'You've never had it so good' according to leading Tory - the mask slips (again)

[edam]

of course we are all in this together... especially millionaires who don't even realise or care that they have no clue how the other half lives.

So much for all that balls about how the Tories were no longer 'the nasty party'...

I don't have a political view (actually I do I think they're all shit!) but I am listening to 5live and there are loads of people calling/texting in to say that they agree with them!

I think I'm going to stop listening now cos it just all gets on my nerves.

The audience prepared to call into 5live must all be doing very nicely then - do you think they'd lend me a few grand between them?

I can't listen to/read any news at the moment because I immediately explode.

They are all such utter CUNTS.

Some people have done quite well out of the interest rate cuts. My next-door neighbours tell me their variable rate mortgage payments halved, for example. But others, such as my pensioner parents, saw the income from their investments cut by 30%. Recessions affect everyone differently and Lord Young should have been more careful.

"so called recession"????

What planet is he living on?

Isn't it a well-known fact that the split between the Haves and the HaveNots got wider in the Labour years? If you are a Have then, indeed, you have never had it so good. Look at the sales of non-essentials like That That tickets or the latest CoD - somebody out there has got money.

I think he's right with regard to people on benefit, but seriously, the middle classes are getting a financial hammering the likes of which i've never seen in 45 years.

Actually purits wrt entertainment, in other recessions, even in the depression, entertainment does fairly well as people are looking for escapism.

bubble - people on benefits are being hit hard. Benefits are being cut - housing benefit changes are particularly harsh.

Agree people in the middle are being squeezed too, though.

Isn't Lord Young the one who used to be at employment in the Thatcher years?

BBC have just reported that he has resigned.

Just checked and yes, he is the one who was employment minister under Maggie. He did have some style though - once when the civil servants were on strike, one of the admin assistants in the press office yelled 'scab' at him as he crossed the picket line. He stopped, recognised her, and say 'hello Pat'. Then got his secretary to send down teas for everyone. grin

To be honest, some people have not suffered very much.

Low interest rates have given many folk a lot more cash to spend. And landlords with mortgages are doing very well as the profit margins shot up.

However, a lot of people have lost their jobs, so not everyone is celebrating.

But don't you think a millionaire who is advising the Tory government (full of millionaires) which is making savage cuts should at least pretend to remember that they are people who are suffering?

the clinking of glass and china whilst he was eating and being interviewed did make me smirk - how DID he think that would translate ....

Lord Young? He was the one who resigned from the last Tory government because he couldn't live on a ministerial salary, wasn't he?

I know this might be unpopular but he's not wrong some people have done well out of the recession those people with tracker mortgages and who didn't lose their jobs have done well out of the recession.
Of course this is only a minority and it has been tough for most people but I think there's been an overreaction to this.

byrel he described it as a "so-called recession", he doesn't believe it's a recession (as if a recession is a matter of belief or not). He is definitely wrong on that.

"For the vast majority of people in the country today they have never had it so good ever since this recession"

The vast majority? Really?

"Of course, there will be people who complain, but these are people who think they have a right for the state to support them"

Charming. So what is the thinking behind this? That those who've lost their jobs shouldn't complain at struggling to make ends meet? That those who have lost their home shouldn't complain that they no longer have a roof over their head? That those who are vulnerable shouldn't complain while they struggle? So you can only complain if you are lucky enough not to have been hit by the recession?

smallwhitecat - you are being a little extreme. I can't see anyone on this thread holding unfair trials which send people to prison for being unAmerican.

'The mask slips' refers straightforwardly to the pretence before the election that the Tories had changed. Turns out it's the same old millionaires throwing people out of work and bashing the poor. As usual.

Heard a couple of labour chaps being interviewed on radio 4 at lunchtime who agreed with him. They seem to think we are coming out of recession - not from where I am sitting.

On the other hand, I do partially agree with the notion that we have never had it so good. Expectations are now so high with regards to what is an acceptable standard of living. I have read somewhere about what is now classed as poverty would have been positively well off in the 1950s/1960s. Off to google it.

Well yes, standards of living have gradually improved for everyone over centuries, doesn't mean the recession and government cuts are going to hurt any less. Lots of people had outside loos in the 50s and 60s, I don't imagine anyone would say 'if you have an inside loo you should count yourself lucky and stop worrying about 10% cuts in housing benefit.'

And actually life for the very well off has got loads better while for Mr and Ms Average it's got averagely better, if that makes any sense - the rate of increase for the rich and well-off has been steeper than for average incomes or the poor.

I think there has been a total overreaction about this. The guy was a very minor figure in the Government who made a silly remark. There really are more important things going on.

God this thread is dispiriting. Read today's Times - the primary reason this country is in the financial pickle it is in, is because the labour government mis-managed the economy. Bitching about nasty Tories at a time when the Coalition is having to clear up the shit that Labour left behind is farcical.