What is her agenda Matt? Defending the NHS? What a horrible woman.

Gusset - for you. A party of principle and unwavering conviction:

[Link]

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

Yes.Boulton just kept repeating that she was electioneering for labour which she said she wasn't. This obviously didn't satisfy him. Hardly 'owned'

Willo, I know when you see that I'm posting you probably won't read anything more than 'Marxist loon', but I just am genuinely intrigued as to how far Tory spin affects you.

It's stupid to see any statistic as good or bad in and of itself. What a lot of Tory supporters are doing is looking at the employment stats and simply claiming that the quantity of jobs created is reason enough to believe the Tories have done a great job on the economy. But dig deeper and even you must know, in your heart of hearts, that it's bollocks to at least some degree.

Most jobs have been created in the private sector,and of those, 80% are in London, mainly in services, so people working in Pret a Manger or Burger King, that sort of thing. So most jobs created under the coalition are low-wage and insecure (Only about 13% of private sector workers are in unions, for example, which regardless of what you think of them means less job security).

This probably goes someway to explaining why productivity's so low. Why would you care about working hard if you're just serving people moccachinos or working behind a till all day? More importantly, if you're working on joke money in LONDON, you're pretty f*cked when it comes to finding somewhere to live. Paying London rents, bills, food etc on £6.50 an hour? Yeah right.

If the UK wants long term growth, it's gonna have to raise the minimum wage, even Boris Johnson's clued up enough to be calling for businesses in London to start paying £9 an hour. But more importantly job creation in this country clearly hasn't been a good thing in and of itself, because it's leaving people far worse off in real terms.

So two questions for you Willo:

why should anyone trust the Tories on the economy when it's clear that the jobs being created aren't improving people's lives? (If you want mass employment, go and live in a totalitarian regime where everyone's working in sweatshops)

and

Why should we care about growth when people are worse off in real terms now than before the crash? (again, if you want growth, go to the Congo, one of the fastest growing economies in the world where half the people can't drink clean water)

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

Everyone in Britain?

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

In terms of unemployment the 5.3% expected rate this year is HALF the Urozone average of 9.8%. Currently there are sone 31 Mill in work which is a record number and some 73% is the figure for those of working age now in employment which is highest since records began.

Regards job creation, 80% of the jobs created are skilled. I know Labour make great play of "Zero hours contracts" but 80% of the jobs created are full-time and I know quite a few people who are "Casual" as it suits them to be so.

As for people being worse off before the crash, the Labour claim is that families are £1600 worse off which is unadulterated piffle.This figure excludes tax changes and dates from April 2014 and since then inflation has fallen sharply and pay rises have improved. Living standards are now officially higher since 2010 and disposable income is higher compared to the second quarter of 2010.The independent 'Office of budget responsibility' claims has predicted that families will be £900 better off by the end of 2015.

Would love to continue on my "Soapbox" but alas I have to go out to do some canvassing !!!!

Edited by Willo (08 Apr 2015 2.35pm)