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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted -  28/04/2011  :  07:37
Political comment is a high risk activity on the site these days so I thought I'd try again to give those who are interested in politics a safe haven!


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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belle
VIP Member


6502 Posts
Posted - 18/06/2011 : 09:30
I was horrified to hear the shipley MP yesterday suggest that disabled people should work for less than the minimum wage...it came in a week where someone else quoted " The mark of a civilised society is how well they look after their vulnerable people".


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 19/06/2011 : 07:03
A phrase I use frequently Belle. I heard the report also and was appalled. He was gently taken to task by other MPs but nobody went for his throat, which they should have. See this LINK.

When I was on the tramp I went to all sorts of factories and one regular job I had out of Glicksten's timber merchants in Stratford, East London. (Right next to the Yardley factory and everything smelled of Lavender!)  They specialised in high quality hardwoods and veneer logs and I liked the work because it took me to boat yards and high quality bar and shop fitters, surprisingly little for furniture. However I had one regular drop at a furniture factory run by Remploy, I think it was at Leicester. The workers used to unload the timber by hand, it was mostly off-cuts and small sizes. Every one of them had something missing and I used to match the load to the disability. They were as happy as Larry and it didn't take long to get unloaded. There was an RNIB workshop up Manchester Road Burnley where the blind workers repaired baskets for the mills. 

Remploy has been cut back, the blind workshop isn't there any more. There used to be a scheme where employers were subsidised to employ disabled workers, it was certainly encouraged by government policies. I was once told that one of the things that militated against specialised workshops for the disabled was that the PC brigade said it was discriminatory and degrading. I never saw evidence of that. My impression was that they were a happy bunch, more so than normal factories. One of Remploy's biggest customers was for office furniture for the government so they had an assured market and it was good quality equipment. I can't see why, with a bit of imagination, this policy wouldn't work now. Remember that by operating a policy like that the benefits are saved as well so it's got to be economical.

Philip Davies is short on compassion and I doubt if he's ever worked with disabled people. I have and it never entered my head that they should get paid less than me. If they were getting any advantage in terms of pay v. production they deserved it because it was harder for them to do the job so in a way they were working harder than us. I think of Jack Ashley and David Blunkett in politics, were they less effective? Should they have been paid less?

Have a look at this LINK for the genesis of Remploy in 1945.Notice that the man who promoted it was Ernie Bevin, the best labour minister we ever had. He knew about work and the workers from his experience as a wagon driver and his founding of the TGWU.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 19/06/2011 : 07:10
I've had another thought about the above which I think is pertinent. Many years ago in a galxy far far away the council used to employ street-sweepers and lengthmen on rural roads. They were effective workers but many of them may have been slightly disabled in one way or another. More 'efficient' ways were found to do these jobs and many people lost low paid but living wage jobs which gave them self-respect and a position on the work force. This scenario can be seen right through industry as firms mechanise more and chase 'efficiency'. In the process a lot of people have lost out and been forgotten. Easier to shovel them on the waste heap and throw minimum benefits at them. We've lost something there.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 21/06/2011 : 06:08
Another hand-brake turn from the ConDem coalition. Government unveils its new Justice Bill today. Missing element will be the half sentence reduction for guilty pleas advocated by Ken Clark. Cameron has ordered that it be ditched. Something else in the system will have to be trimmed to achieve the aim of £130million in savings.

Pension age for both men and women rises to 66 by 2020. The Bill passed into law yesterday. This hits women in their 50s hardest because by 2018 their pension age rises to 65 and will affect their retirement plans more than other workers. Lots of opposition to this in all parties. William Hague makes vague promises about concessions. So that's all right then?  Notice that once again, those on the margins are hit hardest.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 22/06/2011 : 06:24
Greek Politics: Papandreiou coaltion wins confidence vote. This means they can pass a bill making a further €29billion cuts and opens the way to an EU loan which enables them to pay interest on debts till the IMF loan can be agreed. Great stuff but not a foregone conclusion. Problem is that the loaned money has to be paid back and it will not be used to ease the lot of the Greeks, just to support the banks who lent silly money to the country. UK and Ireland are big creditors, France and Germany far worse. Question is who the loans benefit? Propping up an ailing Euro? Do other Mediterranean countries in same position get same treatment? This is nowhere near a solution and many commentators see it as the start of the Euro project  failure. The logic is that the Greeks can't grow their economy quickly enough to pay what amounts to 150% of their GDP in interest and structured loan repayments for many years into the future. The Greeks spent what the banks lent them knowing they couldn't afford it. Exactly the same problem as the great mortgage melt-down. Solution? Bail the banks out.

Cameron doesn't like what his army chief, General Ward, said about defence cuts. Really? Perhaps he ought to listen to what he is saying. Either cut commitments or increase funding to avoid melt-down of our defensive capabilities. Stop talking about 'Our Brave Lads' and then cutting support to them.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 22/06/2011 : 09:09
" The Greeks spent what the banks lent them knowing they couldn't afford it. Exactly the same problem as the great mortgage melt-down. Solution? Bail the banks out.

Is that the Bank knowing the Greeks couldn't afford it ???  or was it the Greeks who borrowed knowing they couldn't afford it. !!!



Frank Wilkinson       Once Navy Always Navy Go to Top of Page
belle
VIP Member


6502 Posts
Posted - 22/06/2011 : 10:32
I would imagine it was both..it has certainly been both here. I remember a friend of mine talking to his bank about a loan, back in the day when you made an appt. with the manager and took your paperwork with you.  It was just as the banks attitudes were changing...he knew in his heart of hearts he couldn't afford a loan, and after talking it through was even more convinced, the bank offered him the loan and he advised them he couldn't afford it. Somone more trusting or less good with figures would have taken it...don't think the banks weren't anticipating the profit that could be made by bad debt!


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 23/06/2011 : 06:18
That's right Belle. Can you remember the Panorama programme about the dangers of self-certification mortgages where applicants were allowed to give inflated earnings information without evidence and the banks, while denying that they were accepting the business were actually handing loans out to people they knew couldn't afford the loan and the people themselves knew that they were overstretched. These were the debts that were then bundled up and sold on as derivatives. In turn, these dodgy financial instruments were traded at profit and eventually proved to be the cause of the melt-down.

Same thing applied to bank loans to countries like Greece. What isn't being mentioned is the amount of interest that the lending banks have drawn back from these loans. In many cases it will be more than the loans cost them so in fact they have covered themselves. The problem is that the original debts are still on the banks books and bad debt reduces the share value of the bank. This is the hit that the banks fear and is the reason why in the immediate aftermath of the debt crisis banks that could afford it took the hit and wrote enormous amounts of debt off.

However, national debt was always seen as a more secure investment, I mean, countries don't go bankrupt do they? As the scenario now is that this is not only possible but probable the debts are unsaleable and the lending banks are stuck with them. This is the root of the scramble to lend even more money to Greece so they can keep paying the obscene interest rates they contracted for and keep the banking system going.

One small item buried in the news is that the Libyan action has cost the UK £250million to date. Great! Remember what I said about external events, spending on foreign adventures, energy and food prices, and the US economy faltering. Plan 'B' anyone? Is Ossie still confident?


Stanley Challenger Graham




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frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 23/06/2011 : 06:50
Is Ossie still confident?

Looks like he is. What is Plan B ??
Did you notice Balls on the Front Bench yesterday looking very uncomfortable. His unfunded VAT cut will come back time and time again to haunt him. The more I listen to Balls the more he sounds like an American Republican !!!



Frank Wilkinson       Once Navy Always Navy Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 23/06/2011 : 07:49
Taking money out of direct taxation and giving it to the electors to spend will become a very popular policy with the Coalition as we run up to the next general election. It is the right thing to do now as it will encourage the multiplier effect. Leaving it until the time of maximum impact on the election campaign will work if the economy shows signs of recovery but there are no inicators of this yet. Thus, the later the cash-back is left, the more likely it is that it will go on paying increased mortgage charges caused by rising interest rates or into paying general taxation. Remember that personal disposable incomes are falling and will do so for at least another 18 momths on the most optimistic prediction. The multiplier effect doesn't work unless the money goes directly into the general economy. Paying it back to the Treasury and the banks doesn't cut it.

This is why the Clegg policy of sharing the potential profits from selling bank shares the electorate were forced to finance in the Great Escape after the melt-down is a good strategy. The shares will end up with the major investors but the potential profit will have been left with the electorate and not the capital holders. It makes good economic sense but will not be popular with the banks, that's why it will be ridiculed and I predict it will never happen. 


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 23/06/2011 : 13:48
Taking money out of direct taxation and giving it to the electors to spend will become a very popular policy with the Coalition as we run up to the next general election
That's Politics the coalition have read the Labour Party Manual, only Godron bought Public Sector Votes by the same tactics !!



Frank Wilkinson       Once Navy Always Navy Go to Top of Page
Tardis
Regular Member


453 Posts
Posted - 23/06/2011 : 15:18
Barnoldswick politics: The sale of Hardy street allotments despite a resolution to not sell allotments seems to be pushed along by Mr Whipp. Meeting may be next week, ask at the rainhall centre


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panbiker
Senior Member


2300 Posts
Posted - 23/06/2011 : 16:20
If this is "statutory" allotment land, it cannot be sold without consulting the Secretary of State and if granted, adequate provision must be made to replace it with equivalent alternative land offered to the tennants, (i.e. it must be replaced). If they were originally established as temporay allotments and are privately owned or owned by the council, the private party or if owned by the council can do what they wan't with them as long as the descision is agreed according to the rules of the committee (in the case of a council).

Do you know what status the Hardy allotments were established under?


Ian Go to Top of Page
thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt


2021 Posts
Posted - 23/06/2011 : 17:00
Just about all of the allotment land in that area was given to the town for the common good by the daughter of the man that built Fernbank Mill. All of the land from the mill yard to Harper St and up to Hardy St, on one side and Monkroyd on the other, plus an area to the rear of Rosemount Ave and down to the mill yard was given and had a covenant placed on it. We found this out when we had a house built on Great Croft Close. I understand that the council could get around this by undertaking control and after time assuming ownership, then they can do what ever they want with it, as probably was the case with Priory Way.


thomo Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 24/06/2011 : 06:29
Remember the Havre Park allotments and Silentnight?


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
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