Off Topic Why you MUST vote Tory!

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I don't think that anybody would seriously contend that the Labour leadership candidates were anything other than a poor bunch. I have even found myself wondering if maybe Harriet Harman was the best bet,that's how bad things are. I am pretty certain that Burnham, Kendall and and Cooper would do no better than Miliband. I am also of the opinion that a Corbyn victory will cause a split. I doubt that more than thirty of the current Labour MP's would serve in the shadow cabinet, which would lead to people like Diane Abbott holding high office in the party. Corbyn was a Militant Tendency supporter and he is totally unreconstructed.
 
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Tony_Munky_Canary said:
I know mate, I honestly do wonder about some people sometimes <laugh>
As if Sharia Law is going to come in over here, dear me <doh>

I guess it's probably typical of the mentality of people who have maybe never lived outside Norfolk or at least have almost certainly never lived in a multi-cultural, cosmopolitan city like London. I see burkas and hijabs every day and never bat an eyelid, I might be wrong but get the impression that wouldn't be the case for the "average Norfolk person on the street".
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You say that but there are pockets of some large UK cities that are self imposing Sharia law around their largely Muslim burbs. This is clearly done outside of UK law. But it is happening, same as arranged marriage, child sex rings(Not saying Islam is responsible for this just some very reprehensible individuals inside of those communities) and very Islam centric schooling.
All of these things and the continued lack of integration of some of these increasingly large communities should be a concern to all. These communities can grow increasingly alienated from British culture, again this can be a product of relative poverty in the community and these are the areas that should concern us about extremism creeping in.
As others have suggested, I think poverty or perceived poverty and a consequent feeling of desperation, can play such a large part in the susceptibility of an individual to be radicalized. But then it's far from the only factor. The knob heads that killed Lee Rigby looked like on face value that they came from a decent neighborhood and family, so what went wrong there? An example that it is the minority who are unhinged enough to interpret Allah or any Gods will as murderous. I do think we could do ourselves a favour by keeping hate preachers out of the press and just quietly deport them.
To sum up;
A) Some people good
B) Some people bad
C) Being Religious
D) Not believing in sky pixies
So
A + C = generally good
B + C = Generally bad
A + D = Generally good
B + D = Generally bad
That's right, people are generally good or bad independent of religion. Religion is an excuse for some, but not the cause. The only danger of religion is that it can group bad people to do greater bad. But some would argue there are other means of grouping people to do greater bad - e.g. Political parties

Bah!
 
I just read an interesting little factoid:
Despite the hysteria, since 2011 the number of refugees in the UK has actually fallen by 76,439 (according to Britain's Refugee Council).

Combined with the fact that the proportion of refugees housed by developing countries in the past 10 years has risen, according to the UN, from 70% to 86%; is Britain "pulling its weight"?
 
General Melchett said:
True, which as I summarized reflects that there are plenty of bad people out there and it does not relate to religion.

Bah!
Click to expand...

Indeed, I'm sure all those God fearing Catholic priests (allegedly) up to their eyeballs with this sort of thing aren't (allegedly) doing it in the name of their Lord either...
 
Tony_Munky_Canary said:
Indeed, I'm sure all those God fearing Catholic priests (allegedly) up to their eyeballs with this sort of thing aren't (allegedly) doing it in the name of their Lord either...
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Thing is Munky, these Catholic Priests believe they are always completely forgiven by God if they say so many 'Hail Mary's and rattle a few rosary beads. <doh>
 
Rich44 said:
Absolute Bollocks you have, me the media have no idea whether that will happen or not.

Just because he's left it doesn't mean the whole party will lurch off ultra left as with tory back benchers there will be discussions, compromises, deals done etc.

If you look at his policies a lot of them by the polls over 50% of sample agreed with the policy.

So you think renationalising railways (that won't cost anything if you just let franchises expire btw) and utilities given how much the public hate the big 6 and their profits that's a vote winner.

There was an article recently in the press showing the breakdown of votes etc.

All those naysayers you keep touting your opinions as facts, it's REALLY irritating. Personally I can see all these constant (and unreported) anti-austerity demonstrations voting for him. Remember 63% DIDN'T vote tory.

Also libdems are done now Corbyn could pick up all their votes too.

All to play for just please stop writing labour off with him as leader it's not fact, in fact it's amazing he's doing so well considering the constant character assassination & misquotes by the media.
Click to expand...

"So you think renationalising railways (that won't cost anything if you just let franchises expire btw) and utilities given how much the public hate the big 6 and their profits that's a vote winner"

Sorry to nit pick but you are not factoring in the opportunity cost of taking the franchises back i.e. the £bn's of revenue the Government receives from selling the franchises off. Yes if you let them expire they would be back in the public sector at no outlay to the public purse but you would be forgoing a shed load of money AND taking on all of the business risk of running the railways which do not exactly have a glowing record of profitability under public ownership. You can also bet your bottom dollar that as soon as the franchise holding companies learn that they will not have a chance to keep "their" pieces of the network that they will cease all upgrades and run everything at rock bottom cost leaving the Government via the taxpayer to pick up the tab for capital investment.

The reason people moan about the trains being expensive and under-invested in is because the companies running them have to make a profit and part of their cost structure is the cost of the franchise which goes straight into the public purse. If we were to nationalise again the Government would have to find that lost revenue from somewhere and the obvious place is from the fares. I don't doubt for a minute that if the trains were back under public ownership that services, particularly on rural lower profit routes such as exist in Norfolk would improve but equally I don't doubt for a minute that they will not end up costing the taxpayer a whole lot more than currently.
 
General Melchett said:
You say that but there are pockets of some large UK cities that are self imposing Sharia law around their largely Muslim burbs. This is clearly done outside of UK law. But it is happening, same as arranged marriage, child sex rings(Not saying Islam is responsible for this just some very reprehensible individuals inside of those communities) and very Islam centric schooling.
All of these things and the continued lack of integration of some of these increasingly large communities should be a concern to all. These communities can grow increasingly alienated from British culture, again this can be a product of relative poverty in the community and these are the areas that should concern us about extremism creeping in.
As others have suggested, I think poverty or perceived poverty and a consequent feeling of desperation, can play such a large part in the susceptibility of an individual to be radicalized. But then it's far from the only factor. The knob heads that killed Lee Rigby looked like on face value that they came from a decent neighborhood and family, so what went wrong there? An example that it is the minority who are unhinged enough to interpret Allah or any Gods will as murderous. I do think we could do ourselves a favour by keeping hate preachers out of the press and just quietly deport them.
To sum up;
A) Some people good
B) Some people bad
C) Being Religious
D) Not believing in sky pixies
So
A + C = generally good
B + C = Generally bad
A + D = Generally good
B + D = Generally bad
That's right, people are generally good or bad independent of religion. Religion is an excuse for some, but not the cause. The only danger of religion is that it can group bad people to do greater bad. But some would argue there are other means of grouping people to do greater bad - e.g. Political parties

Bah!
Click to expand...

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General Melchett said:
You say that but there are pockets of some large UK cities that are self imposing Sharia law around their largely Muslim burbs. This is clearly done outside of UK law. But it is happening, same as arranged marriage, child sex rings(Not saying Islam is responsible for this just some very reprehensible individuals inside of those communities) and very Islam centric schooling.
All of these things and the continued lack of integration of some of these increasingly large communities should be a concern to all. These communities can grow increasingly alienated from British culture, again this can be a product of relative poverty in the community and these are the areas that should concern us about extremism creeping in.
As others have suggested, I think poverty or perceived poverty and a consequent feeling of desperation, can play such a large part in the susceptibility of an individual to be radicalized. But then it's far from the only factor. The knob heads that killed Lee Rigby looked like on face value that they came from a decent neighborhood and family, so what went wrong there? An example that it is the minority who are unhinged enough to interpret Allah or any Gods will as murderous. I do think we could do ourselves a favour by keeping hate preachers out of the press and just quietly deport them.
To sum up;
A) Some people good
B) Some people bad
C) Being Religious
D) Not believing in sky pixies
So
A + C = generally good
B + C = Generally bad
A + D = Generally good
B + D = Generally bad
That's right, people are generally good or bad independent of religion. Religion is an excuse for some, but not the cause. The only danger of religion is that it can group bad people to do greater bad. But some would argue there are other means of grouping people to do greater bad - e.g. Political parties

Bah!
Click to expand...

Or football clubs..no names ,no pack drill eh JWM?
 
Norfolkbhoy said:
"So you think renationalising railways (that won't cost anything if you just let franchises expire btw) and utilities given how much the public hate the big 6 and their profits that's a vote winner"

Sorry to nit pick but you are not factoring in the opportunity cost of taking the franchises back i.e. the £bn's of revenue the Government receives from selling the franchises off. Yes if you let them expire they would be back in the public sector at no outlay to the public purse but you would be forgoing a shed load of money AND taking on all of the business risk of running the railways which do not exactly have a glowing record of profitability under public ownership. You can also bet your bottom dollar that as soon as the franchise holding companies learn that they will not have a chance to keep "their" pieces of the network that they will cease all upgrades and run everything at rock bottom cost leaving the Government via the taxpayer to pick up the tab for capital investment.

The reason people moan about the trains being expensive and under-invested in is because the companies running them have to make a profit and part of their cost structure is the cost of the franchise which goes straight into the public purse. If we were to nationalise again the Government would have to find that lost revenue from somewhere and the obvious place is from the fares. I don't doubt for a minute that if the trains were back under public ownership that services, particularly on rural lower profit routes such as exist in Norfolk would improve but equally I don't doubt for a minute that they will not end up costing the taxpayer a whole lot more than currently.
Click to expand...

Surely if a railway is state owned then there isn't a need for it to be profitable, however this may still be desirable, although a government might want to run the railway at a loss in support of policy. If the government were to take the place of a private company then there should be no loss of revenue, indeed there would be an increase as the government company would not have the cost of buying the franchise so should make a larger profit, which could be spent how the government wished. I'm not sure but my understanding of franchise system is that companies have to commit to a certain level of investment, so I don't think they can just not invest with losing the franchise and / or being fined.
 
I don't see why there can't be a staggered transition back to nationalised railways.

When the East Coast franchise was nationalised a few years ago if anything it got significantly better. Not only in ratings, targets and satisfaction, but even operated at a profit.
 
carrowcanario said:
Surely if a railway is state owned then there isn't a need for it to be profitable, however this may still be desirable, although a government might want to run the railway at a loss in support of policy. If the government were to take the place of a private company then there should be no loss of revenue, indeed there would be an increase as the government company would not have the cost of buying the franchise so should make a larger profit, which could be spent how the government wished. I'm not sure but my understanding of franchise system is that companies have to commit to a certain level of investment, so I don't think they can just not invest with losing the franchise and / or being fined.
Click to expand...

Again I make the point that Nationalisation of anything can be done and I think that in some areas the service could improve, particularly out in the sticks BUT if they are renationalised by simply taking back the franchises then there is a significant loss of revenue for the Government which must be made up either from increasing rail fares or increasing the general level of taxation. Similarly if the business is to run at a profit i.e. not be another burden on the public purse then fares will have to rise or investment will have to fall. If it is policy to run the railways at a loss then the shortfall will have to be made up from somewhere. In this country we do not have a great track record (apologies for poor pun) at running railways for a profit. My point was and is that by re-nationalising the railways we are taking all of the business risk in house where by operating the franchise system the Government gets a guaranteed income with the only risk being the operators failing.

Only this week we have locally seen how our much vaunted Northern distributor road has already reached an overspend in excess of £30m which will have to be paid for either by local or national taxpayers. I can just see the railways going down the same lines (again pun apology) and ending up costing a fortune to run. We all know that the tracks are too old and will need replacement and the rolling stock could do with updating and these all involve a lot of money and risk to anyone making the investment so I personally would rather see the Government hive off the franchises, pocket the cash to use on other infra-structure projects or bring down the National Debt rather than take them back, lose an income stream and then end up throwing good money after bad for year after year.
 
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