manclad
Well-Known Member
Billy Fish - "He wants to know if you are God's".
Peachy Carnehan - " No we are Englishmen,which is the next best thing ".
Der Spiegel on Britain
- Thread starter Rascal
- Start date
Peachy Carnehan - " No we are Englishmen,which is the next best thing ".
mexico1970
Well-Known Member
You'll change your tune when we are all eating Rats and paying for our goods and services with Chickens and sex mate ;)
Didsbury Dave
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- 1 Feb 2007
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Yeah but it's a lot less fucking great than it was a few years ago. That's the problem.
The increase in poverty and lack of ecoomic growth is the obvious focus of this article but my 81 year old mum sat with a broken back waiting for an ambulance for 16 hours and then sat freezing and frightened on a trolley alone in A&E overnight until a bed was free. My son last week suffered an entire ear infection without getting a doctor's appointment or prescription. My other son has injured his back and can't get a referal or physio appointment for it.
There's nothing great or fortunate about any of those things and they didn't happen to anything like the same degree a few years ago. The point of the article is the deterioration of standards in this country which affect us all every day, no the fact that we are more fortunate than people in Nigeria or Ukraine..
bigstanhibbert
Well-Known Member
Is that a chess move?
It's all stuff that's been covered by UK journalists.This is well worth a read and far better journalism than what we get in the UK
Britain in Crisis: The UK Faces a Steep Climb Out of a Deep Hole
Food shortages, moldy apartments, a lack of medical workers: The United Kingdom is facing a perfect storm of struggle, and millions are sliding into poverty. There is little to suggest that improvement will come anytime soon.www.spiegel.de
They said "to investors". The Tories sold council houses to tenants at a huge discount, who eventually sold up and moved somewhere nicer, and half that former social housing stock is now in the hands of private landlords.
Then they forced councils to transfer the remaining housing stock to housing associations - thankfully not all as bad as the one in Rochdale where mould killed a child.
Bottom line. You trawled the article for something not quite right in order to suggest the Tories aren't all bad.
They got nothing right whatsoever, stock transfer was mainly to meet the Decent Homes Standard. It is littered with mistakes and assumptions from someone who has no idea what went on in England.
New ALMOs and Housing Associations were formed in the first instance in most cases, normally set up so someone at the Council gets a cushy CEx job.
It made out the financial crisis forced Councils to sell, no it was mainly the Decent Homes Standard target of 2010, and in some cases Housing Revenue Account forecasts that said the Council would be paying in rather than taking out. Also in the ALMOs the Councils retained the stock and could still do all the work themselves, and many like Leeds and Wigan brought it back in house, only the myopic ones got rid.
Most of the above was Labour policy too, so I'm not sure why you think I am defending tories? 2000-2010 was when the majority where getting rid of stock. The HRA rules could have been changed to stop.
I take your points mate and recognise them but I will still stand by what I said because I firmly believe we are fortunate to have been born British citizens and to live here.
west didsblue
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- 2 Oct 2011
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- 32,307
Can't disagree with that.
We’re just unfortunate that a small majority of the electorate were tricked into voting to make this country a lot worse than it could or should be, and we’re stuck with it until a government has the balls to get it sorted.