Off Topic Politics Thread

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I was in the corner shop yesterday evening when an old woman cornered another bloke to talk about the budget and politics in general.

I tried to give it a wide berth, but she directly called me into the discussion.

"Which are you - Labour or Tory?" - Erm, pardon?

She was saying that the Tory (and Tory/Lib Dem) administration had got it totally wrong with cutting across the board. The other bloke tried to say that he thinks it's necessary to make cuts but the way some of the cuts have been made, and the context which they were made in, makes them very hard to accept.

She proceeded to inform myself, another customer and the shopkeeper about how we were all entirely wrong and in her mind we need a left-wing old Labour government that's prepared to 'make money and put it into people's pockets' and sanction mass investment in public sector industry. She went into one big time, quoting Arthur Scargill too.

Myself and the other guy tried to just be polite, but at the same time not entirely agree with her on everything, but in the end we just had to walk away from the conversation.

Fair enough, her opinion.

Never in my life have I ever come across a situation like that where someone has randomly called me into a political discussion in a shop, though!

The shopkeeper seemed so bemused, bless him. <laugh>
 
Puck said:
A lot of the reason is that you can't (or at least it's very difficult to) sack poor workers in the public sector.
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I guess your right..........something those excellent unions fought for. Can't dismiss for blatant incompetence!!
 
Beddytare said:
I guess your right..........something those excellent unions fought for. Can't dismiss for blatant incompetence!!
Click to expand...

Sorry chaps, can't let that one go. This is another myth (like those massive pensions they get) which may've been true 30yrs ago but is far from that now. For good or bad there's little difference from private sector jobs these days, certainly in the NHS anyway. My wife struggles on with managing a community health team with massive staffing problems, partly caused by enforced cuts to numbers imposed from 'above'. There have been no problems for her masters in making people redundant. She reckons the major factor ensuring some qualified nurses who are 'very average' keep their jobs these days is because 10% of these posts are now vacant. Competition for decent staff is huge. Even back in the 90s I was involved in sacking 2 nurses for poor performance, took a few months but well worth it.

You can always pick (real) examples from the Daily Mail of people walking away with big payoffs (not always pensions) after a few years working in the public sector but ironically these have only emerged as the rush to 'privatise' has developed. At least in ye goode olde days you had to be a bit crap for 35yrs before getting a decent pension :emoticon-0105-wink:

If you want to see evidence of public money being p*ssed up a wall check Private Eye for the constant stream of self serving appointments and payoffs in local government.
 
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http://newsthump.com/2016/03/21/new-online-poll-could-see-george-osborne-renamed-****y-mccuntface/

New online poll could see George Osborne renamed ****y McCuntface

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A new poll could see Chancellor George Osborne renamed ****y McCuntface after it was hijacked by mischievous members of the public.
With over 500,000 people having declared their preference for ****y McCuntface in the poll, it seems inevitable that the Chancellor will be renamed.
The man behind the poll, Simon Williams said he welcomed the public getting involved.
He told us, “Naming a chancellor can be pretty boring. They’re always called things like George, or Gordon, or Alistair. So we’re grateful people have decided to get into the spirit of it.
“In second place is Gidiot Arseborne, but that only has a couple of hundred votes, so it’s looking likely he’ll be ****y McCuntface from the naming ceremony onwards.
“Oh, and the queue for people wanting to smash a bottle of champagne off his face already goes round the block, sorry.”
 
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greensaint said:
Sorry chaps, can't let that one go. This is another myth (like those massive pensions they get) which may've been true 30yrs ago but is far from that now. For good or bad there's little difference from private sector jobs these days, certainly in the NHS anyway. My wife struggles on with managing a community health team with massive staffing problems, partly caused by enforced cuts to numbers imposed from 'above'. There have been no problems for her masters in making people redundant. She reckons the major factor ensuring some qualified nurses who are 'very average' keep their jobs these days is because 10% of these posts are now vacant. Competition for decent staff is huge. Even back in the 90s I was involved in sacking 2 nurses for poor performance, took a few months but well worth it.

You can always pick (real) examples from the Daily Mail of people walking away with big payoffs (not always pensions) after a few years working in the public sector but ironically these have only emerged as the rush to 'privatise' has developed. At least in ye goode olde days you had to be a bit crap for 35yrs before getting a decent pension :emoticon-0105-wink:

If you want to see evidence of public money being p*ssed up a wall check Private Eye for the constant stream of self serving appointments and payoffs in local government.
Click to expand...

We'll said greensaint. As a trade union caseworker I dealt with a lot of capability cases.

There are a number of myths about the public sector but this one is highly pernicious.
 
I feel that Osborne has just about killed off any chance that he may have had of becoming PM. IMO I have always thought that he and Cameron will step down at the sane time in any case. Next Tory leader Teresa May!!
 
Number 1 Jasper said:
http://newsthump.com/2016/03/21/new-online-poll-could-see-george-osborne-renamed-****y-mccuntface/

New online poll could see George Osborne renamed ****y McCuntface

You must log in or register to see images

A new poll could see Chancellor George Osborne renamed ****y McCuntface after it was hijacked by mischievous members of the public.
With over 500,000 people having declared their preference for ****y McCuntface in the poll, it seems inevitable that the Chancellor will be renamed.
The man behind the poll, Simon Williams said he welcomed the public getting involved.
He told us, “Naming a chancellor can be pretty boring. They’re always called things like George, or Gordon, or Alistair. So we’re grateful people have decided to get into the spirit of it.
“In second place is Gidiot Arseborne, but that only has a couple of hundred votes, so it’s looking likely he’ll be ****y McCuntface from the naming ceremony onwards.
“Oh, and the queue for people wanting to smash a bottle of champagne off his face already goes round the block, sorry.”
Click to expand...


<laugh><laugh><laugh>
 
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Just heard the news about two explosions at the Brussels airport. Is this a terrorist response to the arrest of that particular guy the other day? I don't know but I really do feel Western Governments, in particular the UK one, the French one and the Belgian one are making a very botched job on the whole situation as these terrorists have emerged from their own populations (native born guys!!) What the answer is I do not know but being reactionary is not the solution.
 
Just a quick note to any of you who might think that Trade unions are unnecessary. 30+ years ago I did some work in the summer for an agency and was posted to the Mr Kiplings factory in Eastleigh.
Whilst there I worked on the sponge cake ovens, which worked on a conveyor system rather like a pizza oven. I had to grab the trays as they came out the other end which they did every 30 seconds or so.
The previous week, a woman had been doing that job and had requested a quick loo break which needed someone else to stand in. 10 minutes later she asked again. And then again a while later to no avail. Eventually she just had to go and by the time she returned some of the trays had fallen off the end. As she was trying to clear it up, the manager came by a sacked her on the spot.
She then approached her shop steward who brought the whole factory to a standstill. 20 minutes later, she was reinstated and everyone was back to work.
None of this awesome Union power stopped the factory being closed down of course, but what would have happened to that woman had there been no Union?
 
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Channon, I worked at that Kiplings factory for a while in the late 70s. Probably the most soul destroying, relentlessly dull grinding job I've ever done in my life. The vmoney wasn't too bad though, if you could handle the 12 hour shifts.
 
Archers Road said:
Channon, I worked at that Kiplings factory for a while in the late 70s. Probably the most soul destroying, relentlessly dull grinding job I've ever done in my life. The vmoney wasn't too bad though, if you could handle the 12 hour shifts.
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Yup. 6 til 6 either days or nights. Money was decent particularly for a student but yes it was very tedious. I used to look at the people packing treacle tart boxes into bigger boxes with envy whilst sweating by the ovens. One night I got put on that line. After about an hour I became aware of how bright the boxes were under the strip lights. By the end of the shift I could hardly look at them, they were so fluorescent! For the night shifts I used to pop into the pub and have a pint of Guinness before hand. eased the pain a bit:)
 
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greensaint said:
Sorry chaps, can't let that one go. This is another myth (like those massive pensions they get) which may've been true 30yrs ago but is far from that now. For good or bad there's little difference from private sector jobs these days, certainly in the NHS anyway. My wife struggles on with managing a community health team with massive staffing problems, partly caused by enforced cuts to numbers imposed from 'above'. There have been no problems for her masters in making people redundant. She reckons the major factor ensuring some qualified nurses who are 'very average' keep their jobs these days is because 10% of these posts are now vacant. Competition for decent staff is huge. Even back in the 90s I was involved in sacking 2 nurses for poor performance, took a few months but well worth it.

You can always pick (real) examples from the Daily Mail of people walking away with big payoffs (not always pensions) after a few years working in the public sector but ironically these have only emerged as the rush to 'privatise' has developed. At least in ye goode olde days you had to be a bit crap for 35yrs before getting a decent pension :emoticon-0105-wink:

If you want to see evidence of public money being p*ssed up a wall check Private Eye for the constant stream of self serving appointments and payoffs in local government.
Click to expand...

I am assuming (sorry if wrong) that you are talking about the NHS Trusts when talking about disciplinary/sacking within the NHS. My husband works in the NHS (not the trusts) in HR having worked for years in the private sector. Where he is, the managers don't have a clue how to manage their staff and the majority are too scared to deal with problem staff. Consequently some staff have been getting away with all sorts including bullying. This is now slowly being dealt with. He is amazed that apparently staff can't be suspended even if accusations of bullying are being looked into. This obviously leaves the accuser open to intimidation. This would never happen in the private sector where generally action is taken a lot more swiftly and I would add still within employment law. As I say this is not about the NHS trusts as I've no idea how well they are managed.
 
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