What has Theresa said today?

[joecity]

So, for me austerity is a failed project, they have missed every target and the very wealthy are getting richer and richer throughout. It is ideologically driven and once you are wedded to an ideology you miss opportunities. They sold austerity on the back of comparing the nations finance to a household budget which is obviously such a load of nonsense I don't even need to explain why.

I guess where it all falls down to me is this - When life becomes solely a competition of who can get to the top everybody suffers. The divisiveness of the last few years is unprecedented and as usual it is a theme (public vs private, all vs those on benefits, born here vs immigrants) passed down from the top because it suits them for everybody to be arguing with each other. A doctor needs a builder and a builder needs a doctor, society needs both to function and unfortunately for me the conservative ideology is that FOR society to function the doctor needs to screw the builder and the builder needs to screw the doctor. Weirdly this 'dog eat dog' mantra of recent times seems to go hand in hand with flag waving nationalism, either we share common goals or we are just a bunch of people unlucky enough to be living near each other - they need to choose.

What is the centre ground? Corbyn's policies almost all poll more than 50%, are we an extreme left country?!

I work in my local county council and I see lazy people and I see massive waste, often at the top and usually because of short term thinking driven by budget concerns. I am all for tackling that but unfortunately what I have seen is vital services being dropped and people being forced to work absurd hours or accept that they can't help the family that they could 5 years ago.

We need to encourage businesses that actually stand a chance of succeeding. I remember an interview with a childcare provider after the minimum wage went up and he was guilt tripping 'society' for driving the change. The reality is, if you can't pay your staff the amount that it costs to live without going broke then you don't have a viable business model, he isn't an entrepreneur, he is a guy taking a chance and unfortunately his idea bombed. I certainly don't want businesses who rely on the taxpayer to be dictating to the taxpayer.

Where I will agree is on the point about collecting corporation tax. A government can't plug all the holes. I don't know how you tackle that but I guess we as consumers need to drive change by favouring businesses who operate fully within this country. I also don't agree with nationalising for the sake of it, the railways are a completely failed privatisation, none of the benefits of competition but wacking great subsidies and prices that go up every year without fail. I can't see the harm in trying a new way at this point.

The main problem in politics these days is you can't criticise something without being lumped in the polar opposite camp. Clearly the railway privatisation is garbage, do I wan't 'British Rail' back? Not really. Clearly introducing University fees and trying to create a marketplace and competition hasn't worked at all, do I want completely free university education? Not without massive reform.

Good stuff. Why couldn't Rail being brought back into the fold be good though. You wouldn't be getting British Rail back. It would be something new with all the lessons learned from the previous wouldn't it. The best performing line is under government control isn't it. East Anglia.

Sorry mate I am a bit lazy with my research sometimes cause I get bogged down with facts and go off on tangents. You work in a local authority so you have seen austerity in action. You also know about best practice policies, time n management studies, things that are done to slimline service without affecting output. Couldn't these be used in modern day returning private enterprise into the house. I still struggle to understand why we let business run Rail. I don't understand why power, rail, health are left to business in this day n age.

Investment, waste, people tell me but they make massive profits so they not really investing are they? or am I just wrong cause I could easily be. Taking money out of the country to replace it with shit jobs with disputes galore and not much security. If money was ring fenced to a degree with a formula like the Barnet Formula sort off wouldn't every body win overall. I know there is nothing as a perfect world but this state of affairs is pretty shite.

Other countries building our power stations,(Expertise you could argue but we built our own ones) running our rail franchises, providing our health care at certain points, doing our assessments for dss getting into local government, outsourced this and outscored that to what end?

I am not being a little Islander but where do we benefit from the half arsed way it's being done. Essential services. Cant we do them ourselves?

[Eric Cartman]

Good stuff. Why couldn't Rail being brought back into the fold be good though. You wouldn't be getting British Rail back. It would be something new with all the lessons learned from the previous wouldn't it. The best performing line is under government control isn't it. East Anglia.

Sorry mate I am a bit lazy with my research sometimes cause I get bogged down with facts and go off on tangents. You work in a local authority so you have seen austerity in action. You also know about best practice policies, time n management studies, things that are done to slimline service without affecting output. Couldn't these be used in modern day returning private enterprise into the house. I still struggle to understand why we let business run Rail. I don't understand why power, rail, health are left to business in this day n age.

Investment, waste, people tell me but they make massive profits so they not really investing are they? or am I just wrong cause I could easily be. Taking money out of the country to replace it with shit jobs with disputes galore and not much security. If money was ring fenced to a degree with a formula like the Barnet Formula sort off wouldn't every body win overall. I know there is nothing as a perfect world but this state of affairs is pretty shite.

Other countries building our power stations,(Expertise you could argue but we built our own ones) running our rail franchises, providing our health care at certain points, doing our assessments for dss getting into local government, outsourced this and outscored that to what end?

I am not being a little Islander but where do we benefit from the half arsed way it's being done. Essential services. Cant we do them ourselves?

There are many different reasons for privatisation, railways was ideological and to weaken the unions. Disability assessments being done privately is about removing public liability for horrid decisions - government want us to blame the company and not them. Forced academisation of schools was a push towards entirely private schooling but the government couldn't get that done.

I think we can spend our money more wisely than re-nationalising things at a premium cost to the taxpayer, railways can be done one by one as the franchises expire so that works. That is why I wouldn't be in favour of things like the national grid or entire energy sector being brought back into public hands.

Hinckley is simply PFI under a different name, it seems very unlikely that we get a 'good' deal (one where we pay less in total than we would have if we were building it ourselves). This government don't appear to be able to draw the distinction between capital investment and day to day expenditure. They have taught the public to be dumb and now are forced to live by that.

[joecity]

There are many different reasons for privatisation, railways was ideological and to weaken the unions. Disability assessments being done privately is about removing public liability for horrid decisions - government want us to blame the company and not them. Forced academisation of schools was a push towards entirely private schooling but the government couldn't get that done.

I think we can spend our money more wisely than re-nationalising things at a premium cost to the taxpayer, railways can be done one by one as the franchises expire so that works. That is why I wouldn't be in favour of things like the national grid or entire energy sector being brought back into public hands.

Hinckley is simply PFI under a different name, it seems very unlikely that we get a 'good' deal (one where we pay less in total than we would have if we were building it ourselves). This government don't appear to be able to draw the distinction between capital investment and day to day expenditure. They have taught the public to be dumb and now are forced to live by that.

Thanks mate. I thinking about this. i know Labour are talking about ending PFI and bringing it back in house if you know what I mean. PFI dreamed up under a Tory government but used with enthusiasm by Labour, Can they offer good value? do you know of such? I'm sure it can work under the right circumstance or is it really just a Wonga pay day loan. Why couldn't the government just lend the money at the low rates that they can rather than asking the private sector to do it then add they're cut in for good measure. These things occupy a lot of time in my mind so all thoughts welcome. Nice one.