Milk protests ...

[wildrover77]

I am an ex dairy farmer.

 

All UK farmers are like drug addicts, they are addicted to public money.

 

They have been on the subsidy drug since the end of the 2nd world war.

 

It is not there fault that they now think the country owes them a living.

 

Plenty of dairy farmers are doing fine.

 

Scale has nothing to do with it, it is efficiency. However the good ones are generally big, they have grown big by being efficient, making profit and expanding.

[CharlieT]

I'm afraid that the UK will never be competitive with foreign producers.

 

We are bogged down with red tape and our animal welfare is second to none, something that most foreign producers care little about and use to their advantage to keep prices down. 500-1000 cow units are opposed by all and sundry as cruel here in the UK yet China is building a 100,000 cow unit and already has a 40,000 head unit in operation. How the heck can UK producers compete with that.

 

I bet the Chinese and others don't put badgers above bTB and milk production. I'm afraid to say much of the world cares little how animals are kept or reared. All that counts is cheap food and whether that means battery hens, calf crates, farrowing stalls or or any other method banned in the UK so be it, as such methods keep production costs down. I suspect the Little Red Tractor means something a little different in China.

 

We in the UK, produce some of the finest food in the world, but until the public value quality above cheap inferior produce and the supermarkets stop screwing British producers, prices will remain depressed.

 

And as for some saying that we are greedy and subsidy driven, absolute rubbish. Do away with subsidies I say and let's get paid a market price for our product. Farm subsidies, which are no more than environmental incentives, have no bearing on efficient farming and production, they should be phased out PDQ. Seems daft to me that people refer to them as farm subsidies, yet many of the biggest recipients are non farming organizations such as the RSPB and NT, but of course doing so would not be acceptable to the rest of europe.

[grrclark]

 

At least you know you're going to be safe.

The most cutting put down I have read on here in a long time, well played.

[tonker]

One of my best mates started farming with two calves 40 years ago. he now milks 150 he works from 5 in the morning to 8 at night most days.

He gradually bred the type of cattle he wanted until he managed a red Friesian (whatever that is ) only to have it go down as a reactor!

He has now lost over 200 cattle to btb, I've never seen a bloke so distraught , and I truly worried about him for a while. A top notch dairy cow will cost you £1500/2000 or it did a while back and you get diddly squat in compensation when they are reactors.

I don't know where I'm going with this so I'll shut up. Just wanted to point out it wasn't all a bed of roses.

[grrclark]

How pray have/do we "all" benefit from wholesale privatisation of the UK? and market economics? Please explain how selling off all the countries assets and utilities to private, mostly foreign interests, encouraging PFI's to buy into our NHS, selling off the countries social housing stock, making a favourable climate for the illegal and unfair business practices of the banks or the fixing of the stock market has been of "benefit to us all".....because I am struggling to see it.

That is typical rhetoric laced post and of such little substance.

 

The UK was in rotten decline when Thatchers government took over, our productivity and quality was absolutely appalling and relative to the rest of the world we were going backwards. It was also a similar situation in the US.

 

Thatcher and Reagan between them recognised that market driven policies and politics were going to shape how the world would behave and respectively put both countries in the vanguard of change, as a result both countries made a step change improvement in their economic performance such that our little island is the 5th largest economy in the world and I think we are still the 6th largest manufacturing economy in the world too, despite the naysayers saying differently.

 

The quality of our life in this country has never been better, relative to most of the world we have superb infrastructure in every single aspect, we have excellent health and education and we also enjoy a particularly high standard of living and exceptional freedoms and liberties.

 

This desire of having public owned utilities and services as somehow being a panacea is a complete and utter falsehood, the vast majority of the UK's historical infrastructure was funded out of private monies and private endeavours and with a huge amount of that based upon the slave trade and our global reach.

 

It is only as a result of private endeavours that brought about the industrial revolution that we could have high tax revenues and some very generous benefactors that allowed state driven industry to develop and grow. We then had significant periods of public ownership where we effectively went backwards because we no longer needed to be hungry or competitive in our work desire.

 

That is why our public services and various levels of government are terribly inefficient now, yet some would propose that we should use that as a basis to manage our industry.

 

Every successful nation globally relies on private endeavour to deliver their success. The only ones that have a significant state interest are the ones that have huge amount of natural resource and that is simply a factor of geographic good fortune and not political design.

 

I wouldn't and couldn't deny that there have not been manifest failures on the journey that we have taken, the global banking crisis being the biggest of them all, but we are massively ahead of where we used to be and that is largely thanks to Thatcher getting us on board that bus.

[islandgun]

very convincing grr I had no idea Thatcher and Reagan were such visionaries, at the time I always believed them to be the mouthpiece of their masters who wanted the people to toe the line, work longer for less and be more thankful

[leadbreakfast]

All farmers say they don't make money.

 

If they can't make a living maybe they should fill a few fields with solar panels or fill some with caravans like the rest are doing

[Reeceknight]

I love milk.......green top.

[grrclark]

very convincing grr I had no idea Thatcher and Reagan were such visionaries, at the time I always believed them to be the mouthpiece of their masters who wanted the people to toe the line, work longer for less and be more thankful

Well maybe there is a bit of that too. Not sure that either were particular visionaries, but they were well tuned in; both followed the guiding economic principles of Friedrich Hayek.

 

If we had the opportunity to re-write the rules of how the world lives, works and plays I wouldn't choose to follow capitalism, it is unfair in so many ways, but it is just a reflection of human nature. In the developed countries we have largely managed to move beyond having to physically fight for food, shelter and mating rights, but we have replaced that with a monetary system. Instead of who is the biggest and toughest we go by who is the smartest and wealthiest.

 

We used to trade shiny stones and pebbles to avoid getting our heads caved in by the guys with the big sticks, we would woo the ladies with the lure of a bit of brushed beaver pelt and we would all gang together to co-opt the weaker neighbouring tribe to doing the skanky things that we didn't like to do, because we were bigger and tougher. Spin forward 2000 years or so and nothing has changed.

 

At an individual level we may not do that as we have more important things in our value system, but at a macro level that is exactly what we do and what we have always done.

 

We can accept how we are as people and try to work that to our advantage, we can spend our whole lives angry at the rest of the world for not being fair and change absolutely nothing or the fortunate can opt out a little bit and lead a life outside the rat race that is based on a more harmonious way of living.

 

I would suggest that I am in the 1st category and you are in the 3rd, quite a few on here are in the middle and live a life of constant annoyance at how the world doesn't work for them.

 

One thing is definitely true though, that Britain was built on the back of slavery and wool and it was all driven by private endeavour; this daft belief that we somehow used to be fair and equitable through having large public services is quite simply nonsense, it is a blip in the timeline of our history.

[overandunder2012]

agree about the characters, but this is the first topic for a while that has any arguments ( I blame thatcher) no I do

good point

[overandunder2012]

 

At least you know you're going to be safe.

thats almost quick witted well done im impressed

Edited August 4, 2015 by overandunder2012

[the enigma]

Many around here make a very good living from dairy herds, and most of their crops are grown for that end. One very local to me has increased his dairy herd to 800 and aims to make it a 1000 as soon as possible. His newly installed automated parlours have the capability to milk 100's at a time and at present he is milking three times per day. He is buying land like it's going out of fashion.

 

 

When the Grand Metropolitan group owned the local dairy in which I worked, the dairy farms around here produced some superb butterfat content percentages which is what cheese producers are looking for and confectionary manufacturing companies seek for their production of whey concentrates/powders for the baby food industry. I'm assuming they still do as they are flat out producing milk.

 

If he isn't feeling the squeeze already it won't be long until he is. Milk prices peaked over here in the early part of last year were at around 36p per litre, and have fallen steadily since, last month's milk came into around 21ppl. Prices are set to fall further without signs of any change in the market for the remainder of this year. I know that there are slight difference in the market between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but using the 15ppl figure for the man you've mention with the 800 cows, this is the way the figures stack up. 800 cows producing an average 8000l per year equals 6.4 million litres, x 0.15ppl equals £960,000. So that's close to a £1m per year hole in his cash flow. Now take into consideration the investments he has made, in terms of equipment,housing and land purchases or more to the point the monthly repayments on the finance/borrowings he would probably have needed to fund that investment. He must have the heart of a lion.

Edited August 4, 2015 by the enigma

[islandgun]

Well maybe there is a bit of that too. Not sure that either were particular visionaries, but they were well tuned in; both followed the guiding economic principles of Friedrich Hayek.

 

If we had the opportunity to re-write the rules of how the world lives, works and plays I wouldn't choose to follow capitalism, it is unfair in so many ways, but it is just a reflection of human nature. In the developed countries we have largely managed to move beyond having to physically fight for food, shelter and mating rights, but we have replaced that with a monetary system. Instead of who is the biggest and toughest we go by who is the smartest and wealthiest.

 

We used to trade shiny stones and pebbles to avoid getting our heads caved in by the guys with the big sticks, we would woo the ladies with the lure of a bit of brushed beaver pelt and we would all gang together to co-opt the weaker neighbouring tribe to doing the skanky things that we didn't like to do, because we were bigger and tougher. Spin forward 2000 years or so and nothing has changed.

 

At an individual level we may not do that as we have more important things in our value system, but at a macro level that is exactly what we do and what we have always done.

 

We can accept how we are as people and try to work that to our advantage, we can spend our whole lives angry at the rest of the world for not being fair and change absolutely nothing or the fortunate can opt out a little bit and lead a life outside the rat race that is based on a more harmonious way of living.

 

I would suggest that I am in the 1st category and you are in the 3rd, quite a few on here are in the middle and live a life of constant annoyance at how the world doesn't work for them.

 

One thing is definitely true though, that Britain was built on the back of slavery and wool and it was all driven by private endeavour; this daft belief that we somehow used to be fair and equitable through having large public services is quite simply nonsense, it is a blip in the timeline of our history.

Very eloquently put (as usual) Im not sure about choosing my life style, more having it thrust upon me, basically because i didnt adhere to your first principal and make enough money to shape the choices, my personal observation of the thatcher years was of horror, still that is behind us now thankfully

the only issue I have with your post is that, far from men luring women with a bit of brushed beaver pelt it is exactly the opposite and this lack of understanding worries me

Edited August 4, 2015 by islandgun

[Scully]

 

If he isn't feeling the squeeze already it won't be long until he is. Milk prices peaked over here in the early part of last year were at around 36p per litre, and have fallen steadily since, last month's milk came into around 21ppl. Prices are set to fall further without signs of any change in the market for the remainder of this year. I know that there are slight difference in the market between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but using the 15ppl figure for the man you've mention with the 800 cows, this is the way the figures stack up. 800 cows producing an average 8000l per year equals 6.4 million litres, x 0.15ppl equals £960,000. So that's close to a £1m per year hole in his cash flow. Now take into consideration the investments he has made, in terms of equipment,housing and land purchases or more to the point the monthly repayments on the finance/borrowings he would probably have needed to fund that investment. He must have the heart of a lion.

I have no idea if he has the heart of a lion or not. He was in the year below me at school, and just seemed like an ordinary lad.

He is doing extremely well for himself and has done ever since leaving school; he will now be about 55.

He has a massive house with the obligatory Landrover parked outside ( a '14 plated 'Sport' ) which he changes every other year and employs quite a few locals and was recently fined 55k for moving animals around within a quarantined area and failing to show documentation for animals he claimed had died but were found to be fit and well. Another 30 odd charges against him were dropped and his fine has recently been commuted to about half after appeal. The slurry lagoon he built is bigger than an olympic sized pool.

A local beef farmer recently went bang for the third ( and possibly final ) time but all the dairy farmers are absolutely thriving, and have been for many years.

Incidentally, it was an Irish company (Waterford) which bought our cheese and whey factory and then made all the staff redundant as they just wanted the milk, back in 1998. Whether all the milk produced locally is still sold to them I have no idea.

[panoma1]

That is typical rhetoric laced post and of such little substance.

 

The UK was in rotten decline when Thatchers government took over, our productivity and quality was absolutely appalling and relative to the rest of the world we were going backwards. It was also a similar situation in the US.

 

Thatcher and Reagan between them recognised that market driven policies and politics were going to shape how the world would behave and respectively put both countries in the vanguard of change, as a result both countries made a step change improvement in their economic performance such that our little island is the 5th largest economy in the world and I think we are still the 6th largest manufacturing economy in the world too, despite the naysayers saying differently.

 

The quality of our life in this country has never been better, relative to most of the world we have superb infrastructure in every single aspect, we have excellent health and education and we also enjoy a particularly high standard of living and exceptional freedoms and liberties.

 

This desire of having public owned utilities and services as somehow being a panacea is a complete and utter falsehood, the vast majority of the UK's historical infrastructure was funded out of private monies and private endeavours and with a huge amount of that based upon the slave trade and our global reach.

 

It is only as a result of private endeavours that brought about the industrial revolution that we could have high tax revenues and some very generous benefactors that allowed state driven industry to develop and grow. We then had significant periods of public ownership where we effectively went backwards because we no longer needed to be hungry or competitive in our work desire.

 

That is why our public services and various levels of government are terribly inefficient now, yet some would propose that we should use that as a basis to manage our industry.

 

Every successful nation globally relies on private endeavour to deliver their success. The only ones that have a significant state interest are the ones that have huge amount of natural resource and that is simply a factor of geographic good fortune and not political design.

 

I wouldn't and couldn't deny that there have not been manifest failures on the journey that we have taken, the global banking crisis being the biggest of them all, but we are massively ahead of where we used to be and that is largely thanks to Thatcher getting us on board that bus.

Unfortunately your questionable history lessons don't explain how we are ALL better off due to Thatcherism? 5th richest country in the world maybe? but as a percentage, how many individuals and/or company shareholders hold the majority percentage of this countries wealth? Compare this to how many individuals are officially living in poverty despite qualifying to claim supplementary benefits?

 

Please address your response to the ordinary people dying from cancer who can't have the drugs they need to prolong their lives, or the individual who can't get a job that pays enough to reasonably support them, because employers give their jobs to foreign migrants who are used to working 15 hrs a day for a fiver a week! cheaper labour = more profit! Or the person who has to lie to get benefits to enable them to better support their families or the people who have died because they have had their benefits stopped (figures which the government have got but refuse to reveal)

 

I would guess you are looking over the fence from the side of the exploiter rather than the exploited..........so in response to your posting and again to paraphrase Mandy-Rice Davies "he would say that wouldn't he?"

[Teal]

The milk price crisis (and that is what it is for many dairy farmers who have and will go bust) - was not caused by a "reduction in global demand" as per the BBC article quoting Morrisons. Instead it was a case that last year for a period of more than 12 months the prices paid for milk were very good.

 

Sure the slightly weaker than expected increase in Chinese demand, and the Russian ban on dairy imports as a retaliation for the EU's meddling in Ukraine have had an effect, but the truth is that this situation came about because of excess supply. Milk was short and price increased. As has been alluded to when this happens farmers can't switch on the taps overnight, it takes time to increase herd sizes, and often considerable investment. The problem was that the price increase for milk was a global phenomenon, and a perfect storm was created because this Spring the EU removed their milk Quota system - which had restricted milk production from several European milk powerhouses who knew they could ramp up their production.

 

Everyone from New Zealand, America, to China and India put on more cows, in 13/14 GB milk production alone went up about 14% from the previous year (that's more than an extra billion litres). On the advice of consultants, the NFU and their milk processors farmers were racing to take on more debt and rushing expand their herds so they could make more money, maybe some new machinery times were great.

 

However, as the milk supply exceeded demand the prices have been tumbling ever since. They have fallen so fast that one UK milk Co-operative - is in serious financial trouble as they paid their farmers more than the value they got from processing the milk.

 

It's a difficult one, but the market is based on supply and demand. As it should be - and without the historic butter and grain EU mountains. Without wishing to sound harsh, as someone has posted on here previously it is hard to argue why farmers should be treated different from other businesses. Ultimately if some farmers lose everything, as tragic as it is for them and their families is it any worse than other small business owners. New owners will take on the farmland and try new things, perhaps they will succeed, perhaps they will fail, but this is how the world progresses.

[the enigma]

The milk price crisis (and that is what it is for many dairy farmers who have and will go bust) - was not caused by a "reduction in global demand" as per the BBC article quoting Morrisons. Instead it was a case that last year for a period of more than 12 months the prices paid for milk were very good.

 

Sure the slightly weaker than expected increase in Chinese demand, and the Russian ban on dairy imports as a retaliation for the EU's meddling in Ukraine have had an effect, but the truth is that this situation came about because of excess supply. Milk was short and price increased. As has been alluded to when this happens farmers can't switch on the taps overnight, it takes time to increase herd sizes, and often considerable investment. The problem was that the price increase for milk was a global phenomenon, and a perfect storm was created because this Spring the EU removed their milk Quota system - which had restricted milk production from several European milk powerhouses who knew they could ramp up their production.

 

Everyone from New Zealand, America, to China and India put on more cows, in 13/14 GB milk production alone went up about 14% from the previous year (that's more than an extra billion litres). On the advice of consultants, the NFU and their milk processors farmers were racing to take on more debt and rushing expand their herds so they could make more money, maybe some new machinery times were great.

 

However, as the milk supply exceeded demand the prices have been tumbling ever since. They have fallen so fast that one UK milk Co-operative - is in serious financial trouble as they paid their farmers more than the value they got from processing the milk.

 

It's a difficult one, but the market is based on supply and demand. As it should be - and without the historic butter and grain EU mountains. Without wishing to sound harsh, as someone has posted on here previously it is hard to argue why farmers should be treated different from other businesses. Ultimately if some farmers lose everything, as tragic as it is for them and their families is it any worse than other small business owners. New owners will take on the farmland and try new things, perhaps they will succeed, perhaps they will fail, but this is how the world progresses.

 

Very true, and you can add the banks to that list as well. And, I know we all have to take responsibility for our decisions, just like any other business, but a lot farmers listened to the predictions of so call experts, but it's farmer that's going to have carry the can. I can see parallels, in the way the banks have behaved, between the property boom and the period of good prices in the milk industry. In both cases,banks were tripping over themselves to give out money, without due consideration for what would inevitably happen. But that's what banks do, it's up to us to get wise to that fact, no matter what line of work you're in.

[grrclark]

Very eloquently put (as usual) Im not sure about choosing my life style, more having it thrust upon me, basically because i didnt adhere to your first principal and make enough money to shape the choices, my personal observation of the thatcher years was of horror, still that is behind us now thankfully

the only issue I have with your post is that, far from men luring women with a bit of brushed beaver pelt it is exactly the opposite and this lack of understanding worries me

I did type something much more lewd to begin with and opted to change it, but you're absolutely right, brushed beaver pelt has an allure all of its own and economic theories go straight out the window when that is concerned

[blue jimny]

just wondering what other industry we have that gets subsidies

[grrclark]

Unfortunately your questionable history lessons don't explain how we are ALL better off due to Thatcherism? 5th richest country in the world maybe? but as a percentage, how many individuals and/or company shareholders hold the majority percentage of this countries wealth? Compare this to how many individuals are officially living in poverty despite qualifying to claim supplementary benefits?

 

Please address your response to the ordinary people dying from cancer who can't have the drugs they need to prolong their lives, or the individual who can't get a job that pays enough to reasonably support them, because employers give their jobs to foreign migrants who are used to working 15 hrs a day for a fiver a week! cheaper labour = more profit! Or the person who has to lie to get benefits to enable them to better support their families or the people who have died because they have had their benefits stopped (figures which the government have got but refuse to reveal)

 

I would guess you are looking over the fence from the side of the exploiter rather than the exploited..........so in response to your posting and again to paraphrase Mandy-Rice Davies "he would say that wouldn't he?"

The history lesson isn't quite so questionable, both the UK and the USA had shockingly poor economic performance at the end of the 70s and industrial Britain was built on the back of slaves and wealthy individuals. What bit do you want to argue about?

 

In the round we are all better off in a country that gives us pretty much the highest standard of living globally, the level of opportunity open to the absolute vast majority today is well in excess of what was available in the 70s.

 

The point that you make is that not every single person benefits by the same amount, but that is an impossible dream and everything is relative. Relative to a median wage we say that people are in poverty, but that measure differs from country to country and year to year and is only actually a number on a spreadsheet. Relative to the majority of those in the world our level of poverty is so vastly different that it makes it worthless to measure.

 

As to the person who cannot get drug therapy or the person that cannot get a job, we don't live in an ideal world; life is brutally unfair and sometimes people lose out. We have to try and manage the country on the basis of what serves the vast majority, we cannot manage by the extreme 1%.

 

I appreciate that may sound callous, but it isn't, it is simply realism.

 

Of course if you are that person who is denied a hugely expensive drug on the NHS you are going to feel really hard done by when you see someone with money be able to pay for it privately, but do you do a disservice to the millions of people for the sake of 1, we have a finite budget and we need to spend it in the interests of the majority? In that particular example I would rather that we reallocated spend from drug and alcohol therapies to other illnesses, likewise with conditions related to lifestyle choice, but sadly we have a hell of lot more fat junkies and drunks that carry a greater weight (no pun intended) in terms of allocating spend so they get the bigger share of the funding.

 

For the people running our country everyday is filled with the tough choices, do we tax everyone a little bit more so we can keep benefits payments at £26,000/year? Do we allow people to self certify for disability payments and assume they are all being truthful? etc.

 

If we keep saying yes to those tough questions we run out of money, that is what happened under the Blair/Brown government, we kept saying yes to further subsidy and borrowed to fund that and in so doing we really set a lot of people up for a big fall. At some point that had to stop and that means that some people will feel the pain of that.

 

Where I think we have neglected to make tough decisions is in going after big business and the wealthy elite to get them to pay more and that frustrates me.

 

The other massive problem we have in the UK is a skewed sense of entitlement by so many, people believe that we should all be equal, but we're not and we never ever have been. This is a particular issue in Scotland hence the rise and rise of the SNP.

 

As unhappy as it may make you and many others money brings advantage, whether that is buying the best gun, the newest car, the best house, specialist healthcare, etc. The same as good genes confers advantage in being good looking or being good at sports, etc.

 

On a human level of course it is unfair that one being should enjoy greater privilege than another, but in order to achieve that do we reduce absolutely everyone to the level of the lowest common denominator? Do we in the west give up our healthcare so we can reduce our life expectancy to the median age across the world? Do we chuck acid in the face of the beautiful to bring them down to the level of the ugly? Do we hobble the fully able bodied so they are the same as the disabled?

 

All bloody stupid extreme examples, but it illustrates the point, we are not all equal, we never will be and we never have been.

 

I think exploitation is bad, whether it be exploitation of employers taking unfair advantage of workers, whether it is exploitation of very large retail chains that skew the market to suit their agenda or whether it is exploitation of those who don't contribute to society and want to live off the endeavours of others.

 

To get back on topic, I think the public in general is exploitative of milk producers because we want milk as cheap as we can possibly get it, we in general don't care that the dairy farmers may be struggling so long as we get it cheap.

 

Exactly the same as those on the minimum wage want it to be higher, or those on benefits want that extra little bit on their giro, who cares what that might actually mean to others so long as they get that little bit more they don't care about the big picture. No different to the scumbag city traders who manipulated the LIBOR rates to suit their own aims too, they didn't care about what it mean to others. The only difference is the number of zeros after the pound sign.

[grrclark]

just wondering what other industry we have that gets subsidies

Loads of industries get subsidies in the UK. There is billions spent on capital assistance grants, regional selective assistance, energy subsidies, training subsidies, etc.

 

Subsidy may be in the form of cash being handed over or it may be in the form of tax rebates.

 

Between January and March this year there was around £6m of payments to non farming business in Scotland with a further £2m or so approved for payment. The recovery from businesses perviously awarded funding, but who didn't meet their requirements of the scheme was around £500k. Rough numbers, but close enough and that is RSA grants only.

[bostonmick]

just wondering what other industry we have that gets subsidies

I think you may find the banking industry has had the largest subsidy of any.and all they had to do was bring the country to its knees to get it

[the enigma]

A lot of foreign companies get grants/subsidies to set up and create jobs over here................. then clear off when the money dries up.

[panoma1]

The history lesson isn't quite so questionable, both the UK and the USA had shockingly poor economic performance at the end of the 70s and industrial Britain was built on the back of slaves and wealthy individuals. What bit do you want to argue about?

 

In the round we are all better off in a country that gives us pretty much the highest standard of living globally, the level of opportunity open to the absolute vast majority today is well in excess of what was available in the 70s.

 

The point that you make is that not every single person benefits by the same amount, but that is an impossible dream and everything is relative. Relative to a median wage we say that people are in poverty, but that measure differs from country to country and year to year and is only actually a number on a spreadsheet. Relative to the majority of those in the world our level of poverty is so vastly different that it makes it worthless to measure.

 

As to the person who cannot get drug therapy or the person that cannot get a job, we don't live in an ideal world; life is brutally unfair and sometimes people lose out. We have to try and manage the country on the basis of what serves the vast majority, we cannot manage by the extreme 1%.

 

I appreciate that may sound callous, but it isn't, it is simply realism.

 

Of course if you are that person who is denied a hugely expensive drug on the NHS you are going to feel really hard done by when you see someone with money be able to pay for it privately, but do you do a disservice to the millions of people for the sake of 1, we have a finite budget and we need to spend it in the interests of the majority? In that particular example I would rather that we reallocated spend from drug and alcohol therapies to other illnesses, likewise with conditions related to lifestyle choice, but sadly we have a hell of lot more fat junkies and drunks that carry a greater weight (no pun intended) in terms of allocating spend so they get the bigger share of the funding.

 

For the people running our country everyday is filled with the tough choices, do we tax everyone a little bit more so we can keep benefits payments at £26,000/year? Do we allow people to self certify for disability payments and assume they are all being truthful? etc.

 

If we keep saying yes to those tough questions we run out of money, that is what happened under the Blair/Brown government, we kept saying yes to further subsidy and borrowed to fund that and in so doing we really set a lot of people up for a big fall. At some point that had to stop and that means that some people will feel the pain of that.

 

Where I think we have neglected to make tough decisions is in going after big business and the wealthy elite to get them to pay more and that frustrates me.

 

The other massive problem we have in the UK is a skewed sense of entitlement by so many, people believe that we should all be equal, but we're not and we never ever have been. This is a particular issue in Scotland hence the rise and rise of the SNP.

 

As unhappy as it may make you and many others money brings advantage, whether that is buying the best gun, the newest car, the best house, specialist healthcare, etc. The same as good genes confers advantage in being good looking or being good at sports, etc.

 

On a human level of course it is unfair that one being should enjoy greater privilege than another, but in order to achieve that do we reduce absolutely everyone to the level of the lowest common denominator? Do we in the west give up our healthcare so we can reduce our life expectancy to the median age across the world? Do we chuck acid in the face of the beautiful to bring them down to the level of the ugly? Do we hobble the fully able bodied so they are the same as the disabled?

 

All bloody stupid extreme examples, but it illustrates the point, we are not all equal, we never will be and we never have been.

 

I think exploitation is bad, whether it be exploitation of employers taking unfair advantage of workers, whether it is exploitation of very large retail chains that skew the market to suit their agenda or whether it is exploitation of those who don't contribute to society and want to live off the endeavours of others.

 

To get back on topic, I think the public in general is exploitative of milk producers because we want milk as cheap as we can possibly get it, we in general don't care that the dairy farmers may be struggling so long as we get it cheap.

 

Exactly the same as those on the minimum wage want it to be higher, or those on benefits want that extra little bit on their giro, who cares what that might actually mean to others so long as they get that little bit more they don't care about the big picture. No different to the scumbag city traders who manipulated the LIBOR rates to suit their own aims too, they didn't care about what it mean to others. The only difference is the number of zeros after the pound sign.

The questionable history is that of your generalised assertion of wholesale "rotten decline" and "absolutely appalling productivity and quality" in the UK prior to Thatcher being correct? When not all were rotten or in decline! However for arguement sake, if your assertions are correct who was responsible? You imply it was the fault of the workers when in actual fact it was the fault of the employers who greedily banked any profits and failed to invest in development, modern technology and machinery? that is more likely why we were going backwards as a nation relative to other parts of the world.....that could be why the (workers representatives) unions grew in influence! By on behalf of their members trying to force unwilling employers to invest their money in the business and ultimately to finance fairer working practices, terms and conditions and wages for their employees?

 

I am aware that we all occasionally fall into the trap of generalisation, however you can only gauge things by personal experience and comparing like for like situations..........and that means not attempting to bolster an arguement by comparing poverty in poor parts of the world to poverty in the UK, it is not a like for like comparison!

 

The UK was not just built on slavery and wool it was built on the spoils and wealth stolen from the countries the British empire conquered, and who benefitted from this wealth? The poor still in the workhouse? The children still employed on slave labour wages? Or the slavers, thieves and industrialist robber barons that got very rich and subsequently went into politics and sat in the commons and ultimately the lords and made laws to protect their ill gotten gains from those lower down the pecking order who would aspire to share the countries wealth and good fortune......pretty much the same as today really!

 

Like all good stories they become believable when they contain a little truth, for me your take on things fits into the category headed more dogmatic than factual

[Bazooka Joe]

The milk you buy from super markets now is **** anyway, a program on the box not so long ago showed exactly what you get when they've finished taking the cream off the top, it's a light blue liquid, which is then mixed with white powder to make it look like milk...I kid you not...