Ukip and Tory alliance?

I have to agree the Tories don't give a stuff for the average Joe.

Their policies have always bent towards those born with a silver spoon who feel very little of the austerity they are imposing on the masses.

highlandsflyer":978f7t1u said:

I have to agree the Tories don't give a stuff for the average Joe.

Their policies have always bent towards those born with a silver spoon who feel very little of the austerity they are imposing on the masses.

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Not that I'm disagreeing with you at all but I don't really think you can label just the Tories with this as it seems all of them pretty much shaft middle/lower Britain whilst the rich are left alone or taxed such a paltry amount it hardly affects them anyway.

I actually only mentioned the Tories.

However, I don't buy for one moment that there is no difference between the main parties.

There are plenty left in the Labour movement who have great concern for the common man.

Signal11th":rfr8l9vg said:

brocklanders023":rfr8l9vg said:

I work in the Public Service and can assure you I'm far worse off with the current mob in charge. Going to get worse after the budget too. :evil:

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Not tarring you with the same brush here but all the "public sector" workers who I know 6 at counting all complain about this that and the other but I always point out to them

A: The actually earn more than I do
B: They get more holidays than I do
C: They actually "have" a pension
D: They all get "sick pay" over the statutory.
.

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Right! I am a Civil Servant.
The only people I know who earn less than me are those who work for charities, are artists/ creatives or otherwise self employed. We've been saddled with a pay freeze (Which is actually a 1% rise but which is negated by high inflation, particularly food and utility bills) for several years now. Due to my employer's policy of closing local offices I now have a 50 mile round trip to work everyday and am not entitled to re-imbursement of travel fares, due to some crafty wheeze on the part of the high-ups.
I have no idea about your holidays but in order to get my current holiday entitlement I had to put in tens years employment first.
As far as I know we only get statutory sick pay and don't get me started on the pensions!

Rich Aitch":2zfplcfj said:

Signal11th":2zfplcfj said:

brocklanders023":2zfplcfj said:

I work in the Public Service and can assure you I'm far worse off with the current mob in charge. Going to get worse after the budget too. :evil:

Click to expand...

Not tarring you with the same brush here but all the "public sector" workers who I know 6 at counting all complain about this that and the other but I always point out to them

A: The actually earn more than I do
B: They get more holidays than I do
C: They actually "have" a pension
D: They all get "sick pay" over the statutory.
.

Click to expand...

Right! I am a Civil Servant.
The only people I know who earn less than me are those who work for charities, are artists/ creatives or otherwise self employed. We've been saddled with a pay freeze (Which is actually a 1% rise but which is negated by high inflation, particularly food and utility bills) for several years now. Due to my employer's policy of closing local offices I now have a 50 mile round trip to work everyday and am not entitled to re-imbursement of travel fares, due to some crafty wheeze on the part of the high-ups.
I have no idea about your holidays but in order to get my current holiday entitlement I had to put in tens years employment first.
As far as I know we only get statutory sick pay and don't get me started on the pensions!

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Hence the reason I said in my original post "not tarring you all with the same brush"

highlandsflyer":5n7e9r8j said:

I have to agree the Tories don't give a stuff for the average Joe.

Their policies have always bent towards those born with a silver spoon who feel very little of the austerity they are imposing on the masses.

Click to expand...

Let's be honest, non of the main parties give a stuff for average Joe.

I consider myself Mr average, average wage, worked for the same company for 20 years, paid into my company pension since my early 20's. The only benefit of any kind we are entitled to is child benefit (no tax credits or anything like that) Struggle to make it through each month with an average mortgage etc.

But I can say I've seen NO austerity measures at all, in my view they haven't done enough cutting back. Cut local government by another 10% at least, make the council top bods earn their 6 figure salaries by keeping all the services with less funding rather than just cut the ones that will give nice headlines in the papers.

They CAN do it, they just don't want to, reduce waste and inefficiency and stop relying on the money tree that is the tax payer.

I'm no real fan of the conservatives (although I did vote for them last time around) but I dread the next election where Liarbore will get in and spend spend spend a load of money we just don't have (they'll most likely pinch all the money from private pensions) and bankrupt the country like we're seeing in Cyprus right now.

Signal11th":2ajh8zmj said:

highlandsflyer":2ajh8zmj said:

I have to agree the Tories don't give a stuff for the average Joe.

Their policies have always bent towards those born with a silver spoon who feel very little of the austerity they are imposing on the masses.

Click to expand...

Not that I'm disagreeing with you at all but I don't really think you can label just the Tories with this as it seems all of them pretty much shaft middle/lower Britain whilst the rich are left alone or taxed such a paltry amount it hardly affects them anyway.

Click to expand...

Some of this comes back to that crappy beer economics analogy that was portrayed as wisdom incarnate, when really it played fast and loose with representating the true scenario. That notion that the numbers were pretty scalable, and the rich were keeping the ship afloat, misrepresents the scenario, because the true high earners are probably not paying tax in anything like quite the same direct way as the "middle-England" type earners - and there's probably very much more "middle-England" type earners in comparison anyways.

There seems to be this concept that the rich can't actually be expected to pay their way, and if society had the audacity to expect them to, they'd take the huff, and go home with their ball. Thing is - the really big earners probably don't pay out to anything like the same proportions as middle England do. These high earners are unlikely to be paying PAYE tax, or if they are, at anything near approaching those sort of proportions.

Bonuses, "companies" and various other tax break schemes will likely be at play.

So there's this unthinking dogma about not penalising the rich - when they probably pay nothing like the proportions of middle England - that's thrown about like some unassailable mantra, whereas the reality is probably nothing like that.

AR-CoolC":1fy826c4 said:

But I can say I've seen NO austerity measures at all, in my view they haven't done enough cutting back.

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The tossers are fiddling at the edges to try not to upset anyone. Cuts to this and that but overall spending more money than ever. So they're still upsetting millions of people. If they'd had the balls to cut properly at the start the same people would be pissed off but we might be getting somewhere by now.

Labour will finish us off next time round.

For me I am strictly private sector, effectively self-employed. Sick pay? Holidays? Pension? 37 hrs a week? Pfft. Fortunately though I work in an industry where demand is always high, I can earn as much as I want and I have a mentor who is always ready with a new way of generating income, even in difficult economic times. He's still flipping property for double money, when if you believed the media the housing market is fecked.

In my view it's right and proper to use every tool at your disposal, every skill you have to rise above the rest and secure your own future. Nobody else will do it for you. And that's not to say you do it at someone else's expense before anyone bites, just that too many folk have a misplaced sense of entitlement.

technodup":bal5nors said:

AR-CoolC":bal5nors said:

But I can say I've seen NO austerity measures at all, in my view they haven't done enough cutting back.

Click to expand...

The tossers are fiddling at the edges to try not to upset anyone. Cuts to this and that but overall spending more money than ever. So they're still upsetting millions of people. If they'd had the balls to cut properly at the start the same people would be pissed off but we might be getting somewhere by now.

Labour will finish us off next time round.

For me I am strictly private sector, effectively self-employed. Sick pay? Holidays? Pension? 37 hrs a week? Pfft. Fortunately though I work in an industry where demand is always high, I can earn as much as I want and I have a mentor who is always ready with a new way of generating income, even in difficult economic times. He's still flipping property for double money, when if you believed the media the housing market is fecked.

In my view it's right and proper to use every tool at your disposal, every skill you have to rise above the rest and secure your own future. Nobody else will do it for you. And that's not to say you do it at someone else's expense before anyone bites, just that too many folk have a misplaced sense of entitlement.

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Lets hope your industry never falls on it's arse so you don't become the type of person you quite obviously hate.

Have not cut enough? Have a word with yourself and try telling that to the 1000's of people that have been made redundant through no fault of their own because "The tossers are fiddling at the edges to try not to upset anyone".

AR-CoolC":3t81jw53 said:

The only benefit of any kind we are entitled to is child benefit.

But I can say I've seen NO austerity measures at all, in my view they haven't done enough cutting back. .

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I'm sure they'll soon be after your child benefit, then you'll be able to feel part of the austerity.

I get no benefits what so ever and don't need them but have sure as hell felt the pinch.

Your bent view of local government is laughable. If you'd seen what's been going on round our way you might change your mind.