THOUGHTS ABOUT UKIP

[mick miller]

Bloody immigrants, never done a day's work in their lives, coming here and nicking all our jobs... (although my dad's German and my mother's half Polish, half French). But I was born and raised here so that entitles me to join in with the knee-jerk jingoism.

 

For what it's worth I'm voting UKIP too. More because I'm tired of the same old families governing us in the same old ways and spinning the same old lies. But, I don't for one second think that the ranks of UKIP won't be infiltrated by the same political elite who will steer the party toward their own ends and damn the rest of us (by the way, they tend to be old school, well-heeled Brits in case you hadn't noticed).

[Doc Holliday]

UKIP aren't perfect but then neither are any of the other parties. The one thing that does set them apart from the rest is that they have this country's interest at heart. We are, sorry that should be have been, a sovereign nation and should always remain so or rather be so once more.

 

I don't agree with all of their policies but then which of you whom vote for the LibLabCon agree 100% with your parties policies? UKIP's straight talking, no nonsense approach hit the spot where the average UK working man is concerned and anyone who says 'we're better off in the EU' need to validate this point. Personally, I don't see it.

 

The vast majority aren't racist but there is an undeniable element of extreme right wing groups that see UKIP as a good vehicle for them to make their stance. Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if some of these right wing extremists weren't planted by one of the main three, well the main two plus the libdems.

[grrclark]

The minimum wage has dragged down wages rather than increasing some wages. Agree with the rest of your post.

 

The minimum wage has dragged down other wages, or perhaps reduced the differential, because our businesses are uncompetitive and if you are forced to pay a certain level at the bottom then that has to be made up elsewhere.

 

My last company had factories throughout Europe, but the one in Romania was a fifth of the cost of the one in Scotland. The bid price for work in Scotland had to be around £22/hour to incorporate all overheads and profit margin, Romania could bid €6/hour.

 

So long as the market could sustain an increase in the turnaround time to have products serviced then Romania was a no brainer for our customers, the only thing that fell in favour of the UK was proximity to market, i.e. fast turnarounds, or transport costs if the goods were bulky.

 

That is why we have British sourced fresh produce being sent overseas for production into ready meals, etc. It is far cheaper and we somehow think that increasing the minimum wage, that accounts for the majority of our production line type employees, will fix the problem???

[islandgun]

And aint it funny that the desire to be actually recognised as belonging to your OWN country is branded as narrow minded nationalism,if wanting a fit and proper country not propped up by artificially low wages via a deliberate influx of non needed non skilled labour or where I can go to a doctors without needing an interpreter or to get on a bus and not feel that I am the stranger, or to go into a local tesco in the early hours and not feel as if I have overslept and woken in down town warsaw is narrow minded nationalism, then yep guilty as charged, its good for the sweaties its good for the welsh but not acceptable for me it seems.

 

KW

I dont believe your narrow minded, and i dont believe that the majority of scots and welsh and english are either !

[grrclark]

Take the last two posts from Mick and Doc as an example of what i said in my initial post, guys who are fed up the current establishment so vote for UKIP, i.e. a voice for protest so therefore must be better than what we have now.

 

Nowhere in any UKIP publicity or policy materials have I seen a really persuasive or compelling argument of how they can solve the underlying challenges in our state which is an excessive level of public spending, an imbalance of welfare to earning and fundamental barriers to increasing mass employment at an unskilled level in the UK, but no matter when they are Union flag waving and shouting loudest in the same language as the common man, that is all that counts.

 

Incidentally stopping immigrants from taking the lowest level jobs does not automatically mean they will be successfully filled by UK nationals, evidence would demonstrate completely to the contrary.

[corkycorksta]

I don't think narrow minded nationalism is good for anyone particularly

The reason that our wages are artificially high is due to artificially high housing costs in this country, most significantly over the last 25 years. Heavily fuelled under the last Labour government as they encouraged personal spending and private borrowing against property to artificially inflate the economy. As the wage bill rose then the cost of our supply chain had to rise to to cover those costs, hence goods and services also went up in price.

Unfortunately alongside the artificial increase in spend on wages and house price increases we had to also artificially increase the size of the welfare state which bred a sense of entitlement in much of our populace who don't want to get out of bed to earn the minimum wage and take on board all the responsibilities of being an employee.

 

 

This is the most accurate assessment of the root cause so far. House prices and rents need to crash by half to come back to a sensible historic average. Unfortunately our economy has become so dependant on the false growth provided by property that no-one wants to take the pain of a natural reset. As you have seen the government also daren't let this happen and will try to keep the market inflated at all costs. The other Elephant in the room is of course not just our levels of private debt but the insanely huge debts owed by our government, which in effect is also money each and everyone of us owes. I believe in imigration - it's very beneficial BUT only if it's controlled in the right way, inviting those with skills or money to invest. One thought though is how do we decide which skills we need ? I would argue we should be not be short of any. Blaming the current economical issues just on imigration is nothing short of missing the truth.

[welsh1]

 

 

Nowhere in any UKIP publicity or policy materials have I seen a really persuasive or compelling argument of how they can solve the underlying challenges in our state which is an excessive level of public spending, an imbalance of welfare to earning and fundamental barriers to increasing mass employment at an unskilled level in the UK,

 

 

And the other three parties have persuasive or compelling arguments as to how they can solve things?

[maxie]

The minimum wage has dragged down other wages, or perhaps reduced the differential, because our businesses are uncompetitive and if you are forced to pay a certain level at the bottom then that has to be made up elsewhere.

 

My last company had factories throughout Europe, but the one in Romania was a fifth of the cost of the one in Scotland. The bid price for work in Scotland had to be around £22/hour to incorporate all overheads and profit margin, Romania could bid €6/hour.

 

So long as the market could sustain an increase in the turnaround time to have products serviced then Romania was a no brainer for our customers, the only thing that fell in favour of the UK was proximity to market, i.e. fast turnarounds, or transport costs if the goods were bulky.

 

That is why we have British sourced fresh produce being sent overseas for production into ready meals, etc. It is far cheaper and we somehow think that increasing the minimum wage, that accounts for the majority of our production line type employees, will fix the problem???

Are you suggesting that your production line workers should work for Romanian rates so that we can compete?

[Gordon R]

welsh1 - made me laugh.
:lol:

 

I wouldn't trust the rest as far as I could throw them. Big on promises - never deliver.

I don't believe UKIP will win an overall majority, but they are forcing other parties to address the issues that concern many.

[keg]

We will struggle to compete with many old labour intensive industries as there are many people that can mine coal, make steel etc far cheaper than we can. Many governments of all flavours have failed to address this issue.

 

All our products are made in china, it's high value/small volume ( in size) products so we can air freight most of them.

 

I used to work for Sony, we had a TV factory at Pencoed, now gone as production costs are so much cheaper.

since we stopped hanging them on the beaches they have made inroads.

 

KW

Stop Monkeying around

[grrclark]

And the other three parties have persuasive or compelling arguments as to how they can solve things?

 

There is a distinct lack of arguments from any parties that go far enough, of them all I believe that the tories are closest and the austerity program that was so widely criticised is part of a wider answer, as difficult as that may be. Regardless, the lack of sound argument from anybody else doesn't automatically make UKIP the right answer either.

 

It is easy to loudly shout about populist issues and have folk rally to you, but a massive difference in actually being able to address those. As I said, they are a largely a single issue party and for that single issue is not even close to being the answer.

 

 

Are you suggesting that your production line workers should work for Romanian rates so that we can compete?

 

No, we took very different steps to ensure continued employment in the UK for our staff. The point I am making is that the dice are already stacked against us, we cannot continue to make it harder for ourselves. The UK cannot and will not compete on a large scale when it comes to production line activity on easily transportable product.

 

The UK needs to focus on advanced technologies and innovation or specialist industries. We have some really excellent business in high tech, defence and science and our pharmaceuticals industry is brilliant. We need much better alignment of our education policies to develop a culture of entrepreneurism amongst our future generations, a polar opposite to that of societal entitlement that we have now.

 

Interestingly in Poland the income expectation of their native workforce, at least in the more densely populated areas, have increased such that they are taking labour from the Ukraine in order to maintain wage levels where they were. There is a backwash from migrant workers who have worked in the Western Europe that is now causing problems back at home.

Edited November 11, 2014 by grrclark

[kdubya]

Are you suggesting that your production line workers should work for Romanian rates so that we can compete?

wont be long

 

KW

[keg]

Joys of the free market....

[maxie]

There is a distinct lack of arguments from any parties that go far enough, of them all I believe that the tories are closest and the austerity program that was so widely criticised is part of a wider answer, as difficult as that may be. Regardless, the lack of sound argument from anybody else doesn't automatically make UKIP the right answer either.

 

It is easy to loudly shout about populist issues and have folk rally to you, but a massive difference in actually being able to address those. As I said, they are a largely a single issue party and for that single issue is not even close to being the answer.

 

 

 

No, we took very different steps to ensure continued employment in the UK for our staff. The point I am making is that the dice are already stacked against us, we cannot continue to make it harder for ourselves. The UK cannot and will not compete on a large scale when it comes to production line activity on easily transportable product.

 

The UK needs to focus on advanced technologies and innovation or specialist industries. We have some really excellent business in high tech, defence and science and our pharmaceuticals industry is brilliant. We need much better alignment of our education policies to develop a culture of entrepreneurism amongst our future generations, a polar opposite to that of societal entitlement that we have now.

 

Interestingly in Poland the income expectation of their native workforce, at least in the more densely populated areas, have increased such that they are taking labour from the Ukraine in order to maintain wage levels where they were. There is a backwash from migrant workers who have worked in the Western Europe that is now causing problems back at home.

I would agree with that.

[grrclark]

We will struggle to compete with many old labour intensive industries as there are many people that can mine coal, make steel etc far cheaper than we can. Many governments of all flavours have failed to address this issue.

 

All our products are made in china, it's high value/small volume ( in size) products so we can air freight most of them.

 

I used to work for Sony, we had a TV factory at Pencoed, now gone as production costs are so much cheaper.

Stop Monkeying around

 

Absolutely, so much of the investment in Ireland 15 years ago in high tech manufacture has all flowed towards Eastern Europe as well, still close enough to satisfy the European market by land freight within a couple of days, but at half the cost.

 

Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Romania are all benefiting from technology investment in electronic consumer goods. Turkey has a massive investment in manufacturing of both brown and white goods serving Europe and of course the far east dominates all low cost manufacturing.

 

Something like 60% of the TV's bought in the UK are made in Turkey and a similar number is true for white goods.

[maxie]

Oh great we`re going to have Hatsan tele`s soon.

[welsh1]

 

There is a distinct lack of arguments from any parties that go far enough, of them all I believe that the tories are closest and the austerity program that was so widely criticised is part of a wider answer, as difficult as that may be. Regardless, the lack of sound argument from anybody else doesn't automatically make UKIP the right answer either.

 

It is easy to loudly shout about populist issues and have folk rally to you, but a massive difference in actually being able to address those.

 

 

 

 

And again,do the three main parties not do exactly that?They all release statements about what they will do and at times when they think the public want to hear them.The nature of the three main parties now is to say what they want the public to hear,and never deliver those promises,time and time again a trail of broken promises.I for one chose to let someone else to break their promises to me,and by voting for UKIP i have nothing to lose,if UKIP get power then the monopoly will have been broken,if they don't keep their promises then that will be nothing new so i won't be disappointed.I am in a win win situation.

[corkycorksta]

And again,do the three main parties not do exactly that?They all release statements about what they will do and at times when they think the public want to hear them.The nature of the three main parties now is to say what they want the public to hear,and never deliver those promises,time and time again a trail of broken promises.I for one chose to let someone else to break their promises to me,and by voting for UKIP i have nothing to lose,if UKIP get power then the monopoly will have been broken,if they don't keep their promises then that will be nothing new so i won't be disappointed.I am in a win win situation.

+1

[mick miller]

I love it when the privileged few manage to persuade the poor majority to look toward the poorest in society and point the finger at them for their low wage and lack of opportunities. Rather than noticing that that same minority have seemingly done quite well out of the economic downturn and seen their own wealth increase several times over.

 

That's got to be the best magic trick ever, forget anything dynamo has to offer.

[grrclark]

Oh great we`re going to have Hatsan tele`s soon.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if there is already a link between those that manufacture Hatstands and TV's. Turkey is a fairly incestuous place for business. I shall investigate.

 

 

And again,do the three main parties not do exactly that?They all release statements about what they will do and at times when they think the public want to hear them.The nature of the three main parties now is to say what they want the public to hear,and never deliver those promises,time and time again a trail of broken promises.I for one chose to let someone else to break their promises to me,and by voting for UKIP i have nothing to lose,if UKIP get power then the monopoly will have been broken,if they don't keep their promises then that will be nothing new so i won't be disappointed.I am in a win win situation.

 

I don't think that the state of the UK and its government is as bad as we like to make out, we still live in a relatively wealthy country with access to brilliant amenities, education and opportunities. There are some significant exceptions, but in the main the UK is a very attractive place to be.

 

There is always going to be a significant differential between those at the very top of the tree and the rest of us and that is where a great deal of our sense of dissatisfaction largely stems from. It is all relative, no matter what we have we will always want more.

 

I don't think that Britain is particularly broken, but we do have some significant challenges to address.

 

For what it is worth I welcome dissenting voices that challenge the status quo, i think that our political environment needs to have some sort of representation all across the spectrum. If it brings a greater level of political engagement from the masses then that is a good thing, a greater level of public scrutiny will improve things naturally.

 

What I don't believe is that because UKIP have become something of a focal point for the protest vote that it somehow makes them a better or more viable option, they are very likely a seed around which change will germinate, as was the Scottish referendum.

 

I would rather not look at things as who is the best of a bad bunch as it can't get any worse, but actually look for someone promoting policies that I believe offers an opportunity to make a difference. I think that all the parties could do better, but the Conservatives offer the best economic route forward and ultimately the nation has to work from a sound economic platform. There is the risk that social elements are lost in that pursuit of course, so a good opposition is necessary to keep things in check.

[FalconFN]

Grrclark, I'm in total agreement with that. Excellent post.

[kdubya]

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think that the state of the UK and its government is as bad as we like to make out, we still live in a relatively wealthy country with access to brilliant amenities, education and opportunities. There are some significant exceptions, but in the main the UK is a very attractive place to be.

 

Not sure where at but not here, we have just closed down then biggest school in the town, and not replaced it, we have shut the towns general hospital to all but orthopedic treatment, no maternity, no A&E andthe town ambulance station has closed, we now we see patients waiting MANY MANY hours to be taken to a hospital by ambulance and now the cons have just refused to fund the final 100million (200 already raised privately) cost of a new promised hospital (yet we can cough up 1.7 billion to our European neighbors) the flagship college of Hartlepool is laying off tutors as the govt has cut back its funding,employment for our youth is just about non existent, yet the local Tesco is literally like a polish enclave overnight, even the wife who has no axe to grind at all re immigration has noticed how many "foreign voices" are heard in the town center .

 

Oh and silly me I forgot we are wealthy area with wonderful amenities (christ the local buses stop at 6pm forcing a curfew on pensioners without private transport) and of course it slipped my mind that we have well educated youngsters walking out of the school door into employment with a bright future, dream on dream on.

 

KW

Edited November 11, 2014 by kdubya

[Blunderbuss]

Serious question for KW. How do square your admiration for Nige with your hatred of Maggie?

 

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/a-young-margaret-thatcher-would-join-ukip-says-nigel-farage-8585063.html

[Gordon R]

kdubya - no matter what you say, some will refuse to accept.

If UKIP are no-hopers, why do so many keep knocking them? :innocent:

Fear sums it up. :lol:

[kdubya]

Serious question for KW. How do square your admiration for Nige with your hatred of Maggie?

 

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/a-young-margaret-thatcher-would-join-ukip-says-nigel-farage-8585063.html

 

 

Simple nige stands up for the working man maggie stood on them.

and of course the article showed her feelings re Europe , not her hatred of the working classes.

KW

Edited November 11, 2014 by kdubya