advertisement


Homelessness

If I've got this discussion more or less right.. our friend Simon Vess has 'no time' for the current Tory administration, thinks 'Corbyn has no intellect' and has no regard for Farage.. yet he is very disparaging to those of us who oppose the current right.

Whilst it seems initially paradoxical..there's a bit of a pattern to this..

'Our Vessy' .. is very good at tellng us what/who he opposes..

He is however abysmal at informing us what he believes in and what he proposes to resolve current issues.

I am of course making the rather huge assumption that he actually recognises current issues.

Over to you.. Vessy Baby!! Give it your best shot!!
 
I'm pushing 74 and lived for half of my life in the midlands and at no time in my life have I experienced so many people sleeping rough as I see now, as child we had the very occasional "Tramp" visiting our area that when asked he said that he usually slept in Barns and Haystacks. The barns have now mainly been converted to upper middle class homes, haystacks are a thing of the past so it's now shop doorways etc. The "Tramps" are now people that due to many reasons have at one time have come from all levels of our society, not just working class.

Our towns are full of houses /apartments owned by foreign investors and are generally empty for most ,if not all of the year .The Agent for a recent block of flats in Brighton Marina was advertising that over 25% of the flats had already been sold to foreign investors and at central London prices ,and the building hadn't even been completed. A number of developments that had planning permission that included social housing have been started to be built ,have applied for retrospective PP to have the number of Social housing reduced considerably as they said the project was now no longer commercially viable so they were required to donate a sum of money to the Council as compensation, retrospective PP was of course granted.

The drop in the numbers of unemployed is mainly due to people being employed on zero hours contracts at very low wages (tourist, catering restaurant trades) and so there is no way these people can afford the very high cost of housing in this area a couple of years ago a flat on Brighton's Sea front was sold for £3.4 Million. Houses prices in one of the lowest priced area are going for over £400,000 this also of course also affects the cost of renting.

We are constantly feed information on that family that occupies the building at the end of the Mall ,but nothing or very little about the plight of those who have to suffer living on the streets. There are TV programs about the street people of India/ Africa/ fill in your own favourite country,not that they do not deserve the recognition, but few if any about our own.

Depending on which facts you accept, this country is either the 4th or 7th richest country in the world whilst our leaders revel in their own wealth they do very little to assist those people at the very bottom of the ladder and this fact is deplorable, as has been said before a country should be judged by what it does for its lesser wealthy not it's most wealthy.

If I give money to people sleeping rough, I don't wish to impose my views on how it's spent, if its spent on giving a little release from their suffering be it by Alcohol or drugs who am I to condemn them, would I possibly not seek the very same escape if I was unfortunate to have to suffer the very same conditions.

It is only Governments that can radically change the conditions that some people are forced to excist in, in the short term we can only help by giving without condemnation, to quote a well known maxim, Lest we for the grace of god go there

oldie
 
i agree with your post oldie. it's a national disgrace. or, dare i say it, a 'national humiliation'!? but please remember your words next time you are in a voting booth.
 
H H
I have never voted Tory in my entire life, nor will I ever, I'm a Old Socialist and a ex Shop Steward who worked In Coventry during the brilliant years of the 70 's
 
oldie said:
If I give money to people sleeping rough, I don't wish to impose my views on how it's spent, if its spent on giving a little release from their suffering be it by Alcohol or drugs who am I to condemn them, would I possibly not seek the very same escape if I was unfortunate to have to suffer the very same conditions.
Click to expand...
My view too. Who am I to judge what they need?
 
oldie said:
H H
I have never voted Tory in my entire life, nor will I ever, I'm a Old Socialist and a ex Shop Steward who worked In Coventry during the brilliant years of the 70 's
Click to expand...

Apart from Coventry, and being a few years younger, that is my story too Oldie. The thing that the misery arses on the right don't quite get is that I don't actually have a problem with people being wealthy, so long as their wealth is acquired honestly..
But there's the rub. Much of the wealth in this country is inherited, or acquired by 'dodgy dealing' and increased by, to be charitable... 'creative tax avoidance'. Yet is is for the most part, those same wealthy people who back the Tories, are the Tories, promote the Tories, have their own pet Tory politicians in their pockets, etc., etc.

Time for the democratic left to regain the initiative and see off these parasites. So long as they are willing to work they'll be fine....

Now where have I heard that before...?
 
Completely agree with what you have said Oldie. Theresa May wears very expensive one-offs, while overseeing the pauperisation of an increasing number of people in the UK. It is a very sad situation.

Jack
 
But those 'very expensive one offs' she wears, show that her fashion sense is even worse than her political sense..
 
stevec67 said:
Some people work in the centre of a city but live elsewhere in a family home. I've done this. Usually I end up in an hotel at £70 a night, but if it were a long term situation I'd consider a 2nd home. If you were funding hotels at £300-350pw then a little flat makes a lot of sense.

You could ask a secondary question - why do people live in big houses? The answer is because they can and because housing is not taxed in this country. To do so would be political suicide. We all want affordable housing, but none of us are prepared to pay more tax for the privilege of living in a big house on an overcrowded island. You could get 2 houses in the space of mine, and parking. But it's me pension, innit?
Click to expand...
Houses are indirectly taxed. You pay more council tax for a bigger house but don't get more services for your money and you paid income tax on the money you earned to buy it in the first place.
 
Tony L said:
Actually they don’t. If you do the research you find Democrats/Labour preside over stronger economic performance than Republican/Conservative. There are many graphs and charts that can be googled up to prove this. The notion that the right-wing is fiscally competent is pure propaganda fantasyland. In the UK there were serious issues in the ‘70s, but that was as much to do with Ted Heath’s Tories as anyone else, and since then the short-term boom/bust squander of the ‘80s propped up by North Sea Oil and selling the national infrastructure to private buyers for short term tax breaks and the current Cameron and beyond shambles that will sink us economically for a generation or more are owned 100% by the Conservatives. Also worth remembering that the collapse of the neoliberal financial infrastructure in 2008 was a global issue with the epicentre firmly centred at GW Bush’s Republican administration. To summarise: Conservative/Republican = vacuous short-termism that inevitably goes wrong as it is so poorly thought out (this being charitable, one could easily argue there was much cynical asset-stripping of national infrastructure purely for the benefit of party financers). Labour/Democrats = far more in the way long term strategy and intellect, but rather backward-looking ideologically and still far from perfect!
Click to expand...


I seem to remember the unions had far more to do with the countries problems in the 70's
 
oldie said:
I'm pushing 74 and lived for half of my life in the midlands and at no time in my life have I experienced so many people sleeping rough as I see now, as child we had the very occasional "Tramp" visiting our area that when asked he said that he usually slept in Barns and Haystacks. The barns have now mainly been converted to upper middle class homes, haystacks are a thing of the past so it's now shop doorways etc. The "Tramps" are now people that due to many reasons have at one time have come from all levels of our society, not just working class.

Our towns are full of houses /apartments owned by foreign investors and are generally empty for most ,if not all of the year .The Agent for a recent block of flats in Brighton Marina was advertising that over 25% of the flats had already been sold to foreign investors and at central London prices ,and the building hadn't even been completed. A number of developments that had planning permission that included social housing have been started to be built ,have applied for retrospective PP to have the number of Social housing reduced considerably as they said the project was now no longer commercially viable so they were required to donate a sum of money to the Council as compensation, retrospective PP was of course granted.

The drop in the numbers of unemployed is mainly due to people being employed on zero hours contracts at very low wages (tourist, catering restaurant trades) and so there is no way these people can afford the very high cost of housing in this area a couple of years ago a flat on Brighton's Sea front was sold for £3.4 Million. Houses prices in one of the lowest priced area are going for over £400,000 this also of course also affects the cost of renting.

We are constantly feed information on that family that occupies the building at the end of the Mall ,but nothing or very little about the plight of those who have to suffer living on the streets. There are TV programs about the street people of India/ Africa/ fill in your own favourite country,not that they do not deserve the recognition, but few if any about our own.

Depending on which facts you accept, this country is either the 4th or 7th richest country in the world whilst our leaders revel in their own wealth they do very little to assist those people at the very bottom of the ladder and this fact is deplorable, as has been said before a country should be judged by what it does for its lesser wealthy not it's most wealthy.

If I give money to people sleeping rough, I don't wish to impose my views on how it's spent, if its spent on giving a little release from their suffering be it by Alcohol or drugs who am I to condemn them, would I possibly not seek the very same escape if I was unfortunate to have to suffer the very same conditions.

It is only Governments that can radically change the conditions that some people are forced to excist in, in the short term we can only help by giving without condemnation, to quote a well known maxim, Lest we for the grace of god go there

oldie
Click to expand...
This is spot on, I remember the tramps of yesteryear too, now replaced with whole families in some instances, mainly due to changes in benefits & a lack of real jobs, not the government fairy land statistics you read about. Homelessness obviously has many factors but at the end of the day, in a modern world, in a country as rich as the UK, there should be no homelessness solely caused by government legislation, it really does beggar belief that anyone is without a place to live in modern society, especially when there is absolutely no need for it, you have ask why the current Tory government are happy to make people homeless, only someone without a soul can go about their daily business of running the country knowing children are freezing & starving on the street, then turn round & say the policy of getting people into work is working, they havn't a clue to real life in this country, Brexit should have taught them this, yet onward they go, blind to all around them, another number pops off the computer, who gives a toss, it must be how they look at it.

It's all well & good treating the symptoms of this social disease but it's the root cause that needs tending too, this government will never do this, it will only grow in numbers as the years progress if legislation stays unchanged. People have had enough of the Cameron bullshit about wasters on benefits, it's time for a change in attitude in this country about desperate people who need help.
 
London Lad
Thread Link Below my experience during the 70's as I was actually part of it I respectfully suggest you read it
http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/r-i-p-red-robbo.208191/page-3#post-3241732

I did make a posting hoping to clarify some of the incorrect information that is held by some on here, but unfortunately it was one of the posting that was lost when PFM dropped out.
I respectfully suggest that unless people have actually endured the working condition in the factories during the 70s and 80s they resist from making unfounded and hearsay comments
I held the position of Shop Steward at Rolls Royce Aero Division at Coventry in the department of Research and development during the period from 1970 until I changed Jobs in 1980.

Every Shop Steward has to be elected by a majority of the members he represents
Any Shop Steward has to stand for re-election every 12 months
There is no payment , expenses or pension for holding the post of Shop Steward
Anybody who thinks that a Shop Steward can influence a large group of working Adults to carry out something that they do not wish to do is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

The Employment Law in this Country is based on a Master Servant Relationship. A employer can dismiss a worker and even if a tribunal finds it was a unfair dismissal the employer can not be forced to re employ that worker all that can be done is compensation awarded.

The reasons that there were problems at BL and the Rootes Group were the appalling working conditions and lack of investment. The men were tied to the speed of the track and as they managed to keep up, over a period of time the speed of the track was then increased. If a track worker wanted to go to the toilet they had to raise a hand and wait until a replacement worker arrived to take over their place, the work was physical, tedious and monotonous and the workplace dirty, noisy and hot is it any wonder that people treated in this manner grasped any option to leave the work place.

The only time the work place was cleaned was during the annual two weeks holiday when the tracks were stripped down and cleaned.

The Managements at the time were only interested in maximum production without new investment, work place safety or the working conditions
In my own work place Rolls Royce was developing new technology with the RB211 High Bypass Engine
The machines that we had all dated from before and during the second world war they had brass plaques on them with War Ministry identification numbers stamped on them.
When we as a Trade Union approached the Management for new machinery, the managements answer was to remove the oldest machines thus reducing the average age of remaining machines. This was the calibre of the 70s management.
As for Mr Robson he was one of the Trade Unionists that organised moneys to be collected from all of the workers in the Coventry Area so as to be able to pay wages to the work force that was occupying and continuing the production of Triumph Motor Bikes when the management tried to close the factory down, this action was supported by Geoffrey Robinson the local Coventry MP and has resulted in the sucsess of Triumpth today. It was also Mr Robinson who organised trade union support for the NHS Nurses so that they didn't have to withdraw their labour in support of a pay claim, also financial support for the local Fire men when they took industrial action for better wages and conditions. It was the likes of Mr Robinson that forced Managements to not only improve the Working conditions, Health and Safety and finally Wages of the workers in the Midlands. It was due to those workers that the wealth of this country was generated, and it was trickle down effect of this wealth that has allowed many of the pen pusher and key pressers to enjoy the life style that many on here enjoy.

oldie
 
oldie said:
London Lad
Thread Link Below my experience during the 70's as I was actually part of it I respectfully suggest you read it
http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/r-i-p-red-robbo.208191/page-3#post-3241732

I did make a posting hoping to clarify some of the incorrect information that is held by some on here, but unfortunately it was one of the posting that was lost when PFM dropped out.
I respectfully suggest that unless people have actually endured the working condition in the factories during the 70s and 80s they resist from making unfounded and hearsay comments
I held the position of Shop Steward at Rolls Royce Aero Division at Coventry in the department of Research and development during the period from 1970 until I changed Jobs in 1980.

Every Shop Steward has to be elected by a majority of the members he represents
Any Shop Steward has to stand for re-election every 12 months
There is no payment , expenses or pension for holding the post of Shop Steward
Anybody who thinks that a Shop Steward can influence a large group of working Adults to carry out something that they do not wish to do is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

The Employment Law in this Country is based on a Master Servant Relationship. A employer can dismiss a worker and even if a tribunal finds it was a unfair dismissal the employer can not be forced to re employ that worker all that can be done is compensation awarded.

The reasons that there were problems at BL and the Rootes Group were the appalling working conditions and lack of investment. The men were tied to the speed of the track and as they managed to keep up, over a period of time the speed of the track was then increased. If a track worker wanted to go to the toilet they had to raise a hand and wait until a replacement worker arrived to take over their place, the work was physical, tedious and monotonous and the workplace dirty, noisy and hot is it any wonder that people treated in this manner grasped any option to leave the work place.

The only time the work place was cleaned was during the annual two weeks holiday when the tracks were stripped down and cleaned.

The Managements at the time were only interested in maximum production without new investment, work place safety or the working conditions
In my own work place Rolls Royce was developing new technology with the RB211 High Bypass Engine
The machines that we had all dated from before and during the second world war they had brass plaques on them with War Ministry identification numbers stamped on them.
When we as a Trade Union approached the Management for new machinery, the managements answer was to remove the oldest machines thus reducing the average age of remaining machines. This was the calibre of the 70s management.
As for Mr Robson he was one of the Trade Unionists that organised moneys to be collected from all of the workers in the Coventry Area so as to be able to pay wages to the work force that was occupying and continuing the production of Triumph Motor Bikes when the management tried to close the factory down, this action was supported by Geoffrey Robinson the local Coventry MP and has resulted in the sucsess of Triumpth today. It was also Mr Robinson who organised trade union support for the NHS Nurses so that they didn't have to withdraw their labour in support of a pay claim, also financial support for the local Fire men when they took industrial action for better wages and conditions. It was the likes of Mr Robinson that forced Managements to not only improve the Working conditions, Health and Safety and finally Wages of the workers in the Midlands. It was due to those workers that the wealth of this country was generated, and it was trickle down effect of this wealth that has allowed many of the pen pusher and key pressers to enjoy the life style that many on here enjoy.

oldie
Click to expand...
If there were an award for post of the decade on pfm, this would get my vote.
 
oldie said:
As for Mr Robson he was one of the Trade Unionists that organised moneys to be collected from all of the workers in the Coventry Area so as to be able to pay wages to the work force that was occupying and continuing the production of Triumph Motor Bikes when the management tried to close the factory down, this action was supported by Geoffrey Robinson the local Coventry MP and has resulted in the sucsess of Triumpth today.
Click to expand...
Can you explain that one for me, please?
 
Can you explain that one for me, please?

ABD.
awkwardbydesign, Today at 7:02 PM Report
#99 Like + Quote Reply

Yes it's quite simple really,

Mr Robson was a elected member of The Coventry District Joint Shop Stewards Committee, when It was obvious that Triumph's management was attempting to close down the factory a resolution ( proposed by Mr Robson. ) was put before that committee "to fund the wages of the Triumph workers" so that a Factory occupation could take place to stop it's closure and continue the production of Triumph Motor Bikes.

When this resolution was passed by the Coventry District Joint Shop Stewards Committee it was then placed before all of the factories in the area Shop Stewards Committee's for endorsement or other wise ,it was overwhelmingly endorsed. Then Separate and independent Factory mass meetings of all of the workers were called right across the City and surrounding areas and the original resolution was put to them all, after discussion and debate was held, a vote was taken by the traditional method of raised hands and I'm very pleased to say the motion was overwhelmingly carried.
The local MP Geoffrey Robson who supported this action was then approached officially to actually be the holder and guarantor of all of the moneys, This money that was collected by each factory and banked was paid out on a weekly basis by ( brown paper) pay packets made up by the Bank that held the funds delivered to the work place and distributed by those workers that this had been their normal duty when they had been in the employment of Triumph Motor Cycles.

This same procedure was carried out in the same way for the Nurses and Coventry District Fire Brigade, who some years later supported us at Rolls Royce when we were locked out by the Management ( with the Government at the times Backing ) during the Coventry Tool room District Average ( wage payment) dispute. All of the Coventry Research & Development Workers were paid the average wage of the local Tool room workers a month retrospectively and of course the Tool room workers always tried to keep a monetary differential between themselves and us research & development workers.

The Government at the time claimed that this method of payment was self inflationary and wanted it stopped, so pressure was applied on Rolls Royce management via the threat of withdrawal of on going contracts for engine development. We were Locked out for six weeks and returned to work on a forced acceptance( by returning to work on a given Monday morning ) of a "new wage contract" or else face a mass sacking & withdrawal of contracts and pension funds of the entire research and development workforce, this was the standard of management /workers relationship in the 70's


So let nobody be under any illusion regarding the role of the Trade Unions during that period, I do not recall any worker voting to have his /her wages stopped for the so called minor industrial problems and wild cat strikes. Most of the employment problems of that period were due to the role of management, if the Car companies were not selling the amount of cars produced they started to implement procedures such as speeding up the production tracks to speeds that the work force could not keep up with then when the workforce failed to keep up, disciplinary procedures would be introduced so a drip drip antagonising period would ensue ending up with the workforce walking out.

Of course the media never printed the truth behind what was going on but instead carried the Government and Management's mantra of Wild Cat Strikes without bothering to actually carry out the role of journalism and investigate what was the actual truth
oldie
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top