Autumn Statement 2015: what’s in it for you?

Patrick Steen says:
” … and respect each others opinions, even if they may differ.”
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I have today lodged an official protest at this seeming threat against legitimate countering of Hate Speech, and its proponents on this site.
It is suggested that you either withdraw, or amend, that part of your implied threat pending the outcome of my protest.
I suggest that it now read, pro tem :

”Please be polite to one another, within the bounds of normal robust responses.
Please also use the ”Report” button in cases of ‘Hate’ postings.”
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This is my personal view. 🙂 It is, however, off topic. 🙁

These conversations should allow constructive exchanges of views and information about the topic covered in the introduction, with occasional off-topic excursions. They are hosted by Which? who are responsible for keeping them on track, and keeping them free from abusive comments, offensive comments, and suchlike as given in their guidelines. For many years this seems to have worked well.

The danger of departing from this is that some contributors will be put off commenting in case they get a harsh or unpleasant reaction from other contributors. Some may just lose interest if the conversation is continually off-topic particularly if, for example, it has a political theme, and I would not like to see these conversations change to that style.

It is for Which? to state the rules for commenting, for us to read their guidelines and respect them if we want to contribute, and if we have constructive views that might amend these, then post them, I suggest, under the “New Conversation” topic found under “Technology”.

Amen to that Malcolm. I am already boycotting comments which I consider to be in breach of Which? T & C’s.

Everything is political, some things are Political.
Community is a ”mantra” which is oft chanted about this forum – that implies elements of Community Co-operative management, rather than centralizm, or oligarchic determanizm based on length of membership; # of postings or some other quantitative factor.
Elliot Volkman, in ”Social Media Today” suggests the following in discussing
*** Roles in an online community***

Although online societies differ in content from real society, the roles people assume in their online communities are quite similar. There are several categories of people that play a role in the cycle of social networking, these include:

Community architect – Creates the online community, sets goals and decides the purpose of the site.
Community manager – Oversees the progress of the society. Enforces rules, encourages social norms, assists new members, and spreads awareness about the community.
Professional member – This is a member who is paid to contribute to the site. The purpose of this role is to keep the community active.
Free members – These members visit sites most often and represent the majority of the contributors. Their contributions are crucial to the sites’ progress.
Passive lurker – These people do not contribute to the site but rather absorb the content, discussion, and advice.
Active lurker – Consumes the content and shares that content with personal networks and other communities.
Power users – These people push for new discussion, provide positive feedback to community managers, and sometimes even act as community managers themselves. They have a major influence on the site and make up only a small percentage of the users.
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In terms of the discussion concerning Beavis V ”EyeFine”, it is clear that there are two dominant schools of thought concerning the way that a Free Market economy and a Country are run:
Alpha:
** Know the rules
** Accept the rules, irrespective of who has set them
** Obey the rules
** Accept the punishment if you transgress.
** Don’t rock the boat by protesting.

Omega
** The price of freedom is eternal vigilance [Leonard Henry Courtney]
** The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!”
― Brian Cox

If current orthodoxy had not been challenged:
** signs proclaiming ”No blacks, no Irish, no dogs” would still be extant
** the sun would still be circulating round the earth
** universal suffrage would be a dream
** men bearing red flags would proceed motor cars
** travel at greater than 20 mph would still result in instant death, or madness.

** It is the role of Which? to challenge
** It is the role of Which? members to help determine and support such challenges
** It is the role of members of Which? to challenge Which? on both tactics and strategy.
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It can be postulated that previously quiescent Lurkers will be galvanized to join and contribute to these columns when they view a dynamic wind of progressive change sweeping thru’ and causing eddies of live debate.

One striking example of this Wind of Change [in UK society] is the massive influx of previously a-political youth into the Labour Party, and the ripples being seen in membership of other pressure groups.

Bob Dylan sang of such change, decades ago – it’s worth singing those lyrics again now.
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+ 1
An exact hit on the nail head.

Machiavelli observed that the leaders of the Fifth column should be the first to be put to the sword when the conqueror entered the defeated city.
** They had once proved to be traitors to their own, so could not be trusted
** In many cases they had inflated expectations of their role in the new regime, roles which were already designated to others, more trusted.

Off topic but its my last post in this topic.
I have tried to get his topic restarted properly and on topic
I apologised at another although reading back I do not what for but nevertheless maybe someone see’s my writing different than I mean.
It would have been according to the way I was brought up been nice to have received a thanks for bowing my head at the very suggestion that I may have caused offence and even before trying to figure out how I had achieved this dire deed.
Everyone should be allowed to have their say and those who do not like what they hear should not be offended just because whatever is said is not to their policy or is contrary to their notions.
Mr Ozzy appears at the top of this page but despite me not liking the man in the slightest I dont take offence at his not so manly face.
I was never anything other than non conformist and will most likely remain so.
In other words I speak my mind and would be offended if I could not.

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Thanks guys.
I enjoy debate and I do take it to heart but hope I dont take offence unless in engineering or factual where something fits or doesnt. If a comment is ill founded and based on notions which many are and I know different I will most certainly come at it. I am having trouble keeping my nose out of the energy thing at moment.
Josef. Keep it going. I will have to tell you that I often do not get or understand where you are coming from or going as to how it may be viewed but bring it on
Your knowledge of writers and history is something that prompts me to look things up.
Enjoy, everyone and I mean everyone, there no use in taking the hump because someone has a different view. Perhaps I am a bit out on a whim at times but I am but one.

+ 1
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”Well I would do that, wouldn’t I.”

If you only knew how much ‘heart’ such comments from you, and others, give me it would generate so much ‘Glow’ you could turn your central heating off from now ’til next Thursday.
Regards
JosefKafka

+ 1

Heart felt, and my heart felt that too.
And what a delight to be able to place myself adjacent to two people who recognize that it is the nature of human to human discourse to wander off topic, even if it’s to have a cuppa and compare Earl Grey with Lapsang.
Then to return, willingly, not herded, to the topic – refreshed and incharge of our destiny-ette.
On restarting this Topic, I shall surf back to your input, Deekay, and see if I can help heave this vehicle out of its slumber.
Wizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

My comment was directed at Mr O…………………………of course.
And is a satirical remark – not sarcastic – BUT at his Budget – not at him personally, ‘coz that would get me …………….. Aaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhhh

Cathy, BA Hons, come home –
You and your BA Hons, boyfriend, both of you in good jobs but up to your neck in debt to get the qualifications that this country so desperately needs, have got to have a stable environment to try to save get the deposit on a back-to-back in need of renovation.
Cathy, BA Hons, Come home, and even tho’ we’ve been downsized because of the bedroom tax, we’ll get a camp bed in and manage some how.
Cathy, BA Hons, Come home.

”But perhaps swayed by recent news stories about diesel emissions, Osborne said in his spending review statement that the supplement would remain in place intil 2021.

Osborne told the House of Commons: “In the light of the slower than expected introduction of a more rigorous EU emissions testing [procedure] we will delay the removal of the diesel supplement on company cars until 2021.”
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More likely seeing a passing bandwagon, he jumped on board in an attempt to mitigate the financial jolt he’d received in other areas of his austerity is a must , campaign.
Add to that the savings he’s made on Gov’t support for nasty feminist charities by diverting the take from the Tampon Tax to those horrid harridans, and the lad done good, according to one unnamed MP.
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”By the way Josef all your old emails are coming back to me … ”
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You mean that you’re being sent copies of all my deleted comments posted on this site?
That’s more than I can obtain despite off line demands – Ooops, humble requests.
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Ref NGOs

Try this for size, D L
newint.org/features/2014/12/01/ngos-keynote/

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Ahh, the days of that OVERT Cold War Warrior, subsidized up to the hilt by CIA

Reader’s Digest

Not a Dentist, nor Doctor’s, waiting room without a pile of them in those days.
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Local authorities in England and Wales will no longer be allowed to give council house tenants life-time housing contracts and that they will be limited to ,at the most 5 years.
I heard a discussion on BBC R 4 on the 5 O/c News prog.
Some chinless, clueless, son of wealth [ccsow]proposed that the move would solve the housing crisis in double quick time.
The son of a ”Milli” argued against that notion – a sprightly lad by the name of Owen Jones. He proposed that building houses would help solve the problem.
ccsow was decidedly not convinced, and seemed to relish the creation of ghettos of the
” … poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind, [Luke 14:21]

[Whereupon god, being a just god, did strike him dead.]
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I think you have that the wrong way round, DL; they spend a lot of their time thinking more of how they can increase their own wealth. However, what really worries me are the sharp divisions that are taking place. I suspect we’re becoming more divided now, as a nation, than at any time since the mid-1980s and that could lead to all manner of problems.

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That despoiler of Listed Buildings, Teresa Gorman, successor as Conservative MP for Billericay to a well known partially house trained polecat – and then a defector to UKIP – once labeled Super Mac, Harold Macmillan, a closet socialist.
Following Super Mac’s last speech in the Lords against Thatcher’s sell off of the ”Family Silver”, and now how this present lot are selling off the stainless steel, and the lead off the roof, it does make the man of ”The night of the Long Knives” look at least slightly liberal.
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You did mean the 18…80s , didn’t you ;-))

If council housing was subsidised to provide accommodation for those unable to afford private rents, then if a tenant’s finances improve sufficiently for them to enter the private sector it seems reasonable to free up the house for another needy family. We should not have sold off these houses, whether to tenants or others. They fulfilled a social need and should have been kept for that purpose but with conditional tenancies.

The problem was not selling off the houses – which helped people who otherwise would not have been able to own their own home – but doing this without having first built at least as many new council houses.

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I don’t see the role of council housing as providing subsidised home ownership. They should be there to help those families who could not otherwise afford to rent. At least the present home ownership subsidy is retrieved by the government (taxpayers) when the home is sold. I don’t believe the gain in price of ex-council houses was recovered to help fund new ones, was it? Unless it was sold fairly quickly.

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It seems that there’s a NET agreement that this IS

” … the society that WE really, really, really DO want and NEED.”

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No taxes have different rates according to the age of the citizen. The costs of living are part of the state retirement pension calculation.

Pensions are covered by the “triple lock” which guarantees that the basic state retirement pension will rise by a minimum of either 2.5%, the rate of inflation, or average earnings growth, whichever is largest. Over recent years pensions have been rising faster than earnings due to the triple lock. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that “between April 2010 and April 2016 the value of the state pension increased by 22.2%, compared to growth in earnings of 7.6% and growth in prices of 12.3% over the same period.” That means pensioners have seen their incomes rise much faster than earnings and outpacing price inflation. If inflation persists at over 3% then the state pension will be uprated by that percentage, or more if average earnings growth exceeds that rate of increase.

Other points to bear in mind are that the first £11,500 of income is tax-free [the personal tax allowance exceeds the full state pension], that working people will generally pay much more tax than pensioners, and that many pensioners [those with low incomes or entitled to certain benefits] could be eligible for Council Tax Support from their local council.

The amount of Council Tax payable is related to the value band of the property occupied and each local authority sets ts own taxes; no income tax mechanism can make allowances for those factors but people living in smaller properties will always have a lower Council Tax bill than those in larger ones [all other things being equal]. There is a 25% discount for those in single occupation.