Are politicians devoid of common sense?

First topic message reminder :

I've come to the conclusion that they as soon or before they are elected all politicians have a common sense by pass.Just a few of the bleedin' obvious from recent times.
1) The total and appalling waste of lives and money fighting the the Taliban.Completely unwinnerable from day one as demonstrated by previous attempts and now they'll be back the moment we leave.
2) I wrote to the PM and told him the folly of supporting the rebels in Libya when he had not a clue who they were or what we were supporting. It turns out of course that it was largely Al Qaeda and this lot are just as bloody as the last. The middle east does not do Western style democracy
3) They are itching to get their hands into Syria happily the Russians have more sense.
4) Iraq another disaster born of Blair's and Bush's lies more lives and money sacrificed for no tangible result it's tribal like all the middle east and without a strong oppressive dictatorship will be constantly at some form of civil war.
5)International aid strongly condemned by the majority of people in these difficult as it requires us to borrow more money to heap on booming economies such as India who repay by placing their defence aircraft contract with France. I wrote to my local MP about the logic of borrowing more money to give away. His reply was that it was the government's moral duty and that others shouldn't have to suffer because times were hard here. I wrote back suggesting in that case perhaps he should use his money instead of ours to get the feel good factor. Strangely I got no reply.
6) Why are being penalised with higher fuel payments in the name of global warming and CO2 emissions when the average global temperatures have not risen since 1998 (Nasa data)in spite of rising CO2
That lot will do for a start there are millions more examples out there

In 1811 they had the Luddites, now we have The Greens. Equally opposed to any kind of CHANGE.

Hold on very tight to Nurse, for the fear of something worse.

Yeah well, be fair, to the Greens, if it smokes pot, it's OK, but anything else is parriyah!

My mother kept telling us that greens were good for us, we all believed her because she would never tell us lie.

I was behind the camera, and that's no way to talk about Mrs Hornby

Apologies to Mrs H.

Astra said:

"The largest cargo vessel ever to moor at the Port of Tyne has arrived in the river - bringing "coals to Newcastle".

The 750ft (230 metre) long Alam Penting has a cargo of 75,000 tonnes of coal, from New Orleans"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-14417376


The Torys must be congratulated for giving employment to American miners and seamen. EDIT and Shipbuilders.

Pity they Cannot / will not provide for their own!

Dead right Astra !

Also, where do the contracts that are now given out by the Tory government go for making the likes of big ships, trams - for Edinburgh - trains to run on our new rail infrastructure - ( what happened to "Bombardier" comes to mind ), and even the supply of steel required to build the latest bridge crossing of the Forth river ?

Why these contracts go to Germany, Italy, Poland and just about every other European country but our own !

And here was me thinking that The Tories do not like Europe

Regards....

Papaumau.

Papaumau wrote
Also, where do the contracts that are now given out by the Tory government go for making the likes of big ships, trams - for Edinburgh - trains to run on our new rail infrastructure - ( what happened to "Bombardier" comes to mind ), and even the supply of steel required to build the latest bridge crossing of the Forth river ?

Why these contracts go to Germany, Italy, Poland and just about every other European country but our own !

And here was me thinking that The Tories do not like Europe

Once again private companies not government it's called competition now a word familiar to the left probably more of from the Far East than Europe on these projects. There are also some EU rules that we seem to stick too but the rest ignore about state subsidies

These company’s are here because they received more than generous Tax concessions in a bid to get the Thatcher unemployment queue down, you know the unemployed from our own trully British crap motor industry.
Bobby
You may not have noticed but we've had New Labour governments from 1997-2010 why are you still harking back to Margaret Thatcher? The Tories left the country in good shape Gordon Brown taxed us up to the hilt and borrowed an threw the money to no good effect landing in our current mess

When these British cars are built then sold, and the pittance paid to those that built them, Where do you think the profits end up. It sure aint into the UK economy, but back to the mother Country of the Foreign owned car Manufacturers. Next you’ll be trying to tell me TaTa is a British Company.[/quote]

It matters not a jot as I said before who companies belong to (actually it's the share holders not the country you make them sound like one man mill owners)all the big ones are multi national anyway, they pay tax on their profits made here and most importantly employ people and pay wages

".... the big ones are multi national anyway, they pay tax on their profits made here ...."

with the possible exception of those Companies which have a tiny "Management" corporation registered in the UK whose only "profit" is renting premises to the main company that if not registered in Delaware will have its principal Head Office on a Caribbean Island, Switzerland, Lichtenstein or Jersey.

KentDougal said:

Once again private companies not government it's called competition

And I say that built into the Thatcher idea of the "Free market economy" there is no such thing and real competition does not exist when the biggies are able to price-match or even form cartels so as to defeat the idea of real competition.

I have always said - being a true lefty - that there are times when the private sector should simply never get their hands on some services. The "essential" services, that we all depend on, should never be run under the profit motive as if these services are left to the mercy of the people who's only considerations are the bottom-line, the fat-cat salaries and the shareholder dividends then such service will always suffer.

I could make a long list of these services that have suffered but I will just name two so that you all can know what I am getting at: The two that I like to think about are 1). The privatised cleaning services in hospitals...and...2 ). The public transport services that we all depend on. There are many many more and I am sure that we all can think of these ones too.

This brings up the swear-word of "nationalisation", whereby many people in Britain think that that word stands for inefficiency, bad management and the destructive unions, when really all it stands for is when the state tries to - badly - run our essential services for us.

I have always postulated that if the best management teams are in place in any nationalised industry and enough money is put into these services there is absolutely no reason why they cannot be successfully run for the benefit of the users and not for the benefit of the boardroom fat-cats or the shareholders so long as all of the fares and incomes that are taken by these nationalised industries are all put straight back into the service.

Regards....

Papaumau.

kentdougal wrote:-
The Tories left the country in good shape

No they didn't. The Tories left a debt equivalent to 43.76% of GDP, which Brown brought down below 40% and kept it there until the global credit crunch. The Tories left 1.8 million unemployed - far more than when they came to power on a "Labour isn't working" ticket in 1979 - and they left us with neglected hospitals and schools.

If anyone "taxed us up to the hilt" it was Ken Clarke, who extended VAT to just about everything under the sun, including our gas and electricity. That was after the Tories had been re-elected in 1992 on a promise "to cut taxes year on year", but then we all know how worthless Tories promises are - "no top down reorganisation of the NHS" being the sickest of the lot.

There seems to be a question hovering over whether irrevocable changes have already begun in the NHS management stucture, which could not be undone even if the current Health Bill fails.

Does anyone remember how to construct a guillotine?

Does anyone remember how to construct a guillotine?

How about we start with a Garotte - a High Backed chair and a length of damp rope, which shrinks as it dries!!

That's much too quick!

The Con-Dem government don't have a clue over this subject even if - as was reported in the news yesterday - some Lib Dems in the government coalition and even some backbench Tories were hitting their own government hard over this scandalous act.

Many unions and public bodies connected to the NHS, including nurses and doctors associations have already warned the government that this destructive act is going to seriously damage the NHS. More than half of the doctors that are going to be asked to handle ALL or most of the money in this new NHS system are against the idea.

Looking at it from a truly independent angle it seems that this new system is just what has already been tried by many previous Tories; that of privatising the NHS by the back door.

As has been said above, even if this plan is stopped in it's tracks right now damage will already have been done to our NHS. If it is allowed to continue we are going to see the largest number of private companies and not a few private doctors getting their whack out of the taxes that we pay into our "national" health service.

Regards....

Papaumau.

I do not usually become involved in politics it would take years to say and explain why we have so many problems when there should only be one best solution to any problem when everything is taken into consideration.

One thing stands out at the present time, Gordon Brown is responsible for the present financial state of the country.

Yes, the Bankers have not played the game and have not been punished and we would still have been in a unenviable state choose what but Brown selling our gold reserves at one third their value and spending , spending instead of saving for a rainy day has made things far worse than they should have been and that should not be forgotten

Blair should also be taken to task regarding the waste of both our young men and women in wars we should never have been involved in not to mention the money involved.

Politician indeed seem to have no common sence.

The church and clergy suffered twice in this country - look at all the ruined abbeys.

If the hunting of MPs starts, how much can I charge for a politician's hole??

(think of Priest's hole)

Polyglide wrote:-
Yes, the Bankers have not played the game and have not been punished and we would still have been in a unenviable state choose what but Brown selling our gold reserves at one third their value and spending, spending instead of saving for a rainy day has made things far worse than they should have been and that should not be forgotten.

Ask the pensioners about saving for a rainy day. See how much their savings are worth now.

A farmer who saves his wheat for a 'rainy' day has no harvest next year.

To make money you have to spend money wisely. That much about economics I do know.

One thing stands out at the present time, Gordon Brown is responsible for the present financial state of the country.

No doubt Cameron would be pleased to know that his insidious propaganda, repeated in robotic fashion by every Cabinet minister, has not been wasted on at least one gullible soul.

As Josef Goebbels said: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

“The biggest lie in British politics”

Extracts from an article by Johann Hari:-

"British politics today is dominated by a lie. This lie is making it significantly more likely you will lose your job, your business, or your home. The lie gives a false explanation for how we came to be in this crisis, and prescribes a medicine that will worsen our disease. Yet it is hardly being challenged – except by some of the world’s most distinguished Nobel Prize winning economists.

Here’s the lie. We are in a debt crisis. Our national debt is dangerously and historically high. We are being threatened by the international bond markets. The way out is to eradicate our deficit rapidly. Only that will restore ‘confidence’, and therefore economic growth.

As a proportion of GDP, Britain’s national debt has been higher than it is now for 200 of the past 250 years. Check it on any graph by any historian. Since 1750, there have only been two brief 30-year periods when our debt has been lower than it is now. So we can afford to run a deficit, if that has a positive effect. If we are ‘bust’ today, as George Osborne has claimed, then we have almost always been bust. We were bust when we pioneered the Industrial Revolution. We were bust when we ruled a quarter of the world. We were bust when we beat the Nazis. We were bust when we built the NHS. Or is it George Osborne’s economics that are bust?

Our debt is not high by historical standards, and it is not high by international standards. For example, Japan’s national debt is three times bigger than ours, and they are still borrowing at good rates."

For the full article:-
http://johannhari.com/2011/03/29/the-biggest-lie-in-british-politics/

This may be an appropriate moment to sound the

TROLL ALERT

TROLL ALERT !!

(effective 3.59 p.m. today)

polyglide wrote:-
Brown selling our gold reserves at one third their value and spending, spending instead of saving for a rainy day

For someone who claims he “doesn't usually become involved in politics”, you seem well versed in the standard Tory myths and legends which Baroness Warsi pumps out to party members.

Gordon Brown used the proceeds from the 3G mobile licence sale in 1999 to reduce our debt. He finished repaying the post-war loan we had from the USA. He reduced our debt as a percentage of GDP below 40% and kept it there until the credit crunch engulfed the world.

The UK economy grew every year that Brown was Chancellor, completing the longest period of uninterrupted growth in our history. Brown saved, as I’ve just mentioned, but he also spent, because as far as hospitals and schools were concerned, it was “a rainy day” when Labour took power in 1997. As is usual under the Tories, the NHS and state education had been neglected, no doubt to give people ‘incentives’ to go private, and as we’ve now seen, to provide an excuse for privatisation. Brown doubled spending on education and trebled spending on the NHS. Yet up until 2008, Cameron and Osborne promised to match Labour’s spending plans.

Now we come to the old Tory favourite about the gold sale. Brown did not sell our gold reserves at one-third of their value, he sold half of our reserves at what was then the market value. Gold prices had been weak throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and there was nothing to suggest they would ever recover. Daniel Sacks, writing in ‘The Independent’ (08.04.06), argued that lack of confidence that prices would rise significantly discouraged investment in new exploration and focused mining companies on return on equity instead. Many other countries also sold off reserves. Brown selling gold at a price lower than it subsequently reached hardly resulted in the current deficit.

If the Tories think they’re so clever and can predict which way prices will go, we must ask why Thatcher and Major didn’t sell some gold before the price fell? And perhaps we should ask them what they did with the £300 billion of North Sea oil receipts between 1979 and 1997, other than squander a chunk of it on ‘Black Wednesday’? That was when Lamont spent billions of pounds buying our currency from elsewhere - before he devalued it!

Is that the same Norman Lamont who had a special advisor called DAVID CAMERON.

OW asked Does anyone remember how to construct a guillotine.

Astra would be the one to ask, as the orriginal headchopperofferer is believed to have orriginated somewhere up North some hundreds of years before the French copy, All Dr Guillotine did was to make it more humane by giving it a sloped blade to make the chopping smoother, therefor less painfull. Dr guillotine tried to didtance himself from the contraption in the same way that Thomas Edison did using his Direct Current in the electric chair.

I'll ave a sniff around about that!! Seems like a Border Riever Ploy or maybe a little later!

Dr Guillotine and Eddison did indeed try to stand back. Herr Vaillant did not though! Got a Vaillant Condensing Boiler? (I have) Then I found out that Herr Vaillant was the chap who invented the Gas Chamber as used by the Nazi.

Hello Bobby howsyerdoin'? All fine up here just a wee bit soggy (you can all stop rain dancing please!)
How's your daughter, not seen her for a while

Hello V. I'm not too sure how you know any of my daughters, as neither has ever posted on Cutting Edge or any other site. Do you know sumfinc I dont .

Its yourself that needs to stop rain dancing, we have much more than we want, but sadly not as much as we need.

Info on headchopperofferer found on Engines of our ingenuety, article by John H Lienhard :

William the Conqueror brought beheading to England, where it was, again, set aside for nobility -- for people like Lady Jane Grey and Anne Boleyn. When the English beheaded the lower classes, it was only to finish off a victim who'd first been tormented in ways too nasty to talk about here.

The reason for mechanizing such a seldom-used punishment was that axemen could be horribly inaccurate. Victims, after all, paid executioners a gold coin so they'd cut cleanly. Inventors were devising beheading machines at least as early as 1300. Sixteenth-century Scots used a device they coyly named the Maiden, and England's old Halifax Gibbet greatly resembled the French guillotine.

So it waz yu Jocks wot did it?

By the way V, I'm fine, how is your good self

Hello V. I'm not too sure how you know any of my daughters, as neither has ever posted on Cutting Edge or any other site. Do you know sumfinc I dont .

Its yourself that needs to stop rain dancing, we have much more than we want, but sadly not as much as we need.

Info on headchopperofferer found on Engines of our ingenuety, article by John H Lienhard :

William the Conqueror brought beheading to England, where it was, again, set aside for nobility -- for people like Lady Jane Grey and Anne Boleyn. When the English beheaded the lower classes, it was only to finish off a victim who'd first been tormented in ways too nasty to talk about here.

The reason for mechanizing such a seldom-used punishment was that axemen could be horribly inaccurate. Victims, after all, paid executioners a gold coin so they'd cut cleanly. Inventors were devising beheading machines at least as early as 1300. Sixteenth-century Scots used a device they coyly named the Maiden, and England's old Halifax Gibbet greatly resembled the French guillotine.

So it waz yu Jocks wot did it?

By the way V, I'm fine, how is your good self

Sorry I got it wrong aboot yer daughter.
I seem to remember a poster's daughter ripping into someone, and thought - good for you girl! Ah well, back to the draw(r)ing board
(why do the BBC give 'Drawing' 2x letter Rs?)

I know that chivalry more or less ended when Edward 1 had Sir Nigel and Sir Alexander Bruce (Brothers to Sir Robert (King a few years later) and Sir Edward Bruce) hung drawn and quartered, a demise until then reserved for the poorest and done as an example to the rest of us wot is oiks! Those and such as those being 'Put to the Sword'

V, My Daughters and I forgive you. The first I heard of the headchopperofferer was from a book titled "1.000 years of annoying the French by Stephen Clarke" It is all based on historical Facts that dispel many French myths such as the Headchopperofferer, the French invading England in 1066, The Baguette being French and so on, a very interesting book if like me you have little respect for the Frogs.
Some years ago I worked in the West End with a French geezer by the name of Murat, his ancestors had something to do with the little Italian Napoleone Bonaparte. I once asked him as to why the French have no liking of the English, he said “ every time we have fought you we lost, and when we had a fight with someone else, it was the English who came to our help” he said it a bit tongue in Cheek, but I suspect there was a bit of truth in what he said.

kentdougal wrote:I've come to the conclusion that they as soon or before they are elected all politicians have a common sense by pass.Just a few of the bleedin' obvious from recent times.
1) The total and appalling waste of lives and money fighting the the Taliban.Completely unwinnerable from day one as demonstrated by previous attempts and now they'll be back the moment we leave.
2) I wrote to the PM and told him the folly of supporting the rebels in Libya when he had not a clue who they were or what we were supporting. It turns out of course that it was largely Al Qaeda and this lot are just as bloody as the last. The middle east does not do Western style democracy
3) They are itching to get their hands into Syria happily the Russians have more sense.
4) Iraq another disaster born of Blair's and Bush's lies more lives and money sacrificed for no tangible result it's tribal like all the middle east and without a strong oppressive dictatorship will be constantly at some form of civil war.
5)International aid strongly condemned by the majority of people in these difficult as it requires us to borrow more money to heap on booming economies such as India who repay by placing their defence aircraft contract with France. I wrote to my local MP about the logic of borrowing more money to give away. His reply was that it was the government's moral duty and that others shouldn't have to suffer because times were hard here. I wrote back suggesting in that case perhaps he should use his money instead of ours to get the feel good factor. Strangely I got no reply.
6) Why are being penalised with higher fuel payments in the name of global warming and CO2 emissions when the average global temperatures have not risen since 1998 (Nasa data)in spite of rising CO2
That lot will do for a start there are millions more examples out there

Well sorry to disagree with you. but I think quite a few have common sense, but its just not your view of common sense or maybe not even mine. so it comes down to what you or me call common sense and weather they match up to our views of there common sense

I think Cromwell summed it up pretty well in his day.

"Ye sordid prostitutes, have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation”.

Not much has changed really!

Is there an English translation of this thread available?

I think it's fair to say this one has no common sense!


Labour MP Jon Cruddas banned from driving for having no insurance or MOT
A senior Labour MP has been banned from driving for eight weeks after police stopped his car and found he had no insurance and an expired MOT certificate.
Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham, has been banned from driving and fined £300 after he was stopped with no insurance and an expired MOT certificate. Photo: Paul Grover

By Telegraph Reporter

7:30AM BST 27 Oct 2012

Jon Cruddas, 50, was driving a Land Rover Freelander near Hyde Park in central London on July 6 when he was pulled over by officers who noticed what appeared to be a defective brake light.

The MP for Dagenham and Rainham, who is chairing Labour's policy review, was banned from driving for eight weeks for not having any insurance and fined £300 for an expired MOT.

Dressed in a dark suit and red tie, sheepish-looking Cruddas pleaded guilty to both charge when he appeared in the dock at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday.

Daniel Irving, prosecuting, said: "At 9am on July 6, police saw a grey Land Rover Freelander with a brake light that wasn't aligned.

"Checks revealed a test certificate had expired in June and no insurance was held. Land Rover had sent a letter saying the insurance expired some ten days before the event.

Read more about the either stupid or extremely arrogant man. Surely this is much worse than sitting in 1st class on a train?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9637209/Labour-MP-Jon-Cruddas-banned-from-driving-for-having-no-insurance-or-MOT.html

Easily done when you're busy - done it myself - doesn't make him a bad person

Read more about the either stupid or extremely arrogant man. Surely this is much worse than sitting in 1st class on a train?

tlttf. Cruddas’ insurance was ten days out of date. He thought he had a fortnight to pay (like we used to get with road tax, but I think it’s only a few days now). He hadn’t got round to renewing it, which is not advisable in view of the bill you get if you cause an accident. But he hadn’t been driving without insurance for months or years, like 1.4 million motorists in the UK:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036332/Car-insurance-30-drivers-Britain-uninsured-adding-30-premium.html

As the judge said to Cruddas (and which you didn’t report): "It is a straight-forward situation - you didn't check the letter and you didn't get round to do your to-do list. I take into account you are a good character and haven't wasted time.”

And you suggest this man might be arrogant! If you want arrogance by the bucket load, start in Downing Street with those two Bullingdon Club thugs. Osborne makes a habit of sitting in first class with a second class ticket, only this time he got caught. That’s tantamount to stealing from train companies on a regular basis. Osborne thinks he’s too good to sit with the plebs and is so arrogant as to think that the appropriate fares don’t apply to him.

Easily done when you're busy - done it myself - doesn't make him a bad person.

boatlady. Which one of us can say that we've never forgotten anything? A few years ago, I drove around for over a week without a valid MOT because I'd forgotten that it needed renewing. I see the judge agrees with you that Cruddas is not exactly a villain.

It just shows how desperate some Tories must be in trying to land a punch if they need to make a meal out of non-stories such as this one.

So because yourself Ivan and boatlady have driven without an MOT (still illegal), you think it's appropriate that a prominent mp is able to drive without insurance, my apologies that he happens to be a labour mp. If he receiving the letter and couldn't be bothered to read it what chance does his constituents have if they have a problem that they write to him about. The heading is about common sense, don't try to defend or deflect from the idiot.

tlttf. LOL. Still trying to get mileage (pun intended) out of this non-story, are you?

We don’t know if boatlady drove without an MOT or insurance for a brief period; she hasn’t specified so we shouldn’t make assumptions. Have you ever broken a motoring law? Ever driven unintentionally at 33mph in a 30mph, something that’s so easy to do, especially after coming off a dual carriageway? Both offences are indeed illegal, but speed is far more dangerous than driving a roadworthy car for a few days while waiting for an MOT appointment, which turned out to be a formality.

I do not think – and have never said – that it’s appropriate for an MP to drive without insurance, so please don’t put words in my mouth. He forgot, he’s been fined and he’s lost his licence. Had Cruddas been drink driving, knocked a pushchair into a car, shouted “French scum” at the Swiss parent and fled the scene, as a former Tory MP for your beloved Chelsea once did, this story might have more legs.

It's quite worrying how many people still regard it as acceptable to hold a mobile phone to their ear while driving. Apart from the obvious fact of driving one-handed, it's proven that a phone conversation distracts the attention.

OK I will confess - my crime was much worse than his and ignorance of the law is no defence.
Back in the days when I first had a car, didn't know that an MOT was required by law, so didn't bother getting one done. Involved in a prang (not my fault) about a month after it was due, claimed on insurance got the car fixed, kind man in the garage did me an MOT and didn't tell anyone.
So I guess I'm guilty of defrauding my insurance as well as failing to have a valid MOT.
I still believe I'm a good person (and by the way, while fukcing things up on the motoring front, I was providing an excellent service to clients) It doesn't follow because you get one thing wrong that you're incompetent, arrogant or a fool.

The Law of Averages eventually catches up with us. A travelling salesman or a Van Driver are much more likely to have committed a traffic offence for the simple reason that they spend more time on the road than a shopkeeper. Three or six points on your licence may not affect your Insurance Premiums, though it's natural to agonise about any blemish.

Politicians can't afford to have ANY black marks against them, because the Press and Public expect them to be absolutely perfect. Not easy.

3:58pm Tuesday 22nd January 2013 in Waltham Forest By Daniel Binns

Cllr Akram did try and fix one planning application by pressuring a colleague with a text message, a panel has ruled. Cllr Akram did try and fix one planning application by pressuring a colleague with a text message, a panel has ruled.

A panel has ruled that the chief whip of the Labour Party in Waltham Forest did try to fix a planning application vote by pressuring a colleague with a text message - but has cleared him of all other allegations of wrongdoing.

Just thought I'd show how power corrupts the f*ing lot of them.

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/10177438._/