Question Time Thread

[Warwick Yellow]

Take Last Nights Question Time for Instance:

One day after the the Comprehensive Spending Review it's coming from Middlesbrough which is ranked as 324th out of 324 council areas by Experian.

In other words (according to the BBC website) it "will be the least resilient to public sector cuts."

Industrial areas in the North East and Midlands are least resilient to economic shocks, BBC-commissioned research suggests.

Why don't the coalition actually do something about the BBC FFS?!

I am hoping/ pretty sure they will in time; the six year freeze on the licence fee is a start.

What makes the BBC's bias so much worse is the troughing around salaries and expenses of their so-called 'stars' and senior management. The fact that these champagne socialists have concentrated so much on upping their own salaries to way above FTSE100 benchmarks with the excuse 'they could get more in the private sector' is despicable and typical of the rank hypocrisy and corruption of the Fabian statist elite in this country.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Warwick Yellow

[Milton]

[Ologhai Jones]

First time in the history of the universe i've agreed with Toynbee

It's a ******ing scandal that wealthy pensioners still get fuel allowances and free bus passes.

Why is it a scandal?

From one point of view, universal benefits are unfair. From another, means testing is unfair.

[Daft Boy]

Why is it a scandal?

From one point of view, universal benefits are unfair. From another, means testing is unfair.

I think the scandal is that anyone in the uk should get winter fuel allowance or a free bus pass just because they are over 60. What a terrible waste of taxpayers money.

[sun n sea]

This audience is particularly painful this week.

On a very small scale I'm *trying* to be one of these entrepreneurs. I'm starting my own company. The government is an absolute 'ing joke. They own most of the business units I'm looking at and get in the way of renting these places by filling in applications that get processed by deadlines rather than just being able to rent these places. The government shouldn't be in the business of grants and crap like that. The only reason they get involved is because they demolished savings. I saved when everything was being done to stop me saving. Governments don't do business. They can't do it. The small business person's head has sleepless nights meticulously planning what will work and what won't to make a living using their own year's of savings. No government grant application assessor can compete with this. We need the government OUT of employing people and business grants and crap like that. They've proven they can't do it as they've corrupted people into being unproductive which Labour agree with. Wages need to come down and people will employ them. When wages come down and people come back to reality that life just isn't easy then the private sector will do more than take up the slack.

Government Grants, Business Links, RDA's.... if you are trying to start your own business don't waste your time with any of them.

Government grants are designed as a fig leaf for politicians..... "look what we're doing to help business". In practice the money available is either too little to be worth all the paperwork or you find the whole scheme has been designed to be as complicated as possible in an effort to ensure the government never actually has to hand over any money.

Business Links are full of MBA c0cks who can give you almost no practical help whatsoever. If you need really useful business advice the best place to look is Business Mentoring.... you want advice from someone who's been there and done it , a successful business person who can give you the lowdown as it really is. My experience with Business Link is that the staff are more interested in peddling their own services.... if you need an accountant, marketing "expert" or website consultant you'll find your local business link stuffed with supposedly independent advisors who in reality spend most of their time trying to sell you second rate services.

Regional Development Agencies.... these exist to bribe multi national companies to move to your area. Once these multi nationals have spent the grant money or exhausted their special low tax arrangements they up sticks and move to another area... where the whole process starts all over again. In the mean time the RDA big wigs spend a lot of money on flashy offices and stuff which creates "the world class" impression which is "essential to attract world beating companies". As a small business you are not even on the RDA radar... you don't exist.

[Ologhai Jones]

I think the scandal is that anyone in the uk should get winter fuel allowance or a free bus pass just because they are over 60. What a terrible waste of taxpayers money.

Yep, it could be argued that taking benefits away (universally) is fine too!

[Riedquat]

Why is it a scandal?

From one point of view, universal benefits are unfair. From another, means testing is unfair.

Can't see how means testing for benefits is unfair. I can see it could be impractical so that it's actually cheaper to keep the universal benefit, but that's not the same thing.

[LetsGetReadyToTumble]

Holy cow, what a one sided joke.

We should seriously all get together and compain about the program!

Why didn't they host it in Guildford or Winchester?

And next week...........Glasgow.

I would have liked to ask a question. About the 3 further Labour peers being suspended from the HoL, making 7 Labour peers in total (well, so far). Question: Why aren't they being chucked-out for good?

Edited October 22, 2010 by LetsGetReadyToTumble

[tinker]

Government Grants, Business Links, RDA's.... if you are trying to start your own business don't waste your time with any of them.

Government grants are designed as a fig leaf for politicians..... "look what we're doing to help business". In practice the money available is either too little to be worth all the paperwork or you find the whole scheme has been designed to be as complicated as possible in an effort to ensure the government never actually has to hand over any money.

Business Links are full of MBA c0cks who can give you almost no practical help whatsoever. If you need really useful business advice the best place to look is Business Mentoring.... you want advice from someone who's been there and done it , a successful business person who can give you the lowdown as it really is. My experience with Business Link is that the staff are more interested in peddling their own services.... if you need an accountant, marketing "expert" or website consultant you'll find your local business link stuffed with supposedly independent advisors who in reality spend most of their time trying to sell you second rate services.

Regional Development Agencies.... these exist to bribe multi national companies to move to your area. Once these multi nationals have spent the grant money or exhausted their special low tax arrangements they up sticks and move to another area... where the whole process starts all over again. In the mean time the RDA big wigs spend a lot of money on flashy offices and stuff which creates "the world class" impression which is "essential to attract world beating companies". As a small business you are not even on the RDA radar... you don't exist.

I would tend to agree with that statement.

You can get on courses and seminars which can be of interest, but real help isn't really there.

A nice little number if you can get in, but yes a tendency to make it a 'closed shop'.

There is a lot of going through the motions and the mediocre keeping the those with real insight out.

[Daft Boy]

Yep, it could be argued that taking benefits away (universally) is fine too!

Now that would be a sensible starting point . We could then build up a fair benefit system from that. It could then be argued that only the needy should receive Benefits

[goldbug9999]

Ladies and gentlemen we need to take concerted action. The Achilles heel of our enslaving political and economic establishment is its chronic dependence on CASH, and by cash I mean base money. If we, the savers of the world march into the banks and withdraw our money we bring down the whole system. We can use all that leveraging and fractional reserve that enslaves us against our masters.

OK enough of the grand rhetoric but ... seriously if 10,000 people threatened to withdraw 10,000 cash each that would be 100 million base money contraction, the knock on effect on broad money would be catastrophic. The system might not need our votes but it sure as f*ckin hell needs our cash.

[Ologhai Jones]

Can't see how means testing for benefits is unfair. I can see it could be impractical so that it's actually cheaper to keep the universal benefit, but that's not the same thing.

You're just not trying hard enough!

Means testing benefits provides an incentive to people to make sure that, at any given time, they have little or no means -- in other words, there are advantages for a person who earns an £XX,000 salary to live a £XX,000-lifestyle by spending all their money as it comes in rather than living like a person on £XX,000 minus £Y,000 salary (the latter being what someone might choose to save for a rainy day).

Basically, from one point of view, means testing discriminates against those who have decided to take a more responsible approach than those who are simply living like there's no tomorrow. And it probably wasn't excessive prudence and financial responsibility that led us into having such a large deficit/debt!

Universal benefits don't appear to act as a disincentive for behave prudently, and, taken to their logical conclusion (see the Citizens' Income thread) might solve other problems -- such as making it so that work always pays etc.

[South Lorne]

I think the scandal is that anyone in the uk should get winter fuel allowance or a free bus pass just because they are over 60. What a terrible waste of taxpayers money.

...it's blackmail to buy Labour votes and remember Brown warned voters pre election the Tories would take these 'bribes' away ...which Cameron denied ....he could hardly cut during the cuts......Brown's bluff worked....

[tricksters]

Ladies and gentlemen we need to take concerted action. The Achilles heel of our enslaving political and economic establishment is its chronic dependence on CASH, and by cash I mean base money. If we, the savers of the world march into the banks and withdraw our money we bring down the whole system. We can use all that leveraging and fractional reserve that enslaves us against our masters.

OK enough of the grand rhetoric but ... seriously if 10,000 people threatened to withdraw 10,000 cash each that would be 100 million base money contraction, the knock on effect on broad money would be catastrophic. The system might not need our votes but it sure as f*ckin hell needs our cash.

Nice idea but you'd better hope you were at the front of the queue before they stopped doling it out.

[Si1]

newsnight had an invited audience tonight - also full of labour-ites, I think there was ONE person who thougth the public sector was bloated

[SNACR]

Ladies and gentlemen we need to take concerted action. The Achilles heel of our enslaving political and economic establishment is its chronic dependence on CASH, and by cash I mean base money. If we, the savers of the world march into the banks and withdraw our money we bring down the whole system. We can use all that leveraging and fractional reserve that enslaves us against our masters.

OK enough of the grand rhetoric but ... seriously if 10,000 people threatened to withdraw 10,000 cash each that would be 100 million base money contraction, the knock on effect on broad money would be catastrophic. The system might not need our votes but it sure as f*ckin hell needs our cash.

Once you had your paper wealth out of the banks the price you would pay for this disobedience against the system would be the destruction of its value through inflation.

Merv can print it faster than you can withdraw it. Particularly, given the daily withdrawal limits all in the name of the 'war on terror'.

[sleepwello'nights]

Means testing benefits provides an incentive to people to make sure that, at any given time, they have little or no means -- in other words, there are advantages for a person who earns an £XX,000 salary to live a £XX,000-lifestyle by spending all their money as it comes in rather than living like a person on £XX,000 minus £Y,000 salary (the latter being what someone might choose to save for a rainy day).

Basically, from one point of view, means testing discriminates against those who have decided to take a more responsible approach than those who are simply living like there's no tomorrow. And it probably wasn't excessive prudence and financial responsibility that led us into having such a large deficit/debt!

That's exactly the intuitive logic that I agree with. I first heard it espoused when I was about 14 or 15. I had a saturday job delivering bread with a roundsman. There was a customer whose house we would stop at for a break mid-morning. There were usually a couple of other people there. Once the conversation descended into politics. Remember this was in a council estate in the 60's, the participants worked in local factories, they weren't well off, didn't own their own homes, boom and bust was entrenched in the economy.

The general consensus was that state benefits encouraged people to behave irresponsibly and removed the incentive to provide for themselves. The argument was that if you had two people, one who spent everything he earned; smoking, drinking, generally squandering his money, when he retired the state would provide for him. In contrast someone who put something aside and had some savings when he retired would not be given anything, he would have to pay from his own savings.

What wasn't agreed on was who was the foolish one? Was it the saver or the spender?

[All Seeing Eye]

Hammond = corrupt politician.

How dare we ask people of Phil's ilk to pay taxation?

By Phil's Ilk I assume you are referring to Red-Ed Milliband (the first unmarried party leader for tax avoidance reasons) and his dodgy inheritance tax scams. I nice little leftie-friendly article for you in the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/09/ed-miliband-journalists-in-glass-houses

Labour = Corrupt Party from the leader all the way down to their voters (ahh 2 Labour peers + 1 Labour donor peer sacked from the house of Lords for Tax evasion only this week)

[christhpc]

The bias story has been picked up by the Mail...

Question Time faces bias charge after audiences are 'hostile' towards Government cuts

By Gerri Peev

Last updated at 12:30 AM on 23rd October 2010

Comments (122)

Add to My Stories

The BBC has again been accused of political bias by ensuring Question Time has audiences ‘hostile’ to government cuts.

This week’s show was broadcast from the Labour stronghold of Middlesbrough, where 43 per cent of the workforce is employed in the public sector.

Many viewers were shocked at how much hostility was heaped on Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, during the show.

Next week the debate will be held in the Tory-free zone of Glasgow, while the following week it is due in Sheffield, where fury has raged since the election that an £80million government loan for a local steel plant, Sheffield Forgemasters, was cancelled by the Coalition.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323032/Question-Time-faces-bias-charge-audiences-hostile-Government-cuts.html

Glad I didn't watch it to be honest. Although it might have helped my low blood pressure

[The Knimbies who say No]

The bias story has been picked up by the Mail...

Also,, on 'Any Questions' on Radio 4 last night, the audience was very one sided too. I'm not sure how the audience/questioners are selected for this particular programme in general, but it seemed odd that the first question of the night was asked by a man who turned out to be the Labour councillor in charge of the opposition group of the local council in the Derbyshire town the broadcast was from. You couldn't make it up! I guess many of the audience were the rest of the Labour group.