First off: Mark, or one of the other Moderators please, my apologies to you for the inconvenience but it seems that some people are unable to follow instructions. Could you once again please move the appropriate parts of this thread to the thread that you so generously provided previously for just this type of debate? Thank you.
rjhowie wrote:...Can i say to you cyberdonblue that I am not objecting to your right of a political view but what I do contest is your rather head shaking exaggeration about why you need to stand for what you claim! Standing up for the pressed and unfortunates is a load of emotional silliness...
What planet do you live on Mr Howie? Have you not heard of food banks? Are you not aware of your Tory friends making sick and disabled people go for a medical to prove that their circumstances are genuine? (and then telling them that they're not sick or disabled but fit for work just because some part-time, clinically trained assistant [working for a private company] thinks he/she knows better than the Consultant that diagnosed the person's problem in the first place.) I've seen mentally disabled people who don't even understand the days of the week called in and told that they could do a job if they went and found one.
Have you not heard of "the bedroom tax"? Have you not heard that if you're a teenager you can't claim housing benefit? I could go on ...and on and on and on. When all of these people are on their knees, desperate for help and encouragement who is going to help them? Who's going to fight for change and social justice for them? You, Mr Howie? Theresa May and her millionaire mates? I very much doubt it - in fact, I'm damn certain you or they won't.
Do you know how many millions of pounds there are in unclaimed benefits, Mr Howie, because your Tory friends won't tell people (especially the elderley) exactly what they're entitled to? Am I really full of emotional silliness or should I stand back like the rich folk and watch these people, young and old alike, commit suicide because they have reached rock bottom and can't cope anymore? Do you know what it's like to sit at home when the cupboards are completely bare aching in the knowledge that you can't even afford a slice of bread - never mind a loaf?
Do you know why the school leaving age is now 18? It's because the Tories can't stand people knowing that there are no jobs for young people anymore (or anyone else for that matter) because Thatcher smashed or sold off every manufacturing industry this country ever had. Oh and the Tories don't want to pay the young ones unemployment benefit either. Better to keep them in school twiddling their thumbs and out of the unemployment figures. Reflects much better on our Theresa.
rjhowie wrote:...We are not living in Victorian times...
No we're not Mr Howie, because people like me continue to stand up to people not unlike you. Take a good look around you. Read what I've written above properly and slowly. The Tory party are doing their damnedest to get us back to Victorian conditions. They tried to make it almost impossible for a Trade Union to call a strike (even after a ballot) by producing legislation that stated there must be a 75% turnout in any ballot concerning industrial action - even though they themselves were elcted by less than 10% of the national electorate (or, approximately, 30% of a 30% turnout.) Fortunately, the courts shot them down in flames and their legislation was deemed illegal and ended up in the dustbin where it belongs.
Your £9 national living wage is a joke too, as is your imagined £12,500 a year limit before paying tax. £9 per hour X 40 hours = £360.00 which equates to £18,720 per anum. Take off the current £10,000 tax exclusion ceiling leaving £8,720 taxable at 22% (£1,918. 40p tax payable.) Total take home pay per anum on the minimum wage (for 40 hours a week) = £16,801. 60p. What chance has a married man or woman with children got on a wage like that? No wonder there are food banks.
rjhowie wrote:You also totally ignore that the rich minority pay more percentage wise into the tax system than they do in the USA and like the things I have already mentioned you totally ignore because it does not suit and makes a mockery of your out of date guff.
Are you aware, Mr Howie, that the richest 1% in England have more money than the poorest 20% in BRITAIN? Is that not obscene to you? The super rich don't notice the extra tax (they fiddle most of their tax returns anyway, claiming tax relief on everything.) It is only right that they should help the less well able along the way. I am not against wealth but I AM against obscene wealth when there are people in this, the 3rd richest country in the world, who are starving and homeless.
If these are the kind of "kindergarten" facts that you despise, Mr Howie, then maybe you should be spending your time passing comment in a Tory party forum rather than here. As for the Jacobites in Scotland, I'm sure they will continue to keep the Tories at arms length. They owe the Sassenachs enough ill will as it is, without inviting them in to do more damage.
Dave