On 2 Feb 2015 at 8:11am Fairmeadow wrote:
I don't think I'm the only contributor to this forum who has been finding it pretty difficult to identify anyone I want to vote for in May. However, if Labour does go into the election promising to cut the outrageous tuition fees currently plunging so many young people into life-long debt, that would resolve my problem.
It would also help that the slimeball who converted Boots the Chemist from a British to a Swiss company, and has himself taken up tax-residence in Monaco to enable him to pay himself a vast tax-free annual salary from the UK tax his company thus evades, thinks Labour would be a disaster for him. The coalition has had 5-years to solve the problem of such mega-rich tax-dodgers and has done absolutely nothing.
I think I may be glimpsing a possible way forward!
On 2 Feb 2015 at 10:18am Celine wrote:
I have to say I nearly fell off my chair laughing hearing about the Boot's guy! But it just illustrates what a bunch of greedy narcissists these type of people are and I'm afraid that they are never going to 'get it'.
On 2 Feb 2015 at 11:00am Old Bloke wrote:
"outrageous tuition fees currently plunging so many young people into life-long debt."
Bit of a hysterical over statement.
On the other hand I don't think there should be any tuition fees at all but then I don't think there should be so many universities or so much emphasis on university education.
On 2 Feb 2015 at 11:45am SOT wrote:
"Since the advent of tution fees applications from disadvantaged pupils have increased to an all time high. ….There is no evidence that a reduction in the headline tuition fee figure would lead to an increase in application from the poorest pupils)..…..Cutting fees to £6,000 a year would do nothing for the lowest earning graduates. Their loans would be written off before they paid back the full amount anyway. Under the existing system only the highest earning 55 per cent of graduates are expected to have to repay the full £9,000 a year fees. It is they who would benefit most from a tuition fee cut. …Labour's proposal would reduce the amount that bankers and lawyers have to pay back on their degrees, and so reduce the tax burden of the richest in society.. …..Labour’s apparent new policy amounts to an income transfer from the state to the wealthiest graduates…….…….these tuition fee changes would actually increase inequality."
From the New Statesman -
(I have nowt to add to that .)
On 2 Feb 2015 at 11:56am Merlin Milner wrote:
Boots is now a US company. See link.
Bit rich from Labour who introduced tuition fees originally and under Blair sucked up to big business etc. I hope that they have changed.
Check it out here »
On 2 Feb 2015 at 12:22pm thinker wrote:
Discuss: 'the successors of Reagan and Thatcher remain confected politicians; Blair, Cameron, Obama... share an authoritarianism that places capital above the needs of citizens and uphold a corporate power rubber -stamped by elected parliaments. These new politicians of Europe and America mark a break with virtually every form of traditional politics. The new technology has made ruling by clique or committee much easier.
They exist in exclusive bunkers accessable only to bankers and businessmen, servile media monkeys,their own advisors and various sycophants. Their contact with real people outside elections is minimal. Their public face is largely mediated through the lens of media propaganda
and spin doctors They refuse to step down and speak to the peoples whose worlds they have destroyed.
Since political differences are minimal, power becomes an end in itself and a means to acquiring money and well paid consultancies after leaving office; the symbiosis between power and money has reached unbelievable extremes with cowed and docile politicians milking the system and reproducing themselves.'
On 2 Feb 2015 at 12:22pm Mavis wrote:
Other Chemists are available.
On 2 Feb 2015 at 2:43pm Left at the lights wrote:
Brilliant Mavis, yes, yes that's the point of this thread isn't it? There are "other chemists". All take note.
On 2 Feb 2015 at 3:33pm Clifford wrote:
Yes Mavis. Boots in Lewes is terrible, though I blame management rather than staff. St Annes Pharmacy is, I think, the best: the people there seem to know what they're doing and enjoy it.
On 2 Feb 2015 at 5:45pm Belladonna wrote:
I find Boots pharmacy very helpful, as were St Anne's but Boots allowed me to not pay for a prescription when I went in there with my exemption card, but St Anne's did not, even though the regular medicine I take is for a a condition that entitles one to free prescriptions !!!
On 2 Feb 2015 at 6:03pm Voter wrote:
When someone orders me to 'Discuss' ....I won't.
On 2 Feb 2015 at 6:06pm Clifford wrote:
I think we need to talk about that, Voter.
On 2 Feb 2015 at 9:07pm Historian wrote:
I'm over 60 and I resent being policed by a shop assistant, who is obviously under 30 and works behind a chemist counter and asks me, when requesting a packet of ibuprofen, "have you taken these before ?" Duh! I'm old enough to have purchased carrier bags full of them in one bloody go ! Don't be so condescending. Think before you spout out inappropriate drivel. Rant over. By the way I went to all the chemists in town it was really inconvenient.
On 2 Feb 2015 at 9:18pm Mark wrote:
It's their job, Mr Historian. It's a question that they're trained to ask routinely. I'm a nurse and I ask that question robotically every day - not that I'm a defender of our new-age Boots and its poisonous leader.
On 3 Feb 2015 at 5:20am Sussex Dim wrote:
Why does everybody pick on the rich? I for one am happy and glad to be paying more tax so people like him don't have to, we should give him much more respect, it's forward thinking business leaders that have lead to the massive increase in wealth lower class workers have enjoyed in recent years, my wages have gone up at least half a percent since 1986.
I think there should be a threshold of income that, when exceeded, allows a person free rein to commit criminal acts without consequence.
Anyone who argues with that is just a silly communist who should be put to death.
On 3 Feb 2015 at 1:44pm Toc H lamp wrote:
You're not as dim as me, Sussex. Vote UKIP and do the Latihan
On 3 Feb 2015 at 5:17pm Clifford wrote:
Completely right Sussex Dim. I'm glad to see someone in Lewes prepared to remain committed to the old standards. What we have to recognise is that the rich are better, taller, more moral, more intelligent, more handsome, than the other 99% of us. They've all worked 'damned hard' and in some cases 'bloody hard' to get their hands on the wealth we mere peasants produce. Let's hear no more of the 'politics of envy' and 'class war' that denies this.
On 4 Feb 2015 at 1:20pm Sword of Tosh wrote:
Calculate the gross national product from I945 to !973 minus the length of my friend Rodger`s todger and you will find that this proves conclusively that the Labour party are unfit to rule and that the poor should be grateful that we don`t chop them up up for dog food . Thinking about Margaret Thatcher makes me hard.
On 4 Feb 2015 at 3:13pm Shield of Dosh wrote:
You lot keep wingeing - we keep raking it in . Well said SOT.
On 8 Feb 2015 at 2:29am wrote:
*sigh*
Do you mean 'whinging'?