On 18 Jun 2015 at 6:53pm Belladonna wrote:
Hi all - does anyone know if there is a coach organised from Lewes or Brighton for this Saturdays big March ??
On 18 Jun 2015 at 7:05pm Convenient wrote:
Due to cuts the coach has been cancelled !
On 18 Jun 2015 at 7:58pm Paul Newman wrote:
Keep going until you get to Greece, and see if you really fancy living in a clown economy...
Don't you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother, they're here.
On 18 Jun 2015 at 9:10pm Old Bloke wrote:
Saturday's big march?
The usual handful of crusties, soap dodgers and middle/upper class lefties waving their daft placards
Noisy over exposed minority
On 18 Jun 2015 at 10:19pm Judge Montal wrote:
Oh dear, the usual suspects with their dodgy replies. Old Bloke & Paul Newman really are made for each other.
On 18 Jun 2015 at 11:18pm Old Bloke wrote:
Sorry Judge Montal I didn't order a woefully unoriginal dickhead so you'd best try elsewhere
On 18 Jun 2015 at 11:41pm Judge Montal wrote:
Ho.. Ho.. Ho..
Old Bloke you must spend most of your time, if not all your time looking for threads that you can disrupt on this forum.. But no one actually cares for your small minded comments...
Your really a Sad Old Geezer. Sad but true..
On 19 Jun 2015 at 5:17am wrote:
Maybe all the Austerity lovers ought to hold their own march to show their commitment and support
Like that snivelling little twat Toby Young did a couple of years ago, with a nationwide call-up campaign that managed to get 40 people to turn up.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 7:45am Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
I wonder how many of the austerity fans are on a low income and dependent on over-stretched public services?
It's easy to be in favour of something that has little impact on your quality of life.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 8:08am Clifford wrote:
And it's not even as if austerity has worked:
'When the Conservatives came to power in 2010, the national debt was £900bn. It’s closer to £1.6trillion today…80% higher in five years.'
We all know that the real purpose of the government's policy is to end the concept of public provision.
Check it out here »
On 19 Jun 2015 at 8:35am Paul Newman wrote:
Thats the thing about building a structural deficit you get more total debt every year.The people now denying that the deficit has to be dealt with ( also that Dinosaurs existed ,the earth is round, planes can fly.. ) were the same people who cheered on Blair and Brown while they increased the state share of GDP from 37% to 50% and ran compounded deficits throughout what was quite obviously an over heated boom.
This has nothing to do with the delivery of services , it is about delivery of pensions and pay rises and that argument , in as much as it ever was one, is over.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 9:37am low income,nhs dependent wrote:
I am a low income family and very dependent on the nhs (without I would not be capable of working) and other services, in fact my job depends on it as my income is paid for by the social services department. if I wanted to attend such a march I would not be able to afford to attend.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 9:42am Judge Montal wrote:
PN you seem to be gracing us on the Lewes Forum every minute of the day with an inordinate amount of your Tory biased views & time.. This most deprive your website and your followers of your useless & disparaging gumph & rantings.. Is this Shock & Awe tactics or are you trying to win Hearts & Minds.. Or is it Bombardment kind of tactic..
On 19 Jun 2015 at 11:18am Auntie Aviator wrote:
The problem with shouting 'austerity' the whole time is that not many people outside the middle-class left know what it means, and I'm not sure even they know. Austerity in this country hasn't been anywhere near as bad as in much of the continent, but it has been overly focussed on certain areas: Local government spending, the military, housing, and so on. (Bizarre that a Conservative government has presided over such a massive fall in Britain's defence capability). The NHS, education and in particular the over-65s have been shielded.
Secondly, I'm against austerity but I'm not into the idea of just reverting to the pre crisis norm of somewhat wasteful spedning which appears to be the position of many people. I want the government to borrow to invest in skills, education, infrastucture and in particular housing. The housing benefit bill has soared in recent years, while spending on social housing has fallen - basically we've moved the subsidy for building homes to a subsidy for private landlords.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 11:19am Auntie Aviator wrote:
Here's that well-known soap-dodging leftie, Martin Wolf, in the FT.
Government spending did indeed grow too fast before the crisis. But the ratio of spending to GDP had been very low in 1999-2000. A period of faster growth in spending than GDP was justified. Again, the cyclically adjusted deficit should have been perhaps two percentage points of GDP smaller than it was. Yet if it had been, and if the ratio of net public debt to GDP had also been 10 per cent lower in 2008 than it was, the fiscal deficit and net public debt would still have soared. Since the government never found any difficulty in selling debt at very low interest rates, the difference in the debt service burden would have been negligible. Moreover, the pre-crisis ratio of debt to GDP was very low by historical standards.
So the view that the UK’s crisis was essentially due to Labour profligacy is false. This mistaken belief allows people to ignore the weaknesses of the private economy, which was more fragile than thought in those pre-crisis years. The more fundamental point is that this has been a disturbingly weak and unbalanced recovery, not a strong, healthy one. True, it has brought forth a welcome improvement in employment, but only because of a collapse in productivity growth.
My assessment of the records of both Labour and Tory-led governments is that neither party is competent. Neither showed healthy scepticism about financial services. Neither tackled the growing crisis in the supply of housing and consequent overdependence of the financial sector on lending secured against it. Under both parties, the economy has been too dependent for demand on household borrowing and spending. Not least, UK prosperity lags: in GDP per head (at purchasing power parity), the UK is behind not only the US, Germany and France, but also Singapore, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. If productivity growth fails to recover, this relative position must grow worse.
The time has surely come to shift the focus from the obsession with fiscal deficits and debt. These were neither the cause of the crisis nor the solution. Whatever one thinks of the fiscal policies of the coalition, a weak and unbalanced recovery from a huge recession is not a vindication. The UK faces really big economic challenges. It confronts equally huge questions about its place in the world and in Europe, as well as its own constitutional future. Neither main party offers convincing responses to these challenges.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 11:57am Country Boy wrote:
Labour Leadership debate was fascinating the other night. At least one candidate said they were seen as the 'something for nothing party' and needed to change to represent the 'can do's'. Interesting times ahead!
On 19 Jun 2015 at 12:16pm Paul Newman wrote:
CB- With the obvious exception of Corbyn they were all a lot more impressive than Ed Milliband . It reminded you just how bad he was.
Take Burnham, the Union candidate. He is committed to taking the NHS backwards whatever the cost to patients and Education backwards whatever the cost to children so as to keep the Unions happy . Somewhat left of Milliband overall and with clearly no intention of attracting middle England votes
I should detest him, and he is no good for anyone here, but actually he is likeable good humoured and persuasive chap who appears to have met ordinary people .One or two good ideas as well ..I quite like him
Cooper- Brownite stat spitting machine politician already anonymously briefing against Kendall….not likeable but with some heft a fearsome debater the continuity candidate .
Kendall is really interesting but although she is the only to grasp the extent to which labour are dead in England ( where they have to compete at least) but she is struggling to define a Labour position that is not laughable on the economy without simply admitting the Conservatives have it right .
She cannot do a Blair because that overated chancer was able to rely on loyalty built up by generations of principled Labour politicians . He could shift to the centre without loss; she cannot
Still she is the one to fea , no doubt about it
I`m voting for Corbyn but Burnham will do .
AA - I`ll sort out your nonsense later if I get time.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 12:25pm Old Bloke wrote:
@Auntie Aviator - can't believe I'm saying this but I agree with almost every word of that
On 19 Jun 2015 at 12:27pm Old Bloke wrote:
@Judge Montal - do you do all your large mouthed posturing from behind a keyboard
On a face to face I daresay you'd melt like an ice cream in the height of summer - except faster
On 19 Jun 2015 at 1:43pm Paul wrote:
I don't think most people even understand what "austerity" is - i think the protestors are just talking to themselves unless they make it clearer e.g. we are against cuts to benefits for disabled people or cuts to bus services - anti-austerity just sounds odd.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 3:37pm Clifford wrote:
Paul Newman wrote: '...the same people who cheered on Blair and Brown while they increased the state share of GDP from 37% to 50%...'
I suppose the fact that you have distort the truth means that you now you have a week case Paul. When Labour came in the %age was 40%. They reduced this in successive years to 35% and then gradually increased it to the same level as the previous Tory government (in the process improving the public infrastructure that the Tories had neglected). The rise to about 47% in 2009-10 was, as you very well know, because of the problems caused by the financial crisis and declining tax revenues. As you probably know, I am no Labour supporter, far from it, but a little honesty helps.
Check it out here »
On 19 Jun 2015 at 3:57pm Slightly Right of centre wrote:
@Paul - You've hit the nail on the head.
If you ask most people who turn up what they mean by "Anti Austerity" you'll either get a very wishy-washy nebulous answer that actually contains little hard detail (because few have really thought it through), or you'll find lots of detailled, but very different answers as to where the cuts should be stopped/relaxed etc.
As others have said in this thread - so far UK public have little experience of real austrity - look at the Greeks, unable to pay public sector workers, or pay Pensions etc - thats what REAL austerity looks like.
If previous labour governments had carried on "buying themselves back into power" via unsustainable levels of public sector and/or benefit spending, UK would be in a similar situation to Greece - living beyond one's means (whether personally or as a nation) can only ever end in financial grief and serious debt.
Yes the national debt has not shrunk under the Tories, but at least it hasnt grown as much as it would have had Labour got back into power in 2000 and continued to spend spend spend .....
UK is still not out of the woods, we need to build the economy on manufacturing productivity, not banking or service sectors, and we need to stop buying so much from abroad. But, unfortunately compliance with reams of EU legislation, and union pressure on wages, has driven up cost of production compared to off-shore producers, so who will pay more for home grown electronics when they are so cheap from Asia (etc)?
So, if the march organisers can tell us exactly what they mean by "Anti Austerity" and offer mathematically sound alternate solutions to the national debt problem then maybe they would have more credibility rather than being seen as the usual "rent-a-crowd" who turn up at any "anti authority" rally.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 4:14pm Paul Newman wrote:
Clifford , you have forgotten ( as incidentally has the Wolf ) that the first three years of New Labour rule were pegged to Major`s spending plans. This was a cast iron pledge the Labour Party felt it had to make after Major`s suprise victory.
So New Labour did not control spending levels for the first "good "period" to which you refer and were also the beneficiaries of the painful restructuring and union reform of Thatcher and Major Growth was doing well and it was real growth as well .
This was already well under way prior to Blair
The Brown project started in 2000 and 2000-10 the state ballooned from 37pc to 50pc –(a faster rise than any other country, over any other post-war decade )
Furthermore this was financed not be increase revenues but by deficits scraping the maximum allowed under EU rules of 3% . If you recall even this was not enough and PFIs were blatantly used to increase borrowing When Lehman Bros blew Britain’s national debt was already increased by 43 per cent to fund his expansion of the state.
I think where Martin Wolf has a point is that for people who get the basics the Labour splurge is really a short hand for the debauching of the economy on the supply side .The structural deficit is still there so we can see how big it is but the damage went way beyond that and we have been in too much danger to tackle the real underlying problems.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 5:53pm Woody wrote:
Martin Wolf may not know much about economics but he's bloody good at darts 
On 19 Jun 2015 at 8:03pm Sussex Jim wrote:
Belladonna, get a life.
How has "austerity" affected you? I thought not. Stay in Lewes and do some voluntary work if you really care.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 8:32pm Fred wrote:
Most politicians have never held powerful jobs so when in government they are out,of their depth and driven by dogma. Dogma does not and has very rarely improved the lot of the working masses.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 9:02pm Belladonna wrote:
Sussex Jim - my husband has lost his job because of government cuts. I was wondering if there was a coach because the train is so pricey. I don't have to justify myself to you anyway but you shouldn't assume because someone lives in Lewes they arnt affected by the austerity agenda of this and the coalition government.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 9:34pm Judge Montal wrote:
Old Bloke you really are a detestable sort of Old Slime aren't you..
I couldn't think of anything worst than a face to face with you, but if there should be forum meeting then I'd oblige you & then we'll see.
On 19 Jun 2015 at 9:44pm Old Slime wrote:
Who's An Irritating Old Turd?
On 19 Jun 2015 at 11:55pm Woody wrote:
Oh dear, more of the same.
I really don't think people would say such things face to face - sad when conversations are limited to keyboard 'banter' rather than over a beer.
Fred - I agree; most politicians have very little experience outside the Westminster bubble. And that grates with the majority I'd say.
On 20 Jun 2015 at 1:12am Mike Best wrote:
There was a 'pay what you can afford' train tickets going from Brighton. So Belladona & Low income NHS you could have gone, shame you didnt get to hear about it.
George is starting his £12B Welfare cuts, RBS to be sold at a £13B loss... that's it then, there's the money. Austerity is a hoax, a scam and a fraud. We didn't have a recession, we had a robbery.
Check it out here »
On 20 Jun 2015 at 7:33am Sideshow Bob wrote:
The march will just be a sideshow for the tourists in London. NOTHING will change . It's only the residual "power" of our lost Empire and the "Special Relationship" with USA that keeps us one bar above Greece. Oh, and a bit of oil under our sea that's nearly gone now.Waterloo and WW11 loose the war and win the peace
On 20 Jun 2015 at 8:36am Country Boy wrote:
Recently someone posted on here who was interested in helping with voluntary activity in Lewes - if only there were more 'can do' types like him / her !
On 20 Jun 2015 at 9:08am Mark wrote:
Quite so. A fraud and a robbery that Sociopath Paul Newman rather pathetically spends hours of each day endorsing. God only knows why. It puzzles me. I suppose the idea of it just appeals to him on some level.
On 20 Jun 2015 at 11:08am Old Bloke wrote:
@Judge Montal - why don't you call it on then
On 20 Jun 2015 at 11:22am Auntie Aviator wrote:
Margaret Thatcher ran a structural deficit for the entirety of her administration.
You don't hear the Conservatives banging on about that do you?
On 20 Jun 2015 at 11:27am Biggles Flies Undone wrote:
Well said Auntie
On 20 Jun 2015 at 2:37pm Belladonna wrote:
I'm sure Newman will have some justification for it. On which he will expound at length shortly.