Struggling to vote

[papasmurf]

My wife is a WASPI not happy but she did not get a letter from Boris ,

There is time left for the letter to arrive.

[Churchill]

My wife has just had a letter from Boris Johnson, (not a joke,) what she said when she read it is NOT for repeating on an internet forum.

My wife is one of the Waspi women  and if she ever got anywhere near Boris she would be up on a murder charge.

My wife is a WASPI not happy but she did not get a letter from Boris , even if she could have drawn her state pension at 60 she would still continue working she won't quite even though she had a serious back problem.



She has cast her vote already , and its not for Labour and never will be

[Baron von Lotsov]

  The low skill jobs (Amazon packing, delivery driving, shelf stacking) don't pay as well and the worker/dependent ratio is falling as the baby boomers age out of the labour force and the falling birth rate bites.



Nostalgia for the past won't help us face the challenges of the future.

In London during that time they had their own Amazons(cheating monopolists) in the form of department stores selling bland crap. They took em on though. The gutless yoof of today would not be able to fight their way out of a paper bag. What do you expect if you hold the white flag up?

[papasmurf]

I agree women went through hell to be given the right to vote it annoys me when women say I can't be bothered or no I don't vote.



Wife and I are not keen on what is on offer either

My wife has just had a letter from Boris Johnson, (not a joke,) what she said when she read it is NOT for repeating on an internet forum.

My wife is one of the Waspi women  and if she ever got anywhere near Boris she would be up on a murder charge.

[Churchill]

I have been quietly in the political dessert for a while having decided that it had got ridiculous. I have watched in horror at the twists and turns of news bulletins which I am sure, must have pushed the average voter who has little interest in the minutiae so beloved of the pundits, to the point of destruction.



I have limited my news feed and yes even the postings here, in an effort to get a handle on where my political head was. My vote is decided, not by loyalty nor habit, but purely as an intellectual necessity. I will vote because not voting is not an option. As a woman I am only too aware of those throughout the world who don't have the vote. I am too aware of those who died so I can cast my X in the booth.



Will my vote make a difference? It didn't in 2016 or 17. Do I like the parties and leaders on offer. No. Will I be reluctant? Probably. Someone somewhere is going to have to work a lot harder than they have in Westminster of late to earn my respect or trust. I can't believe that I am here once again trying to drum up enough hope that they will get it right this time.

I agree women went through hell to be given the right to vote it annoys me when women say I can't be bothered or no I don't vote.



Wife and I are not keen on what is on offer either

[T00ts]

I have been quietly in the political dessert for a while having decided that it had got ridiculous. I have watched in horror at the twists and turns of news bulletins which I am sure, must have pushed the average voter who has little interest in the minutiae so beloved of the pundits, to the point of destruction.



I have limited my news feed and yes even the postings here, in an effort to get a handle on where my political head was. My vote is decided, not by loyalty nor habit, but purely as an intellectual necessity. I will vote because not voting is not an option. As a woman I am only too aware of those throughout the world who don't have the vote. I am too aware of those who died so I can cast my X in the booth.



Will my vote make a difference? It didn't in 2016 or 17. Do I like the parties and leaders on offer. No. Will I be reluctant? Probably. Someone somewhere is going to have to work a lot harder than they have in Westminster of late to earn my respect or trust. I can't believe that I am here once again trying to drum up enough hope that they will get it right this time.

[BeElBeeBub]

....... and the newspapers did what they always have. Made it up knowing nobody bothers to check and no one will crucify them properly.

good lord! The media spinning a moral panic narrative out it half truths and lies......thank god such a thing could never happen today.....

But it was the back story I found fascinating. Young men came straight out of school and walked straight into a job. The Britain of the early fifties was still suffering rationing years after the Germans had been aided out of it. As the mid fifties approached a combination of growth and lack of manpower on account of much of it lying in war graves meant jobs abounded and hire purchase meant purchasing power.



Youths barely legal to drink had a real purchasing power their parents could not dream of. And all built from work !! Today it would be thought a fantasy.

Times were different. There was an acute labour shortage.  Manufacturing and construction still required a lot of low and semi skilled labour. Ideal conditions for someone to walk out of school at 16 into a reasonable factory job.  Add to the fact houses were relatively cheap and the baby boom was starting to provide a large labour to dependent ratio and it was a period of rapid increases in living standards.



Of course now, we live in a different world. Despite making more than we ever did, manufacturing employs fewer people often at higher skill levels.  The low skill jobs (Amazon packing, delivery driving, shelf stacking) don't pay as well and the worker/dependent ratio is falling as the baby boomers age out of the labour force and the falling birth rate bites.



Nostalgia for the past won't help us face the challenges of the future.

[Sheepy]

To sum it up, good things happen despite politicians, not because of them.



The one that gets me is this idea that the taxpayer's money is theirs and out of their own generosity they will buy you things, like "better schools" to get "good jobs".

To sum it up,we have the same politicians who have thoroughly messed it up,saying vote for us for change,when they have done everything possible to avoid any change whatsoever,you couldn't make it up,so I didn't.

[Baron von Lotsov]

I may have mentioned before the documentary I watched about a year ago now covering the Brighton mods v rockers riot on the seafront.



The truth is rather different to the published account. A lot of young men and their girlfriend pillion riders descended on the seaside and found the bank holiday freezing cold and rainy and a few windows got broken and the Mary Whitehouses of the town had hyped the plod up to the point they arrested everyone in sight and the newspapers did what they always have. Made it up knowing nobody bothers to check and no one will crucify them properly.



But it was the back story I found fascinating. Young men came straight out of school and walked straight into a job. The Britain of the early fifties was still suffering rationing years after the Germans had been aided out of it. As the mid fifties approached a combination of growth and lack of manpower on account of much of it lying in war graves meant jobs abounded and hire purchase meant purchasing power.



Youths barely legal to drink had a real purchasing power their parents could not dream of. And all built from work !! Today it would be thought a fantasy.

Yes well the documentary did mention the drab life in the 50s where of course much of London was still wrecked by the bombing, and they showed the rationing then in the intro.



I agree about the mods. I've seen a similar documentary of what happened there with the old footage. Talk of old bill, it looked like they had all on overtime in the South East. Actually though, in London itself the Mods appeared more into the clothes than anything, and Saville row grew out of that fashion. We are probably talking about the richer West London crowd though. Anyhow this documentary was London and the one thing you see time and time again in London, with all different ages and cultures, is a real entrepreneurial spirit. Londoners are the get up and go types. It does not matter what they do, even running a chippy, they will put all their effort and ingenuity into it. If the rest of the country had the enthusiasm that they did in the 60s we would have the economic growth rate of China. It's the same buzzing excitement over there at the moment.

[johnofgwent]

It all comes down to what people want. According to a documentary last night I watched, in the 60s the people of London invented fashion in clothes. Many young people started businesses making clothes, and London started to grab Paris' dominance in the market. They had established a worldwide market for these things, and on the King's Road rental increased by a  factor of ten. There's nothing at all wrong with it dong so and quite the contrary, because you could not squeeze a single other person into the road when the shops were open. These young people starting these businesses were often working class, from hard up family backgrounds, but the one thing that marked them out as different was their boundless optimism that they could change the status quo, and they did just that. No longer did the conscious shopper of clothes wish to shop at the huge monopolist and drab department stores until the stores themselves stocked the products of these entrepreneurs, many of whom became multimillionaires doing something they enjoyed. In about 2005ish I think it was, or a few years later, there is a statistic where the UK's clothes sector dropped a massive 50%. I guess you could call it regression to mean, because it is likely these closures were firms started by the same people, where their retirement would have coincided with it. The moral of the story is i guess, you can do what you want and no one is going to get in your way. The previous generation appeared to revise their views when they saw how incredible the economic boom was.

I may have mentioned before the documentary I watched about a year ago now covering the Brighton mods v rockers riot on the seafront.



The truth is rather different to the published account. A lot of young men and their girlfriend pillion riders descended on the seaside and found the bank holiday freezing cold and rainy and a few windows got broken and the Mary Whitehouses of the town had hyped the plod up to the point they arrested everyone in sight and the newspapers did what they always have. Made it up knowing nobody bothers to check and no one will crucify them properly.



But it was the back story I found fascinating. Young men came straight out of school and walked straight into a job. The Britain of the early fifties was still suffering rationing years after the Germans had been aided out of it. As the mid fifties approached a combination of growth and lack of manpower on account of much of it lying in war graves meant jobs abounded and hire purchase meant purchasing power.



Youths barely legal to drink had a real purchasing power their parents could not dream of. And all built from work !! Today it would be thought a fantasy.

[Baron von Lotsov]

Of course not,no politician only thinks of themselves ever.In fact they have done such a good job,people now question their own sanity if they vote for any one of them.

To sum it up, good things happen despite politicians, not because of them.



The one that gets me is this idea that the taxpayer's money is theirs and out of their own generosity they will buy you things, like "better schools" to get "good jobs".

[Baron von Lotsov]

Indeed we will.



However



I think you need to remember maggie Thatcher personally (I read the cabinet notes years ago) shut down the medical research council funding that sustained my research funds and thus threw eight years of my life, work and dreams down the toilet. Admittedly I was able to use it to find better ways to kill people that wished you and your son dead for doing their jobs, but that was not on her radar I feel.



By the same token, her purge of heavy industry and her conversion of this country into a nation of other peoples shop workers, call centre operatives and sellers of ponzi schemes they called sub prime mortgages and derivative investments turned the entire area where I live and for thirty to forty miles in almost each direction from a land where a young man could look forward to a job, a weekly pay packet, a roof over his head be it his or the councils, paid for not by handouts but by the contents of that pay packet into a desolate wasteland of urban decay and dereliction.



And she and those who came after her did absolutely f**k all to help those she threw on the scrap heap.

It all comes down to what people want. According to a documentary last night I watched, in the 60s the people of London invented fashion in clothes. Many young people started businesses making clothes, and London started to grab Paris' dominance in the market. They had established a worldwide market for these things, and on the King's Road rental increased by a  factor of ten. There's nothing at all wrong with it dong so and quite the contrary, because you could not squeeze a single other person into the road when the shops were open. These young people starting these businesses were often working class, from hard up family backgrounds, but the one thing that marked them out as different was their boundless optimism that they could change the status quo, and they did just that. No longer did the conscious shopper of clothes wish to shop at the huge monopolist and drab department stores until the stores themselves stocked the products of these entrepreneurs, many of whom became multimillionaires doing something they enjoyed. In about 2005ish I think it was, or a few years later, there is a statistic where the UK's clothes sector dropped a massive 50%. I guess you could call it regression to mean, because it is likely these closures were firms started by the same people, where their retirement would have coincided with it. The moral of the story is i guess, you can do what you want and no one is going to get in your way. The previous generation appeared to revise their views when they saw how incredible the economic boom was.

[Barry]

No, actually, I have principles. Sorry that you are defending the indefensible. MPs resigned and did not stand again over that disgusting scandalous period.

I don't know if Heseltine is "swayed" by 90,000 in cash. We do know he gets (or got) it, and when we leave, he won't get anything, unless the UK government decide to support his particular type of farming.

[BeElBeeBub]

I might agree with you, but we are dealing with a greedy species that claims £1600 for duck ponds, £43.56 for three garlic peeling sets, £20,700 for roof repairs, including some to the bell tower!

We won't even start on flipping homes or claiming 8p for going 0.2 miles.

I suspect most people would claim things like that on expenses of they were told they could.



If someone told you you could fill a form in and claim all your fuel duty back for your commute would you?



Or that any repairs to your house could be claimed as expenses be side you work from home.



I'm not condoning it, but I don't think it's a condition unique to politicians.



Just last month I had a contractor offer me a discount "for cash in hand"

[Barry]

In a world where ex-ministers make 5 figures per hour for after dinner speaking and "non-exec" directorships requiring a few boozy lunches a year, I seriously doubt a mere £90k would be enough to affect their judgement.

I might agree with you, but we are dealing with a greedy species that claims £1600 for duck ponds, £43.56 for three garlic peeling sets, £20,700 for roof repairs, including some to the bell tower!

We won't even start on flipping homes or claiming 8p for going 0.2 miles.