In todays news...

[Count Steer]

How many people earned >£10/hour working behind the bar back then?

My ambition at the time was a £5k pa job.

[David]

E1.80 a pint! When i started it were 11 1/2 d a pint......

Those were the days, when you could get six pennorth of chips for a tanner.

when i were a lad, six pennorth of chips was thruppence.

[Buckaroo]

And we used t' work 26 hours a day and then lay in cardboard boxes until we died, before doing it all again ! The good old days when a pound was a pound.

[David]

A pound! Never saw those fancy things.......'twere all sovereigns....

[Taipan]

You know Starmer is really bad when the morning star has an article about his betrayal!

I IT’S 28 days since Labour was elected with a massive majority and it’s now three days since it announced its blatant attack on pensioners.
It’s now just over 365 days since I left the Labour Party, the party I gave my life to, the party I worked for for over 50 years.
I’ve seen Labour governments come and go and, like many, I’ve been disappointed so many times but kept the faith because I always saw Labour as the only alternative to the Tories.
I recall asking Tony Blair, face to face, if would he please take care of students, would he ensure they didn’t have to pay for their education.
Blair promised he would sort out the education system and — oh, yes, he kept his promise — he sorted it out all right.
Blair betrayed us on so many things: the fake Iraq IWD debacle, higher education — far from helping students he brought in more charges along with student loans.
Neil Kinnock was a man I really thought would be a friend and an ally to our class, a man who constantly reminded us of his working-class roots. A man who betrayed that same class in 1984 when he failed to support mining communities in their struggle for jobs.
Shirley Williams was never a leader of the Labour Party, but I remember her coming to one of the Labour Party women’s schools I attended. She spoke well and the audience of women stood to clap her. I recall my mam saying, “Stand up, Heather,” and my reply was: “I stand for no-one and I kneel to no-one, never put anyone on a pedestal.”
I was proved right. She sold out and formed another party. Another traitor.
It’s only now when I look back that I realise those two men told the exact same story as Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter and now Keir Starmer the tool-maker’s son.
They all professed to be just ordinary folk wanting to do good and they all went on to cause massive problems for our class.
Looking back there have only in my humble opinion been two leaders who would have carried out a socialist agenda, Michael Foot and Jeremy Corbyn and look what was done to them.
Those men were vilified, they were thrown to the wolves not only by the press and the media but by those who were meant to be of the same ilk.
Back to two days ago, I have never, ever felt so angry, so let down, so betrayed as I felt that day.
I knew we couldn’t trust Starmer, I knew he wasn’t a man of the people but I never for one moment thought he would betray pensioners by stopping the winter fuel allowance for all but those on pension credit. I never imagined he and Rachel Reeves could be so cruel as to hurt some of the most vulnerable in our society.
It’s only a few months ago Starmer was shouting from the rooftops when Rishi Sunak threatened to do the very same thing.
Starmer’s government has betrayed the youngest and the eldest in our communities. It has made the decision not to help families who live in poverty, children who are going hungry and now it’s the elderly.
Many will die of hypothermia, and many will go hungry so they can heat their homes but it appears our newly elected government couldn’t care less.
Their excuse, their reasoning behind this decision: “We were left with a black hole, a shortfall of some £22 billion.”
I cannot believe they didn’t know of this shortfall weeks before the election, you can’t tell me they were so naive. Not a mention of this in the manifesto because they knew how people would react, instead they led some folk to believe they were the saviours of the working class while all the time they were plotting against us.
Reeves with her unflinching, Thatcher-like pose, saying she had no choice — it had to be done.
Well, tell that to all those who rely on that money, to all those who have worked hard all their lives, those who have earned a worry-free retirement.
Tell them it’s OK for them to suffer rather than for the mega-rich to be made to pay higher taxes, tell them it’s OK for them to miss a meal or two or to put on an extra jumper, to wrap up to keep out the cold while we pay for MPs heating in their second homes, while we pay those in the House of Lords £500 a day to simply sign in and do nothing.
Tell them it’s OK for us to give the royal family, another unelected body that costs us a small fortune, a massive increase in salary.
We need the whole of the trade union movement to give their support. Some unions have already announced their dismay at the decision to deprive pensioners, but we need more.
We need folk on the streets, we need trade unions to be out there, standing with us, protesting at this outrageous decision.
I never ever thought I could despise a government as much as I despised Thatcher and co, but this one is 28 days in and I hate them.
Now hate is a strong word but when it comes down to it the decision to deprive some 10 million people of their winter fuel payment is wicked. It’s cruel.


https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article ... ven-labour

[MyLittleStudPony]

He was always going to tax the toxics. I imagine there will be more to come.

[wheelnut]

A good and bold decision from Starmer. Hopefully he’ll end the nhs being free at point of delivery soon. I suspect that will be as step too far though,

[Felix]

You know Starmer is really bad when the morning star has an article about his betrayal!

Nah. Always thought he was a cunt.

[Yambo]

A good and bold decision from Starmer. Hopefully he’ll end the nhs being free at point of delivery soon.

For everybody of course, even the pensioners who are going to get ill in the winter and need the NHS. If they don't last 5 winters they'll not be voting in the next GE and they'd sure as shit not be voting Labour.

[DefTrap]

You know Starmer is really bad when the morning star has an article about his betrayal!

The Morning Star ties itself in knots. Happy that the Conservatives are out - But fuming that the Labour government isn't one led by Corbyn or similar. These stories are their painful attempts to force a leadership battle pdq, - it's not going to happen - but it keeps their readership happy.

[Count Steer]

You know Starmer is really bad when the morning star has an article about his betrayal!

The Morning Star ties itself in knots. Happy that the Conservatives are out - But fuming that the Labour government isn't one led by Corbyn or similar. These stories are their painful attempts to force a leadership battle pdq, - it's not going to happen - but it keeps their readership happy.

The Morning Star does indeed tie itself in knots. It was and is the house magazine (last circulation figure for the dead tree version - 10k) of the Communist Party of Britain. They never seem to understand that the Labour Party is not the Communist Party of Britain - they should run and support their own candidates instead of trying to hijack a different party.

They used to come round the local pubs selling copies on a Friday night, closely followed by the Salvation Army selling 'The War Cry'.

This made me laugh -

'The Daily Worker* initially opposed the Second World War and its London edition was banned in Britain between 1941 and 1942. After the Soviet Union joined the Allies, the paper enthusiastically backed the war effort.'

* before it was renamed The Morning Star.

[gremlin]

I'd like the contract to print the Socialist Workers Party placards, coz there's never any shortage of them at any demonstration.

Not that they're keen to jump onto any bandwagon or anything....

[Taipan]

I think the article is a common reaction to Starmers incredible act of back peddling on his interview below which was only in May this year! I think most politicians are janus-faced bastards, but Starmer has excelled himself at being a duplicitous cnut and shocked a lot of labour voters with his blatant hypocrisy here!

[MyLittleStudPony]

Nigel Farage ditches Reform UK’s ‘contract with the people’ just 2 months after election.

After criticism that Reform UK’s election contract with the people was ‘Liz Truss on steroids’, new Reform UK chairman has admitted that the party is working on a new set of policies as well as drawing up rules enabling the party’s leader to be sacked.

Reform UK’s ruthless pursuit of putting Nigel Farage into Downing Street by 2029 has seen them already move on from their “contract with the people” at the general election just two months ago, the party’s new chairman has admitted.

Businessman Zia Yusuf was brought in by Mr Farage to reorganise Reform UK after what the new chair admits was “a scrappy start-up” election beset with scandals over candidates and serious questions over the party’s policies.

In a wide ranging interview he also said:

* That Reform will allow members to ditch their own leader in a new constitution

* The party has been inspired by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen doubling her vote in France

*That people who work for the Conservative Party have been in talks with Reform about coming over

[Saga Lout]

I think the article is a common reaction to Starmers incredible act of back peddling on his interview below which was only in May this year! I think most politicians are janus-faced bastards, but Starmer has excelled himself at being a duplicitous cnut and shocked a lot of labour voters with his blatant hypocrisy here!

"...another pensioner was describing to me going round the supermarket, picking something up and looking at the price and then putting it back on the shelf."

He's describing this as if it happened recently. Why didn't the pensioner look at the price label on the shelf before picking up the item? Or is this a story from when Tony Blair was Prime Mincer?

Or maybe yet another thing to blame on Maggie.

[Cousin Jack]

I often pick stuff up, look at the price, and decide it is not worth THAT much. It's a common sense thing rather than being poor, or a pensioner. Picking it up often allow me to gauge stuff like quality that the shelf label doesn't.

[DefTrap]

I think it's normal for folk moving on to a fixed income to suddenly become much more aware of prices of things. If you can make decent shopping savings by shopping around and being aware of (what seems to be) random price hikes, then why not?

Using the Morning Star as a stick to beat the new Labour government with is clutching at straws innit? Is Farage on his holidays still? Why isn't he sorting out Clacton?

[Mussels]

I think the article is a common reaction to Starmers incredible act of back peddling on his interview below which was only in May this year! I think most politicians are janus-faced bastards, but Starmer has excelled himself at being a duplicitous cnut and shocked a lot of labour voters with his blatant hypocrisy here!

He's correct, it isn't right that old people should wear jumpers instead of turning the heating up or that they should check the price of stuff before buying it.
That's why he's going to level everyone down so they all feel the pain.

[Taipan]

I think it's normal for folk moving on to a fixed income to suddenly become much more aware of prices of things. If you can make decent shopping savings by shopping around and being aware of (what seems to be) random price hikes, then why not?

Using the Morning Star as a stick to beat the new Labour government with is clutching at straws innit? Is Farage on his holidays still? Why isn't he sorting out Clacton?

I dont think anyone needs to beat Labour with anything, they seem to be self flagellating quite well on their own!

[gremlin]

He's correct, it isn't right that old people should wear jumpers instead of turning the heating up

I disagree. It's common sense to wear warmer clothing and keep the heating down when the temperature drops. Only George and Lynne from the the old Sun comic strip could afford to walk around bollock-naked all year round.