Local elections

[Dave]

I knew I'd listed a few before:  Nuclear Free Local Secretariat & Policy and Research Officers, New Media Managers, Link Workers - Indian and East African Asian; Cultural Regeneration Officers, Specialist Market Managers, Corporate Lead Officers - Lesbians' issues, Corporate Lead Officers - Gay Men's Issues, 'Zest' Hub Co-Ordinators, Climate Change Officers, Team Strategic Development oficers, Creative Directors, Expressive and Performing Arts Technicians, Travel Change Team Policy Officers, recycling officers & cycling teams etc etc  It's these hey nonny nonny roles that are an attempt to employ the willing unemployable.

Come on Duke, you can surely do better that trot out this tired old stuff from two years ago:

Nuclear Free Local Secretariat & Policy and Research Officers, New Media Managers, Link Workers - Indian and East African Asian; Cultural Regeneration Officers, Specialist Market Managers, Corporate Lead Officers - Lesbians' issues, Corporate Lead Officers - Gay Men's Issues, 'Zest' Hub Co-Ordinators, Climate Change Officers, Team Strategic Development oficers, Creative Directors, Expressive and Performing Arts Technicians, Travel Change Team Policy Officers, recycling officers & cycling teams etc etc  It's these hey nonny nonny roles that are an attempt to employ the willing unemployable.

....especially as it was not even original, but copied and pasted from the comments section of the MEN website!

We're not talking about two years ago, we're talking about yesterday, when Duke wrote:

Take manchester council (please) they cut libraries, lollipop ladies and libraries......  at the same time they keep some ridiculous roles within the council

....and we'd be grateful to be spared any more stuff pinched from rants on other forums! 

[Duke Fame]

You pick some really poor examples there Duke.

Further what you call some really good sorts nearly scuppered the investments in Stockport Centre. Self seeking individual v accountable LA officers. Errrm think your on the wrong side here Duke.

Like whom? Thankfully the council rep has not been seen by Portas for 6 months. Which investment has been scuppered, the council have achieved an exodus.

WRT Manchester's waste, the Alicia Keys concert sums op Leese and his ego the best, how utterly disgusting. How about the other ego trip (and perhaps something even fishier??), the Tif thing where he spent £3m of our money on a pathetic brochure. THe property fudging is just stupid.

[wheels]

You pick some really poor examples there Duke.

Further what you call some really good sorts nearly scuppered the investments in Stockport Centre. Self seeking individual v accountable LA officers. Errrm think your on the wrong side here Duke.

[Duke Fame]

I'll give Dave a list of Manchester's wasteful approach again in a bit. I knew I'd listed a few before:  Nuclear Free Local Secretariat & Policy and Research Officers, New Media Managers, Link Workers - Indian and East African Asian; Cultural Regeneration Officers, Specialist Market Managers, Corporate Lead Officers - Lesbians' issues, Corporate Lead Officers - Gay Men's Issues, 'Zest' Hub Co-Ordinators, Climate Change Officers, Team Strategic Development oficers, Creative Directors, Expressive and Performing Arts Technicians, Travel Change Team Policy Officers, recycling officers & cycling teams etc etc  It's these hey nonny nonny roles that are an attempt to employ the willing unemployable.

As for Stockport old town, the old Portas group we're a nightmare, in part because the council were dominant. This changed a year or do ago, look out for the old town web launch, summer fringe festival, empty shops filled, new bars opening, market full and sunday events, the place feels better. Shows what a few good natured sorts can do without the bureaucracy of council

[Duke Fame]

Much of what Duke says is well documented, he misses out only that Manchester are maintaining vast reservses that could be used to protect services, they prefer instead to introduce cuts to blame the coalition.

However in the case of Stockport Duke is way off the mark apart from a few Press Releases nothing has been heard of Portis, the redevelopment of the old part of Stockport has been lead by Council Offices with seed funding from the LA. 

I'll give Dave a list of Manchester's wasteful approach again in a bit.

As for Stockport old town, the old Portas group we're a nightmare, in part because the council were dominant. This changed a year or do ago, look out for the old town web launch, summer fringe festival, empty shops filled, new bars opening, market full, the place feels better. Shows what a few good natured sorts can do without the beauracracy of council

[wheels]

Some sweeping generalisations and accusations there - I hope Duke can back them up.   What exactly are these happy-clappy hey-nonny-nonny jobs which have been kept on while 'libraries, lollipop ladies and libraries' have been closed? 

Much of what Duke says is well documented, he misses out only that Manchester are maintaining vast reservses that could be used to protect services, they prefer instead to introduce cuts to blame the coalition.

However in the case of Stockport Duke is way off the mark apart from a few Press Releases nothing has been heard of Portis, the redevelopment of the old part of Stockport has been lead by Council Offices with seed funding from the LA. 

[tonysheldon]

Some sweeping generalisations and accusations there - I hope Duke can back them up.   What exactly are these happy-clappy hey-nonny-nonny jobs which have been kept on while 'libraries, lollipop ladies and libraries' have been closed? 

Yes, please do tell!

[Dave]

I don't hate public services at all...... Public services are required to provide the infrastructure for business to thrive I agree but the state should only provide core services...... local authorities have invented happy-clappy schemes.... Take manchester council (please) they cut libraries, lollipop ladies and libraries and make a huge political pitch about how they have to do this because of central government, at the same time they keep some ridiculous roles within the council.....  a plethora of hey nonny-nonny roles in council doing next to nothing

Some sweeping generalisations and accusations there - I hope Duke can back them up.   What exactly are these happy-clappy hey-nonny-nonny jobs which have been kept on while 'libraries, lollipop ladies and libraries' have been closed? 

[Duke Fame]

Maybe I could have used the word interdependent, but symbiotic seems a reasonable word to describe how private industry relies in many ways on the public sector. Education, infrastructure, healthcare, all these publicly funded activities which you seem to detest pave the  way for the private sector to make profits.  Hopefully, you may be swimming against the political tide, as people see that the privatised energy industry turns itself into a cartel, a tendency of capital, and acts against the public interest. There is a ground-swell of opinion to re-integrate and bring back into public ownership the railways ahead of Labour Party thinking. Look at the failure of big Pharma to make long-range plans for new antibiotics because research is too expensive and not as profitable as other health areas. Here again, the State will have to intervene to support research otherwise the outlook for us all could be very bleak indeed.

I don't hate public services at all, you are doing a trick of the likes of Chang or Krugman where they invent the argument of the centre right and then argue against it. Public services are required to provide the infrastructure for business to thrive I agree but the state should only provide core services.

The point is, this must be minimised in order to be efficient. This has not happened in the UK, local authorities have invented happy-clappy schemes to employ people but achieve nothing instead of cutting services to the core. They are often seen playing at commercial enterprise which crowds out private enterprise & pushing costs up. Take manchester council (please) they cut libraries, lollipop ladies and libraries and make a huge political pitch about how they have to do this because of central government, at the same time they keep some ridiculous roles within the council and throw an £1/2m party for invited 'b' list celebs and local council egos. They are playing at property development, they own more empty property than any other private enterprise, sitting on it which forces rents artificially high which forces business out and of course, kills employment opportunities. In Stockport, the council has presided over a town centre that has more empty shops than any other town - in comes the Portas pilot scheme, working independently, they have managed to attract more businesses into the 'old town' in 12 months than in recent years, they have a big advertising program which has cost very little and slowly, on weekends, the Old town of Stockport is transforming from a place that died to one that has life.

Is it not telling that local authorities with the smallest budgets preside over the most successful towns because they allow business to get on with it rather than hitting them with red-tape (or for stockport - Conservation approved Heritage coloured tape). Take a town I know well, Basingstoke, it's not pretty, about the same size as Stockport but it doesn;t have an empty shopping precinct, it didn't concrete over it's river (actually it did a bit), it doesn;t have a plethora of hey nonny-nonny roles in council doing next to nothing yet it performs far better.

[tonysheldon]

Maybe I could have used the word interdependent, but symbiotic seems a reasonable word to describe how private industry relies in many ways on the public sector. Education, infrastructure, healthcare, all these publicly funded activities which you seem to detest pave the  way for the private sector to make profits.  Hopefully, you may be swimming against the political tide, as people see that the privatised energy industry turns itself into a cartel, a tendency of capital, and acts against the public interest. There is a ground-swell of opinion to re-integrate and bring back into public ownership the railways ahead of Labour Party thinking. Look at the failure of big Pharma to make long-range plans for new antibiotics because research is too expensive and not as profitable as other health areas. Here again, the State will have to intervene to support research otherwise the outlook for us all could be very bleak indeed.

[Duke Fame]

This is obviously a wind-up but I must respond. The Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement so the affinity with ordinary working people carries on. However, the post-war consensus by all parties has been to run a mixed economy, public and private. The roles of the public and private sector are pretty much symbiotic. I would refer Duke Fame or anyone else interested in economics to read Ha-Joon Chang's excellent book "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism". Careful though, it may challenge too many of your prejudices!

I'm not so sure about your use of the word 'symbiotic' I've not used that since O'level biology.

The Labour movement did grow out of the trade union movement which has morphed into something quite horrid. Where the original idea was to give the little guy a voice, what it has become is way of keeping a sizeable mass unmotivated to excel but grateful enough to the supporting and enlarging state so that not to revolt. The Labour movement appears to want to create state dependency like a drug pusher would keep a client in debt.

I've not read Ha-Joon Chang's book (perhaps I should) but I've read the article that spawned the book and some of his stuff in the guardian. I disagree with him in some cases, the big argument seems to be that he state can do things that individuals cant and it can back winners in terms of industry and in doing so create the employment needed for the masses very quickly. This is true but the like all gamblers, he only seems to speak of the backing of winners, never the losers & like all gamblers, every time they lose is a reason to gamble again. He refers to his native Korea to back his case but IMHO the exact opposite is true, he can look at Korea to prove how his case unravels but also look close to the UK and it's fairly recent past to see that state control and protecting (for the sake of full employment) mature manufacturing industry with tariffs etc simply delays but exacerbates the inevitable decline & disaster. Old factories were allowed to get increasingly inefficient as all they could do was plunder their domestic markets, Tony Benn argued 'til his dying day that all he did was good for his working classes yet he was wrong and Thatcher was right.


As for the ladies' wear business, Dave, it's not a business I'm in but just something for my spare time ;-)

[tonysheldon]

I don't think BG was saying 'No representation without taxation.' The Labour party have positioned themselves as being the party of the public sector worker and  the unemployed. In govt, they've gone about making both pools of voter as large as possible. The problem with that is that it takes away ambition, enterprise and production of wealth creating units. The culmination of their work managed to have far more public sector workers and unemployed than the productive sector. That is not good for the country as a whole and is not sustainable.

This is obviously a wind-up but I must respond. The Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement so the affinity with ordinary working people carries on. However, the post-war consensus by all parties has been to run a mixed economy, public and private. The roles of the public and private sector are pretty much symbiotic. I would refer Duke Fame or anyone else interested in economics to read Ha-Joon Chang's excellent book "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism". Careful though, it may challenge too many of your prejudices!

[Dave]

If chicken lady is right and Duke is in the posh knicker trade, then I rest my case.  

[chicken lady]

I can understand parents hoping for 'George' clothing for kids but for adult clothing, it's really not good quality so you end up with a false economy of buying cheap and buying twice. Far Better to try Copenhagen or Becky sues in Marple or Eternal Envy in Stockport for ladies wear.

Looking at this post from Duke in the "sale of the co op to asda" thread, it looks to me like he may be in the Ladies clothing business!

[Bowden Guy]

If you have no idea what he does for a living how on earth do you know if it is more, less or equally "worthwhile" than the list of public sector workers you have quoted?