Looking grim for Labour

[RedJ]

There is no point in me speaking to the lad anymore. The damage has been done and he's off to Canada.

It's not like you to be all defeatist. Come on Mick, you of all people should know the true power of your pearls of wisdom. Come on, tell him where he's gone wrong and I'm sure he'll forever be in your debt.

[IC1967]

Red J

I really don't  get Mick. He's so determined to turn every thread into a "answer my questions or I'll thcream and thcream and thcream until I'm thick (sic)" rant. And he never believes me anyway. So when I offer him a direct approach to get his answers, you'd think he'd jump at it. But he doesn't even acknowledge the offer.

How utterly bizarre.

Excuse me. I have acknowledged the offer and also explained that it is one of your diversionary evasive tactics to avoid answering my questions. Why can't you be a bit more like me and answer everything that is thrown at them?

   

Quote from: BillyStubbsTears on July 17, 2014, 01:08:57 PM

Come on then, dipshit. PM me your mobile number and I'll put you in touch with the lad so you can explain his mistakes directly to him.


Look. The lad's decided to go to Canada and no doubt his travel plans are well advanced. I don't want to throw a spanner in the works at the last minute. I would just ask you to mention to him that he has been educated at great expense to our country and Canada is going to get the benefit. Does he intend to reimburse us out of his Canadian wages?

If only he hadn't been as picky about what he was prepared to do in the UK. If only I'd got to him before you filling his head no doubt with doom and gloom about our great country's future.

[IC1967]

Mick.

If you'd bothered to read my original post, you'd have spotted that I "bumped into" the lad after having employed him some time ago. I haven't spoke to him since.

Anyway, he's leaving for Canada next week, but if you REALLY hurry and send than mobile number through, you can have a chat with him, explain to him carefully where he went wrong, and save him for the UK.

When you're ready.

Already answered. As always I answer everything that is thrown at me (unlike some others around here I could mention).

[IC1967]

Very poor effort indeed. Absolutely no effort to even number your answers to the question. Right, I'll do my best to wade through your last load of waffle and see if indeed you have answered any of the questions.

1. You seem to be saying he was unlucky. Not a good enough answer I'm afraid. In this life you make your own luck. Please feel free to have another go at providing a proper answer.

2. Answer accepted.

3. Not answered. I detect you are back tracking a bit on your initial contention that it was all the fault of the government cutbacks. An apology would be appreciated.

4. Not answered in the slightest.

5. Not answered in the slightest. I can only assume you didn't give him any advice. Shame on you.

6. Not answered in the slightest. I can only assume you couldn't care less about the great expense he has put the taxpayer to.

7. Not answered in the slightest. I can only assume it didn't cross your mind to ask the question as you couldn't care less (see previous response to question 6).

8. Not answered in the slightest. I can only assume that you did fill his head with a load of defeatist leftie claptrap that made him feel he would never get a job and has resulted in the poor lad emigrating when there was no need for this.

9. Not answered in the slightest. Your responses have again shown you to be the most evasive person on the forum.

Now, I am going to give you yet another chance to answer the outstanding questions. You don't deserve it, but I am nothing if not magnanimous. Please don't spurn this opportunity. Please stop asking me to ring the poor lad. You should have (not 'of') put him right when you had the chance. If you didn't  discuss the matter with him as in some of my questions then just say so. It's not hard.

Over to you.

Still waiting.

[coventryrover]

I work in Civils and  there just hasn't been the work for the young graduates.   Civils companies have filled their graduate posts with experienced enngineers who are desperate for a job that they are willing to take pay cut and go the the start of the ladder.


Alot of the UKs infrastructure needs renewing but Osbourne and Cameron have not had the foresight to get the economy rolling.

[IC1967]

I work in Civils and  there just hasn't been the work for the young graduates.   Civils companies have filled their graduate posts with experienced enngineers who are desperate for a job that they are willing to take pay cut and go the the start of the ladder.


Alot of the UKs infrastructure needs renewing but Osbourne and Cameron have not had the foresight to get the economy rolling.

So how do you explain the fact 2/3rds of graduates in 2012 got jobs? Things are much better now so it would be reasonable to assume that more than 2/3rds of graduates are now able to get a job.

[coventryrover]

I am talking about the civils industry.  Are you in this industry?


Alot of the UKs infrastructure needs renewing but Osbourne and Cameron have not had the foresight to get the economy rolling.
[/quote]

So how do you explain the fact 2/3rds of graduates in 2012 got jobs? Things are much better now so it would be reasonable to assume that more than 2/3rds of graduates are now able to get a job.
[/quote]

[hoolahoop]

Average wages AGAIN rising far lower than inflation. In the last 12 months, salaries rose by 0.7% which is the lowest figure since records began. AND, these figures do not include the salaries of the army of self-employed (which went up by nearly half a million people last year). It is pretty much certain that if you include the self-employed, the salry increase would be even lower.

What we have is a nation re-adjusting itself to tell people to go out and sell bits of Chinese-made plastic shit to each other. Just last week I bumped into a lad who my company employed for a summer while he was a student. Excellent lad. Bright as a button. Hard working. He got a 1st class Engineering Masters degree from a Russell Group University. We didn't have a vacancy when he graduated, otherwise I'd have taken him like a shot. He's spent the last two years doing bar work because there have been no opportunities for him in engineering. He's now bitten the bullet and decided to emigrate to Canada, where he's got a job as a graduate engineer.

We have made a catastrophic error of judgement these last few years and we will pay for it for decades in the loss of talent like this. But ni mind, eh? We can all get f***ing Bettaware rounds or spend our productive hours arbing. That'll soon sort the country out. None of this bullshit about designing computers or planes or cars or bridges. That's for other countries to do.

Then you should have shuffled the positions around Billy ; there is always going to be a future position commensurate with his abilities if not with you then with the myriad of contacts you have in business. Never let a good story get in the way of more  Labour peddling shite eh ?
You and I know that given the economic conditions and the soft underbelly of this Coalition party the Labour party should be some 6/7% points ahead in the polls at the very least.
I haven't even mentioned the rise of UKIP, the apparent demise of the Liberals and possibly the weakest PM in many years. It is ridiculous to defend the weak showing of the Labour Party without dismantling its policies and personnel to see just what is happening to what I've seen as the weakest opposition party in my lifetime.
Jeez if Scotland was taken out of the electoral equation..,....well the mind boggles.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hoola

We couldn't "shuffle positions around". We're a micro-SME with very fine margins and very specific job roles - often project-specific. In this lad's case, we had a big tender in at the time that he was working with us over a summer. Had we won that tender, we'd have required two new graduates. We didn't win it, so the places evaporated. We can't "magic-up" a graduate position without the work. Which makes us just like the rest of the industry. That is why there has been a huge blood-letting of talent in the civil/structural industry over the past 6-8 years, because there simply hasn't been the work there.

The usual dipshit on here keeps commenting on the fact that ONLY 36% of civil/structural engineering graduates didn't get a job in the UK industry in 2012 as if that makes the job market somehow easy-peasy if you just try hard enough. The mind f**king boggles. That's 36% of our brightest and best coming out of University, full of hope, ability and energy, ready to do their bit to add to the country's infrastructure, and being unable to find places in the UK industry that they had trained for.

As Coventry. I know of one world-leading structural engineering company who put their staff onto 3 day weeks in order to prevent them having to make redundancies, such was the contraction in the industry. We're no talking about a set of backstreet barrow boys here. We're talking of a company whose projects are internationally recognisable in capital cities all over the world.

Don't demean the discussion by calling this "party politicking". The collapse started under Labour and Labour bear a big part of the blame for the crash. But we were recovering by 2010 in the textbook way. And then the collapse was unnecessarily extended under the Coalition, when they made the catastrophic decision to slash public capital investment in infrastructure in 2010, because it was the easiest way to get the headline deficit figure down quickly (NB: Just like I predicted on Election night in 2010 - I told you then that the voodoo economics of Austerity would lead to a calamity and that is precisely what has happened, despite Gideon's attempt to re-write history. He has presided over the longest depression in 140 years. And it was all unnecessary).

Gideon's approach was not to worry about cutbacks that decimated an industry that was hanging on by its fingernails. there was never any economic logic to his approach. he had defined himself as a warrior against the deficit and so the deficit had to be tackled by reducing Govt spending. Nevermind that it was idiotic economics (at a time when our houses, roads, schools and broadband system desperately need investment, interest rates are all-but zero and half a million construction workers are looking for jobs,  it is economic idiocy to CUT infrastructure spending, but that's what Nick and Dave did.)

[hoolahoop]

Well I'm sorry that you lost that tender . Its a t**t if you lose someone with such skills especially abroad and perhaps for ever. The erosion of highly skilled graduates especially in the field of medicine has been a national disgrace for many years ; governments of every hue  have stood by and watched this happen This is not a racist comment but we train doctors and surgeons then allow them to seek employment elsewhere then we import the same types of highly trained professional from the Asian sub continent and eastern Europe who can hardly be understood by our citizens.
We do the same with Dentists , Structural Engineers etc etc.
I agree that this Government could / should have taken a different view on the direction n the way recovery could be achieved. Yes they have failed.

Now having agreed that there huge gaps in their fiscal policies . we now have to turn our attention to how that should be addressed (sorry the economy I mean , its late ).
One of our main weakness's at the moment is the lack of housing stock especially at  the lower end of the market. There should be greater incentives for those companies in the Construction Industry and the means for those at the lower end of the market to afford these properties .
Its time to kick start these industries into action. To help certain areas to regenerate without relying on the possible long term future benefits that HS2 might bring to the industrial Midlands and north.

Where is Labour in all of this  ? And why can't they destroy the Tories at the polls, at the pmq.s, in the street well just about everywhere ? Simply because they neither have credible policies of their own or if they have the ability to simply put them across to the general public.
The Labour party has had a whole Parliament to reinvent itself and has seemingly failed.

[IC1967]

Don't demean the discussion by calling this "party politicking". The collapse started under Labour and Labour bear a big part of the blame for the crash. But we were recovering by 2010 in the textbook way. And then the collapse was unnecessarily extended under the Coalition, when they made the catastrophic decision to slash public capital investment in infrastructure in 2010, because it was the easiest way to get the headline deficit figure down quickly (NB: Just like I predicted on Election night in 2010 - I told you then that the voodoo economics of Austerity would lead to a calamity and that is precisely what has happened, despite Gideon's attempt to re-write history. He has presided over the longest depression in 140 years. And it was all unnecessary).

Gideon's approach was not to worry about cutbacks that decimated an industry that was hanging on by its fingernails. there was never any economic logic to his approach. he had defined himself as a warrior against the deficit and so the deficit had to be tackled by reducing Govt spending. Nevermind that it was idiotic economics (at a time when our houses, roads, schools and broadband system desperately need investment, interest rates are all-but zero and half a million construction workers are looking for jobs,  it is economic idiocy to CUT infrastructure spending, but that's what Nick and Dave did.)

Hoola is right. You try and turn every discussion into a let's bash the coalition for all the problems in the economy and lets forget about the huge problems Labour left behind. At least you've admitted the cutback in infrastructure spending started under Labour (that makes a refreshing change to your blind loyalty to the party).

Now, lets examine the facts. You talk as if evil George and Dave cut back on infrastructure and this was economic madness. You forget to mention that had they not cut back we'd have had to continue borrowing like crazy even though Labour had well and truly maxed out the credit card already. You also conveniently (how surprising) fail to acknowledge that Labour if they had won, were going to do exactly the same thing.

I've found an interesting article that you should read. I'd take off those rose tinted specs if I were you so you can see a bit more clearly the reality of the situation as 2010 approached.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/dec/11/public-spending-cuts-to-come

Here's part of the article that 'cuts' to the chase and blows BST's one sided coalition bashing out of the water as it shows Labour were going to do exactly the same (something BST likes to keep quiet). He likes everyone to think that if only Labour had won the election there wouldn't have been any infrastructure spending cuts and everything in the garden would have been rosy. What a load of leftie nutjob drivel.

Here is a brief history of the near future; one that politicians in all three parties would rather you did not read. From 2011 there were deeper cuts in public spending than any Britain had experienced since the IMF gave Denis Healey a kneecapping in 1976. Hospitals and schools were spared the axe, as was Sure Start and foreign aid. But that simply meant other areas had to make even deeper cuts. Spending on public infrastructure was cut by nearly 20% every year for three years between 2011-12 and 2013-14. There were silver linings – the chaps at the Ministry of Defence no longer got to play with new aircraft carriers, those daffy NHS IT projects were switched off with no prospect of a reboot – but they were outnumbered by the clouds. All those attempts to improve Britain's creaky public infrastructure – the roads and electric-rail projects and new social housing – were mothballed. Higher education was squeezed hard, and so was environment. Indeed, all other areas of government spending faced cuts of nearly 6% a year for three years – a total of £36bn. There were mass reductions in public-service staff, and strikes galore. And by the end of the parliament in 2014, all of Labour's increased spending on public services from 2001 to 2010 was completely reversed.

That was the vision of the future given by the Institute for Fiscal Studies yesterday, based on an analysis of Alistair Darling's pre-budget report. No wonder that the chancellor on Radio 4 yesterday morning tried to duck the issue of the cuts to come.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hoola. Your getting the underlying economics and the practical politics mixed up mate.

The economics was always, and remains, very simple. There is a classic way of getting out of the catastrophe that we were in back in 2010 and it absolutely did not involve massive Govt spending cuts AT THAT TIME. The cuts would have had to come, but they should have come later. At the time, it was vital that Govt spending should have continued, as a safety net for the economy. In particular, the one and only thing you shouldn't cut (in fact you should expand it hugely) was infrastructure investment.

The economic logic behind what I have just said is pretty much unimpeachable. It is there in the first pages of any macro-economic textbook.

But the POLITICS was very different. Osborne is a brilliant politician, and he dominated the argument in 2009-10. He pushed a simple line that appeared to be straightforward common sense. He said that if we were badly in debt, we had to stop spending. That resonates with individuals. It's what individuals would do. It has no econic sense for Governments because if Govts stop spending when everyone else is stopping spending, you end up in a perma-slump. Which is precisely what happened. But never mind the illogical economics, Osborne won the political argument hands down.

Labour were (and still are) a shambles politically. Balls was the only one who really understood the economics and he wanted Labour to aggressively take on the Tories' "common sense" (sic) line. But he lost that argument inside the party. Darling insisted that Labour go some way to matching the Tories' Austerity plans.

The result has been politically disastrous for Labour. They've effectively handed the political win to Osborne. Big, big political mistake. But that doesn't change the economic logic. And at least there's one fair thing going to come out of the whole she-bang. The LDs totally reversed their economic policy in order to join the coalition. They suddenly became supporters of Austerity. Clegg said that he'd changed his mind in the last few days before the Election because...well because of Greece apparently. That how's that Clegg is either economically illiterate or a shameless liar because our situation was never anything remotely close to Greece's. Either way, he didn't think to tell the electorate that after they voted for him, he would support the opposite of what he'd said he would. If there's one good thing coming out of this nightmare, it's that Clegg and the LDs will be touted and humiliated in 2015.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hoola

The Labour party has had a whole Parliament to reinvent itself and has seemingly failed.

If I may, I think you're being just a bit harsh here. You need to factor in just how devastatingly bad was Labour's result in 2010. In terms of vote share, Labour did worse in 2010 as Major did in 1997 and nearly as bad as Michael Foot did in 1983.  In both of those cases, the loser wasn't at the races at the next GE and was out of power for nearly a generation.

In both those cases, the loser descended into internal fighting and was utterly irrelevant at the next election.

It's easy to overlook this (and since the media hate Miliband, they will give him no credit) but Labour has pulled itself round remarkably since 2010. To be going into the last lap ahead in pretty much every poll(*) and favourite to have the largest number of seats is a remarkable turn round.

(*) As with everything else he writes, you can ignore Mick's occasional posting on poll figures there is the odd poll that puts the Tories a point in front. That's just normal statistical sampling variation. In general, Labour is some way ahead.

There have been 26 polls this month the Tories were 1 point ahead in one poll. Labour has been 5,6 or 7 points ahead in 8 polls. On average, Labour's lead is 4-5%. Pretty much where it's been for the past 9 months.

[IC1967]

Labour were (and still are) a shambles politically.

I can't get my breath. Billy has finally seen the light. It's taken me a long time but I think I'm getting somewhere with him now. I only need him to also admit that Labour are also a shambles economically as well and my work will be done.

Ed Milliband has admitted as much himself recently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28381699

Here's the key part from the link:

Ed Miliband has said there will be no return to the tax and spend policies of past Labour governments.

The Labour leader told activists at the party's national policy forum that higher spending would not solve the UK's economic problems.

Milliband said Labour would offer a "binding commitment to balance the books".

"We will get the national debt falling as soon as possible in the next Parliament and we will deliver a surplus on the current budget," he said.

Mr Miliband said the solution to Britain's economic problems "cannot be our traditional answer of spending to fix the problem".

Unfortunately for Ed we've heard it all before. This time the electorate won't fall for it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Enjoy the discussion boys. Off on holiday today and won't be posting much over the next 4 weeks.

[IC1967]

4 weeks holiday!!! Anyone would think you worked in the public sector.

[Dagenham Rover]

4 weeks holiday!!! Anyone would think you worked in the public sector.

I get 4 weeks holiday and guess what I work in the private sector 

[River Don]

More bad news for Labour. Unemployment continuing its dramatic fall. We've never had as many jobs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28325361

More bad news for Labour's cost of living baloney. Wages growth outpacing inflation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27406084

Wages Rose at 1.7% compared with CPI inflation at 1.6% (what is RPI I wonder?). Anyway 0.1% is well within the range of statistical error.

Wages without bonuses, ie. Excluding high earners in finance and the corporate sector only grew at 1.3%.

It points to the great majority not feeling any better off yet.

Add to that the recent upward pressure on crude oil price thanks to crisis in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria/Iraq et al and we are nailed on for more economic contraction in six to twelve months time.

It will make for a very interesting election.

[IC1967]

I'm pretty sure this is just one of his holiday periods. He gets a lot more than 4 weeks hence the public sector reference.

[IC1967]

Unemployment continues its steep fall. Well done Dave and George. You've proved beyond doubt that you know what you're doing. Labour's predictions are looking more laughable as each month goes by.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28768552

[IC1967]

It's all over for Labour. The Tories have now caught them up. I fully expect them to steadily pull away in the coming months and to win the general election easily. Get in.

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3433/Labour-and-Conservatives-neck-and-neck-while-Boris-Johnson-has-biggest-impact-on-potential-Conservative-vote-share-over-other-possible-challengers.aspx

[River Don]

Wages are still falling.

It's a recovery of sorts but how many people are feeling the benefit?

[IC1967]

Wages are still falling because during Labour's time in office we were paying ourselves too much. There is still a way to go before we find our true level.

[BillyStubbsTears]

In the end, what we pay ourselves depends on how productive we are, per capita. If our productivity rises, we can pay ourselves higher wages. If it falls (or fails to increase with prices going up), we get poorer.

Think of it this way - increases in productivity means increases in living standards, because there's no way to get richer other than producing more for every hour you work.

So, have a look at productivity. Over the very long term, from 1960, till the Great Recession of 2008-14, we had a very stable growth in productivity. We had some recessions that caused momentary problems, but we came out of them. So, we all got richer over that period.



Some dipshits claim that Labour then wrecked the economy. They say that Labour fundamentally mis-managed the economy so badly, that we paid ourselves too much before the Great Recession, and it's only natural that we should be f***ed now. But productivity under Labour from 1997-2008 went on pretty much as before. The economy was doing what it has done for the whole of our lifetimes. If the economy was f**ked in the early 00s, it was only doing what it had been doing under Maggie in the 1980s.



So, why are we not getting richer now? What has happened to productivity since 2008?


Well, there was a collapse at the start of the Great Recession.  That's to be expected when you have an economic shock as big as the one we had in 2008. But by early 2010, our productivity was growing rapidly again. If it had continued like that, we'd be a f*** sight richer now than we are. But it didn't. Our productivity stalled. And we're now all working harder to be a bit poorer than we were before. And bell-ends who don;t think about it tell us that this is a natural state of affairs.

We've now had four years of flat or falling productivity. And THAT is why we are poorer now than we used to be. It is an unprecedented event. But it was entirely predictable when the people in charge chucked away the economic text books and started making policy on the hoof back in 2010. And then they tell us that they have succeeded because we now have 3 million more people in employment making no more than we did 6 years ago.

And some folk are so irredeemably stupid that they believe it.

[River Don]

Why is productivity low, not only here but in other western countries?

It can't all be George Osbourne can it?

I think it might be because on the margins high fuel prices have discouraged employers from investing in automation, where as low wages have encouraged some to continue employing people in less productive labour intensive work.

That chart shows government has been ineffectual with regards productivity. The underlying trend has remained constant no matter who has been in power. Neither red or blue have been able to improve it or ruin it until 2008. And now suddenly, something quite fundamental has changed, I don't believe it is the policies of the current Tory government.

[BillyStubbsTears]

RD
I agree that fuel costs relative to manpower costs are an important determinant of productivity.
But fuel prices didn't suddenly become such a dominant factor in 2008!

What has happened since 2008 is a dreadfully weak recovery across the Western world (Simon Wren Lewis suggests that in the UK this has been the weakest recovery from recession since the South Sea Bubble in the 18th century!)

Look at productivity for the UK, USA and Euro Zone. All three regions saw a collapse in productivity in 2008. All three saw a strong rebound in 2009 and early 2010 as Governments stimulated demand just like the textbooks say they should. All three then saw a collapse in productivity growth from early 2010.

What happened in early 2010? The Austerity mania took hold and all three regions saw their growth collapse. Voodoo economics with no theoretical or empirical foundation took hold. It was dressed up as "common sense" and it took people in, but it was a catastrophic mistake.

Simple application of Occam's Razor for me. We've unnecessarily extended a period of low growth and crucially, low wage growth. Firms don't want to invest in high cost, high productivity equipment because they are unsure about the future growth prospects. If they do expand, it's safer for them to do so by taking on low wage, expendable labour. But this is an appallingly bad long-term position for all of us for the future.

The architects of Austerity throughout the West have delayed the recovery and have set us on a trajectory for permanently depressed productivity and wealth. We'll pay for this for the rest of our lives. And they have the gall to call this "success". It is reminiscent of the Roman poet who excoriated his leaders' approach to dealing with their enemies by destroying their economies "They make a desert and call it 'peace'". Our leaders have permanently weakened our economies and call it "vindication".

[River Don]

I seem to remember fuel prices at the pump rising inexorably higher just before the crash. It was getting above £1.40 a litre of petrol.

Since then it's stabilised but at a high level. Crude has remain stubbornly above $100 a barrel, various economic commentators have been expecting it to drop to $80 at least but it doesn't.

There hasn't been one major oil find in the last three years that can produce oil at less than $80 a barrel.

Historically a barrel of oil has been around about the $30 mark, adjusted for inflation.

I suppose it could be bad economic policy everywhere at once but I still tend to think we're at the leading edge of an energy crisis.

[IC1967]

Look it's very simple. By the time Labour left office, every household in the country was paying around £2,000 per year just to pay the interest on the national debt. BST wanted us to carry on increasing the national debt  to 'spend' our way out of trouble. The problem with this solution is that this would then have increased the amount of interest each household had to pay on the national debt.

I don't know about you, but I am not happy paying that amount in interest every year. Just imagine if Labour had managed the economy properly and hadn't wildly overspent. That £2,000 per household every year would have added a lot of buying power to the economy and boosted productivity no end.

As one of the richest economies in the world we shouldn't be borrowing money just to allow politicians to try and buy our votes. We should be one of the economies that lends money.

As for throwing away the economic text books. BST fails (as he always does) to explain that this spending he is so fond of by governments should come from money that has been put away in the 'good times'. As we all know, Labour didn't put any money away in the 'good times'. So how on Earth could the Tories embark on a Keynesian text book spending splurge when the money wasn't there?

The situation they found themselves in required new thinking. Thankfully George was the right man in the right place at the right time. BST could do with reading up on Hayek. He makes Keynes look like a complete fool.

[IC1967]

That chart shows government has been ineffectual with regards productivity. The underlying trend has remained constant no matter who has been in power. Neither red or blue have been able to improve it or ruin it until 2008. And now suddenly, something quite fundamental has changed, I don't believe it is the policies of the current Tory government.

Wise words. People wildly overestimate the effect of government policies on the economy. At best they make very small differences to the long term trend.

I for one would rather have a lot more people in work with low productivity than millions more on the dole with high productivity. BST wants high productivity now. He would. He's alright as he is in work. What about those out of work? All I ask is that BST considers these poor unfortunate souls instead of only thinking about what's best for himself.

Given time, productivity will rise and we will have a win win situation, no unemployment and high productivity. BST seems to want high unemployment and high productivity. I know which I prefer.

[River Don]

How much greater is the National Debt now? How much has this government added to the debt pile? They still haven't managed to eliminate the defecit.

When push comes to shove they basically apply the same medicine.