Local boy done good...

[redken1]

James I don't think the owners of small businesses run well have anything to fear. But not all businesses/ companies follow a moral compass and share your sense of ethical values. We can't continue ignoring the likes of Starbucks and Amazon with their clever accountants, and HSBC helping them to exploit tax dodging schemes. And then we have the millions of recruitment agency employees, many on the minimum wage with agencies milking off £2, £3 and sometimes £4 and over an hour from them. Most of the agencies contract out the payroll service to umbrella companies and the employees are then forced to pay these companies to pay them. Thousands if not millions of these agency workers are working alongside company employees doing the same job for far less money and nothing like the same working conditions. And the law whereby such companies are compelled to offer the agency workers the same contracts as their own employees after 12 weeks is meaningless in most sectors, because the agency workers are simply made redundant and new staff employed under the same arrangement. Zero hours contracts? Offer zero and expect zero in return. How can any employee feel valued or plan for the future on Zero hours contracts? Now we will see under 25s discriminated against in the workplace as they are exempt from the minimum wage, Ordinary workers won't unite behind a government which is hell bent on creating a 'us and them' attitude in the workplace. At a time when industrial disputes are historically low, what does the government do? It attacks the unions. We must not forget that we elect our politicians to represent us first and foremost, not business. Corbyn or not, if we continue to ignore basic justice and fairness in the workplace there is huge trouble ahead.

[Kevinb]

Should never start a discussion of politics or religion. We all have our own points to put across. Some would love Labour to get back in others like me would prefer a country to be run properly where at some point it has to pay it's debts as we all have to do in life. Hopefully for most of us he will remain as opposition up to and after the next election and will just become another Ed Millibland

[Mitch9128]

Should never start a discussion of politics or religion. We all have our own points to put across. Some would love Labour to get back in others like me would prefer a country to be run properly where at some point it has to pay it's debts as we all have to do in life. Hopefully for most of us he will remain as opposition up to and after the next election and will just become another Ed Millibland

The debt/defecit has always been there, the tories would love to convince you they are reducing it, when in fact they are maintaining it. By maintaining it, they can keep the austerity measures in place, and introduce more and more, to reduce the defecit of course. £100bn Trident would be a good start to reduce some debt, no-one is ever going to use it, what's the point?

[Uber Dave]

The debt/defecit has always been there, the tories would love to convince you they are reducing it, when in fact they are maintaining it. By maintaining it, they can keep the austerity measures in place, and introduce more and more, to reduce the defecit of course. £100bn Trident would be a good start to reduce some debt, no-one is ever going to use it, what's the point?

Right I am going to bite here. Its called a deterrant for a reason, just because we have never used them doesnt mean we do not need them. Other countries aside in terms of what they are and are not developing, trident means we keep a permanant seat on the UN Security council and maintain a veto right. Give up Tridant, give up that right.

Not only that the countries who are actively seeking to develop nuclear capability (Iran and North Korea are the two big ones) are the exact reason we need to keep it. Its not so much the state we need to consider, but the ability for a group such as ISIS to capture and use it for their own reasons. The ability to strike first in a situation like this should not be given up under any circumstances as the alternative wouldnt be worth living for.
Anyone who seriously thinks we can afford to get rid of the nuclear deterrant to save a tiny bit of money in the schem of things to spend on who knows what must live with their head in the clouds and has no real understanding of a far far bigger picture.

[Mitch9128]

Right I am going to bite here. Its called a deterrant for a reason, just because we have never used them doesnt mean we do not need them. Other countries aside in terms of what they are and are not developing, trident means we keep a permanant seat on the UN Security council and maintain a veto right. Give up Tridant, give up that right.

Not only that the countries who are actively seeking to develop nuclear capability (Iran and North Korea are the two big ones) are the exact reason we need to keep it. Its not so much the state we need to consider, but the ability for a group such as ISIS to capture and use it for their own reasons. The ability to strike first in a situation like this should not be given up under any circumstances as the alternative wouldnt be worth living for.
Anyone who seriously thinks we can afford to get rid of the nuclear deterrant to save a tiny bit of money in the schem of things to spend on who knows what must live with their head in the clouds and has no real understanding of a far far bigger picture.

The bigger picture, would therefore to be to scrap nuclear weapons worldwide, no? No-one is going to use them, bar the odd nutjob organisation, so why does the developed world build something it has no use for? Policing the nutjob states that try to develop them on the side, would be another matter.

[Uber Dave]

The bigger picture, would therefore to be to scrap nuclear weapons worldwide, no? No-one is going to use them, bar the odd nutjob organisation, so why does the developed world build something it has no use for? Policing the nutjob states that try to develop them on the side, would be another matter.

You sadly can no un-invent technology otherwise I am sure they would have been got rid of. People will work out how to do it on their own accord and one day we will likely need them, you cant just build these things in days as and when you need them and even if we could the cost would be 10x that of a planned renewal and maintanance.

[redken1]

Wandering off the beaten track here, but interesting debate.
I’m with you on Trident Mitch. IMO, total madness to spend £100billion on a WMD that is capable of destroying the planet over and over again, when we can’t even afford to feed our own people.
The latest figures from the Trussell Trust show a 19% year-on-year increase in food bank use, demonstrating that hunger and poverty continue to affect large numbers of people in the UK, including rising numbers of low-paid workers. The trust’s food banks distributed enough emergency food to feed almost 1.1 million people for three days in 2014/15 – up from 913,000 the previous year.
I think attitudes are changing towards nuclear weapons and more people are finding it difficult to justify such huge public expenditure in light of increasing hardship like the aforementioned. Back in the 80s if you opposed the deployment of WMDs you were labelled as a bunch of ‘misguided lesbians’, but now the mood is shifting and the County is more evenly split, with a higher percentage of Scots against them.
Who decides who the good guys are when we talk of nuclear weapons acting as a deterrent? Using such logic, ordinary Iranians could and indeed do argue that Iran is developing nuclear weapons out of a rational fear for its national safety because of the systematically threatening posture of the United States and Israel. Maybe a view not widely shared here or in the US, but a widespread one held in many parts of the world nonetheless. I wonder if the US/UK led invasion of Iraq in 2003 without UN backing would have happened if Saddam had possessed WMDs? How many people would be happy for WMDs to be sited in Wiltshire?

[SupeRDel]

Corbyn can says what he wants and people will like what he says but at the end of the day someone will have to pay for it to work

If you are a working man paying taxes then be prepared to pay a lot income tax and national insurance.

If he plans to finance things by cutting our defence budget then we might as well wave the white flag now and let the Muslims take over

[Mitch9128]

If he plans to finance things by cutting our defence budget then we might as well wave the white flag now and let the Muslims take over

Because the nuclear deterrent keeps 'the muslims' out, eh?

[DC]

If he plans to finance things by cutting our defence budget then we might as well wave the white flag now and let the Muslims take over

Can't believe there are people who still actually think like this , that's the sort of mentality that was shared whilst Hitler was rounding up Jews in Poland .

Watching this thread is like witnessing a load of drowning people fighting over a punctured liferaft .