We could start our own rebellion up if you fancy it?
The Hedon Popular Front?

We might have to spend a few afternoons in Shakespeare planning our strategy first though!

I'm up for it too.

First action will be to liberate those oppressed Jammie Dodgers from their capitalist owners and distribute amongst the HPF members.

Already jotted down in the HPF manifesto.
We may also have to usurp the current red and white landlord with one of a black and white persuasion?
Ex- GB Captain or not!

DMW will be invited to our nexy rally.
Party organiser.

Very easily - falling margins due to increases in material and other costs - increasing labour costs simply compounds an already desperate position. You give a pay award and you become less competitive this will cost jobs in the long run. Contorary to what the likes of Mr Fish think - most companies are trying to employ the maximum number of people for the maximum amount of time. The company I work for has no given a pay award for 4 years, that is pretty much the norm in this industry.

I solution I would prefer would be no annual award but a bonus based on performance across the whole work force. The idea that everyone should get a 4% increase because inflation is at that level is outdated old style leftie thinking. and is unsustainable in today's economic climate.

unfortunately i do understand what the swedish model is. your bleating, "oh, why don't you compare us with countries like sweden etc" shows you hadn't the first clue how they do things. then the reverse gear kicks in when someone points out that they sell anything off that isn't nailed down. so now you don't want us to compare ourselves with sweden? nice u-turn. you're a true tory.

my tax has reduced. why do you insist on making things up?



waah, waah, waah. grow up. 25 million people voted for the 3 main parties in 2010. all on a "cuts" ticket. and no doubt some of those are bleating about how unfair everything is. they had their chance at the polls, but they couldn't be d to think for themselves. gutless sheep.

passivity? 25million people voted for this in 2010. since 1979 a vote for the tories of labour has been a vote for the privatisation of the nhs. are you one of those gutless sheep?

Just as well I've never voted for either then, isn't it boy?
You don't know what bollox are.
I can tell from what you post that you haven't got a pair!

25 million voted for this bunch - are you sure ?

total vote for the 3 main parties on 2010. give a take a few thousand.

i wouldn't have a pair if i just believed the tripe spouted by the usual suspects round here. like a gutless sheep.

Where did you cast your [size=200X[/size sammy boy?

somewhere nice and independent. as voting for one of the big 3 then bleating like a stuck pig about nhs privatisation, spending cuts etc would make me nothing more than a hypocritical oaf.

And in an economy that is dependent on the service sector (including retail), hacking back wages (for all but the already well off) is economic illiteracy.

Mind, reading that the idea of pay keeping pace with inflation is "outdated old style leftie thinking" does make me realise we're in the realms of cheap soundbites and easy tribalism.

My "bleating" concerned a comparison with Scandinavian countries on their total welfare provision, not simply healthcare. Provision of things like pensions, sickness payments, maternity/paternity leave, childcare provision etc. But even Swedish healthcare is nothing like the free for all proposed by this bunch. To date, the total healthcare provided by private companies is around 12% and that is only the healthcare that is funded at municipal, not central level.

If you keep increasing wages you end up with an upward spiral of inflation we saw pre-Thatcher - is that the price you think we should pay for our economic illiteracy? Most serious economists - Minty and Mr Fish excluded - see inflation as a very negative economic position not sure why Minty is suggesting a return to the days of Jack Jones & Joe Gormley?

This government's reeforms will kill the UK economy. The two most dangerous reforms so far are, in my opinion:

(1) the over-pricing of university education, which is already creating a brain-drain, let alone the future macro-economic effect of the ballooning debt it has created.
(2) The privatisation of the NHS. The effect of which will, over - time, be to increase the aggreagate national cost of healthcare and shift the burden to employers, making UK companies less competitive than they are now (and they're generally pretty dire in that respect now).

What we are witnessing is ineptitude on a catastrophic scale in the name of an outdated ideology. As I said previously, anyone under 35 should seriously consider emigrating (boring old Canada is probably your best bet).

Go on then......................................
Give us the name of this outdated ideology, does it have one?

Is it in that off-site book?

First, I wasn't even calling for increased wages, but talking about wages keeping pace with the cost of living. You appear to think that wages should be driven down, leaving people to struggle to pay for the basics – let alone buy the things that keep the economy going.

If you try to read some economics you may learn something. [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-They-About-Capitalism-ebook/dp/B0040QDMBE/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364911059&sr=8-1-fkmr0This, for instance, explains why the drive for ultra-low inflation is dangerous.[/url

Indeed, unemployment was 'the price worth paying' for it – unemployment that directly helped to raise the deficit, as has been explained more than once here and not least by Sally.

I've not suggested a "return" to anything – try to engage your comprehension skills rather than what you want to believe someone is saying.

The deficit is continuing to rise – this is a direct consequence of the lack of confidence in the economy and levels of unemployment.

All that dross about inflation in the 1980s and 1990s saw unemployment rise and, with it, the deficit. These are facts.

We have an economy that needs people to have disposable income to spend on services. I'm sure most of us here agree that the economy needs rebalancing, but that does not happen overnight. The latest figures now show that manufacturing output is down.

So in the short to medium term, we need to get money into the economy – this service economy. Driving down incomes does not do that. In the end, it will simply see more jobs lost and further increase in the deficit.

And since we have had stagnating or falling wages for all but a few for the past 30 years, if it's rising wages that cause inflation, how come the cost of living (inflation) has way outstripped any incomes rises?

It isn't the cost of wages driving up housing costs. It isn't the cost of wages driving up utility costs. It isn't the cost of wages driving up food costs.

Most serious economists also know that its not wages that is currently causing inflation to rise/be high but rather its increased regulated prices such as energy, fuel and tuition fees. This then hinders economic recovery and growth.

I've been telling you that since before the election.

Which is all well and good in the short term and its how I currently work, but it has a finite life particularly in a production environment.

All well and good, but nobody - and I do mean [inobody[/i - voted for the policies that are currently being enacted.