UK General Election - 12th December 2019 | Con 365, Lab 203, LD 11, SNP 48, Other 23 - Tory Majority of 80

How do you intend to vote in the 2019 General Election if eligible?

  • Brexit Party

    Votes: 30 4.3%

  • Conservatives

    Votes: 73 10.6%

  • DUP

    Votes: 5 0.7%

  • Green

    Votes: 23 3.3%

  • Labour

    Votes: 355 51.4%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 58 8.4%

  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 3 0.4%

  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 9 1.3%

  • SNP

    Votes: 19 2.8%

  • UKIP

    Votes: 6 0.9%

  • Independent

    Votes: 1 0.1%

  • Other (BNP, Change UK, UUP and anyone else that I have forgotten)

    Votes: 10 1.4%

  • Not voting

    Votes: 57 8.3%

  • Undecided

    Votes: 41 5.9%
  • Total voters
    690
  • Poll closed .
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British government is already paying for the high speed internet rollout, it's just through subsidies instead if directly. Public gets to pay twice as is.
 
esmufc07 said:
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Yeah but how do you get the former without the latter? It's not as if BT are just going to say "yeah haha sure we'll give the services to folk for free!" *Starts flicking bottom lip vigorously*
 
Mr Pigeon said:
Yeah but how do you get the former without the latter? It's not as if BT are just going to say "yeah haha sure we'll give the services to folk for free!" *Starts flicking bottom lip vigorously*
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The weird thing about the first question is that 22% said they oppose getting something they use all the time for free.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
Depends on the union. If you're in my field we've been fecked over by management and also our colleagues in another union who "got theirs" and then promptly abandoned us. On about five occasions now.

On your second point though I've been wondering about that. As a union man myself I've noticed that people of my generation have very little say or power to deliver positive change, and it's because in order to get change you need support and without public support we're kind of fecked. As you say, the overstepping in the 70's probably was the start of that "oh, here we go again. More disruption" perception.
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When I started work in engineering I was on a machine that had a cooling fan and the wing nut on the fan came loose so I picked it up and screwed it back on. I was carpeted for doing a job that I should’ve called maintenance for. This was around 75. Demarcation was ridiculous. They said management of Leyland was bad but the truth was that they were trying to make the place more competitive and better quality products by introducing methods that were already being adopted overseas. 536 strikes in 30 months is impossible to manage. It was protectionism. The Japanese introduced the same said manufacturing practices in Sunderland. Difference was they were dealing with people who had no jobs so it was their way or the dole queue.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
The weird thing about the first question is that 22% said they oppose getting something they use all the time for free.
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It's weird until you realist that they probably knew at this point that Labour proposed it. Therefore it just has to be rejected no matter what.

Tbf they could say "The Tories want to give you this ham sandwich and send your wife a court order demanding she gives you daily gobbles" and I'd reject it purely because I was suspicious.
 
Honest John said:
When I started work in engineering I was on a machine that had a cooling fan and the wing nut on the fan came loose so I picked it up and screwed it back on. I was carpeted for doing a job that I should’ve called maintenance for. This was around 75. Demarcation was ridiculous. They said management of Leyland was bad but the truth was that they were trying to make the place more competitive and better quality products by introducing methods that were already being adopted overseas. 536 strikes in 30 months is impossible to manage. It was protectionism. The Japanese introduced the same said manufacturing practices in Sunderland. Difference was they were dealing with people who had no jobs so it was their way or the dole queue.
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On the flip side I had a friend who went off work on stress for six months, came back and about three weeks later collapsed at work and was off again. Then he got the diagnosis; cancer of the brain. At our work it's very clearly written in our contract that we're protected from redundancy if we're absent through long term sickness. Seems secure enough.

But the company didn't want a sick person on the books for what might be a lengthy illness. So they just got rid of his post in the structure entirely and gave him a severance package that was a weeks wage for every year he had worked at the company, capped at ten years (he had been there 26). If he died whilst still employed at the company his family would have received 3 times his yearly salary as part of his local government pension scheme which he had been paying into for years. Instead he died six months later after his family burned through the severance money before the funeral took place.

And then they had the audacity to send out an all staff email saying how he was a treasured member of staff who would be missed.

And, yeah, he was a union rep ffs and he had absolutely no power. So I guess you could say that there's no clear "unions have too much/little power over businesses" because it can cut both ways.

Edit: forgot the best bit. The fecker who sacked him retired a year later. Then took a voluntary severance package worth an extra £80k as her post was "no longer required". And then six months later they hired someone else to do the old job she had had, that was apparently no longer required and had allowed her to get VS in the first place, even though she was retiring anyway and should have not been eligible for it at all.
 
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Mr Pigeon said:
On the flip side I had a friend who went off work on stress for six months, came back and about three weeks later collapsed at work and was off again. Then he got the diagnosis; cancer of the brain. At our work it's very clearly written in our contract that we're protected from redundancy if we're absent through long term sickness. Seems secure enough.

But the company didn't want a sick person on the books for what might be a lengthy illness. So they just got rid of his post in the structure entirely and gave him a severance package that was a weeks wage for every year he had worked at the company, capped at ten years (he had been there 26). If he died whilst still employed at the company his family would have received 3 times his yearly salary as part of his local government pension scheme which he had been paying into for years. Instead he died six months later after his family burned through the money before the funeral took place.

And then they had the audacity to send out an all staff email saying how he was a treasured member of staff who would be missed.

And, yeah, he was a union rep ffs and he had absolutely no power.
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I have to admit that is dreadful. I would hope that it was the exception rather than the rule. I’ve had two employees with serious illnesses. One with a quadruple heart bypass following a heart attack. We paid him the full 5 months he was off. The other more recent with prostate cancer. The private medical insurance provided by the company came up short so after a blazing row I had with the provider we paid the difference for the colleague. We will change the provider too.
 
Honest John said:
I have to admit that is dreadful. I would hope that it was the exception rather than the rule. I’ve had two employees with serious illnesses. One with a quadruple heart bypass following a heart attack. We paid him the full 5 months he was off. The other more recent with prostate cancer. The private medical insurance provided by the company came up short so after a blazing row I had with the provider we paid the difference for the colleague. We will change the provider too.
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It depends on who your bosses are. I imagine that you care about your staff, but some people are just evil.

That's why I can imagine that these kind of union disruptions annoy you; because you're following the rules. I know that it's shit but sometimes we need unions to be able to step in because there are some proper wankers out there that will find any way out that they can from supporting staff.

Havinga said that some unions annoy even me. Like a rep I knew who said they were demanding a 6% pay increase for all 450 local members for that year after the 4% from the year before, which would have destroyed the company as it was already known we had feck all money. This wasn't a haggling tactic from them either, with the aim of finally agreeing something fairer (maybe in exchange for a few extra days holiday or something). No, they were adamant that this was their first and final offer.

Didn't turn out well. They got their pay rise of 6% and we got 1%. Again. But they also found a tenth of their members losing hours to pay for it. Now they're apparently demanding my guys lose staff to cover the costs they've incurred because "it's not fair boohoo" feck off with that crap.

Actually, feck unions. They're all wankers. Even my union. And me. What a tosser me is.
 
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NinjaFletch said:
Hear me out guys.

Maybe, maybe, if we didn't accept the Tories selling off national assets to their mates in cut price deals that benefit nobody but themselves in a thinly disguised exercise in corruption, Labour wouldn't have to promise to spend vast quantities of money to buy them back?
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We are having to buy back our stolen assets. Thanks Tories.
 
Kaos said:
Really wish they’d press Johnson/Tories more on the Russian donors and how he just casually suppressed the report of the investigation being released. Tories getting away with murder.
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Yep. It is a major issue but has had less coverage than most other stories.
 
Sassy Colin said:
If this is the standard of discourse you can expect from caring socialist, I am right to want to have nothing to do with your lot.
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I find that people who subscribe to socialism often care more about that world view, than about real flesh and blood people.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
Following 2008 where bank rescues were necessary to save the entire financial system, banks now have to produce 'living wills' which should allow them to fail without bringing down the whole economy. Whether these would in fact work as intended if we were in the midst of another 'once in century' economic meltdown remains to be seen.

Either way, banks are clearly systemically important to the entire functioning and liquidity of the economy in a way that a travel agent or greetings card retailer is not.
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They're a business bailed out with your money, let them fail. feck the consequences.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
It's weird until you realist that they probably knew at this point that Labour proposed it. Therefore it just has to be rejected no matter what.

Tbf they could say "The Tories want to give you this ham sandwich and send your wife a court order demanding she gives you daily gobbles" and I'd reject it purely because I was suspicious.
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To be fair if a tory offered to pay off my mortgage and it was legit, I'd turn them down.
 
Sassy Colin said:
I can't concentrate like I used to and nothing much I do these days really stretches me. I spend most of my day sorting out the crap I've been presented with as finished work.
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:lol: I'm picturing you like a teacher just grading papers and telling people who really feck up to stand in the corner facing the wall.
 
Stanley Road said:
To be fair if a tory offered to pay off my mortgage and it was legit, I'd turn them down.
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You'd probably find Rees-Mogg living in your attic. And every morning you'd hear him winding up his radio and eating beans from the tin.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
:lol: I'm picturing you like a teacher just grading papers and telling people who really feck up to stand in the corner facing the wall.
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Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to do that these days. The reason I became good at what I do was to avoid bollockings.

You can't really bollock people properly these days, as it might hurt their feelings.
 
Sassy Colin said:
Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to do that these days. The reason I became good at what I do was to avoid bollockings.

You can't really bollock people properly these days, as it might hurt their feelings.
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Weird. My Director's boss popped his head into the office yesterday called me a "stupid bald cnut" because I misspelled one single word in a 22 page report.
 
berbatrick said:
watch how "libcafe" has responded to a fairly mild and gradual plan for nationalisation. the uk is and has been inherently conservative, anti-worker and anti-public investment for a while, i think since thatcher privatised public housing.
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The anti-worker hangover from serfdom is weird.
This isn't a mild and gradual plan though. I'm intrigued about how the pricing of any nationalisation deal would work and struggle to see it not ending in either the taxpayer getting fleeced or a bitter shareholder legal dispute
The issue of the firm's pension liabilities will be massive and potentially strip away a lot of the perceived cost savings of nationalisation.
It's a broadly well-meaning, but poorly thought out idea.
 
Jippy said:
The anti-worker hangover from serfdom is weird.
This isn't a mild and gradual plan though. I'm intrigued about how the pricing of any nationalisation deal would work and struggle to see it not ending in either the taxpayer getting fleeced or a bitter shareholder legal dispute
The issue of the firm's pension liabilities will be massive and potentially strip away a lot of the perceived cost savings of nationalisation.
It's a broadly well-meaning, but poorly thought out idea.
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I wonder how nationalisation would work now that the unions have pretty much been purged of commies and lost most of their power.
 
Grinner said:
I wonder how nationalisation would work now that the unions have pretty much been purged of commies and lost most of their power.
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You don't need them. The Tories did it with Railtrack in '03.
Another big issue is the fact Labour will also be fecking over the pension funds and small investors with BT shares. I guess they'd be collateral damage for the greater good.
 
Did any of the asset sell-offs turn out well? I remember when they were all being sold...Don't tell Sid or whatever it was. I got money when the building societies did it too.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
Reticence instead of reticent. I responded that unlike him at least I knew what it meant.

Then he started spamming me on Microsoft Teams.
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One of the great things about working in finance....no one can spell and you’re not expected to
 
Sassy Colin said:
Digging a ditch in all weathers is hard work, but it's not skilled work.

Do you not think that some one who has undertaken extensive training is worth more than someone who can learn the job in a couple of hours?
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No one digs ditches for a living anymore. We have machinery for that now but when they did ditch diggers were among the best paid workers in the country.

Where I work now the jobs that are the hardest physical work or jobs with most risk to life and limb are among the best paid jobs in the company even though you can learn them in a couple of hours.
 
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