Ashton

how low can the UK get when now they celebrate as a " grand opening" when they open a food bank for kids Ashton

Peter Not be long before there are mobile soup kitchens on the streets . Also centres to feed the kids during the school breaks. Who would have thought over the last 5 years most towns have food banks to help feed the populace

Tory Britain

Soon be Labour Britain and no different, but if the seventies is anything to go by, might be even worse!

p.s. When I was a kid just after the war in a time of real poverty, there were no food banks as people just got on with life with many growing their own food in back gardens and allotments.

To many now to idle to do it and just moan and want everything provided free!

Reading the piece in the local rag it suggests that the primary purpose is to reduce the amount of food going to landfill. Food waste across the UK is around 9.5 million tons a year.

It's a sad state of affairs for sure. It's good to see people trying to help though. Good luck to them.

OC do you mean the seventies when you could see a doctor or a dentist,kids could buy a house,you could run an house on 1 wage thousands of people wernt sleeping rough ,the industrial North was vibrant and in work poverty didn't exist

Peterp there are holiday clubs to feed children, they are called HAF clubs.

Handsomeminer

Evidently, you were living in a different world to most of us in the seventies as most will remember that under the Callaghan Government, the winter of discontent and dustbins not being emptied, high morgage interest rates, power strikes, people not being buried, coming out of a out of date nationlised railway system of out of date steam trains, a british car industry being decimated by strikes led by communists like "Red Robbo", no massive house and apartment building like that of today, both parents having to work as the alternative was no work related benefits like there are today.

All of which led to Thatcher and thirteen years of a Tory Government which has happen again with a further fourteen years as a result of the Blair government failing to fufill it's promises.


But in the seventies, like you say, see a Doctor or a Dentist, but then there was not the immigration problem and rising birthrate that we now have today.


And the pubs and clubs were indeed more vibrant because people then were not buying the expensive things like detached houses, second homes, expensive cars, dearer holidays, dining at Restaurants like many are now doing today.


p.s. In 1992 with a daughter getting married, I was made redundant and for ten months, I was on work related benefits which were nothing like what many are getting today.

In no way, do I want to see a return to the dark days of the seventies.

OC your getting confused again you've jumped from the seventies to the nineties

Handsomeminer

It's yourself who is confused by thinking that life in the seventies with all the problems I have described was better than today!

Your confusing your opinion with facts again

Posted by: Owd Codger
"In no way, do I want to see a return to the dark days of the seventies.
"But in the seventies, like you say, see a Doctor or a Dentist, but then there was not the immigration problem and rising birthrate that we now have today.
And the pubs and clubs were indeed more vibrant"
^^^^^^^^
You have contradicted yourself yet again!

You complain about the 70's but by your own admission stated above, the 70's were halycon days compared to the current situation!

Make your mind up!

Cheshire Cat

Instead of just coming on to have a go at whatever I say, why not put forward some constructive opinions of your own?

Like for example, do you think that the seventies of the Callaghan goverment were as good or bad times compared with today?

I await your opinion with interest!

The 14% devaluation of Sterling in November 1967 was a harbinger of the defining moment of the 70’s, the IMF bailout. It was a decade of high levels of inflation, reaching 14% at the end of the 70’s. The decade ended with the winter of discontent.

Owdcodger.
I hope these facts interest you
In the 1970's you could see a dentist, you could get a doctors appointment very quicly, you could get a hospital bed without lying on a trolley for hours, you could get an operation a lot quicker, asylum seekers and immigration were not a problem, the pubs and clubs were vibrant, housing was nowhere near the mess it is in today, drug abuse was nowhere near the problem it is today.
So yes. I would say they were good times compared with today

last night on bbc 4 i was watching a doc on 2 tone and SKA music and what was going on in the late 70s and early 80s in the uk with the police unemployment ETC Made me think about the songs that came out ghost town, the specials, UB4 1 in ten, The Smith. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now.... and how the music brought people to gather even though life was shit.... Then we came out the other side of the 80s with the greatest love and the bringing together of mankind with the nelson mandela concert and band aid ETC and then how the music was changing for the more positive at the same time as society was ..... if you want to watch it 2 Tone: The Sound of Coventry

Hang on, I'll get my trilby out!

After the 70’s the UK became a signatory to the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties. This led to the substantial increase in population responsible for many of todays difficulties in accessing services.

Gaffer

And they can't seem to get the immigration under control now, I genuinely thought that with Brexit, the immigration problem would have gone away.

As regards living in the 1970s in comparison with how we live today, I did not enjoy the 1970s, 1976 and 1977 were OK for me, but rest of the 70s were crap

Posted by: Tommy Two Stroke (15208)
"And they can't seem to get the immigration under control now, I genuinely thought that with Brexit, the immigration problem would have gone away."

So did a lot of other people, Tommy. You are not alone.
I suspect that is why 51% of the country voted for it.?

Cheshire Puss

"I suspect that is why 51% of the country voted for it.?"

Yes I agree, so who's fault is it that the immigration has not been brought under control ?

It's just another of this incompetent Tory government s failures

TTS
The Treasury mandarins want cheap immigrant labour. Too many on the left think we should have unrestricted immigration. The ECHR is exploited by human rights lawyers to prevent illegal immigrant repatriation. There’s nobody in Parliament with a sufficiently large pair of gonads to get rid of the laws that facilitate immigration and prevent repatriation.
Too much attention was being paid to small boats instead of family members joining students and dependents joining workers.The former was stopped in January except for post graduate or research students. The latter was stopped earlier this month for care workers. However, dependents can still get visas for other occupations.
Too many people of working age have opted for a life on benefits creating vacancies that are filled by immigrants.

Gaffer DO YOU KNOW WHAT TWO MUCH ATTENTION IS BEING TO ???
the Tory's who have been in power the last 13 years
You are repeating all what the Tory's are saying!!!!!!! We all know what your saying we all her the same stuff we just don't believe it anymore!!! you know the saying" fool me once"

Kicked in the head by a horse

Cheshire Cat

Perhaps, you could get a Doctors and Dentist appointment and a hospital bed in the seventies but perhaps that was because the population was a lot less and immigration was nothing like in more recent times.

As for the pubs being more vibrant, perhaps that was because our parents and grandparents did not have today's lifestyle of going to restaurants or getting a takeaway and a four pack of beer/bottle of wine and stay at home to watch multichannel television. As for a housing crisis, that is hardly surprising when over the country there are hundreds of empty properties, people buying second homes at the seaside and rural areas and now in addition, many people, especially those of Asian origin living in a semi-detacted house, buying the other half of the property if it becomes vacant and converting it into a detached property for economical reasons and all the family living together and having grandparents not living in a expensive old peoples home. Not to mention those who are buying properties and the then having them lying empty until house prices go up and then selling the at a profit


Handsomeminer

Any opinions on the failours of the Heath and Callaghan governments in the seventies which were just as bad as what you keep saying, the Tories are today.


Peter Israel,

Gaffer is correct in what he has said, especially his last comment about there are too many people opting to live on the benefit system and content to let the immigrants do all the low pay minimum wage jobs.

Would have loved to have seen you on the nightshift at Tupperware!

Owdcodger.
With your above statement you have just agreed with me ( although you may not realise it! ) that the 1970's were good times compared with today!

Cheshire Cat

If yo say so, but many of my family and friends will beg to differ!

They'll be disagreeing with both of us, then!
They are entitled to their opinions.
We'll get over it

Owd Codger,

Although I don't disagree with you that there are more people on benefits, I disagree with the statement putting everybody in same category - that's wrong. You have to breakdown the different people on benefits as to why ? This includes working age, disabled, retired etc. There are for example people that actually work and still get benefits because their salary is low - and the benefits top up to minimum salary. You have also disabled people who cannot work. Unless you are talking just about working people who are on benefits ... Yet another example is a friend of mine 55 years of age who was working as a chef at all hours - nights, weekends etc. - he hated his job - the only reason he did it was that he had bills to pay - then during COVID - it gave him a chance to relook at his life, when he was on furlough and had some time to reevaluate his life - and he decided after COVID was that he wouldn't work everyday - and switched to stocking shelves. He worked part time and took some of his pension early. From time to time he works still as a Chef but only when he needs to. I am sure he is not the only one. So when you see the headlines - more people are on benefits - then you have to take this into account and look into the details. Its a good headline... Statistically, England has less unemployment benefits than the top OECD countries - France, Germany, Italy have more that the UK. This is a line that the tory party has used every single general election time....

Peter Israel

The only benefits being paid out that myself and many others are not happy about are the maximum work related benefits etc being paid out to fit and healthy people who have no intention of working and are content for immigrants to do all the low pay minimum wage jobs.

Far to many now in our country where mail is not being delivered, bus and trains are being cancelled etc due to staff shortages which employers are finding more and more hard to fill!

Otherwise I agree with your comments about disabled benefits, benefits to top up part time jobs etc.

The time has come for draconian changes which will never happen with the present main political parties

Gaffer

Thank you for that information, and 600 asylum seekers from the boats were {{brought}} into this country yesterday.

Peter Israel

What do you think about those 600 boat people, the more the merrier eh !

It would have been a lot more than that if we had still been in the EU, maybe YOO need a kick in't yed !!!!

Cheshire Puss

Happy Easter



LINK

CC

Were you still at school in the 1970s?

Gaffer,
I finished my education in the mid 1970's.
Although, I'm intrigued by your question. Why is it relevant to this topic?

I could tell from your views of the 70’s that you had little or no employment exposure to the period. Thus you were either at school or still to be born.

And I can assure you, that you are completely wrong!
What I can assure you of is that in the 1970's , we were far better off financially and economically than today.
Even you will agree with me on that, surely?
Going off your views, and your constant quotes from numerous sources, I'm assuming you have a BSc Masters in finance, or a BSc Masters in economics?

Why not give Labour a chance to se what they can do different people will be in government so you never know and you will only have to wait five years to see if you approve