The last thing this country ever needs again is a labour government,

you re not wrong there.


however cameron has gone down in my estimation after playing a blinder with the veto last week and then coming out with all this god/religion crap yesterday.
no need to mix politics and make believe.

It's just pandering to the make believe mystical man in the sky worshipping nut jobs though, there's a fair few of them and every vote counts unfortunately.

Yeah because who needs things like sex-discrimination legislation, race-discrimination legislation, disability-discrimination legislation, minimum wage, the NHS, the social welfare system and all that other guff eh?

Obviously the politicians are hopeless compared to the posters on this forum.
Dally for PM
Mintball for chancellor
What a coalition that could be............

There are lots of reasons for the rise and fall of UK defined benefits pensions schemes, but the main drivers have been government policy (primarily taxaxtion), rising costs and accounting standards.

When you say pensions holidays who are you blaming?

Who allowed pensions holidays?

Thank goodness you have no political opinions and, therefore, never express any.

Presumably, you don't vote either?

So in the last year or so, you've have fared better with, say, no free health care, yes?



I'd agree – except to say that I'm less offended by that than our getting involved in a civil war in Africa and spending yet more billions bombing people. Perhaps you liked that?

Pension funds had their heyday in the days of high taxes, both corporation tax and income tax (83% income tax on earnings of over 20,000, CT at 52% etc). It was more efficient for employers and employees to reward via pension contributions, rather than extra salary. Companies got 52% tax relief on contributions, employees did have an immediate and high tax liability. That period corresponded with high stock market growth and the back-end of the era of big numbers in employments compared with pensioners, so the garden was rosy.

Then the Revenue, under the Tories, saw companies using over-funded pension funds for tax abuse and paying off the higher paid in their 50s to replace them with cheaper, younger people. So they sought to tax surpluses. Companies then started to take holidays as the stock market was booming and creating apparent surpluses. The Pensions Act that came in after Maxwell's abuse exaggerated the problem. Then Brown went for the stealth tax option too. It was then realised that actuarial factors were inaccurate and people were living longer, costs of schemes were increased due to legislation, employee numbers were falling and liabilities to present and future pensioners rising and stockmarkets were not going anywhere, so companies were getting out at an increasing rate. Then FRS 17 (an accounting standard) came in which was the final straw for many companies.

In short, with the significant exceptions of actuarial cock-ups and accounting standard setters, most of the boom and bust in defined benefit pension provision has been driven by politicians and their inability to think through (or care about) the longer term results of their actions.

We really need huge inefficient public sector, massive borrowings, higher taxation, pension decimation, no gold, higher disability claimers, greater loss of power to Europe etc etc.

You are in complete denial about the root cause of the deficit - the bankers only added to what was a mountain of debt already accumulated by Brown/Balls etc.

but we all get free health care who ever is in charge. nothing has changed since tories got in. i still have my regular hospital check ups and scans(and will continue to do so for at least the next 2 years) and blood tests and drugs etc. i havent had to wait any longer, or my treatment has been inferior under the tories.so that disproves a lot of pro labour/anti tory propaganda re the NHS.

as regards the war, no im not in favour but theres nowt i can do about that or TBH can any of us.if labour had have been in power we would still have been involved in that war or any future conflicts coming our way.
labour would have done very little different to what the tories are doing now(they would have had to cut down on their ridiculous spending sprees with money we just dont have) if they had won the last election.
its just convenient to slag off the govt as it suits a certain agenda from the majority who post in the sin bin. there certainly would have been less criticism of labour doing what the cons are doing.

Oh dear, oh dear.

So - and I'll write this slowly to help you - do you really believe that:

1) the financial crisis that affected other parts of the world was completely unconnected to that in the UK and it's just a coincidence that they happened at the same time;

2) the global financial crisis was caused by events in the UK?

Or is your comprehension of this a tad like your belief that I said you shouldn't buy bananas, and your assertion that careers have whopping big expense accounts etc?

The plain fact is that the deficit was around the same as in John Major's time before the financial crash.

I think you're in "complete denial" about just what a plonker you've been making of yourself. At least you old occasionally acknowledge when you've been shown to be totally wrong.

Do you think that the Conservatives would have created the NHS in the first place? Indeed, they're currently in the process of trying to privatise it – Cameron having lied about 'no more top-down reorganisations of the NHS'.

One could also note what was done to dental and ophthalmic care – and to prescription costs. And the specific effect of privatisation on, say, rates of MRSA and c-diff.



Do you remember all those stories about old people dying on a trolley in a hospital corridor? They weren't just in left-wing papers, but were widespread before 1997.

Have such stories been rife since then? There are plenty of parts of the media that would have enjoyed printing them. Why do you think that might be?

Waiting times are on the increase. Bed blocking is increasing again too.



I've personally never been shy of condemning Labour – not least for continuing the same basic economic policies that were put in place by the government of Margaret Thatcher and for Blair's wars. I don't remember even Blair having the gall to govern by u-turn and lies quite so obviously and so quickly – at least not until the notorious 45 minutes claim that enabled him to go to war with his best conservative/right wing and religious buddy, backed by his other great conservative/right wing and [iBible[/i-publishing mate.

But back to that economic continuation – I know it displeases Conservatives to think that what happened under Labour was essentially a continuation of the same economic ideology as the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher had put in place, but that is a fact.

Continued privatisation and deregulation are not hallmarks of any left-wing economic philosophy.

And that continues – this government has already tried to sell off the blood service and, fortunately, been knocked back by substantial campaigning work. Just imagine – you'd could have donated your blood for free and someone else could have made a profit out of it.