Westminster Politics

Way to generalise generations.

Although I'd add to the mix that this generation of 20somethings is going to be the first lot that will be poorer than their parents since prior to the war.
 
The problem with saying people should just be more 'prudent' is that we live in a consumerist society that encourages the exact opposite of that, and where our economy, to a certain extent, largely depends on people spending instead of saving.

If people were just saving instead of going out en masse, for example, you'd see bars/nightclubs taking a massive hit, with plenty of them closing due to a lack of cash inflow, meaning workers would be paid off...in many cases those exact same workers who we're expecting to be prudent in saving up to buy a property. Similar can be said for fast food industries and other entertainment industries which all regular on a regular inflow of customers spending their disposable income in order to succeed. Get rid of those and you're costing a lot of jobs considering we live in an economy that's increasingly leisure-dominated compared to what it once was when manufacturing etc were all more important.
 
Cheesy said:
Most people are having to save for much, much longer than that, unless they're already well-off. It's all well and good to say you'd have just done it for longer but for a people of people it's probably not worth it, especially in a culture where jobs aren't really secure, meaning you could get asked/forced to move to a new area where property is even more expensive, fecking up your plans. And that's before taking into consideration the fact that someone who plans to save up with a partner may not still be with that partner by the time they're ready to put down a deposit, considering how long people are being expected to save for. In most cases it's just much easier to rent, hence why the average age for people owning a property is going up and up.
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Like I've said though, every person has a different definition of what's normal when it comes to spending. We possibly overdone the thrifty bit, but my missus & I were single-minded in reaching our goal. We knew there'd be plenty of opportunities to socialize once we had our own place. So 12 months without having a drink or a takeaway might seem like purgatory to many, but every week we put money away was another week closer to our dream. That was our one & only priority. & I know of other friends who adopted a similar attitude too. Different era's, different attitudes.
 
redman5 said:
Like I've said though, every person has a different definition of what's normal when it comes to spending. We possibly overdone the thrifty bit, but my missus & I were single-minded in reaching our goal. We knew there'd be plenty of opportunities to socialize once we had our own place. So 12 months without having a drink or a takeaway might seem like purgatory to many, but every week we put money away was another week closer to our dream. That was our one & only priority. & I know of other friends who adopted a similar attitude too. Different era's, different attitudes.
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And again most people are having to save for a lot longer to obtain properties that aren't as good for prices that are considerably more expensive. Meaning it's not really worth the hassle for many and that it's just better to rent instead. Which becomes problematic insofar as it empowers a select number of landlords who continue to make obscene profits. No one's denying you can't save up for property; it's just that it's become considerably more difficult for no real reason except economic greed that's been perpetrated by generations that have come before ours. We accept we've got it better off than the generations that have come before us, but we're also aware that we're going to have it worse off financially than our parents - again, for no real reason other than economic greed.

And again, while financial prudence may have helped you personally if people do that en masse then the hypothetical pubs and takeaways you're talking about start to shut down because they don't have enough customers, something that's inherently bad for the economy and costs jobs as a result.
 
Xeno said:
You’ll *never* get rid of the hair or smell totally, not without replacing every soft fixture.

I wouldn’t take kids either. Two professionals, vetted. It’s the landlords prerogative.
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Hmmmm interesting, I was wondering what factors had helped fuel the housing shortage for poorer families.
 
The government knew of a plan that could have retrieved more than £360m from Carillion, limiting the cost of its collapse to taxpayers and sparing pension scheme members from cuts to their retirement payouts, but did not encourage directors to pursue it.

Multiple sources told the Guardian that the Cabinet Office, responsible for oversight of government contractors, did not apply any pressure on Carillion’s directors to adopt the proposals, presented by accounting firm EY in mid-December last year.

EY’s plan would have involved breaking up the company, selling the profitable parts and placing the rest into liquidation, avoiding an involuntary collapse.

The accounting firm believed this would generate £364m, of which £218m could be injected into the firm’s 13 pension schemes, estimated to have a deficit of close to £1bn.
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https://www.theguardian.com/busines...t-slip-chance-to-retrieve-364m-from-carillion
 
Voter surpresion comes to the UK

Check out @BBCNews’s Tweet:

The Tories have been using US style tactics recently, they are trying very hard to bring the culture wars to this nation. Make elections about the bullshit and not the things that really matter, health, housing and money, trying to distract their way to power.
 
Mozza said:
Its a vanishingly small problem, 40 cases from 45 million votes last year.
I
This is about stopping poor people and brown people from voting
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You’re sounding a bit paranoid there if you don’t mind me saying.

Have to disagree with you though. Used to be much better than it is now. One of my friends fills in his wife’s postal vote (she lives literally 2 mins walk from the polling station but has no interest in voting) so he in effect gets 2 votes.

At the last election I went to the polling station and gave them my address (that was all I needed and it wasn’t my address). They told me my name and I smiled and said yes. Except that it wasn’t my name. As they went to give me my voting paper I told them not to bother because that wasn’t me at all and I was just testing the security of the system. It’s that easy. The person who’s address I gave them was away and couldn’t get back in time to vote. If I had gone ahead and voted in their place I could have had 2 votes. Something should have been done about it a long time ago. It’s ripe for fraud.
 
"Electoral fraud is a problem because I attempted electoral fraud at the last election" is an interesting one.
 
Red Defence said:
You’re sounding a bit paranoid there if you don’t mind me saying.

Have to disagree with you though. Used to be much better than it is now. One of my friends fills in his wife’s postal vote (she lives literally 2 mins walk from the polling station but has no interest in voting) so he in effect gets 2 votes.

At the last election I went to the polling station and gave them my address (that was all I needed and it wasn’t my address). They told me my name and I smiled and said yes. Except that it wasn’t my name. As they went to give me my voting paper I told them not to bother because that wasn’t me at all and I was just testing the security of the system. It’s that easy. The person who’s address I gave them was away and couldn’t get back in time to vote. If I had gone ahead and voted in their place I could have had 2 votes. Something should have been done about it a long time ago. It’s ripe for fraud.
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It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. The young and the poor have less time to be running around sorting valid id for voting, they're also less likely to vote Tory. Just look at the states and the shite the republicans do to stop black people voting, this policy is borrowed straight from there.
 
Red Defence said:
You’re sounding a bit paranoid there if you don’t mind me saying.

Have to disagree with you though. Used to be much better than it is now. One of my friends fills in his wife’s postal vote (she lives literally 2 mins walk from the polling station but has no interest in voting) so he in effect gets 2 votes.

At the last election I went to the polling station and gave them my address (that was all I needed and it wasn’t my address). They told me my name and I smiled and said yes. Except that it wasn’t my name. As they went to give me my voting paper I told them not to bother because that wasn’t me at all and I was just testing the security of the system. It’s that easy. The person who’s address I gave them was away and couldn’t get back in time to vote. If I had gone ahead and voted in their place I could have had 2 votes. Something should have been done about it a long time ago. It’s ripe for fraud.
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Isn't that a crime? I'm not asking anyone to call the police... but 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3.
 
Ubik said:
"Electoral fraud is a problem because I attempted electoral fraud at the last election" is an interesting one.
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No, electoral fraud is a problem because it’s so easy to do. Fraud goes on all the time, the easier it is to carry out the more it is likely to happen. It should be a lot more secure and needing Id to vote makes complete sense. Heck I need Id to draw money out of my account if I’m in my local bank across the road. My signature is not enough. Neither is my name, address, bank card and cheque book.
 
Ubik said:
"Electoral fraud is a problem because I attempted electoral fraud at the last election" is an interesting one.
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Mozza said:
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. The young and the poor have less time to be running around sorting valid id for voting, they're also less likely to vote Tory. Just look at the states and the shite the republicans do to stop black people voting, this policy is borrowed straight from there.
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ID makes sense. Forget Republicans....nowt to do with them. Voting should be legit and above board.
 
Red Defence said:
No, electoral fraud is a problem because it’s so easy to do. Fraud goes on all the time, the easier it is to carry out the more it is likely to happen. It should be a lot more secure and needing Id to vote makes complete sense. Heck I need Id to draw money out of my account if I’m in my local bank across the road. My signature is not enough. Neither is my name, address, bank card and cheque book.
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Not everyone has ID, and disproportionally less poorer / browner people have it. Also it’s beaurocratic to obtain, and less poorer / brown people can navigate the process.
 
Xeno said:
Not everyone has ID, and disproportionally less poorer / browner people have it. Also it’s beaurocratic to obtain, and less poorer / brown people can navigate the process.
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People need ID for an increasing number of things nowadays and most people have some form of ID. Even some form of photo ID...student cards, passports etc.

I haven’t got any current photo ID atm and I really don’t want to have to bother getting any either but I’ve had one or two instances where I’ve needed it and so I’m going to have to go through these tedious beaurocratic processes myself. I’d rather not tbh but I still think ID is necessary for voting. We can’t have a fraudulent voting procedure just because it’s difficult for some to get it. The help is out there if they need it.
 
esmufc07 said:
Surely it's not overly difficult to take a form of ID with you when you go to vote?
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It’s not difficult, no, but statistically rich white folk will more likely have it than poor brown folk, so it disenfranchised them more proportionally.
 
Yeah the photo ID is definitely a US style tactic adopted by the Tories. Should be making voting easier e.g. on a weekend/bank holiday or even potentialy online voting, not harder.

It's just another way to suppress the vote, no real surprise since the Tories get more than their fair share of MPs compared to % of votes and their voters are literally dying off every year.
 
Red Defence said:
Yeah online....no risk with fraud online is there.
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What'd be the main fraud risks? It already happens in 14 countries and we already register online and fill out most government forms online as well. As opposed to somewhere like Estonia we do lack the infrustructure behind it though so it's a way off yet. And clearly not something the Tories would want.
 
Ubik said:
"Electoral fraud is a problem because I attempted electoral fraud at the last election" is an interesting one.
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:lol:

My mother (as a journalist) wanted to prove electoral fraud (about 30-35 years ago in South Mumbai, Milind Deora's seat, in case any curious Indians are lurking). She actually managed to vote 5 times after contacting someone in his campaign; they directed her to someone standing near the booth who could remove the ink from her finger and give her a fresh name and ID to use. Apparently this has become slightly harder since the mid-90s when the EC became serious about stuff like this.
She voted for 5 different people :lol:

Edit - misremembered. She voted twice but saw people do it 5+ times.
 
Red Defence said:
No-one knows the scale of the problem. I just gave you 2 examples that haven’t been recorded anywhere.

The scale of fraud is only known about once it has been uncovered. It’s the potential for fraud that should be reduced substantially.
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And if you stop a bunch of Labour voters at the same time then bonus
 
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