ConDems Reach New Low

[ColinW]

The ConDem Alliance has dug itself down to a new low by telling a warrant officer with 22 years service, currently serving in Afghanistan, that he is losing his job - by email. 37 other long serving soldiers were also informed of their impending redundancy in the same callous manner. Is there nothing that these chinless wonders are not capable of?

It is especially galling that real men are losing their jobs, in the worst ever dismantling of our defence capabilities, at a time when Cameron's buddies on the board of Barclays have just announced that this year their profits topped £6 BILLION!

Someone remind me again, how much did we subsidize the UK banking sector by?

[corydoras]

The ConDem Alliance has dug itself down to a new low by telling a warrant officer with 22 years service, currently serving in Afghanistan, that he is losing his job - by email. 37 other long serving soldiers were also informed of their impending redundancy in the same callous manner. Is there nothing that these chinless wonders are not capable of?

It is especially galling that real men are losing their jobs, in the worst ever dismantling of our defence capabilities, at a time when Cameron's buddies on the board of Barclays have just announced that this year their profits topped £6 BILLION!

Someone remind me again, how much did we subsidize the UK banking sector by?

Barclays never took 1 penny from the government. Not 1p. Most of that profit is made from Barclays Capital, not from the retail, high street Barclays Bank.

[Steve Walker]

Did the email come from Downing Street then?

 

Or was it sent internally, from army HR admin, by someone who was probably appointed under the previous administration and would have done the same whoever had been in government?

[corydoras]

Did the email come from Downing Street then?

 

Or was it sent internally, from army HR admin, by someone who was probably appointed under the previous administration and would have done the same whoever had been in government?

Stop asking difficult questions

[ColinW]

Barclays never took 1 penny from the government. Not 1p. Most of that profit is made from Barclays Capital, not from the retail, high street Barclays Bank.

 

£1.8 billion is from retail banking and to say that Barclays did not benefit from the government subsidizing RBS etc is just plain nonsense. The whole industry would have collapsed if we hadn't bailed them out.

The banks' profiteering is nothing short of obscene. How can they justify paying 0.1% interest on deposits when the ConDem alliance has got inflation back up to 4%? Simple, they are all involved in the equivalent of "price fixing" to make sure that we have nowhere to move our money to.

[Alan Stubbs]

£1.8 billion is from retail banking and to say that Barclays did not benefit from the government subsidizing RBS etc is just plain nonsense. The whole industry would have collapsed if we hadn't bailed them out.

The banks' profiteering is nothing short of obscene. How can they justify paying 0.1% interest on deposits when the ConDem alliance has got inflation back up to 4%? Simple, they are all involved in the equivalent of "price fixing" to make sure that we have nowhere to move our money to.

 

 

Barclays and RBS? I don't think so. As it was, barclays bolstered their balance sheet by exchanging equity for arab and far eastern money, I think you'll find - because the terms were more favourable. It was HBOS and Lloyds who, under government pressure, subsumed RBS's business.

 

Barclays most definitely didn't have anything to do with the RBS farago.

 

It's easy to slag off the current government, but we ended up getting what we deserved because voter apathy failed to deliver a clear-cut result.

 

As far as the redundancies go, I think the Civil Service (a misnomer if ever I heard it), are more likely to blame for this. If you take things literally,

the Secretary of State for Defence is responsible for policy, the executive, ie Civil Service, for its implementation. Yo may not like the policy, but many of us

didn't like the policy of the last shower - defence was so important that the Secretary of State for Defence was also, for a time, the Scottish Secretary, too. One

very good reason, in my view for getting rid of them.

[Sportsman]

Can I just point out that the government didn't just give money to the banks, they bought shares and are now major shareholders. In the fullnes of time they can sell the shares for a profit.

As for this Government being responsible for the rise in inflation, you don't think that all those years of fiscal mismanagement by gormless Gordon might have had something to do with it

[ColinW]

As for this Government being responsible for the rise in inflation, you don't think that all those years of fiscal mismanagement by gormless Gordon might have had something to do with it

 

I don't see that Gordon Brown oversaw a great deal of fiscal mismanagement. His time in office had the lowest inflation rate since the war and yet he did that with "full employment". Well, full in as much as anyone who wanted a job could get one. Almost all the debt the tories "inherited" was money spent bailing out the tories own incompetent (and crooked) banking chums. Brown's "loony" public spending was more than covered by the tax revenue he was getting by having a policy of maintaining full employment, something which is anathema to the tories as they hate having a workforce that aren't scared of the sack.

No member of my family was ever out of work for a single day from the time Tony Blair stepped into number ten (and we are talking about Merseyside here!) How long will that last now the tories are back in? I'm not even sure MY job is safe now, never mind my daughter's. The result of this is that I haven't bought a single big item since Cameron and his poodle got in, and looking at all the shops closing down it seems everyone else is doing the same. So for the ConDem alliance to get inflation up to 4% at a time when no-one is actually spending any money is economic incompetence on a scale I can't remember ever seeing before.

At least it would be incompetence if we didn't know that this is exactly what the tories want, high unemployment, high inflation and high interest rates, just like the good old days of Thatcher! Better still, stop all those working class scum going to university, so we can compete on costs with India.

[Sportsman]

Tony B Liar did, of course, inherit a strong and growing economy and handed it over to gormless Gordon to play with. Once he had stolen our pensions and sold off our gold reserves at the worst possible time for the worst possible price he was at a bit of a loose end.

Tony meanwhile had decided to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with a moronic American President and involve us in a couple of wars, which did wonders for employment and the economy.

Doing this made him immensly popular in America. (Since leaving government he has made conservatively 15 milion pounds on the after dinner speaking tour, almost exclusively in America where he is still popular, he just comes back here from time to time to lie at tribunals If you think that these elements may be connected you would have to be as cynical s I am.)

Our Tone jumped ship when he saw the leaks appearing, like the rat that he is and handed the captaincy over to Gordon, as arranged over dinner (Well, it's easier than having an election ) and Captain Gordon tried to keep the leaking hulk afloat by stuffing the holes with borrowed money and manipulating the unemployment figures by inventing non-jobs in the public sector.

This can only go on for so long and eventually an election had to be called, The only thing that amazes me is that ANYONE was stupid enough to vote labour. The Tories should have won every seat unopposed.

Other than that I have no problem with the lying thieving pack of dross

[Vagabond]

Tony B Liar did, of course, inherit a strong and growing economy and handed it over to gormless Gordon to play with. Once he had stolen our pensions and sold off our gold reserves at the worst possible time for the worst possible price he was at a bit of a loose end.

Tony meanwhile had decided to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with a moronic American President and involve us in a couple of wars, which did wonders for employment and the economy.

Doing this made him immensly popular in America. (Since leaving government he has made conservatively 15 milion pounds on the after dinner speaking tour, almost exclusively in America where he is still popular, he just comes back here from time to time to lie at tribunals If you think that these elements may be connected you would have to be as cynical s I am.)

Our Tone jumped ship when he saw the leaks appearing, like the rat that he is and handed the captaincy over to Gordon, as arranged over dinner (Well, it's easier than having an election ) and Captain Gordon tried to keep the leaking hulk afloat by stuffing the holes with borrowed money and manipulating the unemployment figures by inventing non-jobs in the public sector.

This can only go on for so long and eventually an election had to be called, The only thing that amazes me is that ANYONE was stupid enough to vote labour. The Tories should have won every seat unopposed.

Well, thanks Sportie, you have just saved me a lot of typing - I was going to make the same points - we are now just about to pay for years of Labour profligacy, and yes, jobs will go, and everyone will feel the draught. I warned of this when Gordon virtually gave away our gold, and raided everyone's pension fund. Throughout my life Labour have gained power, spent money, run the country into debt and then left others to pick up the tab - it just took longer this time as they inherited such a strong economy.