On 21 Sep 2016 at 6:06pm The Old Mayor wrote:
It's official, in this area we have the worst water company in Southern Water, our hospitals are in special measures, Southern Rail is abysmal, highest house prices, leading to high council taxes, the roads are so worn-out, they have to repaint the white markings !! Is it a bubble about to burst ? So just how awful is it outside of our little bubble !!
On 21 Sep 2016 at 8:10pm Earl of Lewes wrote:
You're right, it feels as if the infrastructure is crumbling. We keep being held up by random roadworks - far more than there used to be - there are more potholes than ever, my mum's friends are being turned away from hospital and the rail system is in chaos. It's been growing since the crash in 2008. I hope they scrap HS2 and just focus on keeping the basics going.
On 21 Sep 2016 at 8:58pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
... and still people keep voting for privatising, public-spending cutting Tories!
On 21 Sep 2016 at 9:10pm Historian wrote:
On Annette you've such a bad memory !! The nationalised industries all made terrific losses under governments control, including the socialists !!
On 21 Sep 2016 at 10:24pm Taff wrote:
Don't disregard the cost of our local politicians.
On 22 Sep 2016 at 8:40am fairminded wrote:
Absolutely agree, A.C.T. The rich retreat into their own comfortable arrangements - private aircraft and 'privatised' public space come to mind. Frankly Historian, your memory seems more faulty than mine. And in any case the nationalised industries were not set up just for naked profit. They were intended to provide a service to the people owning
them - namely us and to provide secure dignified employment for their workers - namely us.
Now this is where our money that should have funded your mum's friends needed hospital visits goes nowadays: Amber Rudd defended David Cameron after he admitted he had held shares in his father's offshore Blairmore fund run from the
Bahamas and incorporated in Panama (Panama Papers/Guardian) Although technically legal the unorthodox structure resulted in the fund paying no tax in UK for thirty years! (Guardian) Today 'the strange business dealings of Amber Rudd' (Guardian) are front page news in that paper. A new cache of information has been leaked from 1.3 million files belonging to the company register of the Bahamas, a notorious tax haven. The data names Rudd as having been 'a director of two companies in the Bahamas' She was also a co
director of Monticello -a company at the centre of a share ramping investigation where her co-director was jailed for fraud. There is no suggestion she was involved in any wrong doing personally.
The reason for using this material printed in the Guardian
and the International consortium of Investigative Journalists is to show how close our present government is to a financial
world that is rapidly consolidating the horrifyingly wide inequalities in our increasingly privatised world
On 22 Sep 2016 at 9:33am Towney wrote:
It's not just the infrastructure that's a problem, add to that the cutbacks of all our services......police, fire, nhs, immigration at sea and airports, our councils, roads etc etc. We are at breaking point in this country.
On 22 Sep 2016 at 10:48am trooper wrote:
Please do not forget the tens of millions of pounds spent on "Overseas Aid" to countries that hate us and much of the money is stolen by corrupt officials, due to the fact that our government exercises virtually no control.
It was described to me as soft power for the UK, there are other very basic descriptions.
On 22 Sep 2016 at 11:11am Dexter wrote:
Historian, your poor memory appears to be even shorter, you should really get a new name and stop pretending to be something you are not. Even you surely can't justify the current situation were private companies such as Southern are paid a handsome profit, even when they are such abject failures.
As for 'history' you don't have to look back too far to know why the railways were privatised in the first place. They were on the point of collapse after WW2. Blame the Socialist/Lefties/Guardian readers all you like. it is a historical fact.
As for the Water companies, that was more complicated but mainly provisioned by merged local authorities & incorporated local companies. Sadly what was paid for by our ancestors was sold on the cheap and we now see mostly foreign owners syphoning off the profits into tax havens.
This disconnection of assets and the removal of profits abroad is one of the reasons this country is utterly shot.
And for Health and Education... well that's just heartbreaking.
Age of Austerity.... Right Ho!
On 22 Sep 2016 at 10:14pm Water pipes wrote:
Did you know, we have the highest amount of oestrogen levels in our water supply in the country. I should have stayed in London, property prices are cheaper up there!