The Left: Moribund.

[Anna]

Re Public Sector strikes. Many private sector workers have no sympathy for, say, civil servants, and their guaranteed pensions at the early age of 60. British workers earn an average of about £25,000 a year, but the basic state pension is £5,312 a year for a single person. Those workers at your local supermarket for example, earn less than £25,000 (maybe, on minimum wage, around £13,000 pa) and no wherewithall to pay into a private scheme. OK, they should have planned earlier for their old age. How? When there is no money left over?

But, many who will be caught in the poverty trap of only a State Pension are those who maybe only could work part-time, possibly carers, the single are hit very hard. This is what needs to be addressed, ordinary working folk who had no comprehension as to how interest rates, bankers, and the rich and greedy may impact on their old age. OK, call them stupid, but if you don't have the spare dosh to buy annuities, what do you do? How do we care for these elderly people?

[Lateralthinking1]

Quote: "as for contracts, if one is a sole trader and someone breaks your contract then you really just have to put it down to experience , its far to expensive and time consuming to do anything else !"

GREAT news. Imagine that happening millions of times across business every month and all because of cantankerous OAPs.

You haven't said what you would support in terms of public sector pensions. I would support musicians having a very decent income and pension.

[MrGongGong]

Quote: "as for contracts, if one is a sole trader and someone breaks your contract then you really just have to put it down to experience , its far to expensive and time consuming to do anything else !"

GREAT news. Imagine that happening millions of times across business every month and all because of cantankerous OAPs.

You haven't said what you would support in terms of public sector pensions. I would support musicians having a very decent income and pension.

I'm all in favour of people in the public sector having decent income etc etc
but simply pointing out that no one really gives a toss about those of us who are sole traders etc
not that i would want to do anything else

[Lateralthinking1]

That just isn't true Mr GG.

Anna is right to point out the difficulties she mentions. If you can name me one union leader who has said "that Gordon Brown, he was damned right to inflict pain on the private sector", I will sell my bungalow and send you a thoroughbred horse.

[Anna]

I'm all in favour of people in the public sector having decent income etc etc
but simply pointing out that no one really gives a toss about those of us who are sole traders etc
not that i would want to do anything else

I was, sole trader, self-employed. It was bluddy hard, not knowing one week to the next what the income would be, could you afford to pay bills, having to justify to HMRC every bit of expenditure, year end accounts that's why I gave it up.

Lat, I have to say this, you are sometimes very harsh.

[MrGongGong]

That just isn't true Mr GG.

Anna is right to point out the difficulties she mentions. If you can name me one union leader who has said "that Gordon Brown, he was damned right to inflict pain on the private sector", I will sell my bungalow and send you a thoroughbred horse.

which bit ?
no don't bother
as you seem unable to believe that other people might live in a different way to you or even have different opinions
simply denying other peoples experience is no way to have a discussion

try the empathy cloak on for once ?

[Lateralthinking1]

Sorry Anna. This has been said before. Sort of people jumping for cover. I can genuinely say that the way it comes across is entirely different from the emotions that drive it.

Panic, fear, anxiety, depression, a feeling of being bludgeoned, axed, killed off. These are the feelings really. I can say it in a matter-of-fact way but the alternative is to sit like a stone for hours feeling murdered. That is what I have done several times this week and for many hours.

What you never get from me is an unprovoked attack on others although I feel very provoked even when people are amazed that what they have said or done feels to me like provocation.

In a nutshell, ordinary hardness or harshness in others maims me. I hate it. But then ultimately what comes forth outdoes it twenty-fold purely as a reaction. That it is a reaction, and worded reasonably civilly, to me gives it moral justification.

(Incidentally, having been a student, I do understand some of their ways but not all. I have been staunchly on the side of the ordinary elderly since I was a very young boy. Now that older age for me is in sight, this is simply a continuation of that theme).

[teamsaint]

I'm all in favour of people in the public sector having decent income etc etc
but simply pointing out that no one really gives a toss about those of us who are sole traders etc
not that i would want to do anything else

I think that its the government who don't give a toss about the self employed.

its close to impossible for someone earning ordinary levels of profit to provide a decent private pension for their old age, especially on current annuity rate.
Self employed people deserve a much better deal from the state pension. THey will have to fight for this themselves, because everybody else is busy saving their own skins.Sad but true.

See, what I said about the fighting earlier on the board was right. The more we fight/argue/look for scapegoats, the easier the real villains have it. and we know who they are !!

[Mandryka]

I don't get why people are taking such umbrage at lateral_thinking's posts. As he's said, there has been no direct provocation.

Whereas, amatuer_51 (afraid my mis-spelling is deliberate on this occasion) continues to wilfully mistake the wood for the trees. There is nothing goal-post moving about my comments on the country you mentions: but to make things even more basic - the country in question is a poor country; socialism, even today, has a currency in poor countries that it does not have in rich countries; but if those poor countries become rich, they'll ditch socialism quicker than a prawn leaping off a hot plate. :)

As to your being a homOphobic caricature....all I can say, m'dear, is try listening to yourself! :) Though I ought to thaink you for linking my unworthy name with that of John Osborne, a writer for whom I've always had immense admiration (and who, by some supernatural coincidence has just appeared on my TV - I'd forgotten about his bizarre appearance in the high camp 1980 Flash Gordon film). Tell you what, if I can be J.O., you can be Peter Wyngarde! :)

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes Anna - thanks. More unusual than fey. Unusual as in "how can someone so normal/ordinary be so weird" and vice versa. Almost the epitome of both. Sensitive as in off the scale. I have never met anyone as over-sensitive. Genuinely.

Popularity generally despite "all the moments" and lonerism. For the loyalty, I think; the honesty - "the thing with you is that you don't knowingly have a lot of bullshit" - Cheers!; - and some humour. Oddly also generosity. Dress is fairly standard.

Frequently self-defeating. Always have been widely seen as unlucky. Not very good at self-blame. Mostly inclined to blame systems and their impacts on people. Have tolerated huge amounts from other individuals until breaking point. Patient with those of limited capability. Chip on the shoulder the size of China with Cameron and Osborne types.

Anyway, thank you. I appreciate it. Time to sit down with a flannel on my head and have some bananas and custard.

[Mandryka]

Eine - Great news. Let's hope it is just the first step. I would like to see six separate weeks of strikes - full weeks - between now and the end of the financial year. One announcement but no advance warning of the individual dates. People to be advised the evening before each one, hence no contingencies. This will place huge financial pressures on some. However, the message would be "strike on as many weeks as you can". I am in no doubt whatsoever that the foregoing of a holiday for a couple of years in many cases or something like a decision not to buy electrical goods for that period would be a very small price to pay.

.

I think you wrote that in hot blood, not in cold.

'Wild cat' strikes of the kind you describe here have not only been illegal for many years, but achieve absolutely nothing other than a hardening of public opinion AGAINST the strikers. They also play straight into the hands of reactionary tendencies (just imagine what Paul Dacre and his pals would make of it all) and generally make the things easier for the government.

Sorry, but the days when governments could afford to concede things to strikers have long gone. Post-1985, any government knows in its waters that it MUST defeat the unions, or be defeated by the public at the next general election.

Rightly or wrongly, the vast majority of the public seem to accept the argument that the pain must be shared.If you disagree, then sorry: you're in the minority.

[mangerton]

Rightly or wrongly, the vast majority of the public seem to accept the argument that the pain must be shared.If you disagree, then sorry: you're in the minority.

You're quite right. Unfortunately, the very ones who caused our current problems - bankers, and all politicians - are the ones who are not sharing in the pain.

Furthermore, it ill behoves this minority government to yammer on about union minorities voting for strike action.

[scottycelt]

I don't get why people are taking such umbrage at lateral_thinking's posts. As he's said, there has been no direct provocation.

Easy ... it's because he actually thinks ... I, for one, respect that even when I believe he is hopelessly wrong.

Those who take umbrage are the very same members who continually come up with the same unthinking politically-correct propagandist leftist clap-trap post after post.

More power to the truly independent minds on this Forum!

[ahinton]

Easy ... it's because he actually thinks ... I, for one, respect that even when I believe he is hopelessly wrong.

Those who take umbrage are the very same members who continually come up with the same unthinking politically-correct propagandist leftist clap-trap post after post.

More power to the truly independent minds on this Forum!

Well, whilst I hope that I am entitled to rejoice in not being one of those - and whilst I am not "of the Left" per se - I am not at all comfortable with the implication that "unthinking politically-correct propagandist" must, by definition (whose?), also be "Leftist".

[MrGongGong]

I'm not sure what "leftist" means anymore anyway
it did used to have a meaning
but
just seems to be a general term of abuse rather than having any solid meaning