ECCOnoob

What nonsense. Lots of people live next to motorways. Lots of motorways have junctions that require an uphill before joining. Lots of motorway sections only have two lanes. If cars are really so low in power that they cannot get up to speed to join safely they quite frankly shouldn't be on the road. I don't believe for a second that most vehicles cannot get up to speed and if the real reason is some doddery over cautious nervous fleshy part behind the wheel then they shouldn't be on the road either. As for those residents, I'm sure they would prefer a lower speed and slightly quieter life but I'm willing to bet the Parkway has been there a damn sight longer than most of those whiners have lived in their houses. They chose to move in. 30 years ago they had an airport in their back gardens so should have no complaints over the noise from the Parkway. The vast majority of which is nowhere near residential houses and is mostly passing industrial or or commercial buildings. Its purpose-built to be wide, straight and fast. Given the fact that a huge number of twisty-turn country roads have a national speed limit of 60 I am not buying this crap about low speed safety of 50 on a purpose-built dual carriageway road. We are going backwards to try and appease the minority. Reducing perfectly safe speeds and seemingly advocating limiting our advancements in vehicle technology. Its rediculous

Really? Where on earth are you living. I live on a artierial road with a police station at one end and a major hospital at the other and despite that, I would say I hear the sounds of sirens a couple of times a week at most. I really dont beleive it is so "constant".

That 1.75 minutes twice a day over the course of a 5-day working week and average working lifetime, taking off some for holidays, equates to around 700 extra hours per person. Forgive me for being selfish but I'd rather do something else with those 700 hours rather than regressing our technological, vehicular and road building developments just to appease the eco-warriors. As for your statement on improvements to air quality, that is a subject of great debate and contrary evidence. Even right this moment it is still being trialled and experimented on. In any event, given the already announced changes and restrictions on vehicles which will be pushed towards hybrid and electric such concerns have dwindling merit. Are we going to get a guarantee that the road speed will leap back up to it's appropriate limit of 70+ if everyone drives electric? Are we going to get incentivised to buy eco-friendly vehicles if those with them are free to drive at the higher speed? Do we have examples of other places in the world where they have increased speed limits once such vehicles have been adopted ? I very much doubt it - which to my eyes makes this whole emissions angle a load of crock. I wonder if this is in fact just another desprate cash grab by the local authorities trying to increase their ego and budgets by snatching some "green" grant dangled in front of them. They whored SY out for the M1 testing, we had the Shalesmoor bike lane debacle and here we go again..... Knickers are back in the handbag

I would fully agree with this. I suggest it unwise to be obtaining unqualified comments from the forum on legal matter. You have instructed a solicitor and if you are unsure about anything then go back to ask them to clarify. That is part of their duties and the regulators make sure that client instructions are obtained appropriately before any action. People on here (including myself as a civil lawyer) may be able to give you a general thoughts however unless they know the exact circumstances of your case, your retained agreement terms, your instructions and value its not going to help you. You appear to have have some distrust in your legal representative so perhaps you may need to think about whether you wish to escalate your query to a higher authority in the Firm

Yeah right. God forbid they tell us something we are not prepared to hear. The media would have a field day. It was proved only as recently yesterday when when Big Mouth Morgan and his nodding dog Reed exploded just because the minister dared to say that there were other contributing factors to deaths.

I didnt mention the word blameless. All I'm saying is there are some very simplistic views being thrown around at the moment. Lots of know it all's who seem to think that these figures are cut and dried proof that all these deaths are on the government or in some cases even all the personal fault of Boris himself. They are not. The harsh reality is that some of those 100,000 would have died anyway irrelevant of the existence of coronavirus. Could they have done better? Should they have done better? Yes of course. With benefit of hindsight there are lots of things they should have done earlier quicker faster. Do I think Boris is likely to get the chop..... yes but who replaces him? Who is guaranteed to do any better facing the same circumstances and the same time frame? What actual difference would it make when we are still dealing with a previous unknown and ever-changing global pandemic and still having to deal with the extremely difficult balance between medical experts, academic theory, probability of risk, practical realities, economic need, social needs and basic human lifestyle whom all simultaniously demand their priorities are the highest? For all the bloodthirsty media, finger pointing opinionators and rhetoric it cannot be argued whatsoever that the general public or even the WHO have been entirely blameless in their actions either. This is not going away anytime soon, maybe even never. We need to stop with this barrage of oversimplification, soundbites, gotchas, point scoring, selective editing and headline grabbing to start focusing on the practical realities, facts and proper collaborative efforts to resolve it. An unprecedented crisis such as this should be well beyond "them and us" politics, tribal loyalties and pot stirring attention-seeking Media personalities.

Depends how the rest of the world are recording their death statistics, what variables are being applied, what time frames, what caveats need to be considered..... I don't take big scary numbers at face value without full context and full disclosure. The death numbers are of course shocking and it is a tragedy for anyone to have to suffer as a result of this disease. But 100,000 people passing away for potentially a multitude of reasons but who also coincidentally had a positive test to coronavirus up to 28 days prior is very different to simply spouting the phrase "...100,000 people have died of the virus..." The media, twitterati the Talking Heads blowing their hot air and doing the finger pointing need to be very aware of that simple caveat. If they want to be doing the the comparison leagues and looking for the blame game then they need to be sure that the statistics are coming from a level playing field.

It's very relevant. Cars are manufactured to go anywhere a driver chooses to go. If I want to drive over to Germany and drive on German motorways why should my car be forced to have restriction to 75mph but the legally permitted speed limits unrestricted in certain areas. There are multiple other countries where the standard motorway limits, although restricted, are well over the the UK one. There are even variations dependent on time of day or weather conditions. I'm allowed to drive my car onto a racetrack with the rest of the 'civies' during allocated events and drive at track speed so why should my car be limited to 75 by some government mandated policy. The point is you cannot simply apply blanket rules and blanket restrictions without thinking of the wider consequences. A knife for example is designed to be as sharp and it can be to enable cutting something as efficiently as possible. A knife just also happens to sometimes maim and kill people. Should we presumably have a blunting of all knives to try to reduce how much harm they 'might' do. No point blaming bad tools. No point restricting development and advancement of our vehicles when those at fault for speeding and causing accidents are the fleshy parts behind the wheel not the vehicle itself. Yes, we could limit vehicles to 75 but that's going to do sod all to prevent somebody getting knocked over when a bad driver is screaming through a 20 mile an hour zone at 35+ No "speed" does not kill. Bad driving kills. Inappropriate "uses" of speed for the road conditions kill. Poor judgement kills. Poor maintencece kills.

Is that the same MasterCard who are potentially facing a £14 billion class action lawsuit for overcharging consumers? Quite a bold move.

Yeah they do. The more a famous and powerful person comes off the rails the more the public fascination increases. From Z list celebrities up to the most powerful royal and political families in the world, everybody loves to see somebody else falling apart. If said protagonist such as Ms Price turns around their disasters and recovers it is even better for the media bank balances because then they can sell it as an inspirational and heartwarming story of triumph.

I could not disagree more. This is a typical stock response of ".....pfft I could do better.....what do they know about talent...." Well, given she has had a very lucrative career for nearly 25 years including reaching the Times Best Seller book list, securing several six-figure publishing contracts for writing novels and a list of brand licencing deals longer than your arm...I would suggest she knows quite a lot about what her talent is worth. Like it or not, she has been a very savvy business woman. She may well just be dismissed as some ditsy page 3 model but she was clever enough to know that her career of getting her boobies out was going to be very short lived. She could have been cast away at the sight of the first wrinkle and faded into obscurity - as did so many of the other models. I bet you can't name many other famous ex Page 3 girls. I can probably only think of one or two others who had any real career afterwards. Price instead made the smart move to maximise her exposure, personality, public profile to build up a following of interest. She was clever in the way she sold her own lifestyle as a makeshift soap opera which built up her following even more to the point where now she has millions of fans who are actually interested and the producers, glossy magazines and TV companies are only too happy to pay her good money for good returns in viewership. Her books are of course dumbed down supermarket paperback fodder but she is savvy enough to know her market, know how to suit her writing and make good profits for her publishers. That is a talent. There are thousands of wannabe real life blogger, models, singers, personalities, entertainers who all think they have "it" but then ask yourself why only certain ones make a long and successful career. What exactly do they have that the thousands of others don't. Katie Price is a prime example of someone who does have that talent, star power and public draw.

Unknown random mother on benefits doesn't attract viewers. Katie Price does. As others have been saying, she's not attention-seeking. That is her work, her income, her livelihood. Her talent and her sellable asset is being Katie Price.

They should just nip over the border and get some Tayto ones. They are generally better than most of the Walkers brands anyway.

Its those big businesses and the market that keep the money flowing round. Its those big businesses that create the jobs. It is people going out and spending money that keep companies operating and staff employed so they have money in their pockets to keep going out and spending. Round and round it goes stimulating the economy. Keeping it flowing. Stopping it from grinding to a halt and then really causing problems. Problems which have been all too obvious to everyone over the past 12-months. If everyone was like Derek and Deirdre in their paid for house, hoarding away their pennies and only popping out once a month for smart price groceries it wouldn't do much to stimulate growth would it. Of course it is very important for all of us to think about out the future, put something away for a rainy day and be encouraged to do some saving for our pensions and old-age but there has to be some balance and part of that is controlling the interest rates. As for the recent trend in upward prices have you thought that perhaps the global pandemic or even before that at the brexit disruption might have anything to do with it? Have you noticed what can happen to consumer prices when supplies become restricted or our ability to have have freedom of choice from a globalised marketplace is heavily penalised, disrupted slowed down or controlled? ....and of course you just happily accepted it without complaint because, hey, it was good for our savings accounts right?

Just to put a bit of real-world context to this debate. Taking an average full-time 25 + adult working current minimum wage the gross annual salary equates to just over £17,000 or roughly about £1,267 pounds per month after tax. Even for those workers under 25 the most recent minimum rate equate to a take-home pay of between £1,020 and and £1,200 a month Lower-income it may be... but poverty wage?

That is meaningless. Everyone seems to be an expert on this subject. There is all the chanting and protest and articles and studies and statistics and self righteous opinions who all demand "...it's not enough...." "...Its poverty...." "...It's a disgrace..." "...its slave wage..." This is despite the fact that NMW hourly rate for the majority of working adults has increased over the past decade by over 40%. The most recent increase this year alone was over 6% So. How much then? What levels do those demanding actually and realistically expect? At what point do such demands cross the line into risks of pricing themselves out of the market?

It could be argued that they are not in a position to "answer questions" until they actually know what has happened themselves. It's not as if Parliament is not aware of the incident. There have already been several statements about the nature and extent of the the data believed to have been incorrectly deleted and all these rumours and opinions about how "severe" and "grave" this position is are completely uncorroborated until such time as someone who actually was there doing the deletion work verifies otherwise. Whilst I'm not oblivious to the fact that she is Home Secretary and "the face" of the sector - let's not completely forget that the ones actually in charge and actually responsible for this screw up will include layers and layers of highly paid civil servants, chief executives, heads of department, managers and under managers and teams of administrators. They have a role to play and they need to be giving answers just as much as the Minister. The way some of these twitterati and so-called journalists have been talking today it's as if Patel herself popped in and whimsically did a bit of decluttering on the PNC.

Probably about the same as being thrown at Priti Patel. There's hardly been a lack of social media interest about it. We are talking about the subject on this very thread. A quick look at Facebook and Twitter shows plenty of people playing armchair detective, second guessing what has happened, throwing in their ill-informed opinions about how it has happened and what they would do to fix it... plenty of wind bags on TV spouting their unwarranted opinions....plenty of so-called journalists making grandeous statements and demanding the ministers head on a plate.... Let's not turn this into some preferential treatment nonsense debate. I'm sure plenty would have seen Shouty and Pouty on ITV this morning doing their usual performance of berating, harrassing, talking over and general ranting during what they laughing deem a political interview. If you haven't, don't worry, the ego filled anchors and the viewer hungry network will be milking it, promoting it and retweeting it for all it's worth. The sad fact is, in all of this hysteria whenever anything like this happens, the people who actually do know what the problem is, do you know who was responsible and do know how to rectify it are never asked. We never actually become proplerly informed of these situations it just descends into one big pot of rumours, second guessing, one upmanship, tit-for-tat finger pointing and unreasonable demands until eventually some scapegoat gets thrown on the block.

Yes we have heard it all before. It's a lovely ideological philosophy but once again we have that thorny issue of practical reality. Who exactly is deciding what is fair? What is being defined as a so-called decent welfare? We already are one of the top 5 biggest nations for government health expenditure last headline stats showing NHS budget of around £114 billion and a forecast figure on welfare expenditure amounting to over £200 billion. That's just two government sectors let alone all the billions spent on all the other parts making up our public services. Yet somehow, year on year people scream it's never enough. What would it be? We then have the usual demands about so called "fair tax" as if it's all so simple - but how do you enforce companies to pay more tax when they are already paying what the law determines they have to pay? Make the laws stricter of course, but then theres the fallout when such companies decide somewhere else is cheaper to operate and just ups sticks and goes? What then happens to investment, jobs, trade? What about the then inevitable friction created by heavy handed government controls and interference against the principles of a globalised economy, market freedoms, consumer choice? How is even possible to create some ideological level playing field when there is such a clear discrepancy between the so called "poverty" pleaded by people who have a minimum wage protection and/or state funded accommodation, state mandated benefits, free healthcare, free education.....when those exact same amount of monies would be seen as a small fortune to a different person in a different country without the additional luxury of top up government support? What do you think the consequences would be if someone took a broad brush approach to increase across the board? How would you deal with the inevitable hyperinflation which may come following it? What levels of controls would you feel appropriate to make sure one country does not attempt to gain a competitive edge or undercut others? It really isn't that simple.

So just a load more generic nonsense then. No comments on why exactly free trade and free commerce is such a bad thing. No comment on why there should controls on pricing. No comment on why we should be restricted in our business practices and limited as to where and how we trade. No comment so why exactly freedom of choice to consumers is so bad. No comment on why exactly globalisation and ability to purchase goods and services from a range of locations is detrimental rather than a benefit. No comment as to why privatisation and competition of previously government owned monopoly isnt actually a good thing. No comment on why you feel it is preferred to have heavy-handed government control, dependency and interference in our econonomic and personal lives. Still no actual comment as to what the credible and proven alternative is. You disparaging mention my supposed prejudice but you were the one who made a point of starting this debate thread yet all you seem to have done is use it to make extremely blunt over simplistic points whilst ignoring any actual questions and challenges. I think I'm pretty much done with this. I'm not convinced there was any intention to debate the substance of neoliberalism and it's just one of many long winded disguised threads pushing the same tired old arguments about how wonderful the failed left of Labour are.

Free this, free that, free the other.... It's not hard to see the origins of people generations on filled with entitlement syndrome.... The expanding numbers of people whom, without any genuine necessity, are perfectly happy to let others pay their lifestyle so they don't have to bother with all that tiresome work other mugs do..... The pockets of irresponsible parents who think it's perfectly acceptable to copulate, break up the relationship, disappear off the face of the Earth because hey never mind, the state looks after the kids for them..... We are no longer in wartime. The pot smoking free love of the 60s is over. Population has exploded, the world has shrunk, business is globalised and those public services set up to support the nation and restore lives during times of genuine crisis have become totally wasteful, inefficient, overblown, taken for granted and abused by too many with no sense of responsibility for their actions. They are all unfit for purpose and been bloated well beyond anything that could be deemed essential provision as anticipated in their origins. In my opinion the labour government post-war had absolutely no right to make such "promises". Support when one is on their uppers or for genuine medical/disability need is one thing but to declare all and everyone will be looked after from cradle to grave is another. The world changes all the time. Things evolve. Anyway, 5 pages in and I'm still without answer of specific reasons why neoliberalism is allegedly so bad. I've asked questions as to what exactly is wrong with its principles and what exactly is the workable and proven alternative which is so much better. However, all I seem to be reading is multiple long winded commentary boiled down to.....we should all have voted Labour, Labour are the answer to fixing everything, Corbyn could have been our saviour and all who disagree are wrong.

They may have contributed to making him rich but he was the one who set up the company, built it up from nothing, took the risks on expansion which in turn provided the job opportunities for them to be employed and a regular wage. He owns the company they don't. You not actually answering why should he give any of his money away?

All of that is highly debatable. I have already asked who is deciding what is "meagre wages". Compared to some parts of the world people in this country are paid vast fortunes of money with additional support for housing, education, healthcare and top-up benefits which other countries could only ever dream of. Despite this, we still have have thousands of people allegedly pleading poverty. I think it's more than arguable to ask what exactly they think poverty is and the realistic reasons of how is occurred. That cannot be resolved by some throw away nonsense as Thatcher's fault or neoliberalism. Are they in genuine dire need or have we have created a circumstance of people dependent on a benefits lifestyle because they know it's there and can be completely taken for granted. You argue that young people are being crippled by student debt and no one is paying to train them. I would argue that a young person choosing to expand the opportunities and earn a higher levels of wage should pay for their higher education. Our friends around the world come to this country and pay vast amounts of money to further their education and because it's paid for by them, they are incentivised to study hard and do something with it at the end. A free-for-all on University leads to degrees being devalued and some students more concerned on the social and party side over actually qualifying in something which will be of use to them. That previous lack of financial burden I feel lead to far too many graduates who suddenly find there are not enough jobs to go around or pointless degrees which had little relevance in the real world. (at least now there is a perfectly reasonable graduate tax which has more than favourable payment terms, limitations on what can be taken, deductions only over a certain financial threshold plus write off time cap - which at the very least give some duty of responsibility and liability before treating university as some default rite of passage) Joining the world of work from at entry level and being trained on the job to build up became unpopular, as did apprentice schemes which would have allowed a young person, who knew nothing about anything, to learn and develop into working a full wage. Now both of such things are looked down upon with a large number of the current generation deludedly believing it is some default expectation they will go straight into higher education and walk out at 22 into a graduate level job and higher rate tax bracket salary. The reality is nobody is owed a lifestyle. We make our own destiny. I certainly have concerns about any political and personal movement which is is overly dependent on provisions given by a dominating, overblown, overfunded public sector and government. They are still lots of questions arising which fail to be addressed including specific reasons why neoliberalism is so bad and what exactly is the successful and proven alternative to it? So far this discussion seems to be generic uncorroborated commentary and once again further irrelevant defending of Jeremy Corbyn's failures. I ask again. Why exactly should we be pushing to some 'alternative' approach which to my eyes would restrict things, shrink globalisation, curtail our choices, interfere with free enterprise and give more power and dominance to an already over bloated public sector and increase even more people to become overly dependency on it.

He wouldn't have got to that position if he spent his life overspending on his business outgoings, or paying staff above what their skill set and market dictated or paying suppliers over and above for stock. How exactly do you think that would have helped the company's profits. Nobody becomes a richest bloke in the world overnight do they? Its business. Those employees were made an offer of remuneration for their services and they accepted it. In this wonderful world of neoliberalism those same employees are free to go away and find something else if they are unhappy with the rate they get. They are free to go and access education to train for other positions which may attract higher earning potential. They are free to seek out and apply for permission to work in a different country if they so choose.

Define "decent" in your opinion. This is a simplistic argument that gets bandied about all the time but it's not so easy. To workers in developing and third world countries the so-called "low" and "poverty" wages paid in westernised countries could feed their families for weeks. I'm sure it would be very easy to massively up everyone's wage to what people believe is fair, however everybody else above them would also expect the same. After all, in no reality are you going to have supervisors and managers happy to sit there earning only a few pennies more than their subordinates nor are you going to have any business choosing to put a dent in their profit line as making profit is the sole purpose of setting up a business in the first place. So then comes the question, after you have upped everyone's wage, as what happens with inflation? When everyone's wage ups so does the company outgoings and so does the cost of the the goods. Those extra pounds in ones pocket suddenly is not as valuable as they once were and round and round it goes. Ultimately, workers get paid what their skills are valued at AND what their local economies and markets dictate. The rarer and more specialised the skill or talent the more one can attract. The more the developed the nation and higher the cost of living, the higher the wages. For all it may well be deemed essential work, particularly in recent covid times, anyone can be taught how to pack an order into a box or drive around delivering goods or go around stacking shelves or cleaning up floors. Those sort of jobs are open and accessible to all, with little or no formal education and when people leave their positions are easily replaceable. That has an obvious limit on the sort of salaries they attract and if one particular country pushes too hard, a global business can up sticks and leave somewhere else. Now I'm sure lots of people are about to jump in and bang on that this is just the type of example of this neoliberalism having a negative effect on our lives. But on the flip side it is us consumers who are benefiting by having much cheaper and a wider range of goods from anywhere in the world. We consumers are the one who have the choice. How we shop, where we shop, how products are made, where products are made and what price we are prepared to buy. We are obviously choosing Amazon and Co and you don't need to be much of an accountant to see that for a fact. Successful businessman don't make billions by accident. They make billions by running a popular and profitable business. A large part of that profit-making is the simple concept of making sure that you sell for the highest price possible with the lowest amount of outgoings and expenditure. Do these anti globalisation types want the government to interfere and stop our freedom of choice? Do they want us to be subject to controls and regulation over prices or even where we can shop? Do they want us to be restricted with where and how we operate our businesses or where we can choose to work? I'm not really sure what this discussion is supposed to be. All I can get so far from the postings is that neoliberalism is all bad. I'd like to see what specifically is so bad about it? On paper what exactly is wrong with free market trade and a globalised economy. Why shouldn't we have free choice in controlling who and how we trade? What exactly is wrong with freedom on the way that we operate the Capital markets and the jurisdictions that can now be accessed? What exactly is wrong with former nationalised militant union controlled dinosaur utility companies being forced to open up to private enterprise. They were all guilty of offering limited, often poor service and monopolised pricing structure with no alternatives. Why shouldn't consumers have flexibility and freedom of choice? Why exactly should we be subjected to and latched to the teet of state interference and welfare? Protections for those in disability, illness or desperate need with BASIC support is one thing, but there is no doubt in my mind we have bread a certain collection of people who, for no necessary reasons, remain comfortably welfare dependent at the expense of of others. Increase in state control and state dependency further is to my eyes only going to encourage more. If neoliberalism is the horror story it is constantly portrayed to be- what exactly is the alternative and where are the successful examples of it in operation right now?