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 welshhoppo wrote:
It was originally a liberal council. Now its a Lib-lab.


I wouldn't mind, but plenty of Swansea's roads are in dire need of repair. Driving along Fabian Way (the main road into Swansea. Past the new shiny university campus) is like driving along the road to hell.

But they did do up the Bus Station. The problem was nobody actually wanted Bendy Buses. There was a lot of opposition to it.

Why are they are problem, is it particular to the area (narrow roads, tight corners etc)? We have them in the local city(especially for student areas and they seem OK with no particular problems?). Double deckers are getting rarer.

As for the poor state of roads that is a different budget. Council budgets are split into two pots. One called 'Capital funding' and one 'Revenue funding'. Capital is for new projects, new roads etc and are for 'one off' expenditure. Revenue budgets are for maintenance and are, barring savings and growth bids, stay the same each year. Revenue funding from one year can be moved into a capital pot, but you can never move capital into a revenue fund. Revenue pays for things like road repairs, emptying bins etc. These are the types of budgets that are getting slashed and hence something has to give (which in this case is likely to be how bad a road gets before a repair is actioned, whether you have to pay for your green waste collection etc). On the other hand capital comes from multiple sources such as selling of council assets (land etc) or from government road investment funds and so on. Hence you can get a brand new lovely looking road whilst other roads go to wrack and ruin. If you really push things and drive a road into the ground far enough then you can then be awarded capital money to completely redo the road. Effectively lack of maintenance allows you eventually to get a new road. You just have to wait a while for the road to fall to pieces. It's not efficient and hardly constructive to road users but that's the system we have.

Swansea is very hilly, regular buses have enough problems going up Townhill and the other hills of Swansea, I somehow doubt a Bendy has the necessary grunt to pull a full load of students up a steep hill towards the Townhill campus.

But I'm not sure, I'm not an expert on buses.

In other "good news", another example of why austerity is not the solution to a recession:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/tory-austerity-deaths-study-report-people-die-social-care-government-policy-a8057306.html

Maybe someone should play that back to him? Self-awareness anyone?

David Davis warns EU not to put 'politics above prosperity' in Brexit talks
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/16/david-davis-warns-eu-not-to-put-politics-above-prosperity-in-brexit-talks

“Every government has periods of turbulence,” Davis responded.

Damn right that one.

Herzlos wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

I mean....seriously? If this is the best sort of thinking that you can devise as a reason for spending vast sums of time and money establishing a combined EU military, I actually don't need to say anything else. Your examples speak for themselves in their utter ludicrous inadequacy for a response of such ill directed magnitude and proportion.

Let's sort this part out, as you keep repeating the idea that we're going to spend vast sums of time and money doing this. We'll spend some time and money setting up the new co-ordination infrastructure, but we'll save orders of magnitude more than we spend in the efficiency savings. Everyone buying the same equipment using the same contracts and procurement procedures. Everyones kit being interoperable, so an combined army in the field doesn't need to bring in as many different items, resulting in less trucks, simpler logistics, and so on.

Everyone is (IIRC) using a standard NATO 5.56mm or 7.62mm round, but different rifles, different uniforms, webbing, and so on. It means a German unit can't potentially help out a French unit with spare rifle parts. It's more about commonality and interoperability than control.

This is great if it’s your kit all the EU nations are buying. There’s clearly a massive financial benefit to someone here which will drive the direction it goes in. The arms industry is massive money. France will be rubbing their hands together will glee if they can get the EU nations to invest in products they make, same for any other nation. And we know there’s a lot of back room deals with greased palms and twisted arms going on to agree such things. If you manage to arrange it so your industry is supplying all the rifles to European countries you’re minted. I’m skeptical how fair this will seem once some countries start using political clout to hog the juicy procurement contracts.

jouso wrote:
Maybe someone should play that back to him? Self-awareness anyone?

David Davis warns EU not to put 'politics above prosperity' in Brexit talks
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/16/david-davis-warns-eu-not-to-put-politics-above-prosperity-in-brexit-talks

Yeah you do have to wonder about that one. It's almost like there is a complete absence of self awareness given that the Wrexit vote itself was political and even the most ardent supporter pretty much accepts that it will impact prosperity at least in the short to mid term (long term we will never really have an unbiased comparison to test against, although I suspect it will just increase the rate of decline for the country).

However it does slightly smack of getting desperate because we several more weeks on and there appears to be no further progress in real terms. Financial and the Irish border are still sticking points. Tusk has given an ultimatum on the UK Government which would suggest increasing frustration:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42027859

and Ireland are getting more demanding that the Irish border must be open if they are to agree moving things forward (and hence the big issue is that this then means all EU citizens must have the same rights - i.e. open borders remain).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-42019697

I think the reality of not having your cake and eating it is also coming home as the EU have thrown out free trade in goods and financial services in leaked papers and Carney is again warning of the damage this will cause:-

Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned of a Brexit “shock” to Britain’s financial backbone amid reports that Brussels has thrown out Theresa May’s bid for a bespoke free trade deal.
Papers leaked in Brussels suggest that European Union leaders were flatly rejecting Mrs May’s vision of a comprehensive free trade deal after Brexit covering goods and financial services.
The documents, described as scoping papers for Michel Barnier’s negotiation team, conclude that Britain’s insistence on leaving the single market and customs union ruled out continuing trade on current terms, according to the Politico news service.
Moreover, they reportedly state that a standard trade deal would offer “no direct branching in areas like financial services” and only “limited EU commitments to allow cross-border provision of services”.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/mark-carney-warns-of-brexit-shock-for-britain-a3692646.html

and things are going that badly that the EU are preparing to deal with a collapse in the negotiations:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41961412

The Brexiteer concept that the EU is going to unfairly compel the UK into a disastrous collapse by not offering major concessions does not mean that the UK will not suffer a disastrous collapse.

jouso wrote:
Maybe someone should play that back to him? Self-awareness anyone?

David Davis warns EU not to put 'politics above prosperity' in Brexit talks
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/16/david-davis-warns-eu-not-to-put-politics-above-prosperity-in-brexit-talks

“Every government has periods of turbulence,” Davis responded.

Damn right that one.

I was absolutely flabbergasted that he said that. ..

Because putting politics above prosperity is never a smart choice.

The man front and centre of putting politics ahead of prosperity, who is knowingly and deliberately embarked on a course that is certain to damage the country and economy on so many levels had the absolute audacity to come out with that peach.

I'm struggling to actually keep up with the blizzard of lies, and bulls hit in world politics. Every single major world figure seems to have lost their mind. I'm starting to think that we've all somehow ended up in the Good Place.

The situation is worse in the Anglo-Saxon economies of the USA and UK because 35 years of neo-liberal economic policies essentially have failed to reward large chunks of the population, but the power elite are locked into them, don't know what to do, and therefore are forced to peddle crap because reality is set against them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've just read a report that Universal Credit is cut off if as a weekly paid worker you are paid five times in a month, forcing you to reapply and go through the six-week waiting period again.

Well done, the government and civil service!

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-different-earning-patterns-and-your-payments/universal-credit-different-earning-patterns-and-your-payments-payment-cycles#if-youre-paid-weekly

8. If you’re paid weekly
If you’re paid weekly by your employer, you will get either 4 or 5 payments of earnings within a Universal Credit assessment period. Depending on the amount you get paid this may affect your Universal Credit.

When you have 5 weekly earnings payments within an assessment period, your income may be too high to qualify for Universal Credit in that month.

If this happens you will be notified that your income is too high and you will no longer get Universal Credit.

You can re-apply the following month as you should only get 4 wage payments in your assessment period then.

You will need to be prepared for a month when you get 5 wage payments in one assessment period and budget for a potential change in your monthly Universal Credit payments.

I've just read a report that Universal Credit is cut off if as a weekly paid worker you are paid five times in a month, forcing you to reapply and go through the six-week waiting period again.

Well done, the government and civil service!

Yeah it's a dire system. I think it's designed to be awkward because a lot of people will throw their hands up in the air and say "to hell with it" in frustration. Hence taking temporary earnings into account means that they can try stop payment as early as possible whilst, when payments are agreed, it is delayed. My suspicion is the policy is there to try and push people to work because of the stop/start nature of it all; except that it is making more and more people worse off.

There other stupid things about this as well. I have two brothers. They both have one child. One pair are very well off earning between them over £80kpa. The other not so, perhaps bringing in about £20kpa (and that's really not that bad compared to to other people). The former has no savings and have pushed it into a new house (so you could argue the house is the savings) and spend what they can. The latter tries to take a more frugal approach and save money. Which do you think gets denied UC? Well it is the latter, because they have savings (for example to try and use for a deposit) they have to use these before they can get child credit. It has effectively forced them into spending something they really shouldn't and were trying to be sensible about money. Indeed they even take into account money in the childs savings account if the parents are managing it when considering whether they can get UC or not (note I can understand that some people might try and exploit this 'loop hole' but my view is that you should deal with those people in a different way and not penalise everyone because grandparents or other family might be putting money into a childs account for the future). UC is a terrible system that is punshing people for being on lower income scale.

What is most galling however is that the same party is quite happy to continue allowing wealthy individuals to exploit tax loop holes, which if they targetted this area would bring in vastly more income for the government than trying to penalise the poorest will ever do.

It's penny pinching to satisfy the indignant taxpayer worried about "scroungers".
Tories used to accuse the Labour party of the "Politics of Envy", it now seems that that perception has swung around to attack those at the bottom end of the scale who are getting "something for nothing". A Politics of Envy of the poor.

A tiny percentage of scumbags are represented as being the overwhelming majority of those on benefits even if that is far from the truth, and armchair are holes get all fething self-righteous after watching benefits street.

Hence the very poorest, and the working poor get treated like scum and are continuously chastised and punished, yet those who caused the fething problems are lauded as benevolent wealth creators.

It's obscene.

 Whirlwind wrote:

The latter tries to take a more frugal approach and save money. Which do you think gets denied UC? Well it is the latter, because they have savings (for example to try and use for a deposit) they have to use these before they can get child credit. It has effectively forced them into spending something they really shouldn't and were trying to be sensible about money. Indeed they even take into account money in the childs savings account if the parents are managing it when considering whether they can get UC or not (note I can understand that some people might try and exploit this 'loop hole' but my view is that you should deal with those people in a different way and not penalise everyone because grandparents or other family might be putting money into a childs account for the future). UC is a terrible system that is punshing people for being on lower income scale.

UC is a terrible system, as are many of the other new benefits that are clearly designed to put people off. Three yearly reassments for life long illnesses for PIP for example. My wife has to go through a stressful reassessment every three years and have to keep appealing as the assessments are so crap and seem to be so dependent on the assessor, who seem to be there to avoid giving people benefits they need.

However, the complaints you give are not related to UC, but have been around for years. The assumption with income related benefits is that anyone on them should not be able to save up £16k, or if you have that much in savings you should be using that before becoming reliant on the state.

The bigger problem for me is that people need state support. IMO no one working full time should be needing income related benefits. Companies should be forced to pay more. Benefits are subsidies going to big companies.

 r_squared wrote:
It's penny pinching to satisfy the indignant taxpayer worried about "scroungers".
Tories used to accuse the Labour party of the "Politics of Envy", it now seems that that perception has swung around to attack those at the bottom end of the scale who are getting "something for nothing". A Politics of Envy of the poor.

A tiny percentage of scumbags are represented as being the overwhelming majority of those on benefits even if that is far from the truth, and armchair are holes get all fething self-righteous after watching benefits street.

Hence the very poorest, and the working poor get treated like scum and are continuously chastised and punished, yet those who caused the fething problems are lauded as benevolent wealth creators.

It's obscene.

If it wasn't for the flag next to your name, I'd think you were talking about the socioeconomic situation here in the States.

.. so both Redwoods and IDS' constituents voted for remain ?!


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/19/my-fear-and-fury-in-the-eye-of-the-russia-leave-storm?CMP=share_btn_tw

Apparently Anna Soubury has received 13 death threats since she was declared an enemy of brexit/whatever.

The Sun has waded into the Irish border problem..



uh huh

I know it's the Sun so one expects etc etc yadda yadda but...

.. really ?

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/932184946881499136

Chancellor is going to be a passenger in a driverless car in the West Midlands tomorrow

... You know that time where you to think of a metaphor to adequately describe the current Government. and then along comes a news story that ...

https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/931941288282292226


from that thread

Borwick has also just set up a new company "Disruptive Communications Limited" with Douglas Carswell. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/Jj8U0OzqEYKqMr9WSSx_jlPdLJg/appointments …

as Carswell slimes his way back into the scene.

.. what a time to be alive eh ?!

The Budget is going to be good.

£75M for high speed internet on trains!

How about some proper train service first? How about all the homes which can't get high speed internet? For that matter, how about all the people who can't get homes?

It's nothing but fiddling around the edges in a desperate search for a positive headline while the country continues to fall apart around us.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Budget is going to be good.

£75M for high speed internet on trains!

How about some proper train service first? How about all the homes which can't get high speed internet? For that matter, how about all the people who can't get homes?

It's nothing but fiddling around the edges in a desperate search for a positive headline while the country continues to fall apart around us.

My first thought would be "who's got a stake in whatever company is going to be deploying that service?" Probably someone managing that budget

 Steve steveson wrote:

The bigger problem for me is that people need state support. IMO no one working full time should be needing income related benefits. Companies should be forced to pay more. Benefits are subsidies going to big companies.

Exactly my thoughts. Tax credits are just a subsidy to large corporations to get away with low wages. Scrap them and lift the minimum wage. Employers should burden the cost of needing employees not the public purse. I really don’t see why my taxes should go to someone working in a supermarket so that ASDA can pay their employees less and increase their margin for shareholders and investors who no doubt don’t pay any tax in the UK themselves. It’s perverse. The problem is that the Tories attack such benefits but do little to make corporations pay more so people end up worse off.

This sort of thing really rankles middle earners because they are never in a position to benefit from all these tax avoidance schemes but cannot receive any of the benefits that low earners receive, it’s a system that ultimately only benefits the wealthy and corporations because other than the wealthy, we all pay in taxes to sub low earners. And those in authority continue to act surprised that the rich only get richer when we literally all chip in to reduce their employment costs and let them avoid tax. Yet we have a situation where middle earners are mostly likely to vote Tory, because of the way government collaborate with media to present the problem as the lower classes taking more than they deserve, and these voters lap it up.

There absolutely are benefits claimants who cheat the system, but the problem is that it’s really being exploited by the wealthy and the rest is a distraction. For heavens sake, if employers paid more there would be less benefits to cheat on.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Budget is going to be good.

£75M for high speed internet on trains!

How about some proper train service first? How about all the homes which can't get high speed internet? For that matter, how about all the people who can't get homes?

It's nothing but fiddling around the edges in a desperate search for a positive headline while the country continues to fall apart around us.

As much as high speed internet would be useful on my train journey (it's actually reasonable performant now), I don't get why the government is providing money towards it, unless it's for cell tower infrastructure along train routes.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Budget is going to be good.

£75M for high speed internet on trains!

How about some proper train service first? How about all the homes which can't get high speed internet? For that matter, how about all the people who can't get homes?

It's nothing but fiddling around the edges in a desperate search for a positive headline while the country continues to fall apart around us.

I think the demand comes form the businesses. When all their staff are stuck on a train going nowhere at least they will be able to email them promptly that they are going to be late (or maybe never arrive)....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

The bigger problem for me is that people need state support. IMO no one working full time should be needing income related benefits. Companies should be forced to pay more. Benefits are subsidies going to big companies.

Exactly my thoughts. Tax credits are just a subsidy to large corporations to get away with low wages. Scrap them and lift the minimum wage. Employers should burden the cost of needing employees not the public purse. I really don’t see why my taxes should go to someone working in a supermarket so that ASDA can pay their employees less and increase their margin for shareholders and investors who no doubt don’t pay any tax in the UK themselves. It’s perverse. The problem is that the Tories attack such benefits but do little to make corporations pay more so people end up worse off.

The question is how you do this without crippling smaller businesses. Take small farm - many (excluding here the bigger industrial ones) might only just about make ends meet so just raising the minimum wage might just force them out of business and the land into the even larger companies that can start to monopolise the system. The alternative is to put prices up, but that just raises inflation and you end up with a repeating cycle as the poorest don't really gain anything other than having their income align with expenditure (it is just higher). Don't get me wrong the large multinational companies that pay peanuts do need to be encouraged to increase wages but it can't just be a rise across the board. It would have to be selective - you could perhaps raise the minimum wage and that companies that earn X profit have to pay for it completely whilst lower income businesses get support for the increase in the lower taxes (paid for by correcting the tax evasion issue that large companies can enjoy) if their profit falls below a certain level.

There are small business exemptions for all sorts of things. Noone working for a multinational should need a wage top up

I don’t believe you should give exemptions to minimum wage. If you wish to support small business in particular sector then the use of tax exemptions would be more appropriate. I understand the need to support small business, but equally we have to ensure we are not propping up unsustainable business. You also have to take account of the fact that that small businesses would also struggle to get workers. If you base it on profit it would also fall apart. Think of the number of multinationals that pay no tax as they move their income to different countries to reduce tax on profits.

.. wait for it .....

Merkel on the ropes, and if we had a stable government, and competent leaders, we might have been to exploit this situation to our advantage and shake down the EU for a good deal.

Ah, what could have been...

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Merkel on the ropes, and if we had a stable government, and competent leaders, we might have been to exploit this situation to our advantage and shake down the EU for a good deal.

How? I can't get my head around the EU powerhouse being unstable gives us any negotiating power. A stable government headed up by Merkel would have more leeway and direction.

I can understand getting some advantage if different EU nations disagree on terms, but even then the default position is a hard brexit come April 1st 2019. Having no-one able to form a deal is even worse for us than a united front.

Herzlos wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Merkel on the ropes, and if we had a stable government, and competent leaders, we might have been to exploit this situation to our advantage and shake down the EU for a good deal.

How? I can't get my head around the EU powerhouse being unstable gives us any negotiating power. A stable government headed up by Merkel would have more leeway and direction.

I can understand getting some advantage if different EU nations disagree on terms, but even then the default position is a hard brexit come April 1st 2019. Having no-one able to form a deal is even worse for us than a united front.

Politicians are politicians the world over, and as much as they love the European project, their own job prospects will come first 99.9% of the time.

A strong British government could have turned around and said: you need Merkel. she's in trouble in Germany, let's cut a quick deal that suits everybody. Who needs the hassle of tortuous negotiations? Everyone's a winner. Job done.

Sometimes, it can be as simple as that.

Herzlos wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Merkel on the ropes, and if we had a stable government, and competent leaders, we might have been to exploit this situation to our advantage and shake down the EU for a good deal.

How? I can't get my head around the EU powerhouse being unstable gives us any negotiating power. A stable government headed up by Merkel would have more leeway and direction.

I can understand getting some advantage if different EU nations disagree on terms, but even then the default position is a hard brexit come April 1st 2019. Having no-one able to form a deal is even worse for us than a united front.

It's the same fundamental misunderstanding Trump had when dealing with Merkel a few months back.

Art of the deal: Angela Merkel had to repeatedly tutor Donald Trump about the European Union
https://www.salon.com/2017/04/24/art-of-the-deal-angela-merkel-had-to-repeatedly-tutor-donald-trump-in-the-european-union/

You deal with the whole EU, not individual countries. Of course the German word carries more weight than Malta's but ultimately the coalition of smaller voices beat the big ones.

jouso wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Merkel on the ropes, and if we had a stable government, and competent leaders, we might have been to exploit this situation to our advantage and shake down the EU for a good deal.

How? I can't get my head around the EU powerhouse being unstable gives us any negotiating power. A stable government headed up by Merkel would have more leeway and direction.

I can understand getting some advantage if different EU nations disagree on terms, but even then the default position is a hard brexit come April 1st 2019. Having no-one able to form a deal is even worse for us than a united front.

It's the same fundamental misunderstanding Trump had when dealing with Merkel a few months back.

Art of the deal: Angela Merkel had to repeatedly tutor Donald Trump about the European Union
https://www.salon.com/2017/04/24/art-of-the-deal-angela-merkel-had-to-repeatedly-tutor-donald-trump-in-the-european-union/

You deal with the whole EU, not individual countries. Of course the German word carries more weight than Malta's but ultimately the coalition of smaller voices beat the big ones.

Naturally of course, now that the EU's second biggest contributor is leaving the EU, and that Germany and France will have to contribute more, it stands to reason that Germany's voice is only going to diminish, not strengthen...

 Steve steveson wrote:
I don’t believe you should give exemptions to minimum wage. If you wish to support small business in particular sector then the use of tax exemptions would be more appropriate. I understand the need to support small business, but equally we have to ensure we are not propping up unsustainable business. You also have to take account of the fact that that small businesses would also struggle to get workers. If you base it on profit it would also fall apart. Think of the number of multinationals that pay no tax as they move their income to different countries to reduce tax on profits.

It depends on what counts as unsustainable. It can be argued that many smaller businesses offer functions that go beyond their bottom line accounting figures and therefore a moderate loss on paper actually is an investment in some other aspect of the community.

For example Post Offices. They have become unsustainable financially due to a number of factors within the government's control, because the government insists that everything must be run by private business using online blarney without regard to any social consequences.

Post offices previously formed part of the essential fabric of British public life, a focus of small villages like the pub, providing the people with a direct convenient line to the authorities for many services such as car tax discs, pensions, savings and all kinds of official forms. They are closing right and left ironically at a time when services like Click And Collect actually are increasing some of the possible demand for their existence

Default on car tax discs has tripled since they went online only a couple of years ago. Well done! Millions of £ of revenue lost in the name of efficiency.

In contrast, no-one believes the HST2 is sustainable. It's something no-one wants except for the government and the construction companies involved in building it, but it is getting many billions of pounds of public money spent on it. Ironically if it is successful, it merely will cannibalise passengers from the existing services.

EU to Britain: Negations can't move on until you pay us what you owe.

Britain: we've always said we'd honour our financial and legal obligations. How much do we owe you?

EU to Britain: Um...er...um...Northern Ireland! Citizens rights! Can't have your cake and eat it! Little Englanders!!!!

In case anybody was about to catch up with what Michel Barnier said this morning, I've just saved you some valuable time, because that pretty much sums it up.

I'm actually not interested in what Michel Barnier has to say. I am interested in what the UK government is doing to get us out of this mess.