Message for the current (and any subsequent) Governments

[Scoobos]

I dont know you but let me take a few guesses

You are a contractor by virtue of being privileged enough to be brought up/educated and endowed with an intelligence that by chance enables you to be in the top one percent of the entire world's richest people. I would imagine that if you have kids that you would send them to the best school you could rather than a school that would support your ideological views, that you would not hesitate to pay out for private healthcare should the NHS be too slow in delivering it. I bet you dont live on a council estate welcoming in and sharing your vast wealth with immigrants who do not speak English and do not work.

You dont really care about the less well off and the poor because if you did you would demand far more from the public services that are responsible for looking after, housing and educating the poor. You see socialism as a badge that is worn to give you some sort of moral integrity so that you can beat up and criticise people who are even richer than you.

If you were a true caring individual you would challenge the foundations of the institutions that day in day fail people who really need a top class education or sports facilities or jobs. Instead like your ilk you sneer at creativity and wealth and support institutions that fail in order to validate your own bigotry.

It's these views that make me hold the views I have, to be honest. You seem intent on making out I've got issues, or chips on my shoulder, I'm simply saying my views.

I'll answer your points, in the vain hope it shows that some of your views attacking me personally on your perception of me being something I'm not.. Convoluted sentance, but I'm trying to say this is why I have debated so long today with you.

1. You are a contractor by virtue of being privileged enough to be brought up/educated and endowed with an intelligence that by chance enables you to be in the top one percent of the entire world's richest people.

Perhaps, althought I needed a stint in the army to sort me out after a terrible childhood.

2. I would imagine that if you have kids that you would send them to the best school you could rather than a school that would support your ideological views, that you would not hesitate to pay out for private healthcare should the NHS be too slow in delivering it.

I cannot have children, due to an NHS botch last year which nearly killed my wife and left us with an unexpected hysterectomy just months after getting married after 10 years together , in preperation for children (my wife is a teacher and child psychologist) . I'm trying to put the pieces back together, and the social system you guys think is so good has totally failed me, I've been offered NO HELP at all from the NHS or any of these BS organisations that pretend to exist in Berkshire, hearing the same words "cuts cuts cuts"

I didn't pay out for private healthcare, on priniciple that I think that they were leaching off NHS trained staff (public money spent to train them, in Uni too) and then charging us for using them and paying them crappy wages... How wrong I was and how topical a point for you to raise.

3. I bet you dont live on a council estate welcoming in and sharing your vast wealth with immigrants who do not speak English and do not work.

Unfortunately, as I hate people who wont integrate , I have lived in several council estates in the North East - and also lived and worked in some of the poorest areas of the world.

4.You see socialism as a badge that is worn to give you some sort of moral integrity so that you can beat up and criticise people who are even richer than you.

No, I wear the socialism badge because I believe in it, and I think people are people , whatever their background - travelling the world for years taught me this, but I learnt it on the streets in my teenage years too.

5. Instead like your ilk you sneer at creativity and wealth and support institutions that fail in order to validate your own bigotry.

Really, I don't.. I try and be a nice guy and I can't comprehend this


Maybe a bit too much to publically out on a forum, but this forum has really helped me over the past year , during my time I couldnt work - but hopefully you'll see that we have principles and we continue to pay the price for them.

My wife is a teacher and refuses to work in anything other than a state school and specialises in deprivated areas - shes in an inner city failing school in slough now, trying to turn it around and succeeding and getting paid less than 28k for her 65 hour weeks and constant commitment and enthusiasm.

I'm not writing this to be high and mighty either, I just wanted to show the guy behind the keyboard and hopefully even 1% open the fact that 99% of what you think I am due to my views and opinions is quite misguided. I'm a hard working guy, who believes in something other than the norm, maybe.

I've had a rough year and perhaps should go a little easier on my outspoken views, but I'm not who you paint me as.

[Old Greg]

I dont know you but let me take a few guesses

You are a contractor by virtue of being privileged enough to be brought up/educated and endowed with an intelligence that by chance enables you to be in the top one percent of the entire world's richest people. I would imagine that if you have kids that you would send them to the best school you could rather than a school that would support your ideological views, that you would not hesitate to pay out for private healthcare should the NHS be too slow in delivering it. I bet you dont live on a council estate welcoming in and sharing your vast wealth with immigrants who do not speak English and do not work.

You dont really care about the less well off and the poor because if you did you would demand far more from the public services that are responsible for looking after, housing and educating the poor. You see socialism as a badge that is worn to give you some sort of moral integrity so that you can beat up and criticise people who are even richer than you.

If you were a true caring individual you would challenge the foundations of the institutions that day in day fail people who really need a top class education or sports facilities or jobs. Instead like your ilk you sneer at creativity and wealth and support institutions that fail in order to validate your own bigotry.

It's a funny thing, Dodgy. When I was 20 I assumed that people were right wing because they were evil or stupid. How else could they support an economic system that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few while so many lacked the basic means of survival of dignity?

And then of course, I mellowed and engaged with people and understood that these people were not all evil or stupid. Maybe it's time you did the same?

You would find that there are things I value that you also do: hard work over idleness; community mindedness; helping old ladies across the road; standing up for what's right against what's wrong. But it just takes me to a different place. I don't believe it's right that people can work for a lifetime in an industry while a shareholding class profits from their labour and then find themselves chucked out on the scrapheap in their 50s and derided as scroungers, all because of an economic system that perpetually expands and contracts. And I think there's a better way of organising society for the public good. Of course in your unreconstructed immature mind that makes me all sorts of bad things. So try grow up just a little bit. You'll find there are all sorts of people out there with differing views who are worth having a conversation with.

[d000hg]

I cannot have children, due to an NHS botch last year which nearly killed my wife and left us with an unexpected hysterectomy just months after getting married after 10 years together , in preperation for children (my wife is a teacher and child psychologist) . I'm trying to put the pieces back together, and the social system you guys think is so good has totally failed me, I've been offered NO HELP at all from the NHS or any of these BS organisations that pretend to exist in Berkshire, hearing the same words "cuts cuts cuts"

A nice X-Factor style sob-story that totally fails to answer the question asked.

On a more sensitive note, are you going to adopt?

[Scoobos]

A nice X-Factor style sob-story that totally fails to answer the question asked.

On a more sensitive note, are you going to adopt?

I know it may sound like a sob story, but it does go on to answer D000hg , I mentioned it because we didnt go private, we stuck with a public hospital in the midlands , despite not living there over a 5 year period. we could have had the op done privately but I chose not to, not for monetary reasons, but due to principals and the fact we have a lot of friends within the NHS who enlightened us in the early days.

I doubt we can adopt, as I've been all around the world for the past 5 or 6 years, and as a contractor have also moved to locations all around the country and world...

Adoption wants a stable environment, with a "support network" of friends that you've known a long time, nearby family etc.. It's going to be a tough call to do this in the UK.. We'll see though... I hope so, as a childless hysterectomy is so inexplicably hard a thing to deal with (I'm starting to form a charity to help men whos wives have been in this position, as there's no support there at all)

[gingerjedi]

The top 10% of earners in this country pay 85% of the total UK tax bill - perhaps it would be 'fairer' if it was 100%?

An 'underclass' that 'hates the high and mighty' is not created by the wealthy and nor is it created by capitalism, it is created within a society that thinks everything is a 'right' and nothing has to be earned.

Why do people not have equal opportunities in the UK?

You only need to be earning £50k to be in the top 10%, I wonder what percentage is if you take the top 2%?

With VAT on just about every product and service it's not as if someone in a low tax bracket gets away without paying.

[gingerjedi]

I didn't pay out for private healthcare, on priniciple that I think that they were leaching off NHS trained staff (public money spent to train them, in Uni too) and then charging us for using them and paying them crappy wages... How wrong I was and how topical a point for you to raise.

It's a myth that private health care would have been somehow better, you'd have a private room with nice meals but the surgeons and the operating theatre would have been the same even if you did jump the queue.

[Old Greg]

It's a myth that private health care would have been somehow better, you'd have a private room with nice meals but the surgeons and the operating theatre would have been the same even if you did jump the queue.

Standards in most private providers (except perhaps the Wellington and a couple of others in London) are terrifying. Temporary staff, inadequate handover and poorly trained medical cover at night.

[Scoobos]

It's a myth that private health care would have been somehow better, you'd have a private room with nice meals but the surgeons and the operating theatre would have been the same even if you did jump the queue.

Thanks, actually the surgeon who performed the op was also contracted to private healthcare, I found out afterwards... The anesthisiast made the mistake though, and came to apologise the next day, absolutely busted... It's just bad luck, but thanks for posting on that .

Back on topic - i think there's no private run public service thats any better - (or Public / Private partnerships)

Post office?
BT?
Trains?
Water?
Tube?
Academies?

Why do so many people think that exposing everything to market to be broken down to its bare bones for maximum INITIAL shareholder return is any good?

[DodgyAgent]

It's a funny thing, Dodgy. When I was 20 I assumed that people were right wing because they were evil or stupid. How else could they support an economic system that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few while so many lacked the basic means of survival of dignity?

And then of course, I mellowed and engaged with people and understood that these people were not all evil or stupid. Maybe it's time you did the same?

You would find that there are things I value that you also do: hard work over idleness; community mindedness; helping old ladies across the road; standing up for what's right against what's wrong. But it just takes me to a different place. I don't believe it's right that people can work for a lifetime in an industry while a shareholding class profits from their labour and then find themselves chucked out on the scrapheap in their 50s and derided as scroungers, all because of an economic system that perpetually expands and contracts. And I think there's a better way of organising society for the public good. Of course in your unreconstructed immature mind that makes me all sorts of bad things. So try grow up just a little bit. You'll find there are all sorts of people out there with differing views who are worth having a conversation with.

Is it so immature of me to demand that our public sector work their nuts off and deliver services of the very highest quality? Does growing up mean that we just give the state a ticket to deliver whatever it wants to deliver?
Do you buy accountancy services and just shrug your shoulders when they get it wrong, charge you a fortune and land you with a higher than necessary tax bill?
If you bother to read carefully what I say you will see that I want EVERY child to be educated to the highest standards that are delivered by the very best private (or state) schools. I believe hugely in social mobility and I beleive that the dead hand of socialism is what holds people back.
It is no coincidence that the top jobs the top sportsmen are from private/grammar schools yet only 7% of people go them.
People who grow up within the dependency sphere of the state have little chance.
You guys are only interested in protecting a system that in terms of what it delivers is in reality totally unacceptable. You blame the rich for essentially not giving more of their money away when the money they do give is so utterly squandered. You sneer at posh public schools as if you want to remove them to ensure that everyone has a sh*t education. I prefer to to turn this the other way round and send every child to a top public or state school.

You say you dont like the system that exists yet you offer no alternative other than to make everyone poor. You call me immature. The quid pro quo of having rich people is letting them become rich otherwise how else would wealth be created? If business and enterprise did not exist then what would everyone do? Fight is probably the answer.

i challenged some young guy selling Socialist worker magazine a few months ago. He came out with all your concerns but when I asked him what people should do with themselves he said that everyone should be building hospitals.
In his world no one would be allowed to be rich or run a business or "exploit" another human being by employing them. What he said was that we should all be building hospitals. to which I replied great. What fun I would go to school then Uni, build a hospital and then die in it. If that's being mature I'll keep my shorts on.

[DodgyAgent]

Thanks, actually the surgeon who performed the op was also contracted to private healthcare, I found out afterwards... The anesthisiast made the mistake though, and came to apologise the next day, absolutely busted... It's just bad luck, but thanks for posting on that .

Back on topic - i think there's no private run public service thats any better - (or Public / Private partnerships)

Post office?
BT?
Trains?
Water?
Tube?
Academies?

Why do so many people think that exposing everything to market to be broken down to its bare bones for maximum INITIAL shareholder return is any good?

Where there is a monopoly private or public there will be inefficiency. BT is far better for being privately owned as are academies as to a lesser extent is water. The privatised companies may well be taking away too much money as profit but you can bet that they are internally run much better than they would be by the state. As for the post office it does need to be hived off to the private sector it only holds its monopoly by virtue of the fact that it is obliged to deliver letters to Scotland.