Manchester Council budget cuts etc.

[Steptoe and Son]

Very clever, steptoe. However, I simply don't believe you. Why would you have made your first post about suggesting I drive around "real manchester" if at the time you thought that I was likely to be from that area?

Why is it generally accepted that the cuts will hit the poorest most? For example, those of us that live in our own houses in "incredibly affluent suburbs" ( do you have some sort of guilt complex about living in Marple ? ) can rejoice that council tax is frozen, whereas the poorest will have to continue to make do with it being paid for them, together with their rent etc. At the bottom end, it really doesnt matter which political party is in power.

Enjoy your day, which will no doubt be spent protesting about the cuts in Manchester today or showing your OH your latest witty posts on this forum.

It's irrelvevant where you hail from as far as I'm concerned moorendman...and less so whether you believe me or not.  I simply took a punt that, after commenting on your statement about 'supposed deprevation', I'd get the 'I was born and bred there so don't you dare disagree with me' line.  Don't worry about it, nowadays it seems to be an often used tactic to use a childhood experience in order to gain a little credibility.

Interesting comments about the poorer in our society.  I would suggest they dont need you (or me, but I'm not) telling them it doesn't really matter what political party in in power.  I would imagine it matters a great deal.  Re. who the cuts will hit, let's take university fees.  Whose chances of social mobility do you think will be hit hardest with the introduction of £9k fees...young people from Moston, or YP from Marple.?

As for this afternoon, I may see you in the golf club, not 

[Duke Fame]

QUOTEThanks for that suggestion, however , I have no need of your "advice" as I was born and brought up in North Manchester and am confident that I know a great deal more about the city then you probably do.  


Thanks for enriching me to the measure of 10 English pence moorendman...I had a wager with my (far) better-half that there would be a reply along the lines of "I'm a good old North / East Manchester boy who may live in an incredibly affluent suburb South of Manchester but whose heart lies in the gritty estates of Manchester".  My good lady wife took on the bet as she said no one would be so cliched...yet I can face the austerity measures of the ConDems 10p better off.

My dad was born and bred in Wythenshawe..he can remember the 'good old days' when the airport was but a few sheds but he wouldn't claim to know anything about current day Wythenshawe, or its issues.  Most people, unless their work directly involves them in said communities, admit that.  No political group can claim fantastic success throughout the poorest wards in Manchester, and there are certainly no private businesses that can (assuming we're discounting Gregs and Bright House).  However, I'm pretty sure the huge cuts, that are generally accepted will hit the poorest most, aren't going to help matters.  As a good old North Manchester boy I'm sure you don't want to see what little social moblity there is in the UK grid to a complete halt?

Hmmm, If you make a post along the lines of 'you don't understand because you've never known poverty' don't be surprised that you get a reply suggesting to the contrary.

If cuts are going to hit the poorest, it’s the fault of the person prioritising the cuts. Richard Leese has decided that some services are more important than others. Personally I think he is a nasty piece of work who’s playing politics with our money and people’s lives but the people of Crumpsall have voted hi m in and perhaps it’s all part of his master scheme to keep them uneducated so they carry on voting.

Manchester has enjoyed a bumper payout from central govt for years, Leese continues to build an ivory tower for himself along with Bernstein. As even you recognise, that money has done little for the poorest which suggests either money isn’t the answer or it’s completely mismanaged by Sirs (sic) Leese & Berstein.

[moorendman]

Very clever, steptoe. However, I simply don't believe you. Why would you have made your first post about suggesting I drive around "real manchester" if at the time you thought that I was likely to be from that area?

Why is it generally accepted that the cuts will hit the poorest most? For example, those of us that live in our own houses in "incredibly affluent suburbs" ( do you have some sort of guilt complex about living in Marple ? ) can rejoice that council tax is frozen, whereas the poorest will have to continue to make do with it being paid for them, together with their rent etc. At the bottom end, it really doesnt matter which political party is in power.

Enjoy your day, which will no doubt be spent protesting about the cuts in Manchester today or showing your OH your latest witty posts on this forum.

[Steptoe and Son]

QUOTEThanks for that suggestion, however , I have no need of your "advice" as I was born and brought up in North Manchester and am confident that I know a great deal more about the city then you probably do.  


Thanks for enriching me to the measure of 10 English pence moorendman...I had a wager with my (far) better-half that there would be a reply along the lines of "I'm a good old North / East Manchester boy who may live in an incredibly affluent suburb South of Manchester but whose heart lies in the gritty estates of Manchester".  My good lady wife took on the bet as she said no one would be so cliched...yet I can face the austerity measures of the ConDems 10p better off.

My dad was born and bred in Wythenshawe..he can remember the 'good old days' when the airport was but a few sheds but he wouldn't claim to know anything about current day Wythenshawe, or its issues.  Most people, unless their work directly involves them in said communities, admit that.  No political group can claim fantastic success throughout the poorest wards in Manchester, and there are certainly no private businesses that can (assuming we're discounting Gregs and Bright House).  However, I'm pretty sure the huge cuts, that are generally accepted will hit the poorest most, aren't going to help matters.  As a good old North Manchester boy I'm sure you don't want to see what little social moblity there is in the UK grid to a complete halt?

[Duke Fame]

He was joking (perhaps only half joking) in order to make his point.

Well, yes. And so was I.  But his point is an important one - namely, that economic activity, even if imperfect, is better than inactivity.  Even accepting your argument about the benefits of high speed rail et al, there's an issue of timing.  The proposed high speed rail link, for instance, won't even begin building till 2017, assuming it goes ahead, which doesn't do much to help the economy today. Looking at the Coalition's economic strategy, I just don't see where short- to medium-term growth is going to come from.  The economist David Blanchflower recently commented of George Osborne: 'the only growth strategy he has right now is to hope for good news, such as a gold strike in the Welsh hills.'   Not even a half-joke, that one.   

Hmmm, travel along the motorways and huge projects are going on employing people right now.

[Mike W]

He was joking (perhaps only half joking) in order to make his point.

Well, yes. And so was I.  But his point is an important one - namely, that economic activity, even if imperfect, is better than inactivity.  Even accepting your argument about the benefits of high speed rail et al, there's an issue of timing.  The proposed high speed rail link, for instance, won't even begin building till 2017, assuming it goes ahead, which doesn't do much to help the economy today. Looking at the Coalition's economic strategy, I just don't see where short- to medium-term growth is going to come from.  The economist David Blanchflower recently commented of George Osborne: 'the only growth strategy he has right now is to hope for good news, such as a gold strike in the Welsh hills.'   Not even a half-joke, that one.   

[Duke Fame]

As for Vodafone, I’m not a tax accountant and am quite impressed at your ability to understand the intricacies of the way tax can be avoided. Having that sort of understanding must land you some incredible cases and earn a huge wage in doing so. All I can say, hats off to you, Andy, would you look at my tax returns?

Does one need to have a qualification and understanding in HMRC's systems to know and recognise the moral right and wrongs of tax avoidance? - it just not cricket, its greed. Thats why we are in this mess - bailing out the banks, lets not forget that they gambled with all of our money and we are going to pay for it for a long time to come.

My Appologie Andy, I assumed you were an expert on this and not just picked up a half story from the Morning Star.

So instead of answering the question you have chosen dodge it and instead suggest that anyone with any moral fibre has to be a member of the SWP.

Can’t say I have picked up a copy of the Morning Star for a good while, it’s getting harder to find these days – much like a LibDem supporter!

Pop quiz who said "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."?

It was Adam Smith.

Why is tax avoidance immoral? I do so every day by driving economically or riding my bike to work. How about Pension contributions, ISAs etc.

What are the tax avoidance methods you object to? Were you horrified about Barclays last week bringing forward losses from the previous year in their tax return?

As for Lib Dems, there are plenty voting for Andrew Stunnel around here.

[amazon]

Fish Brow stockport . 

[andy+kirsty]

As for Vodafone, I’m not a tax accountant and am quite impressed at your ability to understand the intricacies of the way tax can be avoided. Having that sort of understanding must land you some incredible cases and earn a huge wage in doing so. All I can say, hats off to you, Andy, would you look at my tax returns?

Does one need to have a qualification and understanding in HMRC's systems to know and recognise the moral right and wrongs of tax avoidance? - it just not cricket, its greed. Thats why we are in this mess - bailing out the banks, lets not forget that they gambled with all of our money and we are going to pay for it for a long time to come.

My Appologie Andy, I assumed you were an expert on this and not just picked up a half story from the Morning Star.

So instead of answering the question you have chosen dodge it and instead suggest that anyone with any moral fibre has to be a member of the SWP.

Can’t say I have picked up a copy of the Morning Star for a good while, it’s getting harder to find these days – much like a LibDem supporter!

Pop quiz who said "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."?

[Duke Fame]

Markets generally work brilliantly.

Except, of course, when they bring the economy almost to its knees and have to be bailed out by billions in state aid.  Capitalism and the free market are the best engines we have to drive economic growth, but they do little or nothing to create or maintain an equitable or even stable society.  State intervention can't simply be a matter of last resort when the markets fail (that's why we're in this mess) but should establish the social context in which capitalism operates.  We can debate what that context should be (and I suspect that my views would be rather more interventionist than those of the delightfully-named Duke Fame) but I doubt that many of us would question its necessity.  After all, even Alan Greenspan came to realise, finally, that we might have been better off with a little more financial regulation over the last decade or so.  

As for misreading Keynes, well, yes, of course he believed that purposeful stimulus was better than the purposeless variety, but, if you're looking for one page in the 'General Theory' that 'that suggests we should spend money on unnecessary services that will not create future wealth or comparative advantage', what about its most famous passage?  'If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank-notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal-mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.'

(Although, in fairness, I accept that employing Peter Saville as your creative director is probably even less productive than digging holes and filling them in again.  Hadn't anyone at Manchester City Council seen '24 Hour Party People'?)

He was joking (perhaps only half joking) in order to make his point.

Moreover, there is no need to bury bottles, high speed train links, M1 / A1(m) extensions etc etc are all available to deliver benefits and competitive advantage so we shouldn’t have to employ people in local authorities’ wasteful roles when there are projects that will deliver instead.

As for private enterprise going wrong, the banks was a perfect storm but ideally, they should just go bump in the was BCCI did in the 90’s. 

[moorendman]

Hadn't anyone at Manchester City Council seen '24 Hour Party People'?

Lots of them had seen it - the problem was they all wanted to cosy up to this image.

[Mike W]

Markets generally work brilliantly.

Except, of course, when they bring the economy almost to its knees and have to be bailed out by billions in state aid.  Capitalism and the free market are the best engines we have to drive economic growth, but they do little or nothing to create or maintain an equitable or even stable society.  State intervention can't simply be a matter of last resort when the markets fail (that's why we're in this mess) but should establish the social context in which capitalism operates.  We can debate what that context should be (and I suspect that my views would be rather more interventionist than those of the delightfully-named Duke Fame) but I doubt that many of us would question its necessity.  After all, even Alan Greenspan came to realise, finally, that we might have been better off with a little more financial regulation over the last decade or so.  

As for misreading Keynes, well, yes, of course he believed that purposeful stimulus was better than the purposeless variety, but, if you're looking for one page in the 'General Theory' that 'that suggests we should spend money on unnecessary services that will not create future wealth or comparative advantage', what about its most famous passage?  'If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank-notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal-mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.'

(Although, in fairness, I accept that employing Peter Saville as your creative director is probably even less productive than digging holes and filling them in again.  Hadn't anyone at Manchester City Council seen '24 Hour Party People'?)

[Dave]

Moorendman I guess we'll just need to agree to disagree on whether there is a significant difference between 80 billion and 56 billion. Personally I am in little doubt that 24 billion pounds is a great deal of money!

The real issue is 'will it work, and restore growth to the UK economy'. And what scares me is that clearly no-one knows - least of all the government. Other countries, such as the US, are adopting a more cautious approach, whilst here in the UK it looks horribly like 'sh*t or bust'...

[Duke Fame]

As for Vodafone, I’m not a tax accountant and am quite impressed at your ability to understand the intricacies of the way tax can be avoided. Having that sort of understanding must land you some incredible cases and earn a huge wage in doing so. All I can say, hats off to you, Andy, would you look at my tax returns?

Does one need to have a qualification and understanding in HMRC's systems to know and recognise the moral right and wrongs of tax avoidance? - it just not cricket, its greed. Thats why we are in this mess - bailing out the banks, lets not forget that they gambled with all of our money and we are going to pay for it for a long time to come.

My Appologie Andy, I assumed you were an expert on this and not just picked up a half story from the Morning Star.

[andy+kirsty]

As for Vodafone, I’m not a tax accountant and am quite impressed at your ability to understand the intricacies of the way tax can be avoided. Having that sort of understanding must land you some incredible cases and earn a huge wage in doing so. All I can say, hats off to you, Andy, would you look at my tax returns?

Does one need to have a qualification and understanding in HMRC's systems to know and recognise the moral right and wrongs of tax avoidance? - it just not cricket, its greed. Thats why we are in this mess - bailing out the banks, lets not forget that they gambled with all of our money and we are going to pay for it for a long time to come.