RIP

[DJKillaQueen]

Why has this room died?

The economy is crap!

The poor are about to be hit with a club hammer!

Middle income earners (if they keep their jobs) are about to be trimmed!

And Cameron was unable to confirm that potential cancer sufferers would be guaranteed an appointment with a consultant within two weeks as they were before......

Does none of this matter anymore?

Are politics, religion and just about any other contentious issue really so dead?

I'm being forced to do battle in the Lounge ffs lol................

[Ladymuck]

Oh my dear DJKQ!!! You are in a bad way...LOL!!!

The room is not completely dead - I'm still here for one (though I'm talking to myself most of the time) LOL!!! I honestly believe that if our recently departed Huguenot were still here that it wouldn't be quite so comatose as it is at present. I used to relish my first log-on for the day and discovering that he had arial-bombed all over this room. I never knew what to expect! But it was never boring. You appeared to have taken over from him with regard to arial-bombing (for a while), but have since stopped...you shouldn't have (stopped). You make some really good points/arguments.

Yes, the economy IS crap, the poor are about to be hit with a club hammer - a huge mallet in fact - and many middle income earners have already lost their jobs and are on the verge of joining the list of the LTU. As for Cameron, what the hell do you expect? He's a Tory! Not exactly renowned for looking after the interests of the poor, weak, and vulnerable.

It DOES matter - to the likes of you and me. We just have to shout that bit louder. So grab that megaphone.

As for religion I cannot comment as I know sweet FA about it, but politics is certainly not dead.

But you carry on doing battle in the Lounge...you make me laugh. And get back to the arial-bombing in here.

And while I'm at it: PLEASE COME BACK HUGUENOT.

[DJKillaQueen]

YES HUGUENOT - your forum needs you!

And right now my stomach needs my Chinese takaway...........will the VAT ride affect that? I guess it will :-S

[Ladymuck]

Well you should learn to cook innit! No VAT on food that way!

[????]

My opinion, which I've said before (sorry Chair) is that this room has dumbed down the Lounge (yup, it's got even dumber) and the Drawing Room fails to attract plenty of decent posters (either at all or not often enough) - the likes of Keef, MickMack, *Bob*, Jah and many, many others.

[Brendan]

I?ve decided not to get into online conversations with right-wing arseholes who are unable or unwilling to see past their own self-serving prejudices and acknowledge that everyone should be given a fair go in life but rather try to validate themselves by seeking consensus that their own antisocial points of view are somehow valid or moral. From now on I?ll leave it for face-to-face discussions where at least I can just punch people when they start extolling the virtues of exploitation and subjugation as if they are anything other than criminal.

[Ladymuck]

Brendan Wrote:

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> I?ve decided not to get into online conversations

> with right-wing arseholes...

Well that's a real shame Brendan.:'(

[expat]

Brendan Wrote:

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> I?ve decided not to get into online conversations

> with right-wing arseholes who are unable or

> unwilling to see past their own self-serving

> prejudices and acknowledge that everyone should be

> given a fair go in life but rather try to validate

> themselves by seeking consensus that their own

> antisocial points of view are somehow valid or

> moral. From now on I?ll leave it for face-to-face

> discussions where at least I can just punch people

> when they start extolling the virtues of

> exploitation and subjugation as if they are

> anything other than criminal.

That is what is so nice about Brendan - so reasonable.

So where did you put the ?30.000 youy saved for a house under the pillow?

[Jeremy]

I promised myself I'd give up arguing on this stuff... the nonsense about the VAT rise hitting the poorest hardest pushed me over the edge! I like that people argue with so much passion, but sometimes you have to balance it out with a bit of logic and reason.

[DJKillaQueen]

I find most right wing views are easily shot down anyway. It's very hard to win an argument for self interest. But I understand Brendan's frustration at the lack conscience by the 'I'm alright jack' brigade without a care for the consequences. Thankfully there are enough people not like that otherwise what kind of a cruel society would we be living in.

[DJKillaQueen]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> I promised myself I'd give up arguing on this

> stuff... the nonsense about the VAT rise hitting

> the poorest hardest pushed me over the edge!

The VAT rise won't affect food, clothes, and utilities it's true but it will affect fuel and other things that the low waged have to rely on to not only get to work but to be able to work. If you are on a wage that that has no give for extra costs then you are going to be hit harder than if you have a wage that leaves you with disposable income that can absorb the rises - so yes - tax rises do impact on the poorest hardest - you can't argue with that, it's a fact.

It can however be ocuntered by increasing tax thresholds, tax credits, or as I think should happen, the minimum wage. The real issue for me is that employers get away with low wages knowing that the benefits system will make up the gap.....in other words, tax payers subsidise almost a third of salaries in this country with top up benefits. That can not be right.

[Ladymuck]

I have nothing against the VAT rise per se. However, as the poorest are going to be affected the most (sorry Jeremy), I feel that measures to compensate them for the additional hardship should have been put into place.

[DJKillaQueen]

The only measure put into place is the proposed rise in the tax threshold but it's not high enough. And were it not for the Lib Dems there wouldn't have been any rise at all.

Our economy is in a very dangerous condition. A third of workers need top up benefits (mostly housing benefit). Only 12% of our economy is in manufacturing. We import vastly more than we export. And of the things we do manufacter we are increasingly using parts made abroad.

A programme on TV made the point perfectly last night, where we excel is in high quality, high value items but where a JCB digger 35 years ago would have been build entirely from parts manufactered here, it is now built here but from 70% of parts manufactered elsewhere, often in other european countries, so not in the far east. It's very hard to get back manufacturing after it's lost.

The consequence of that is that for those who traditionally would have done those manual skilled jobs, there is little prospect of meaningful employment.

If any government genuinely wants to address the UK economy and restore it to a competitive stable one, it has to understand that you have to create the variety of roles within the Labour market to accomoadate the majority of people with the level of salaries needed to live on, instead of this road we've gone down of training everyone for service industries and leaving those that aren't literate or numerate to rot.

The economy of London is not remotely like the economy of vast areas of the UK where unemployment is high and industry low.

[Ladymuck]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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> The only measure put into place is the proposed

> rise in the tax threshold but it's not high

> enough.

Even that will do nothing for those who are too sick to work (or those unemployed who have no other form of income).

[DaveR]

It's just the same tired debate, over and over. I'm just as frustrated as Brendan - maybe more so, because I'm not disputing that he is sincere and intellectually engaged in the argument, whereas he thinks I'm some kind of comedy nazi. Now, I don't care what he thinks, but I'm also not that interested in reading it again and again. DJKQ is superficially different but substantially the same. So I'm out.

[Ladymuck]

DaveR Wrote:

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> DJKQ is

> superficially different but substantially the

> same.

Eh?

[DJKillaQueen]

DaveR Wrote:

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DJKQ is

> superficially different but substantially the

> same. So I'm out.

Which is another way of saying you have neither the ability or debating skills to argue your points effectively.

Believe me I am never superficial. I care deeply about what's going wrong in this country, the rising gaps between rich and poor, the alarmingly growing rates of illiteracy and a culture that thinks it's acceptable to keep people low paid whilst using tax payers money to subsidise their wages. I want a productive, balanced and fair society where hard work and talent are rewarded in equal measure instead of the current society of privilege and self interest that favours the few.

So of course you will kop out Dave because you don't what to change anything to make the country a better place if it means you have to sacrifice one once of anything. Therein lies the problem. We all want our own kids to go to the best school but don't care about anyone else's kids.

I on the other hand think we can become a prosperous country again where the majority can claim they have a decent quality of life as opposed to the few. There will always be people at the top and bottom equally in any society but there is something going very fundamentally wrong in the UK. It requires an overhual of education, training and industry and will take maybe two decades to achieve but it won't happen as long as parliament is dominated by pseudo economists and lawyers, who don't listen to industrialists, entrepreneurs, teachers and have no experience of how the vast majority of people live outside of their little cocoons of privelege and wealth, and outside of London and the home counties.

[Ladymuck]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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> Which is another way of saying you have neither

> the ability or debating skills to argue your

> points effectively.

I don't think DaveR is saying that DJKQ, (a quick search on your previous posts will demonstrate to all with an ounce of brain just how skilled you are at debating issues of substance - some of which are far too complex for me BTW so I take my hat off to you).

> Believe me I am never superficial. I care deeply

> about what's going wrong in this country, the

> rising gaps between rich and poor...

And knowing you as I do DJKQ, I would confirm that. If having different opinions is now to be deemed superficial (which I don't think is the case), then I guess my arguments must be similarly superficial:-S.

In any event, isn't the Drawing Room supposed to be about differing viewpoints and serious debate? If not, then perhaps Quids is right and all previous DR threads should be transferred to the Lounge.

*thinks: FFS*

[DJKillaQueen]

Well there will always be those who can't live with different viewpoints and those who will stick by what they believe rather than conceeding they might be wrong.

What Dave is saying is that he dislikes Brendan's views and that whilst I may seem different to Brendan on the surface (I assume that means because I don't lose my temper when debating) underneath I'm of the same views. So instead of saying let's agree to disagree, he's dismissed anything any who disagrees with him has to say and has effectively suggested we've driven him out of the drawing room.

I think that says far more about him than it does Brendan and I.

After all it's just debate. None of us has any real power to change anything out there (apart from on a local level). The whole point of debate is to inform and become informed surely, and to have the grace to agree that sometimes there are better ways to do things even if we don't dream them up ourselves. Similarly we can agree to disagree. It's not always about winning some war of words B)

[Jeremy]

I'm not interested in engaging in the VAT debate again, I was just using it as an example. I seem to remember illustrating how the wealthier would pay proportionately more (in some cases more so than with income tax), in return I was told that my "views are offensive". That kind of attitude spoils it for everyone.

[DJKillaQueen]

Jeremy Wrote:

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>in return I was told that

> my "views are offensive". That kind of attitude

> spoils it for everyone.

It does, but why let it get to you?

[Ladymuck]

Jeremy Wrote:

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>...in return I was told that

> my "views are offensive". That kind of attitude

> spoils it for everyone.

Jeremy, you come across as an extremely erudite person to me. So it comes as a surprise that you did not choose to fight your corner in that particular instance. For what it's worth, whilst we are poles apart in terms of viewpoints and we rarely agree, I nevertheless find your input both challenging and valuable.

Crikey, if I walked away every time someone said something I did not like, you'd be continually fishing me out of the Thames LOL!!!

[Jeremy]

We're probably not as far apart as you think... I'm not exactly some sort of raving thatcherite - far from it, in fact.

But debating on here is not always fun, especially when people are playing games of one-upmanship. In fact, sometimes it gets to the point when I'd actually rather do work instead.

[Ladymuck]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> In

> fact, sometimes it gets to the point when I'd

> actually rather do work instead.

Oh that's not right at all!:))

[DJKillaQueen]

Work? Instead of ripping out Ladymucks jugular? Are you mad! :)