BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!

Subject: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: theleveller
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 03:32 AM

Yes, I said on this very board just a couple of weeks ago (jokingly, actually) that it wouldn't be long before the Tories were telling us that we'd never had it so good. Prophetic or what?

http://news.aol.co.uk/uk-news/story/pm-aide-regrets-recession-comments/1409700?icid=main|uk|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.co.u

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 04:27 AM

Yep, just read it on The BBC news site.

Looks like Lord Young misread Cameron's meaning when he said we should be talking up recovery. Sadly, Lord Young thinks everybody has a mortgage hence everybody is doing well out of the low interest rates.

Sadly, with the property market still being over inflated, it just means people with mortgages have larger ones than they would normally get, just in order to tread water. If interest rates went up to what they were when I had a young family to think about, ie 15%, it would cause a collapse of the fragile economy, which is a sanitised way of saying many many households would be destitute.

Mind you, whilst letting leveller have his Nostradamus moment, let's not overlook that Downing St were horrified and Cameron called him reckless. There is a huge difference between asking people to look on the bright side, (perhaps the one thing I admit Cameron and I would agree on) and telling people they have never had it so good in a time of dire straights for many and uncertainty for the vast majority.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 04:53 AM

Only people with Trackers have benefitted from the low interest rate. I fixed my mortgage at 5.75% just before the crash, so I'm currently paying 5.25% over B/R.
Doesn't sound like 'never had it so good' to me.
The guy's a c**t. A rich c**t who's completely out of touch with how the majority of people live. A classic Tory.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 05:01 AM

Wasn't he just talking about his own family ?

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: theleveller
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 05:07 AM

"A classic Tory."

Somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun - a dyed-in-the-wool Thatchertite. The Iron Lady's legacy lives on in her cohorts. Cameron may be "horrifed" by his remarks but he hasn't sent him packing.

"letting leveller have his Nostradamus moment"

Anyone want the winner of the 2.30 at York today? Cost you a fiver.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Jim McLean
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 05:17 AM

I wrote a song, way back in the early 60s called 'We've never been has so good'.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Mo the caller
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 05:50 AM

Ironic that the way to deal with a crisis brought on by reckless lending to reckless (or desparate) borrowers is tlow interest rate which reward the borrowers and punish the frugal savers.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 06:02 AM

"Anyone want the winner of the 2.30 at York today? Cost you a fiver."

Capitalism 101

!

You are right in that Cameron hasn't sacked him. I thought about this, and from Cameron's perspective, sacking him might be construed as the embarrassment being justified, whereas keeping him can be seen as the same. Sometimes you just can't win.

At least he has an unpaid post, so if he does need to go, at least it won't cost the taxpayer money.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Stu
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 07:03 AM

What a tosser - as you'd expect totally out of touch with what's happening in the lives of ordinary people.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 08:42 AM

And he falls on his sword.

Resigning is better than have the PM make a damned if he does damned if he doesn't decision.

Of course, everybody is out of touch with what is happening in the lives of ordinary people. We all see ourselves as ordinary...

Perhaps a thread about what is an ordinary person might shake a few leaves off branches? A few million people voted for Cameron, a few million for Brown and a few dozen for Clegg. Each and every one of them casting the vote of the ordinary person.

Just a thought.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 09:19 AM

Well from what I can see, he was on about the fact that people with mortgages over the last 18 months have had very low interest rates on their mortgages. Compare the ineterest rates that he is on about and what they were like around 1980. I suppose people can be as much as 10% less then teh early 80's, when rates went up to 15% from my memory.


On the assumption that somebody had a mortgage in those days at 15% PA on £100,000 that meant £15000 interest.

Compared with somebody on a mortgage of £100,000 today at lets say 5%. which would mean £5000 interest.

I use that as a comparison.

So in someways he does have a point compared with the early 1980's. A saving of £10000 per annum.

I remember those days and yes I paid such high interest.

So in my case and assuming I had that loan today, yes he is correct.

Now are we in a situation where the press have managed to blow a comment out of all proportion, like they always seem to do?

The press has a lot to answer for today. You can't say or do a thing without it making front page headlines and then the unmerciful thrust of the dagger, by such press and it's gullible readers.

After saying all that, I am not condoning what he said, but do think we need to sit back a bit be a bit realistic about what the gutter press exploits.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 09:35 AM

No Arthur, he never mentioned the period you're talking about. He was saying that the low interest rates that have resulted from the recession have made everyone with a mortgage much better off.

That's only true if you have a tracker. If you're on a mortgage tied to the lender's own BR you probably haven't benefitted at all because the lenders have continued to maintain their BRs at around 5%. Likewise, on a Fixed Rate mortgage fixed before the recession hit, you don't get any reduction.

My mortgage is fixed at the pre-recession rate of 5.75% until mid-2011, while the BoE B/R has been 0.5% for the past 18 months at least. That doesn't feel at all like I've 'never had it so good'.

And every other component of the Cost of Living has continued to increase - in the case of food, very dramatically.

The man isn't just a c**t, he's a f***ing c**t who needs to get his head out of his Tory arse and get real.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: bubblyrat
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 09:37 AM

Even people here in the UK, who have no job & no money still seem to have a car,a big-screen TV, holidays, drugs,cigarettes,booze etc., so things can't be BAD exactly,can they ?? Not like they are in Haiti, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Somalia,The Sudan etc. It is not as if there are tens of thousands of disease-ridden,fly-blown beggars dessed in rags and living in squalor in tattered tents on Wimbledon Common, dying of TB whilst their ricketts-afflicted babies waste away from Cholera and Dysentery, is it ??
          If things are so truly DREADFUL in this country,why don't you all stop MOANING about it ,and go and live somewhere else,wherever your El Dorado or Utopia or Shangri La might be, and let Cameron & Co sort out the terrible ,dire,catastrophic mess the barmy Socialists have left this country in.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 09:46 AM

I understand what you are saying BWM and I do like your last sentence. LOL :-)

One point - Are Salaries any higher than they were in the early 1980's for most people?

I was self employed back then, so it would be hard to equate that anymore.

However, our income into the house today is massively lower that what we had coming in, in the early 1980's. We are only just surviving today.

So I can honestly say that we have never had it so bad. It was the same under the Labour Government, we were just surviving. So the politics doen't enter into the equation for me.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Stu
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 09:52 AM

"Perhaps a thread about what is an ordinary person might shake a few leaves off branches?"

Not a bad idea.

One of the real problems with government advisors is they have to agree with the government line or else they don't get appointed or get sacked when they point out things might not be what the politicos want to hear (the chap who said alcohol was more dangerous than cannabis for example). Also, these advisors tend to be drawn from a certain demographic. Successful, self-made people they might be, but like it or not having pots of cash will skew your view away from someone without money.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: theleveller
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 10:21 AM

"Even people here in the UK, who have no job & no money still seem to have a car,a big-screen TV, holidays, drugs,cigarettes,booze etc., so things can't be BAD exactly,can they ?? "

What a totally ignorant comment. When did you last visit a sink estate in Leeds, Wakefield or Hull? You need to stop reading the Daily Mail and get out more and discover how poor people REALLY live. Let me tell you, you would get a very nasty shock.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 19 Nov 10 - 10:24 AM

I don't know about that Sugarfoot Jack. As I have mentioned before, I was a special advisor for a short while at DH, and whilst I fit the demographic you mention from a shallow financial aspect, the novelty was, for John Hutton, that I was an ex miner.

Regarding giving uncomfortable messages, I was aware of the possibility of having to gage the Minister's mind and say what he wanted to hear, but I didn't. Interestingly, I lasted quite a long time. Many advisors who come over as being "corporate" do so for the simple reason that dissent and contra position is something you are expected to put over in order for Ministers to make up their mind. Once they have done, as in any company, you are expected not to contradict it.

Advisors are most useful before the decision, not afterwards. Hence the folly of high profile advisors whose opinions are related elsewhere. Nobody asked me my opinion, I was just a Parochial NHS Chairman so far as the media were concerned. And in that role, I could and did question decisions after the event.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 03:07 AM

Arthur, you continue to deflect the thrust of what that ill-informed, overpaid buffoon was saying.

He wasn't attempting to make a comparison between now and the 80's - you brought that in - and it has nothing to do with what he was saying.

He said that the recession has made most people better off because anyone who is paying a mortgage has benefitted from the reduction in interest rates which has happened as a result of the recession.

That's nonsense - unless you have a mortgage which tracks the BoE B/R, you haven't benefitted at all from the rate reduction. The PM's outrage and Lord Bollock-Brain's resignation are a clear indication of the paucity of his argument.

But I do agree that we are, in the main, better off than we were when interest rates floated around 15%, but that's due to a number of factors.

My wife and I both work - very hard and for long hours - and I assure you that the recession has not made us 'better off' in any way, rather the reverse. In the case of those who can't work, or who choose not to, or are in retirement, I can't comment - I've worked for the whole of the 47 years since I left school up to the present day, so I have no experience of living that way. Unlike Lord Head-Up-Own-Arse, I wouldn't deign to pontificate about things of which I have no experience.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 05:42 AM

BWM I agree with you.

We hardly go out, stopped buying alcohol, don't smoke,buy cheaper products, can hardly afford to run the car anymore (but being in the sticks....) etc etc.

So yes his comments are very misguided and he has paid the penalty for unwisely opening his mouth. Something we are all guilty of in our life.

What concerns me (irrespective of anybodys political persuasion) is the way the press hound people to the point of resignation/being fired for making a comment (wisely or not).

Due to technology these days, people can't even fart, without the press making it front page news.

So I don't support him, but it does worry me, how the press behave these days.

Just my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Stu
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 06:03 AM

" . . . the novelty was, for John Hutton, that I was an ex miner."

There's my concern. a) For Hutton it was a novelty to have someone from the working classes as an adviser. b) You were only an ex-miner at the DH because of your career path has taken you from that position. Had you still been a miner, Hutton would not have been the slightest bit interested in having you as an advisor. Or a nurse, cleaner, porter, x-ray technician, receptionist, auxiliary or any number of other vital jobs in the NHS where people understand the real issues from (excuse the pun) the bottom up.

This inequality lies at the heart of government regardless of political party it seems, although there's no doubt the tories are far less inclined to listen to ordinary people - that part of the fundamental nature of the party - self-interest.

I suppose the great hope was a reformed lords might provide an opportunity to get ordinary folk into the political process. Instead of party wonks, toffs, wealthy benefactors, occasional celebs and religious types people who had worked in their community (e.g. a carer with 25 years experience, a social worker who has extensive child protection experience etc could be made members of the house; people with zero financial interest but lots of relevant knowledge.

Sadly, as with the previous bunch, Cameron has given peerages to rich party donors which is despicable, and plenty more to party toadies. Normal service is resumed :-(

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 07:57 AM

Agree with you wholeheartedly, Arthur.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 01:24 PM

As I no longer have a mortgage I cannot comment.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 01:24 PM

Well Jack, I can agree with quite a lot of what you put.

My appointment as a local Chairman was after answering an advert and being interviewed just like a job. (But no employment rights.) For that, my selling points were how to be trusted with the budget, be trusted to hold the executive to account for turning that budget into tangible healthcare. How to run a corporate board. My background prior to my business life, miner, rep, sales manager, folk singer (lest I forget..) didn't enter into it.

the novelty came when I was asked to be an advisor. An advisor as a result of my chairmanship, but I reckon the ex miner bit which I had slipped out when he visited us may have given him the novelty. Didn't stop me from accepting the (unpaid) post.

The trick wasn't to know how a radiographer does their job, any more than a porter needs to know the difference between standing orders and standing financial instructions. There was however a brief for leadership, which did entail learning a bit about the position of healthcare professionals. I expected a medical director to articulate doctor issues, (although being married to a doctor, I got it (still get it) in my ear over breakfast.) I expected a director of nursing to articulate what we could expect that profession to deliver. Etc Etc. There is a huge difference between credibility through peer and credibility through knowing how to perform your role. If I were a porter, the doctors wouldn't see me as a peer, and vice versa. (Trust me, one thing I have found in The NHS is how each profession feels theirs is the glue holding it together.)

My role was, as ever, non executive.

Interestingly, regarding your point about jobs for the boys, the last government set up an independent appointments commission in 2002 to ensure Ministers don't appoint cronies. I didn't declare any political affiliations when I was appointed by a Minister, and considering my disappointment with Bliar, I doubt I could be called a NuLabour crony.....

This government has abolished the independent commission, on the quango bonfire.... From next year, any non executive appointments will be direct from Ministers, just like my original one. And that is not good... I was interviewed in the September and the minister got around to opening the red box and signing it the following February. I had almost forgot...

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: banjoman
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 11:17 AM

Leopards don't change their spots - its just the old Tory rhetoric again - the sooner we get rid the better although what to replace them with is a difficult one

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 12:28 PM

Replace them with the English Poor Persons Co-operative Party.

Some of the policies.

You are not allowed to be an MP if you have any A levels or have been to University and have a degree.

Jobs only to go to people born in England.

Stop all immigration.

One Co=operative bank owned by English born people and all profits go to support the Health System and Education. No bonuses to employees of the bank.

Leave the Common Market.

If you don't have a job and are fit enough to work (determined by a medical), you can join find a job or be forced the join the armed forces.

All education for families earning joint £50000 or less get free education, free glasses, free travel, free Careholmes, Houses put in trust for the direct family, free cigareetes, free alcohol and free concert tickets to all folk events.

Anybody not fitting above, will be forced to pay 75% tax on all products and PAYE.

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 01:31 PM

Problem is Arthur.. Some dozy buggers would vote for that manifesto.

Imagine delivering it?

Funnily enough, leaving all the poor person bits out, there are many Tories who agree with the rest.

We wouldn't have had it so good..................

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 01:34 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: We've never had it so good. Told you so!
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 06:02 AM

The trouble with Cameron is that whatever he says it comes over as so patronising and smug. If Spitting Image was still around I wonder how he would be portrayed (or any of them for that matter) Slug Trail mark 2 with Nick Clegg on his back as the shell?