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6 minutes ago, MikeO said:

Tories tweet completely misleading video of Kier Starmer seeming to be stumped when in fact he answered immediately...bare faced lies yet again.

 

I don’t think anyone but a Tory would be surprised by how disgusting they are as a party. 

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On 02/11/2019 at 17:39, MikeO said:

Thoughtful response that I found quite interesting until the punchline.

🤣

On 02/11/2019 at 18:47, pete0 said:

 

Its not brought through your post for some reason.

Firstly we werent talking about GDP so I don't know why this is relevant.

Seeing as you like comparing our trains to the Germans, you might want to read this:

https://www.citymetric.com/transport/are-german-trains-really-better-british-ones-rail-nationalisation-deutsche-bahn-3972

All isn't quite as it is portrayed. It would also be interesting to know what Corbyn plans to do about nationalising the rail and owning the railway operator as this goes against EU Law.

From an employers perspective they are attempting to modernise their employment contracts. Retail has changed significantly and if thats the line of work you want to get into then I am afraid working weekends or bank holidays is a part of that in modern day Britain. If people want shops open on Sunday's and Bank Holidays then they its something to be expected. I am actually amazed that Sainsburys paid for breaks as you will find most private companies dont! Furthermore a bonus is exactly that, a bonus, it isnt an expectation. Once more they are lucky to get a bonus because most people dont.

Flexibility is important to a lot of people, and no I dont read papers, I have encountered a lot of people who enjoy working the retail hours or making the most of zero hours contracts. I think retail working is hard and its not my cup of tea at all, but that is each to their own. People in this country have a choice. They aren't forced to work at a particular place.

In respect of that article, I personally couldn't believe the Judgment in the Deliveroo case. It's madness to me, these individuals have the benefits of being self employed whilst also enjoying the perks of being employed too. I disagree that employees cannot stand up to employers on health and safety concerns. We have the Health and Safety Executive for that very reason. If employers don't take into account the concern of their employees, the employee can go elsewhere. If something happens and an injury occurs, the employer will put themselves at a significant risk should a Civil claim be made or should the employee need to go to a tribunal.

6 hours ago, MikeO said:

Tories tweet completely misleading video of Kier Starmer seeming to be stumped when in fact he answered immediately...bare faced lies yet again.

 

It's pathetic. This election so far has been kicked off by the Tories and Lib Dems deliberately attempting to mislead voters with their marketing materials.

The problem is that it works and even if it is found out it will have done the damage.

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52 minutes ago, Bailey said:

🤣

Its not brought through your post for some reason.

Firstly we werent talking about GDP so I don't know why this is relevant.

It's one of the main figures used to measure how well the government is doing. As far as I can see there's been no major difference in tax revenue (if there is why is GDP stable and the national debt increasing?) and certainly not employment. Employment figures are hugely skewed. We have more people living in poverty than any time in my life. 

Seeing as you like comparing our trains to the Germans, you might want to read this:

https://www.citymetric.com/transport/are-german-trains-really-better-british-ones-rail-nationalisation-deutsche-bahn-3972

Did you read that article? They are on time more often and cheaper. They even have a max limit of half that of a London commuter. For me I'd look at Hong Kong for how to run trains what country would you look to that use private? 

All isn't quite as it is portrayed. It would also be interesting to know what Corbyn plans to do about nationalising the rail and owning the railway operator as this goes against EU Law.

How so? 

From an employers perspective they are attempting to modernise their employment contracts. Retail has changed significantly and if thats the line of work you want to get into then I am afraid working weekends or bank holidays is a part of that in modern day Britain. If people want shops open on Sunday's and Bank Holidays then they its something to be expected. I am actually amazed that Sainsburys paid for breaks as you will find most private companies dont! Furthermore a bonus is exactly that, a bonus, it isnt an expectation. Once more they are lucky to get a bonus because most people dont.

Modern day Britain. Exactly there's the problem. It's time for change. As for lucky to get a bonus these people are working shit hours, have to revolve their lives on a two weekly basis in the best interest of the company and are paid buttons (living or to use a more apt word struggling month to month) whilst the business owners take millions and don't even pay their fair share of tax. 

Flexibility is important to a lot of people, and no I dont read papers, I have encountered a lot of people who enjoy working the retail hours or making the most of zero hours contracts. I think retail working is hard and its not my cup of tea at all, but that is each to their own. People in this country have a choice. They aren't forced to work at a particular place.

In retail the worker doesn't have flexibility so no idea who these people are and if they are lucky enough to have a company work around than they are very much in a minority compared to the millions who do not have such luck. The other choice is £300 a month on the dole. Its modern day slavery, people are paying their rent and bills and then having to go to food banks to get by. Its a national disgrace. 

In respect of that article, I personally couldn't believe the Judgment in the Deliveroo case. It's madness to me, these individuals have the benefits of being self employed whilst also enjoying the perks of being employed too. I disagree that employees cannot stand up to employers on health and safety concerns. We have the Health and Safety Executive for that very reason. If employers don't take into account the concern of their employees, the employee can go elsewhere. If something happens and an injury occurs, the employer will put themselves at a significant risk should a Civil claim be made or should the employee need to go to a tribunal.

Deliveroo won their case. 

Think it's because I responded in your quotes. If you highlight the text it'll let you quote me that way. 

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Remember my head being up my arse trying to figure out how an individual was taking money from his companies. Took relatively low salaries and dividends, didn't take any pennies from some of them. Basically he bounced as a non-executive director between a few companies and then got massive payouts taking advantage of entrepreneur relief every couple of years or so. Already a millionaire and what he was doing for the companies was nothing new, or what I'd call entrepreneurial. But hey ho, this is modern Britain. 

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/06/scrap-tax-relief-used-by-britains-richest-urges-former-hmrc-head?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR0vLN2WH5f2TBGoqO0Gj9AJ44oMKW1zbX-ujzHy3GACQQwjpVrG4AZ_5SU

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On 06/11/2019 at 22:58, pete0 said:

Think it's because I responded in your quotes. If you highlight the text it'll let you quote me that way. 

I'll just deal with them in turn again 😂

GDP has nothing to do with my point. Corporation Tax has increased significantly in the last 3 years. It's now at its highest ever level, at least this millennium which is all I can see on the graph I am looking at.

I'm not sure you really read the train article. You were hailing the German model as being far superior whereas the reality is that it's marginally better in some areas. The time might be halved but it doesn't include all trains. The article also states that EU law doesn't allow the railways to be owned by the same person that owns the trains. I suspect Corbyn will get round it in the same way the Germans have by using a publicly owned private company but I haven't heard him provide any details.

Yes modern day Britain. I bet you are happy to pay less for your every day goods, I bet you dont complain about cut price competitors enter the market (Lidl & Aldi) and I bet you rejoice at the minimum wage being increased. Then you wonder why companies have to start taking action to cut costs. If businesses don't keep up they go bust. Mothercare hasn't made a profit for a decade or something stupid in the UK. M&S is rolling back its operations, Tesco recently made people redundant. If these businesses don't take action now they will fail in years to come. I know this as someone who worked for a company that I could see failing to respond to market changes. It WAS making more money than it new what to do with expanding everywhere and then it ran out of money, hit a few bumps and the cash stopped as it went to competitors and now they have 3 main offices from around 10 and a fraction of the staff. In respect of Tesco, from what I have read they made the redundancies rather than change the contracts. Asda and Sainsburys see these contracts as their way to compete in the future, they aren't saying they will change people's working hours but they are giving themselves the opportunity to do so given the market they are in. 

In respect of them being paid buttons, I disagree. Minimum wage is compressing the wages earned by skilled workers. For next to no stress, albeit a fair amount of boredom, I could work on a till and not see a massive drop in my monthly earnings. I would also receive staff discount, I imagine a better pension, probably even healthcare or similar perks. It's hardly slave labour. 

If you don't think flexibile contracts offer people opportunities then you need to open your eyes. The taxi drivers I speak to love uber compared to working for a taxi firm as they can do what they want when they want to do it. That is the most obvious example.

In respect of the Deliveroo case, I apologise I was confusing it with the Uber case.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Bailey said:

I'll just deal with them in turn again 😂

GDP has nothing to do with my point. Corporation Tax has increased significantly in the last 3 years. It's now at its highest ever level, at least this millennium which is all I can see on the graph I am looking at.

First two articles that pop up when you Google cutting corporation tax. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-48885496

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-48885496

For the cut to work it relies on the company to share the profits with its employees but they don't, treacle down economics is bollocks as you can see from the last decade the majority of people are worse. All that's happened is the owners get bigger and bigger dividends making the inequality gap bigger than ever. To rub salt they them hoard their money away in tax havens.

I'm not sure you really read the train article. You were hailing the German model as being far superior whereas the reality is that it's marginally better in some areas. The time might be halved but it doesn't include all trains. The article also states that EU law doesn't allow the railways to be owned by the same person that owns the trains. I suspect Corbyn will get round it in the same way the Germans have by using a publicly owned private company but I haven't heard him provide any details.

I wouldn't say marginally, their cheaper, more reliable on both accounts being on time more and cancelled less (over here they cancel trains as it's profitable to do so, as they don't have to refund you for your train being late if they cancel it instead). 

I didn't hail it I said we are run by German companies (that take the money out the country) yet German trains are run by the state. Our trains cost significantly yet are less efficient. Sticking on cost, it's gone up so much people are leaving their London jobs and looking for local work as the cost just isn't worth it. 

What country is run privately that is better, that we should look to hire? I went to Hong Kong and was massively impressed by their trains. If our system was run properly it wouldn't have left an impression. 

I've no idea on EU train rules but you seem to give a reasonable solution so I guess there'd be little issues. 

Yes modern day Britain. I bet you are happy to pay less for your every day goods, I bet you dont complain about cut price competitors enter the market (Lidl & Aldi) and I bet you rejoice at the minimum wage being increased. Then you wonder why companies have to start taking action to cut costs. If businesses don't keep up they go bust. Mothercare hasn't made a profit for a decade or something stupid in the UK. M&S is rolling back its operations, Tesco recently made people redundant. If these businesses don't take action now they will fail in years to come. I know this as someone who worked for a company that I could see failing to respond to market changes. It WAS making more money than it new what to do with expanding everywhere and then it ran out of money, hit a few bumps and the cash stopped as it went to competitors and now they have 3 main offices from around 10 and a fraction of the staff. In respect of Tesco, from what I have read they made the redundancies rather than change the contracts. Asda and Sainsburys see these contracts as their way to compete in the future, they aren't saying they will change people's working hours but they are giving themselves the opportunity to do so given the market they are in. 

I'm actually against minimum wage. It's been abused by companies to just pay people the minimum rather than what's fair. Tesco already had the contracts that Asda and Sainsbury's are pushing for, there's very little else they could have done with the staff as they have already got them over a barrel. Tesco are in the shit due to mismanagement at the top. Both Aldi and Lidl pay their staff more than Tesco do. What companies have gone bust as they are paying the staff too much? I can only think of football clubs. 

Sainsbury's are making 100s of millions. I'm pretty sure they could find a way to pay the staff more and give the staff more hours/flexibility and still be alright. Absolute madness that the country never stuck up for the workers. They change the hours every week for the individual, they are not set days with set hours they change on a bi-weekly or 4 week basis.

As for competition I'm anti-capitalism. Ultimately it's a system based on greed hidden behind the American dream bollocks. The quality of food has dropped in reflection to price so no one's winning you're just getting what you pay for. Also Thatcher implemented it, what more do you need to be against it. (In a perfect world I'd be for communism but unfortunately whilst we have selfish people it'll never work as they will abuse the power, failing a prefect world scenario I'd follow the keynesian model economy wise, and copy the Scandanavian governments parliamentary wise. 

In respect of them being paid buttons, I disagree. Minimum wage is compressing the wages earned by skilled workers. For next to no stress, albeit a fair amount of boredom, I could work on a till and not see a massive drop in my monthly earnings. I would also receive staff discount, I imagine a better pension, probably even healthcare or similar perks. It's hardly slave labour. 

Takes a lot to offend but you're really taking the piss now. People are going food banks as minimum wage is just about covering their rent and bills. What freedom do they have, they literally live month by month hand to mouth. They do work and then have no disposable income, that's slavery. Feel free to quit your job and try it. Would give you a massive reality check when you're worrying whether you can get enough overtime to cover your mortgage this month. No stress... As for it being boring, yes it is, and so is working in a factory yet a good one will be paying people £30-40k. If you are making millions you should pay your staff a reasonable amount. 

If you don't think flexibile contracts offer people opportunities then you need to open your eyes. The taxi drivers I speak to love uber compared to working for a taxi firm as they can do what they want when they want to do it. That is the most obvious example.

They don't in retail which is the main area they are used. Taxi drivers have always done what they wanted, they like Uber as they get less abuse from the customers.  

In respect of the Deliveroo case, I apologise I was confusing it with the Uber case.

No worries, no idea how the Uber case went against them, part of my old role was checking employment status and taxi drivers are bread and butter self employed as they have control over their hours and have financial risk (paying their fees).

 

 

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52 minutes ago, pete0 said:

First two articles that pop up when you Google cutting corporation tax. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-48885496

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-48885496

For the cut to work it relies on the company to share the profits with its employees but they don't, treacle down economics is bollocks as you can see from the last decade the majority of people are worse. All that's happened is the owners get bigger and bigger dividends making the inequality gap bigger than ever. To rub salt they them hoard their money away in tax havens.

Businesses are going to the wall regularly so I think its far to simplistic to suggest it would have happened anyway. Don't get me wrong I am not advocating cutting Corporation Tax year upon year and certain not to Ireland's levels (which has worked well) as there will be a point of diminishing returns and I would imagine we are on or around that level now.

I know you have a massive bee in your bonnet about big companies but all Limited companies may Corporation Tax and there are far more smaller companies that this tax relief means a lot for than larger companies. In the same breath it would also be naive to not think that if all other things are level that the amount of tax a company will have to pay wont play a part in whether they come to this country. Businesses mean jobs and jobs pay the mortgage and put food on the table. If you want a slice of the pie, you need to either work your way up the ladder or take the risk and start your own business. Personally I can say that I would also do what I can to "hoard" my money, because that's money I would have grafted to get and money that I want to leave for my children so that they have the opportunities that I didn't as a child.

1 hour ago, pete0 said:

I wouldn't say marginally, their cheaper, more reliable on both accounts being on time more and cancelled less (over here they cancel trains as it's profitable to do so, as they don't have to refund you for your train being late if they cancel it instead). 

I didn't hail it I said we are run by German companies (that take the money out the country) yet German trains are run by the state. Our trains cost significantly yet are less efficient. Sticking on cost, it's gone up so much people are leaving their London jobs and looking for local work as the cost just isn't worth it. 

What country is run privately that is better, that we should look to hire? I went to Hong Kong and was massively impressed by their trains. If our system was run properly it wouldn't have left an impression. 

I've no idea on EU train rules but you seem to give a reasonable solution so I guess there'd be little issues. 

They are slightly cheaper at certain time and they are slightly more reliable on certain train routes. That's not a black and white, clearly cheaper and more reliable.

I don't know about other countries who run private train companies. I have travelled by train to Belgium and they ran well and I believe they two are privately owned. The French Network appears to be publicly owned and this article shows that nationalisation isnt this shining light:

https://www.railway-technology.com/features/french-rail-reform-sncf-brink-privatisation/

I hear that Labour also wish to Nationalise the Royal Mail which I think is madness. Privatisation has saved the Royal Mail. They had a pension deficit, making a loss or near to and they were completely inefficient. Privatisation has seen millions pumped into it and it flourished again afterwards. Even now though, they are starting to see problems again because it is an industry that is changing rapidly as more people turn to other methods of communication. In 20 years time, will there be a need for letters? Whilst parcels will always need to be delivered, this is a fiercely competitive area and regular and consistent profits will be hard to come by without continual investment and development.

1 hour ago, pete0 said:

I'm actually against minimum wage. It's been abused by companies to just pay people the minimum rather than what's fair. Tesco already had the contracts that Asda and Sainsbury's are pushing for, there's very little else they could have done with the staff as they have already got them over a barrel. Tesco are in the shit due to mismanagement at the top. Both Aldi and Lidl pay their staff more than Tesco do. What companies have gone bust as they are paying the staff too much? I can only think of football clubs. 

Sainsbury's are making 100s of millions. I'm pretty sure they could find a way to pay the staff more and give the staff more hours/flexibility and still be alright. Absolute madness that the country never stuck up for the workers. They change the hours every week for the individual, they are not set days with set hours they change on a bi-weekly or 4 week basis.

As for competition I'm anti-capitalism. Ultimately it's a system based on greed hidden behind the American dream bollocks. The quality of food has dropped in reflection to price so no one's winning you're just getting what you pay for. Also Thatcher implemented it, what more do you need to be against it. (In a perfect world I'd be for communism but unfortunately whilst we have selfish people it'll never work as they will abuse the power, failing a prefect world scenario I'd follow the keynesian model economy wise, and copy the Scandanavian governments parliamentary wise. 

How do you measure what is fair and who determines that? You seem to imply that the amount a company pays is relative to how much money the company makes rather than having the necessary skills to perform a role. What do you consider to be a fair wage for say a cleaner for a multi-million pound company, a trainee electrician for a fledgling company that hasn't yet made a profit or an accountant of 20 years experience at a medium sized firm that are making a reasonable profit every year? The market sets the worth of that individual to a particular business. Almost every fit and healthy person could, if they wanted become a cleaner, but very few people could be an accountant and amass 20 years experience.

Oh I see, so Tesco changed their contract to avoid redundancies but it hasnt had the effect they hoped for due to the market conditions I have spoken about and now they have to make redundancies anyway. Do you think it would be better for ASDA and Sainsburys to just make redundancies now rather than try and enforce the contract? Lot of companies have struggled due to having too many or too higher paid employees when they aren't making enough profits to go along with it. Just because Sainsburys and ASDA have made money for the last 5 years, doesnt mean that will continue in the future. If you get behind the curve, the market will find you out and that is what is happening with the longer standing supermarkets as they didnt see Aldi/Lidl coming. I presume that you therefore shop at Waitrose and only go 9-5 during the week?

The ASDA contract states that it would give the employee 4 weeks notice for any shift or day change.

Personally I believe that any successful society needs to encourage the best to flourish, thrive, innovate and explore whilst also protecting and helping those that need it, whilst making sure that those don't want to are not rewarded in the same way as the others. Communism is the opposite, it wants to bring everyone down and discourages excellence. I cant see how it could ever work in a society that wants to be successful and that is before taking into account human nature.

Communism and Keynesian Economics also don't go hand it hand for me.  Communism is essentially that everything and everyone is owned by the state. Keynesian Economic is about high government spending and low taxes in times of recession and then low government spending and higher taxation in good times in an effort to reduce the boom and bust nature of the economy. Ironically this is what the Tory party are currently advocating. Boris wants to spend big and tax less. Bearing in mind the evidence of the last 70+ years since the theory was published, I wouldn't say that it is proven to be successful. Look what happened at the end of the last Labour government after Gordon Brown had told everyone that he had stopped the boom and bust.

The Scandinavian model is also an interesting one and I wouldn't be against it. They are free market capitalists with a strong welfare state in support. They reduce regulation, they don't intervene to protect iconic companies, they have very relaxed labour laws but with a relatively high level of state owned companies and employment. Hell even Corporation tax is only 20%, there is little use of minimum wage, private schools are widespread. From what I have read, the social aspect of their model is balanced off by the relatively extreme free market capitalism they allow, far more than this country for example. It doesn't seem like something you would agree with given everything you have been saying.

Anyway Pete if nothing else it has been eye opening, always good to hear someone elses point of view 👍

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13 minutes ago, Bailey said:

Businesses are going to the wall regularly so I think its far to simplistic to suggest it would have happened anyway. Don't get me wrong I am not advocating cutting Corporation Tax year upon year and certain not to Ireland's levels (which has worked well) as there will be a point of diminishing returns and I would imagine we are on or around that level now.

I know you have a massive bee in your bonnet about big companies but all Limited companies may Corporation Tax and there are far more smaller companies that this tax relief means a lot for than larger companies. In the same breath it would also be naive to not think that if all other things are level that the amount of tax a company will have to pay wont play a part in whether they come to this country. Businesses mean jobs and jobs pay the mortgage and put food on the table. If you want a slice of the pie, you need to either work your way up the ladder or take the risk and start your own business. Personally I can say that I would also do what I can to "hoard" my money, because that's money I would have grafted to get and money that I want to leave for my children so that they have the opportunities that I didn't as a child

Diminishing? Read the article every point dropped we lose on potential revenue. The main reasoning behind lowering it is mostly to encourage companies not to bother using avoidance techniques. Logic would be to close the loop holes not lower corporation tax. 

Bee in my bonnet? The country has suffered 10 years of austerity. If cutting CT worked then we'd all be better for it surely. But as I've said it doesn't work as treacle down is bollocks. Why are so many people living in poverty? 

You keep using minority arguments and not looking at the whole picture, which looks more like the politicians lubing up the populations arse holes for the millionaires to fuck as hard as they want. Medium size businesses may benefits, if so, give it to them as a breather but that's not what we're doing. We have purposely lowered it and coupled it with diminishing employee powers and austerity policies forcing workers to be exploited and the rich get richer. 

As for the 'my' money. One it should be taxed fairly. That money they have is on the back of exploiting workers it should be their money. If everyone underpays their employees no one will be able to buy any thing and the economy will go to pot. One more term of the tories and this will happen. 

25 minutes ago, Bailey said:

They are slightly cheaper at certain time and they are slightly more reliable on certain train routes. That's not a black and white, clearly cheaper and more reliable.

I don't know about other countries who run private train companies. I have travelled by train to Belgium and they ran well and I believe they two are privately owned. The French Network appears to be publicly owned and this article shows that nationalisation isnt this shining light:

https://www.railway-technology.com/features/french-rail-reform-sncf-brink-privatisation/

I hear that Labour also wish to Nationalise the Royal Mail which I think is madness. Privatisation has saved the Royal Mail. They had a pension deficit, making a loss or near to and they were completely inefficient. Privatisation has seen millions pumped into it and it flourished again afterwards. Even now though, they are starting to see problems again because it is an industry that is changing rapidly as more people turn to other methods of communication. In 20 years time, will there be a need for letters? Whilst parcels will always need to be delivered, this is a fiercely competitive area and regular and consistent profits will be hard to come by without continual investment and development.

I don't know how you can read that and come to that conclusion. Slightly cheaper? Max season ticket in Germany is £3k, that's what the average one over here costs. The price of a return ticket from Liverpool to Manchester has gone up from £12-ish to £20-ish in a little over a decade. 

Our cheap tickets are off peak aka when demand is low. So we sell cheap tickets at times people don't need them. Bog standard supply and demand pricing which is the capitalist way. Its also the reason stuff like public transport and energy should be nationalised. They're not luxuries, they are essentials, they should be ran for the people not for profit. 

Royal mail was sold on the cheap. Why couldn't we go in and fix those issues? 

Would you sell the NHS? 

40 minutes ago, Bailey said:

How do you measure what is fair and who determines that? You seem to imply that the amount a company pays is relative to how much money the company makes rather than having the necessary skills to perform a role. What do you consider to be a fair wage for say a cleaner for a multi-million pound company, a trainee electrician for a fledgling company that hasn't yet made a profit or an accountant of 20 years experience at a medium sized firm that are making a reasonable profit every year? The market sets the worth of that individual to a particular business. Almost every fit and healthy person could, if they wanted become a cleaner, but very few people could be an accountant and amass 20 years experience.

Oh I see, so Tesco changed their contract to avoid redundancies but it hasnt had the effect they hoped for due to the market conditions I have spoken about and now they have to make redundancies anyway. Do you think it would be better for ASDA and Sainsburys to just make redundancies now rather than try and enforce the contract? Lot of companies have struggled due to having too many or too higher paid employees when they aren't making enough profits to go along with it. Just because Sainsburys and ASDA have made money for the last 5 years, doesnt mean that will continue in the future. If you get behind the curve, the market will find you out and that is what is happening with the longer standing supermarkets as they didnt see Aldi/Lidl coming. I presume that you therefore shop at Waitrose and only go 9-5 during the week?

The ASDA contract states that it would give the employee 4 weeks notice for any shift or day change.

Personally I believe that any successful society needs to encourage the best to flourish, thrive, innovate and explore whilst also protecting and helping those that need it, whilst making sure that those don't want to are not rewarded in the same way as the others. Communism is the opposite, it wants to bring everyone down and discourages excellence. I cant see how it could ever work in a society that wants to be successful and that is before taking into account human nature.

Communism and Keynesian Economics also don't go hand it hand for me.  Communism is essentially that everything and everyone is owned by the state. Keynesian Economic is about high government spending and low taxes in times of recession and then low government spending and higher taxation in good times in an effort to reduce the boom and bust nature of the economy. Ironically this is what the Tory party are currently advocating. Boris wants to spend big and tax less. Bearing in mind the evidence of the last 70+ years since the theory was published, I wouldn't say that it is proven to be successful. Look what happened at the end of the last Labour government after Gordon Brown had told everyone that he had stopped the boom and bust.

The Scandinavian model is also an interesting one and I wouldn't be against it. They are free market capitalists with a strong welfare state in support. They reduce regulation, they don't intervene to protect iconic companies, they have very relaxed labour laws but with a relatively high level of state owned companies and employment. Hell even Corporation tax is only 20%, there is little use of minimum wage, private schools are widespread. From what I have read, the social aspect of their model is balanced off by the relatively extreme free market capitalism they allow, far more than this country for example. It doesn't seem like something you would agree with given everything you have been saying.

For me it should be based on profits and skill. Taking a supermarket for example they should all be paid equally or there or there abouts. Not one bit of it is complicated. 

A more complex work could be tiered like the NHS,  pay based on grade with the grades being on difficulty. But even then I'd say some doctors should be on less and some nurses on more. The current structure isn't perfect, just needs a little adjustment to align it fairer.

Tesco made a billion profit at the time. There was no risk of redundancies. 

I'd rather be an accountant than a cleaner. If both jobs paid the same I'd pick accountant every time. A trained monkey could do payroll or Vat, most jobs outside of specialities, like engineering, people can do with the right training. 

Why do asda or Sainsbury's need to make redundancies? Last time I looked Sainsbury's made 700 or 800 million profit for the year (plus they'll have loads hoarded away). 

Asda wise, so every 4 weeks you have to adjust your life accordingly. You think that's fair? Seems a backwards step in society to me. 

Regarding waitrose I did when I worked next to one, worked 8-4 and then got the shopping in the way home. Still got some late night shopping at Tesco though but that was the girl I was with at the time. I prefer the local butchers but we often got the cheap shite from Tesco. 

That's a very small minded way of looking at communism and society in general.

Communism - is fundamentally about equality. No idea why you say it drags down society. That only happens as greedy people or as you call them the best, take advantage and corrupt it. 

Society - I know people who work part time in retail, they'd much rather do something else but there's no opportunity to do so. There was little decent jobs after school, and now they are too old for apprentices and have never had the chance to develop skills or get experience. Where do they sit in your society, do they need help or are you just gonna call them lazy? 

I mention Keynes as I know with the likes of Boris about communism will unfortunately never work. 

To blame the recession on Gordan Brown is a bit unfair. The recession was due to the banks not the government, well unless you blame them for not regulating the banks which is a fair shout. But the recession was nothing to do with labour's spending. For me we need to invest massively in our infrastructure and we need to increase welfare as well. People's disposable income is falling too low, without spending power there's not enough in the local economy circulating. 

Tbf I don't know the full ins and outs of each of them. But from what I see is base of them is the peoples welfare first, which is the polar opposite of what we have atm. 

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I stand with Labour. Not through choice (as if I had a say). But the LibDems made their bed years ago, and are fluffing their own pillows now. How can a party be so disconnected and claim to be liberal?! Conservatives out is clearly logical but why have the LibDems not learnt from last time round?! Vote grabbing isn’t a basis for a political party! But, yet, it is the norm. Bring on the revolution 

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13 hours ago, pete0 said:

Diminishing? Read the article every point dropped we lose on potential revenue. The main reasoning behind lowering it is mostly to encourage companies not to bother using avoidance techniques. Logic would be to close the loop holes not lower corporation tax. 

Bee in my bonnet? The country has suffered 10 years of austerity. If cutting CT worked then we'd all be better for it surely. But as I've said it doesn't work as treacle down is bollocks. Why are so many people living in poverty? 

You keep using minority arguments and not looking at the whole picture, which looks more like the politicians lubing up the populations arse holes for the millionaires to fuck as hard as they want. Medium size businesses may benefits, if so, give it to them as a breather but that's not what we're doing. We have purposely lowered it and coupled it with diminishing employee powers and austerity policies forcing workers to be exploited and the rich get richer. 

As for the 'my' money. One it should be taxed fairly. That money they have is on the back of exploiting workers it should be their money. If everyone underpays their employees no one will be able to buy any thing and the economy will go to pot. One more term of the tories and this will happen. 

Hold on you cant accuse me of allegedly using minority arguments when the line before it you have said that we should all be better for cutting CT. Competitive CT rates will be one of many things that will encourage businesses to locate here. The basic fact is that CT cuts have seen an increase in tax revenues. This has also been seen in other countries such as Ireland. That is the only point I have made. There can be swings and roundabouts with it all, but that is all I have said about it. When Brexit happens, this country will have a hard enough time attracting companies without a competitive environment compared to other countries and in particular the EU, whether you like it or not. If you make it harder for this country to compete with others through Brexit and then also increase CT and other things like business rates and national insurance contributions and the minimum wage logic would suggest there will be less business, both big and small, increasing unemployment. If you want a healthy social welfare state you need people to contribute to the state.

In respect of fair tax, what is a fair tax? How many taxes do we have to have? If everyone was taxed the same, such as a flat tax, this would immediately cut loopholes to exploit. Would it not be fairer to increase tax on the consumption of high end products instead and reduce tax on more everyday items, albeit we could only do this outside of the EU apparently.

14 hours ago, pete0 said:

I don't know how you can read that and come to that conclusion. Slightly cheaper? Max season ticket in Germany is £3k, that's what the average one over here costs. The price of a return ticket from Liverpool to Manchester has gone up from £12-ish to £20-ish in a little over a decade. 

Our cheap tickets are off peak aka when demand is low. So we sell cheap tickets at times people don't need them. Bog standard supply and demand pricing which is the capitalist way. Its also the reason stuff like public transport and energy should be nationalised. They're not luxuries, they are essentials, they should be ran for the people not for profit. 

Royal mail was sold on the cheap. Why couldn't we go in and fix those issues? 

Would you sell the NHS? 

Of course it is going to be more expensive at peak times and it goes back to my original point about our railways. They are old and cant cope with the demand on them. I dont know about up north but you will be lucky to get a seat coming out of London Waterloo anywhere near peak times. What would Nationalisation do, bearing in mind the tracks are already Nationalised? You cant extend trains any further due to safety. You can rip up the tracks and start again at huge expense and disruption, but this could happen now.

“Our rail infrastructure is extremely old and is carrying much larger numbers of passengers than it was originally intended to and indeed that even ten years ago it was expected to,” Investec analyst Alex Paterson told the Daily Telegraph. “It is difficult to maintain and improve economically and without further hindering on-time performance as work can only really be done overnight and at weekends. This is expensive.”

In the same article:

"Network Rail – which represents more than a third (38%) of the industry based on spend – become a public sector body in 2014 and is responsible for more than half of the daily disruption. "

As I have said before, the current Franchise system doesnt work as it should, and I would say the same for things like buses too. I dont know what you have in big cities like Liverpool and Manchester but the transport system in Portsmouth is privately run and whilst they are fairly regular and on time, they focus on more profitable routes (in my opinion) rather than servicing the whole City. In times where the environment is being thrust into the spotlight, I would hope to see local councils take more responsibility for the travel networks however the people voting for the particular councils will have to know and accept that it will likely lead to greater council tax and I am not sure how many people would vote for it unless further taxation on cars and parking (the latter happens in Portsmouth) also comes in to deter people from their own cars and onto public services.

Royal Mail wasn't sold on the cheap, it has been reviewed and accepted that the bounce in the shares wasn't predictable. In some ways it does go to show how much it had stagnated because suddenly with private funding it is seen as a potential success again. Again this might not be popular but its the same theory with Royal Mail a it will be with the mines. Labour identified that they weren't profitable and that they would cost the tax payer more and more over time without significant overhaul and investment. Why would any government or taxpayer wish to Nationalise a company that is likely to fail in the future, or at least is uncertain to succeed even without significant funding.

Firstly it would depend on what you mean by privatising the NHS. If you mean hospitals, GP and treatments then absolutely not. People need to have free access to medical assistance. There needs to be a significant investment in recruiting, training and developing doctors and nurses in the future and the government should intervene and subsidise the training of  any industry it needs expertise in. The NHS doesn't work if it has crap staff, nor does any industry. I do however think the NHS should be able to resource equipment and medication from private companies. The Labour policy of taking over all medication development and research will just stagnate the excellent work these companies do to research the treatments of tomorrow. Furthermore they will just go elsewhere and then the quality of medication and treatments will deplete and more people will suffer as a result.

14 hours ago, pete0 said:

For me it should be based on profits and skill. Taking a supermarket for example they should all be paid equally or there or there abouts. Not one bit of it is complicated. 

A more complex work could be tiered like the NHS,  pay based on grade with the grades being on difficulty. But even then I'd say some doctors should be on less and some nurses on more. The current structure isn't perfect, just needs a little adjustment to align it fairer.

Tesco made a billion profit at the time. There was no risk of redundancies. 

I'd rather be an accountant than a cleaner. If both jobs paid the same I'd pick accountant every time. A trained monkey could do payroll or Vat, most jobs outside of specialities, like engineering, people can do with the right training. 

Why do asda or Sainsbury's need to make redundancies? Last time I looked Sainsbury's made 700 or 800 million profit for the year (plus they'll have loads hoarded away). 

Asda wise, so every 4 weeks you have to adjust your life accordingly. You think that's fair? Seems a backwards step in society to me. 

Regarding waitrose I did when I worked next to one, worked 8-4 and then got the shopping in the way home. Still got some late night shopping at Tesco though but that was the girl I was with at the time. I prefer the local butchers but we often got the cheap shite from Tesco. 

That's a very small minded way of looking at communism and society in general.

Communism - is fundamentally about equality. No idea why you say it drags down society. That only happens as greedy people or as you call them the best, take advantage and corrupt it. 

Society - I know people who work part time in retail, they'd much rather do something else but there's no opportunity to do so. There was little decent jobs after school, and now they are too old for apprentices and have never had the chance to develop skills or get experience. Where do they sit in your society, do they need help or are you just gonna call them lazy? 

I mention Keynes as I know with the likes of Boris about communism will unfortunately never work. 

To blame the recession on Gordan Brown is a bit unfair. The recession was due to the banks not the government, well unless you blame them for not regulating the banks which is a fair shout. But the recession was nothing to do with labour's spending. For me we need to invest massively in our infrastructure and we need to increase welfare as well. People's disposable income is falling too low, without spending power there's not enough in the local economy circulating. 

Tbf I don't know the full ins and outs of each of them. But from what I see is base of them is the peoples welfare first, which is the polar opposite of what we have atm. 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/07/sainsburys-profits-dive-more-than-90-store-closures-cost-200m

Firstly I will pop this in here. I don't know if you are looking at Sainsbury's group or what but they struggling and stores are being closed.

I struggle with that first line, pay should be based on profits and skill? So ASDA makes 1 billion profit but Tesco makes a loss and that mean ASDA should pay more for the same quality employee? How much different should they be paid?

The reason Tesco has made those profits is because it did go through a struggling period and then they restructured and identified what was going wrong. You see so many companies who fail to spot these problems coming and then they end up like Sainsburys, Safeways, Morrisons, M&S etc.

That isnt what will happen at ASDA, its just the company giving themselves the option of doing it if there is a need for it. I wouldnt say it was ideal and I wouldnt like it but if you work in that area you would surely go into the job knowing it would be possible. I know that in my job that I may have to stay behind for a couple of hours to speak to Client's or to finish off what I am doing. I did that in full knowledge that it isn't in my contract but its something that is expected of someone in my profession working for a small client focused and high pressured business.

Communism brings every down to the same level. It doesn't raise people up. There is no incentive to succeed. Would I do the job I do now if the bloke picking litter up down the street was getting the same amount, would I hell. I have studied hard and I work hard so that my family can have what they want, have a secure family home and get the opportunities that I didnt when I was growing up. My parents before that did the same and their parents before that also did the same.

There are plenty of opportunities out there for people and they have had them all their life, unfortunately a lot of people realise that until they have to start paying the bills and they cant afford to. I can only speak for what I see down here but people who are in that position need to accept that they have made a lot of bad choices to get where they are. Some of that is due to the situation they are in and some isnt. I absolutely believe that the government should do more to retrain people who need it. There are lot of courses out there but a lot of the time it will take a step back to take a step forward. When I was made redundant the first time that is exactly what I had to do. Go down a rung, get job in the right company doing something different and then make my way up the ladder again.

I didnt blame Brown for the recession, I just repeated something that he claimed repeatedly, which turned out to be a load of bollocks in the most catastrophic way.

They do and they don't put welfare first. They champion business and innovation and therefore have less regulation and less employment rights but they also support those that need it. Without the business side, they wouldn't be able to sustain the welfare state. It's would appear to be well balanced and hopefully for them it continues.

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@Bailey everything you're saying is similar to blue rag sound bites. I've said enough in my previous comments and can't be arsed repeating myself other than to repeat one last time. Cutting ct only works if you then share the profits with the workers (which for some reason you're against). 

Any how you keep believing you worked harder than the next person and those in supermarkets are lazy scum who deserve to go to food banks whilst people who have literally done fuck all suck up all the profits and hide the money out the country. 

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52 minutes ago, Palfy said:

The real truth being he hasn’t got the funds or the candidates to fight 600 hundred seats. 

Along with the fact he knows he's got very little chance of winning even one, if he thought otherwise he'd be all over their number one target like a bitch in heat; he'd sell his soul for a seat in Westminster.

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8 hours ago, pete0 said:

The voting demographic has changed a fair bit since the last referendum and the last general election, thousands have now reached the age of consent who want to remain and feel that they can achieve something with their  vote, it was this generation that gave May a bloody nose and backed Labour. 
Also thousands of Brexiteers have passed away, which leads me to believe that Labour will keep or win more seats than last time. 
 

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Had a flyer from the LibDems today asking for Labour and the Greens to vote for them to oust the Conservatives, who hold just a 4% lead over them. 
Basically saying that if one in two Labour voters voted LibDem they would beat James Gray, who was an ardent supporter of austerity and Johnstone supporter. 
Well now I feel that my vote could actually make a change to stop the Tory far right. 
North Wiltshire have just gained 2 tactical voting LibDems 

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36 minutes ago, Palfy said:

Had a flyer from the LibDems today asking for Labour and the Greens to vote for them to oust the Conservatives, who hold just a 4% lead over them. 
Basically saying that if one in two Labour voters voted LibDem they would beat James Gray, who was an ardent supporter of austerity and Johnstone supporter. 
Well now I feel that my vote could actually make a change to stop the Tory far right. 
North Wiltshire have just gained 2 tactical voting LibDems 

It's the right thing to do for me Palf. Sadly down here (Tiverton & Honiton) the bookies have the tories at 1/200 so no amount of tactical voting will ditch them, they're carrying a 20,000 lead from 2017.

Incidentally drove past this on Thursday; unfortunately we didn't know what was happening at the time and the "anti" protesters had their backs to us so all we could see was a line of police and a few brexit/tory activists on the other side of it. On the basis of what we could see my wife wound down her window and expressed her opinion of the proceedings with a single screamed plural noun beginning with a "w". Once we got to my mother-in-law's a few miles further I looked up what was going on and wanted to go back and say, "...she didn't mean you, sorry."

😂

 

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29 minutes ago, MikeO said:

It's the right thing to do for me Palf. Sadly down here (Tiverton & Honiton) the bookies have the tories at 1/200 so no amount of tactical voting will ditch them, they're carrying a 20,000 lead from 2017.

Incidentally drove past this on Thursday; unfortunately we didn't know what was happening at the time and the "anti" protesters had their backs to us so all we could see was a line of police and a few brexit/tory activists on the other side of it. On the basis of what we could see my wife wound down her window and expressed her opinion of the proceedings with a single screamed plural noun beginning with a "w". Once we got to my mother-in-law's a few miles further I looked up what was going on and wanted to go back and say, "...she didn't mean you, sorry."

😂

 

😂😂😂 brilliant ☺️

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1 hour ago, Palfy said:

Had a flyer from the LibDems today asking for Labour and the Greens to vote for them to oust the Conservatives, who hold just a 4% lead over them. 
Basically saying that if one in two Labour voters voted LibDem they would beat James Gray, who was an ardent supporter of austerity and Johnstone supporter. 
Well now I feel that my vote could actually make a change to stop the Tory far right. 
North Wiltshire have just gained 2 tactical voting LibDems 

Whilst nearly all of me agrees with doing whatever it takes, I hate the way the LD are going about things. They’re effectively trying to buy power and how is that any different from the conservatives? They’ve become predatory, opportunistic and purely focused on the short term gains for themselves 

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33 minutes ago, Matt said:

Whilst nearly all of me agrees with doing whatever it takes, I hate the way the LD are going about things. They’re effectively trying to buy power and how is that any different from the conservatives? They’ve become predatory, opportunistic and purely focused on the short term gains for themselves 

I know where you’re coming from, the LibDems were the party that backed the Tories up and helped them administer their disastrous austerity plan, but they paid a heavy price at the subsequent general elections for their betrayal of the middle of the road voters for propping up a right wing party bordering on the far right, so I can only hope they have learned the errors of their ways. 
I’m a Labour voter but living in an area where they only received 7% of the vote last election, with the Tories on 41% and the LibDems on 37% and the Brexit Party on 8% and the rest made up by others. 
For me it’s a lesser of two evils, vote Labour and achieve nothing, or vote LibDem with a chance of over turning the Tories and stopping Brexit. 

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15 minutes ago, Palfy said:

I know where you’re coming from, the LibDems were the party that backed the Tories up and helped them administer their disastrous austerity plan, but they paid a heavy price at the subsequent general elections for their betrayal of the middle of the road voters for propping up a right wing party bordering on the far right, so I can only hope they have learned the errors of their ways. 
I’m a Labour voter but living in an area where they only received 7% of the vote last election, with the Tories on 41% and the LibDems on 37% and the Brexit Party on 8% and the rest made up by others. 
For me it’s a lesser of two evils, vote Labour and achieve nothing, or vote LibDem with a chance of over turning the Tories and stopping Brexit. 

I don’t think they’ve learnt the error of their ways though. They were always my preferred party before they showed their true colours, and their latest approach only confirms my fears about them; they’re clueless to the point they’ll do anything. even worse, I think they’ve learnt from the devil and are trying to capitalise - put it this way; except for promising to cancel a50, what is their actual plan? Based on their tactics in the last 10-15 years, they’re as bad as the Tory’s in terms of their goals 

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