countries due to the high levels of corruption and comparitively poor educational standards. I found bus services in both India and Turkey to be extremely good in comparison to most other services. This can only reflect well on their system of reguilation.

A taxi is not a bus and the outlay for a taxi is completely different to a fleet of buses.

You seem to be mis-interpreting what I am suggesting. I am not advocating large companies running fleets of busses. I am advocating lots of individuals or small companies running single busses or small fleets of busses.

You can argue this reason and that reason why it would not work, but I've seen it working with my own eyes, in Belfast, India and Turkey, anmd no doubt a lot of other places I haven't been to. This system, in my experience, provides more frequent services, with more small busses and mini-busses in operation.

your point falls apart at the first hurdle donkey. saying that anyone should be able to run the buses on short term contracts would mean only those with the investment in buses etc could tender and would end up with the exact same situation we have today.

Nope!

If operator's licenses were oversubscribed to, candidates would be picked through a lottery.

companies need long term contracts to invest and then make the money.

 

Nonsense! Many - if not most - transport companies continue to exist and adapt to changing circumstance without long term contracts. If you ring up for a taxi, you expect to be able to get one. Right? They are able to forcaste the likely contiuance of demand in their business without the benefit of a long term contract. I lived in Belfast in the 1980s. Busses were very infrequent in certain areas because of the risk of hijack. Transport services were provided by black taxis operating on set routes. You could flag them down anywhere on the route. They were cheaper and more frequent by far than any bus service I've seen anywhere else in the UK or Ireland. They were not subsidised.

How would you for example be able to tender if you had no way of providing the service?

 

You wouldn't. Obviously.

Some routes such as the 52 has both First and Stagecoach, and its widely appreciated as the best route in Sheffield.

If it were a truly competitive system, licenses to run routes would be on offer to anyone who could demonstate they had a suitable vehicle(s) and the right licenses and insurance etc. Under such a system operators could run any route they liked on short term contracts. If they weren't making enough money because too many drivers were working that route, they could switch routes at the end of the contract. The routes that nobody wanted to run could be subsidised with money raised by a levy on the sale of tickets from more profitable routes. This levy and/or the sale of licenses could also be used to maintain stops and stations.

True competition should be open to as many people as practical, with no scope for favouring any candidate who meets the requirements over any other. If operator's licenses were oversubscribed to, candidates would be picked through a lottery. Those who failed to meet the terms of their contract would be penalised or disbarred. This definitely does not happen at the moment. And subsequently, all the transport companies are guilty of repeated breeches of the terms of their tenders.

The system we have at the moment is open to massive influence through cronyism, because in reality only those with sufficient wealth and influence stand any chance of successfully winning a bid for a contract.

Privatisation isn't nearly as competitive as its politcal exponents would like us to think it is.