IR35 Revisions of 2017 and 2021 are being replealed

[Suff]

So, you have no solutions to our present problerms, a bit like our government: well done you.

Deflection. I want evidence that the whole country is going to pot and it is worse than I have seen in my life.

Don't put it on me. The statement stands and I want to know how it is worse than what has gone before in my life.

[Suff]

So in fact Kaz perception.

Perception of the 1970's in the UK depends on where you lived. I can assure you that in the mid 1970's, in Lincoln, there were not sufficient council houses and young people crammed in 5 and 6 to a private let to make ends meet.

Even then, until the late 1970's and the collapse of the local industries in the area there were just enough jobs to go around but if you didn't have a job government money was there to support you. This worked until there were more than 7m people needing support.

There are now 10m more people in the UK than there were in 1973. There are 12m more households in the UK than 1973, which is getting on for nearly double.

Of course things are not the same as the 70's in terms of services or even support. The 70's were an artificial bubble created by a government that bankrupted the country. We are still paying the price of that medicine to fix the mess.

Anyone who lived in that bubble will have a really great perception of the 70's, Mrs S certainly does, she was a teacher, right in the middle of the bubble. Those who did not have an entirely different picture.

Now we have millions more people crammed into cities, mostly, overwhelming services for health and housing.

If this were a wave a magic wand and fix it both Blair and Brown would have done that.

I note they did not and thinking that a new Labour government will be able to do so is wishful thinking.

We have too many people crammed into too small a space where thinking has, for decades, been to socially engineer the situation instead of creating jobs for people and giving them the opportunity to drive their own lives.

If you want to look at the culprit for zero hour contracts, look no further than the minimum wage. There was no minimum wage in the 1970's and there were no zero hour contracts. The contracts followed a social engineering attempt to force the labour markets to pay more for employment even if the profit of the business doesn't support it.

Just like all over Europe, minimum wage and strong employment laws have created a resistance in the businesses to employing salaried people.

Cause and effect. But I don't expect it to be heard.

We are in a totally different place to the 1970's. Had we been hit with the pandemic in 1977 it would have been a total catastrophe and we would still be reeling from it today. Because the country had no resources to fight it.

I tried to keep the numbers and stats to a minimum. Our country is strong and healthy today. What we need to do is drain the swamp and stand on dry ground. Starmer wants to fill the swamp and provide boats for his voters.

That is my perception.

[Kaz]

Strong and healthy? Are you serious

NB The IMF issued us a warning today over Kwarteng’s reckless budget!

[Workingman]

Deflection

Deflection my arse, try stopping being ideologically blind and take a look at Kaz's previous to last post.

The country is once again the sick man of Europe and it has been brought here by a run of the four worst PMs in our history, from the weak Cameron to the insipid Truss. Face facts. IMF incomming!

Owning your home and living in France buffers you greatly from the crap we have to put up with day by day. Not for you a two week wait for a GP appointment, a 50% rise in energy costs or social services falling apart.

Rather than preaching to us all from the comfort of being abroad why not try moving back home and see how you like things. No? Well there's a surprise.

Also, well said Kaz, we are deep in it. Brexit was bringing us to our knees even before Covid and the war in Ukraine, and even many sensible Brexiteers admit it.

I'll happily pay a bit more tax and face a cut in some woke non-job services to see us out of this mess.

PS. It was not a budget or mini budget, it was an economic statement. A budget would have to be approved by parliament, a statement is a get-out. A bit like a "Special military operation" rather than an invasion.

[miasmum]

To be fair the hospitals weren't in the state they are because people didnt abuse them like they do now and we didn't have the same population with their take take take attitude.

My mum was homeless with a small baby in the late 60's. She couldn't claim child benefit because you didnt get it for one child, she didnt claim any benefits because basically they pretty much didnt exist.

Not sure she saw the 60's and 70's in quite the same light.

[Workingman]

My elder brother was born mentally and physically handicapped in 1949. He died aged 32. Dad died when I was 12 in 1966. We coped with it.

How we lived though those years has sod all to do with today; those times were those times. Please stop comparing the past with today.

In the middle ages I might have had a cow, some chickens, and a mud hut. We have moved on. Well, some of us have.

[miasmum]

You know what, I was an adult in the seventies and there were no food banks, and hardly any rough sleepers. Plenty of council housing, not people having to pay exorbitant rents for substandard housing to private landlords with almost no security of tenure. Things have altered for many, for the worst. Not reams of “facts and figures” like you always produce, just real people scraping a living from zero contract or minimum wage jobs, having to claim benefits and/or use food banks to feed their families. You did know that most benefit claimants are actually in work? People waiting forever for routine operations, or lying on the floor for hours waiting for an ambulance? People with chest pain being advised to get to hospital by car because it will be quicker? These things are happening right now, and they didn’t happen then - end of!

Really sorry your honour Workingman, I was just replying to Kaz, who was reflecting on the 70's as above.


So come along Kaz move on, how you lived in the 70's has sod all to do with today

[Kaz]

I was using the seventies as an example, as that’s when I worked within the system. We gave out grants for furniture to young families, and daily giro payments to the homeless, such as they were. No food banks then, easy to get a GP appointment, but yes let’s all just move on shall we? With our fingers in our ears *la la la la not listening* as everything now is wonderful……….

[Suff]

Strong and healthy? Are you serious

NB The IMF issued us a warning today over Kwarteng’s reckless budget!

Yes I've noticed the government running to the IMF for money. Or anyone else for that matter.

What is going on right now is the inflation from uncontrolled spending during Covid and the natural consequence of borrowing so much to fund it.

I note nobody was saying "the country is in such a mess" when we were paying for half our workers to sit at home".

Odd perceptions about being in a mess.

[Kaz]

Oh you do make me laugh