Well I sincerely doubt you've earned as little as the minimum wage since it's introduction. As somebody who's been both employed and unemployed at the minimum wage during it's time I can say I'd rather suffer small spells of unemployment if the jobs that I was applying for paid enough to make them worth doing! Breaking Bad(fiction though it is) is good example of the shambles that is letting businesses set their own wages and what that can drive decent hardworking people to do. Do we really want a society where breaking the law is securer than abiding by it? It might sound outlandish but in the wake of the riots there are young people who feel that way. Crime was much more commonplace in Victorian Britain than it is now largely due to desperation. Do we really want to go back in that direction?
Young people are hard to employ because they often don't have the skills to provide a positive influence on profit. If an employee is costing more than they contribute, they don't get employed, the youngest, least experience are most at risk. Raising the cost of people means they don't get the skills to develop.
The young are already feeling left out by a country where success is largely predetermined by which schools your parents can afford to send you to and average houses cost more than the vast majority earn in twenty years.
That is utter rubbish, success is largely predetermined to haw well the child did at school, the effort they put in and yes, a certain amount of the effort the parents put into raising their child.
When British Rail was nationalised? Do you mean privatised? That explains why there has been such a transformation although Manchester as a whole became much nicer in the 00's than it had been in the 80's and 90's. True a shopping centre isn't always the best thing however in Liverpool's case it has been a change for the better. Where there were just crumbling empty factories now there is energy and activity and people actually want to visit. Heseltine did make a good start with the Festival Gardens but it is under New Labour and Louise Ellman that Liverpool has rejuvenated itself. Again having the increase in university students in the city centre has added to this..
Yes, I mean privatised. I didn't live in Manchester in the 80's but I suspect it was similar to my hometown, Reading where railway stations were not pleasant environments. On privatisation, the realisation that train stations could be a leisure & retail hub became reality. As we all had a bit more money in the 80's, retail boomed and this continued through the 90's.
Heseltine was the first to try the rejuvenation and Liverpool took more effort than say Gateshead where the legacy of the Garden festival far more positive which may just be down to a better attitude to work in the North East.
You seem determined not to acknowledge anything positive about Labour. Even Conservative MP's aren't that partisan. Can you identify a Conservative government that got absolutely everything right because I certainly can't?
I have voted Labour in the past, my issue with the last Labour opposition / proposition was that it spent 2010-2015 pretending that it would be doing something different to the coalition and an about turn from their time in govt. Scarily, they seemed to not understand their mistakes in govt. They then came up with a manifesto that in many parts had no reflection of that they were saying for 5 years in opposition and some policies were just stupid politics rather than logical economics.
I thought that Labour '97-2001 were generally OK,
I really don't understand the way some people support a particular party as they would a football club. To me, you can't support a party regardless of the policies.
Without the Labour movement's input this country would be a far more dangerous place. It's presence has liberalised the Conservatives and as such there's been a relatively smooth transition to a society which at best is one of the most humane and inclusive in the world. Without this we'd be more like America with it's horrible interracial and homophobic prejudices, barbaric health insurance policies and degrading service industries. I know which I'd rather.
I really don't get that, you are tarring the whole of the continent of America as "having horrible interracial and homophobic prejudices" that seems to me a problem with your own prejudices.
The Labour movement did not change society, society did. Trade, interaction etc changed society over time, it's not a political movement that changes people.
Managing the country's finances well is largely what won the Conservatives this election. However the coalition's legacy will also be one of disillusion with a broken electoral system, food banks, demonisation of immigrants and the homeless and ultimately the Lib Dems taking the blame for the last five years (despite taking some of the sharp corners off some of the more brutal Conservative policies). The last five years hasn't been the best for everybody. I wonder whether this new government will take responsibility for it's own shortcomings instead of looking for scapegoats. I recognise the good things they have achieved but I'm not going to whitewash the bad.
I think the language you use is a bit silly, yes there are people who are feeling the pinch but people do have to take responsibility for themselves.
As I say I would never follow any party blindly but I can recognise good and bad in every British government. I recognise that the financial stability that Cameron and Osborne are providing is what the country needs right now but there will come a time when electoral reform, affordable housing and the greed and dehumanising influence of the corporations are what need prioritising too. I'd be surprised if the Prime Minister to do that is a Conservative. To be fair I don't see much promise in the current Labour candidates either but who knows?
Chukka would have been decent, Liz is OK but the others are a worry.
