Not around here you cant, the local gamekeeper has lost his job due to the virus, you cant go on public transport as we havnt had buses for 15 yrs. You are making it left vs right dont start the town and country thing as well.
Government money is taxpayers money, we should not forget that. As this thread has turned into a sob story of 'how poor I was as a kid in South Wales', and given I have one of them too, 'I was a poor kid from a 1 parent family in inner city Birmingham', so I'm going to call it a night as I don't want to do a rerun of the 4 Yorkshire men!
A sob story? Shown your true colours now. If you'd practiced what you preach, you'd have read that I referred to my peers, no sob story about myself. I'm thankful that my parents encouraged us to make the most of opportunities, but I have the humility to understand that some of my school friends had family that couldn't or wouldn't do so. They just didn't know any different. Goodnight.
I'm not, but allowing hunting and selected field sports exemption from restrictions is a governmental own goal. We still have buses here in semi rural Bucks. but it cost £7 for a 6 mile round trip but the local Tory MP and Tory controlled council don't care a flying duck about it.
Ok - imagine you are a Tory MP, from a deprived area (they do have them) and you are told to vote against what was a Labour Bill. If there was a scheme to provide for this surely you'd want to be told what it was to save the pillorying you are about to get, surely any of the grandee's interviewed over the last week would have been able to name it, point to the funding or even pipeline spend and show it it? Even if it was something they wanted Rishi to ride in on his charger with, they'd hint at that? Even the real gobsh*te's like Ben Bradley would eventually squirm his was off the hook again by naming it. Why haven't any of them been able to name it? Why did 5 Tory MP's rebel and vote for the Labour Bill - why would they do that if this was handled elsewhere handing a real own goal to Labour? Why would Wales and Scotland have to put in place their own schemes if there is a scheme in place. Because there isn't any such scheme. Bet you this will be announced hidden in something bigger in the next week or so, and in the meantime there is furious activity to re-invent history. Agreed, however I've not heard or seen anything that point to this funding being released to local government - and this is in England, only England. The thing over there that has waddled in and is quacking..... Good question - I don't have the answer precisely for England I'm afraid. I am unsure how you would get equity on spending per capita as not all income to government is equal e.g. council tax is per local authority. Income Tax and National Insurance is as you say equally applied - so people pay in with equity on that. I notice large capital spend from central government on big projccts such as Crossrail, The Olympics, HS2 is predominantly south - but Tory governments will always place more money in areas in which they have MP's or marginal seats* - I am unsure if Labour don't do this to be fair, I have my doubts. The Government tech incubator spend on things like Shoreditch and the Magic Roundabout, the Google Hub in Kings cross seem very rarely to go north of Cambridge - as does central government itself, all firmly planted down South. Well - devolved Government and the Barnett formula is a bit of a farce as its not applied across the board, some things are devolved, some aren't. Scotland and Wales have no way of influencing the tax levied on their citizens, neither do they have a way of raising borrowing - all that is held by Westminster - yet we have a 'debt' allocated to us in Wales. Let me give you a topical example of why this is utter bulls**t. Wales taxpayers contributed £6Billion pounds to HS2, something that will actually harm the Welsh economy (it's not great news for the East of England, or South West either). We also contributed to HS1 and Crossrail somehow, whilst receiving a handsome £150 million to spend on our entire countries infrastructure. That's the same infrastructure on to which this government will force commuters as they make driving harder each year. So we are literally paying for things that benefit the South East of England most and will do short and long term harm to Wales. But lets not go too far off topic. The graphs is the Trussels Trust - they operate around 60% of all Foodbanks in the UK. I assume they don't open them in areas of no or little need, and have more in areas where need is greater. I count that as good accurate data - I don't need to analyse it personally - what analysis would you require to draw what conclusions? It strikes me as a very handshake agreement between the need and the provider, unless the good people of Surrey for example need to drop in from some out of sell by date pineapple slices on their way home from Waitrose. No issue with any of that. That vote, and the ongoing willful spending to Tory owned or part owned private companies on things we don't need (please spend some time reading these guys for example https://goodlawproject.org/) is what is driving people to the edge. Check out the likes of Ben Bradley, Alan Cairns or Gary Sambrook on Twitter - they are despicable human beings lining their and their mates pockets whilst we are being lied to. As stated before, I don't believe all Tory voters are behind this lot at all - which is why they won't be around at the next election. My concern is the damage they do right now. The good news for you is that pretty much none of them only make that. Check out https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-costs/interactive-map/ and see what your MP claims in expenses for example. Marvel at how many of them claim £160k + a year to employ their own spouses or kids to lick stamps for example. Or do check out https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/contents1921.htm and see what each makes in declared interests. Ben Bradley for example, the one that claimed on Twitter that Free School Meals tickets were being used in crack houses and brothels just last week, god love him, only made an additional £58,000 in donations and other jobs last year, including £1900 of free tickets to the Brit Awards. If you want a real shock, check out the House of Lords daily allowance for pensioners to fall asleep all day https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords.../house-of-lords/holallowances/hol-expenses04/ No - I hate Blair and his cohort too. Very few of our political class have any level of morality - but then look how self serving and corrupt the system is. We all lose. As do our kids and their kids too. The reason this is hard for many Blue voters is the seismic events caused by a fracture in the Tory party over Europe. They pushed for a referendum, and got one. Do I believe they thought they would lose - no, not at all. I don't believe the leave faction actually thought they would pull it off at all either - hence no actual plans, hence the struggle over the last 4 years to position us. Covid 19, as stated elsewhere would have been hard for any past government, but not the willful free for all with public money it has become now. We all lose, some of us just don't realise by how much yet.
No child should go hungry over the Christmas holidays says man whose party whips ensured a vote that would have guaranteed funding that prevented children from going hungry the Christmas holidays was blocked. Or Leader of a party that actively blocked funding of free school meals across holidays congratulates a footballer for highlighting that his party has blocked free school meals across the holidays. For poor children. For the second time. During a pandemic. He is the very definition of a simpleton. By far the worst leader in living memory.
@Moons, thanks for taking the time to respond in detail to the queries I had in my response to you over the distribution of food banks in the UK. I have no alternative sources to challenge the info from Trussel but I did look at the data on the ONS website for childhood malnutrition and could not find anything, that's not to say it doesn't happen, just that the ONS don't currently collect data on it. I would anticipate they would be collecting stats it if it was occurring in high enough numbers, but that's just my assumption. As you rightly point out, the raising of local taxation will differ from one area to another but the distribution of central gov't funds (in England) to local gov't will (or should) be a constant. I don't believe that Cumbria gets more or less than Cornwall per capita but happy to proven wrong if you have the evidence. In regards to free school meals, clearly you and I disagree about this issue and I don't think either of us will convince the other that doing or not doing this is the right thing to do. I suspect that the Gov't is fearful that once it starts doing this it will never stop - temporary spending has a habit of becoming permanent. I did read recently that the Chancellor had increased Universal Credit payments to compensate for this - I believe that the principle is to give the money directly to those that need it rather than potentially stigmatising the kids by forcing them to use vouchers (I can recall that the kids who had to stand in line for school dinners with their vouchers were given a pretty rough time by everyone). By how much I have no idea, but I can understand the approach that all monies should go through UC rather than a myriad of different allowances. I accept it doesn't always work as intended but I think the approach has merit. I would not be in the Gov'ts shoes at this time, to have to deal with the conflicting advice from the scientific community on COVID and at the same time try to minimise the impact on the economy, deal with the devolved countries doing something different just because that can or want to say they are different to England and at the same time try to negotiate with EU would be a difficult ask of any one individual and/or political party. Add to that a famous and well liked footballer standing up and saying what he has said, if they capitulate they are weak and if they resist they are heartless - damned if they do, and equally damned if they don't. I had a look at some of the links you sent. I have to be honest and state that I take anything that Jolyon Maugham QC is involved in with a huge pinch of salt - I feel that everything he does is to try and re-run the Brexit vote to get the answer that him and the North Islington believe that they are entitled to - which is Remain. I personally disagree with that position and having lived in a number of countries around the world that are not tied to a politicised federation project masquerading as a 'free trade area' I believe that ultimately we will be better off being able to decide our own political and economic future. In regards to 'snouts in the trough', from the random selection of MP's I looked at (red, blue & yellow) they all appear to be at it in one form or another. Everyone I looked at was claiming the maximum or near maximum for staffing. I did think that IPSA had banned the use of wives and direct family from being used as office staff, but I'm not 100% sure on that. I always wondered how Peter Mandelson got to own a £4M+ house in a posh suburb in London, this explains how you service a mortgage debt of that level - I am sure there are equally egregious cases on the Tory?Lib Dem/SNP/etal sides, and I accept that in advance of any response you may send me. As you infer in your response to being 'blue or red' I would hope that you would agree with me to 'a plague on all their houses'! Maybe after we emerge from the lunacy of repeated lockdowns there may be a chance to find a better way of doing politics, but as long as it is FPTP I doubt we as a country will have the courage to do it. That said, and taking into account all of the threads above, I can still say that I believe we are lucky to live in the UK. It may not be perfect, and I accept that is the case, but trust me, it is a whole lot better than a lot of places on this planet. On that note, I am going to end my participation in this thread, thanks again for engaging in a conversation and not a shouting match. Best wishes, MBS
My god, this is turning into a fantastic political slanging match. Some of the posts are so long I can't be arsed to read them! It must be remembered that coronavirus was not in the government's election manifesto, they neither wanted it nor caused it. Don't forget how much money they have ploughed into the general economy to try and keep it alive and in doing so, provide much needed unearned income to families which will help them provide meals for their kids. I suppose the cost of providing more funds for free schools meals is peanuts in comparison but I think it should be delivered in food vouchers rather than currency which can be exchanged for booze, fags, video games and the latest smartphone.
Personally I often think ‘ if I was a politician in this day and age with computers and information storage I would make damn sure I didn’t lie, make rash statements, or treat the ‘poor’ badly ( that’s all of us on here even if we don’t realise it ) because it will come back to bite them at some point.
" Not around here you can't" Message to self, put your glasses on Bazza before you read the morning posts
But it doesn’t,that’s the problem. We’ve done some work for Natalie Bennet ex Green Party leader. She said the thing with politicians now is there is little integrity. I’m the past a politician caught out telling lies would resign. Now they deny it was a lie. For example Boris being asked about the £350 million for the NHS that he was still denying saying even whilst the interviewer was showing the proof! Cue Dominics blatant lie about trip to Durham. What came of it? Nothing. The party are more likely to congratulate him than sack him. The general public have accepted it as a massive lie and just carried on
Perhaps if you bothered to read you'd see how wrong you are and wouldn't pollute a polite thread with your Daily Mail inspired hatred nonsense.
This government know they won't get in next time so in the way of governments for the last 4 or 5 decades at least they will be determined to spend all the money and saddle the incoming government with outgoings that limit it's scope to "borrowing more" so they can be slagged for that at the following election. Meanwhile this government with no future and SO MANY excuses (virus, brexit) are making hay from the public purse like there is no tomorrow...which for them there isn't in the medium term. @Merlin Cat You state that people accept the lies and carry on. I believe they carry on but do not accept the lies. Perhaps you could suggest what it is they/we can do about the likes of Domonic Cummings.
Not sure @zedders I suppose if I knew the answers I could do them. Try to change peoples minds who think it’s acceptable, vote them out, write to local MP to register a complaint? what would you do?
