# Give small businesses in spain a chance



## Dave Bull

And they will be Spain´s biggest employer in no time…
Invest in People…Not Trains
Just a thought but how many billions is the AVE costing? Yes it´ll ferry a relatively small percentage of the population around the country but…in the current climate, just how many families and businesses could you help to keep afloat by investing that money in PEOPLE? 
Just in my town they have improved the pavements (which is great obviously) but at a cost of over 600,000€. Now if the council left the pavements as they are and made a statement saying that although the work needs doing they are going to postpone it until things get better and use that money to get people back to work – I think you could count as many objections as a politician has morals …
Before I earn a penny each month I need to find 254€ to pay my Social Security. If I don´t pay on time– they fine me so obviously it´s important to pay this (not insubstantial) amount. 
But what exactly am I getting for my money? Basic health cover and a small pension (if I’ve been paying in long enough) and that´s about it. I´ve been paying in for almost thirteen years now but guess what? If tomorrow, for some reason, I find my business gone (again…) and I’m out of work – well there´s no benefits for me. Even though I contribute over 3,000€ per year…
Autonomo
The autonomo system that we have here in Spain needs looking at, and soon, if Spain is to do anything about getting people of the dole and contributing into the government’s coffers long term.
What´s wrong with it?
For a start the amount is ridiculous – especially if, like me and many others, you are a one-man band and some months can see you earning less than others. And for anyone trying to start out in business legally? Good luck, as not only will you have to find this lump sum every month before spending on bills, suppliers, etc. but also the government will put as much paperwork (and the guy with the stamp) in your way that it would dishearten even the keenest entrepreneur.
For instance I work in media so my autonomo has to state that. However, if things are a bit quiet and I want to make up my earnings by, say, painting someone´s house…I can´t, not legally. That would mean I have to start another autonomo account and contribute twice! Mental. 
People want to work, and want to contribute but, be honest, how many people do you know who work for cash because they simply can´t afford to be legal? Lots I bet. So do I, and all, without question, would make themselves legal tomorrow if it was affordable – but it´s not. 
Can the government not see that they are keeping people on the dole and claiming benefits who would much rather develop that idea they have, or continue trading in their previous business and paying into the very system that is keeping them at present?
What about the hundreds of thousands of empty ´locals´ that could be put to good use – if only landlords could afford to drop their prices. Tax-breaks for landlords would achieve that and combined with a lower start-up autonomo (a lot lower than the current start-up rate) and off-set (or even no contributions) tax payments for the first two years would give small businesses a chance, not only to get up and running but to take on employees and start reversing the balance of payments to contributions that the Social Security is currently buckling its knees under the weight of.
No help
And that brings me on to my next point, employing people. I recently went to my local employment office and spoke to the people there about taking on an employee – from the dole. Again, unless I have a bank account full of cash (I don´t…) then I can’t do it. You see the government will pay me 5,000€ to employ someone from the dole – great eh? Well, no. Not quite. You see the criteria states that I must employ a female under 20, or over 30 years old. That´s fine but then I must also give her a two year full time contract (and pay her obviously) but, if she´s no good, it will cost me a fortune to get rid of her. And if she´s good – well somehow I’ve got to find her wages, tax and social security each month – I could take it from the 5,000€ I guess but unfortunately, the lady at the employment centre informed me, that I’d have to wait at least 10 months to get it! 
What have you got to lose?
1.	What we need for existing businesses is a fairer system of contributions that reflects earnings and traders, not only the ability to stay in business, but spare cash to develop their business and pay YOU (the government) more. 
2.	We need start-up tax breaks for new businesses so that people don´t have to trade in a black economy which after all was created by government at the end of the day and you only have to look around Europe to see what the four countries that have applied for bail-outs all have in common, horrendous black economies. Make it affordable and people will be able to contribute, keep it as it is – but don´t expect anything to change.
3.	The government should be pouring it´s billions into encouraging entrepreneurship rather than a fast train – we have trains, yes you´ve got to leave home a little earlier and get back a little later – what we don´t have is jobs. There should be TV ads and billboard campaigns encouraging people to develop ideas or form partnerships and start bringing in an income rather than having to take from the state and local councils too should be doing what is best for their region and its residents and surely employment and people being able to keep their homes takes priority over new pavements or giving the market a shiny new home?
4.	Force the banks, that have taken billions of euros in bail-outs to re-invest some of those funds (and regulate it) in small businesses who are constantly denied loans to get themselves either going, existing, or even expanding, at present. 
5.	Re-invest in tourism (you have a great product for tourists-relatively few of whom will use the AVE) and help businesses that promote Spain as a destination to visit. And instead of restricting popular places (that employ people in summer) like Chiringuitos – promote them! Tourists, especially, love them! And stop stupid laws such as ´land grab´ that give Spain a harsh image and frightens off potential investors and home buyers.
Or perhaps I’m just being simplistic and Mr Rajoy will dismiss me as a well-intentioned idealist? Maybe, but at least I haven´t paid a fortune for a really big (and unnecessary) train set…actually, I (we) have…
To finish I ask the government again, just what have you got to lose? You´re already paying out money you don’t have for the people out of work. Help them get back into work by investing in THEM first, the trains can come later


----------



## mrypg9

I have said many times on this Forum that not only the autonomo but the whole tax system here needs restructuring.

I don't know what percentage of the economy here in Spain is made up of PYMES but I do know that in the UK SMEs form a substantial part of all economic activity. I also know that only by encouraging a thriving private sector can any government generate the revenue needed for essential public services.

Apart from a half-hearted attempt to lessen the burden on PYMES by reducing the redundancy compensation..still the third or fourth highest in Europe - it seems the current government, although allegedly committed to a flourishing private sector, has done very little to help it flourish.


----------



## baldilocks

Quote: "Force the banks, that have taken billions of euros in bail-outs to re-invest some of those funds (and regulate it) in small businesses who are constantly denied loans to get themselves either going, existing, or even expanding, at present. "

But just like the UK you've got to get the money out of the cheating politicians and other money grabbers first. Where do you think all the money went to in the Bankia et al consortium? (answer = the directors who were for the most part PP politicians) OK, so most of the small man's (and woman's) money is relatively safe, but what of all the profits, the banks pay *****rdly interest if at all but charge plenty, so there is a huge wodge of loot unaccounted for. Look carefully at where the money went in RBS, Lloyds, etc. - same characters different stages.


----------



## Solwriter

Dave Bull said:


> Autonomo
> The autonomo system that we have here in Spain needs looking at, and soon, if Spain is to do anything about getting people of the dole and contributing into the government’s coffers long term.
> What´s wrong with it?
> For a start the amount is ridiculous – especially if, like me and many others, you are a one-man band and some months can see you earning less than others. And for anyone trying to start out in business legally? Good luck, as not only will you have to find this lump sum every month before spending on bills, suppliers, etc. but also the government will put as much paperwork (and the guy with the stamp) in your way that it would dishearten even the keenest entrepreneur.


Oh I so agree with this!
I will freely admit that there was no way I could set up as autonomo until I had worked in the black for a few months to build up my business.
It would have been financial suicide to start out paying 250 plus a month from the start, allowing for all the other costs I incurred. 

However, had there been a way to register as self employed and pay a realistic insurance rate, plus taxes on profits, I would have done this from the start.
I would still have been out of pocket while the business built up, but it would have been just about doable.

And yes - the paperwork...


----------



## xabiaxica

Solwriter said:


> Oh I so agree with this!
> I will freely admit that there was no way I could set up as autonomo until I had worked in the black for a few months to build up my business.
> It would have been financial suicide to start out paying 250 plus a month from the start, allowing for all the other costs I incurred.
> 
> However, had there been a way to register as self employed and pay a realistic insurance rate, plus taxes on profits, I would have done this from the start.
> I would still have been out of pocket while the business built up, but it would have been just about doable.
> 
> And yes - the paperwork...


a percentage of earnings would be so much more do-able, as it is in the UK, and it would probably all balance out financially for the govt., with bigger earners paying more 


of course that would depend on everyone declaring their income honestly........... which might just be the reason for the current system


----------



## gus-lopez

Solwriter said:


> Oh I so agree with this!
> I will freely admit that there was no way I could set up as autonomo until I had worked in the black for a few months to build up my business.
> It would have been financial suicide to start out paying 250 plus a month from the start, allowing for all the other costs I incurred.
> 
> However, had there been a way to register as self employed and pay a realistic insurance rate, plus taxes on profits, I would have done this from the start.
> I would still have been out of pocket while the business built up, but it would have been just about doable.
> 
> And yes - the paperwork...


& nearly anyone who's running a legal business here will tell the same story.

The AVE will be the same as the Athens metro. As one Greek minister said " It would be cheaper to pay for taxis for all the users ."


----------



## baldilocks

baldilocks said:


> But just like the UK you've got to get the money out of the cheating politicians and other money grabbers first. Where do you think all the money went to in the Bankia et al consortium? (answer = the directors who were for the most part PP politicians) OK, so most of the small man's (and woman's) money is relatively safe, but what of all the profits, the banks pay *****rdly interest if at all but charge plenty, so there is a huge wodge of loot unaccounted for. Look carefully at where the money went in RBS, Lloyds, etc. - same characters different stages.


BTW the word that the stupid ignorant censorship program that **'ed out was spelt with an 'ar' (and correct) not 'er' so Mods can you correct the censor, please the correct word that I used is n*ggardly (with an 'i' where the * is) which means stingy, miserly and is nothing to do with people of a different colour!


----------



## xabiaxica

baldilocks said:


> BTW the word that the stupid ignorant censorship program that **'ed out was spelt with an 'ar' (and correct) not 'er' so Mods can you correct the censor, please the correct word that I used is n*ggardly (with an 'i' where the * is) which means stingy, miserly and is nothing to do with people of a different colour!


actually if you look....... it **d out the first 5 letters of the word - & that's an alternative spelling of the one with 'er' at the end........


I'll see if anything can be done about it though - after all, we did manage to get S****horpe sorted out!!!


----------



## baldilocks

xabiachica said:


> actually if you look....... it **d out the first 5 letters of the word - & that's an alternative spelling of the one with 'er' at the end........
> 
> 
> I'll see if anything can be done about it though - after all, we did manage to get S****horpe sorted out!!!


Not in English it isn't. Can't account for American though, but they have never been able to spell correctly since they let Webster write the American dictionary and he couldn't spell anyway. He only voluntered to write the dictionary because he reasoned if he wrote the book, then everybody would spell his way so he wouldn't be wrong but because of his inconsistencies, he screwed that up as well.

The word ****ard and ****ardly come to English from Scandinavia and can be seen in the Swedish dialect word _nygg_ meaning 'stingy'


----------



## xabiaxica

baldilocks said:


> Not in English it isn't. Can't account for American though, but they have never been able to spell correctly since they let Webster write the American dictionary and he couldn't spell anyway. He only voluntered to write the dictionary because he reasoned if he wrote the book, then everybody would spell his way so he wouldn't be wrong but because of his inconsistencies, he screwed that up as well.
> 
> The word ****ard and ****ardly come to English from Scandinavia and can be seen in the Swedish dialect word _nygg_ meaning 'stingy'


I think you might find it's 'fixed' now................ 

I agree with you about the spelling - but since this is an international site.....


so - I guess you wouldn't want to be called *****rdly


----------



## baldilocks

xabiachica said:


> I guess you wouldn't want to be called *****rdly


Nah! I'm just tight! and SWMBO sometimes says I am tighter than a duck's ***e and that's watertight!


----------



## gus-lopez

baldilocks said:


> Nah! I'm just tight! and SWMBO sometimes says I am tighter than a duck's ***e and that's watertight!


I had heard that you dropped a 50p piece once & when you bent down to pick it up it hit you on the back of the neck ?


----------



## Brangus

baldilocks said:


> Can't account for American though, but they have never been able to spell correctly.





baldilocks said:


> He only *voluntered*



Does the filter allow me to snigger at that spelling?


----------



## xabiaxica

Brangus said:


> Does the filter allow me to snigger at that spelling?


apparently so


----------



## mrypg9

Brangus said:


> Does the filter allow me to snigger at that spelling?


Spelling or typo, though?


----------



## Muddy

Dave Bull said:


> For a start the amount is ridiculous – especially if, like me and many others, you are a one-man band and some months can see you earning less than others. And for anyone trying to start out in business legally? Good luck, as not only will you have to find this lump sum every month before spending on bills, suppliers, etc. but also the government will put as much paperwork (and the guy with the stamp) in your way that it would dishearten even the keenest entrepreneur.


I'm same as you but in UK at the moment, one-mad band etc. I want to set up a biz in Spain but the more I read the more it puts me off. I didn't know about having to "start another autonomo account" if I wanted or had the opportunity to make up my income by doing some different work along side my usual type when things are quiet!! That's just total stupidity. It's as if they have come up with ideas to put people off working or just break the rules!
Spain needs a more simple and fairer system than the UK to create jobs, not the total opposite IMHO.


----------



## baldilocks

mrypg9 said:


> Spelling or typo, though?


I claim typo since SWMBO was on at me to leave the house for the Academy's end of year plays and I had scenery to set up and the whole thing to film.


----------



## chrisnation

*Simple and fair*



Muddy said:


> I'm same as you but in UK at the moment, one-mad band etc. I want to set up a biz in Spain but the more I read the more it puts me off. I didn't know about having to "start another autonomo account" if I wanted or had the opportunity to make up my income by doing some different work along side my usual type when things are quiet!! That's just total stupidity. It's as if they have come up with ideas to put people off working or just break the rules!
> Spain needs a more simple and fairer system than the UK to create jobs, not the total opposite IMHO.


I am in the same situation. The more I research and read about the machinations of Spanish bureaucracy and 'docamenti' [Italian. Sorry] the less appealing the notion of trying to start a business in Spain. I make the distinction from _living_ in Spain but naturally to do the latter I must do the former. 

The op is right but unfortunately it will take several decades to unpick the spider's nest that is the Spanish way of regulating things. I won't be around to benefit from the changes. I think it may possibly be accelerated when the generation now facing +/- 50% unemployment rates get to the age when they are running the country. They may see _now_ how obstructive and unproductive the current way of doing things is and do something about it when they are in a position to, in years to come.

My observation is that countries that have a legacy of dictatorship, whether home-grown as in the case of Spain, or imposed by an invader, like France, major on bureaucracy and obstructive over-regulation. This leads to cheating the system on a large scale, a substantial black economy, lost tax revenue and the temptation for civil servants to accept bribes from those who can afford to pay for short cuts and getting things through on the nod.

The latest bout of regulationitis, concerning residency registration, is an example of a bureaucratic system trying to do something big - save the country from ruin - by fiddling about in the margins. Having a few thousand foreigners batting about from pillar to post getting green cards or white cards or cards with purple polka dots - for Euros 10.50 a go - isn't going to solve the problem of the country being unable to fund its welfare system. 

I wonder what the attitude to his government would be if the owner of the flat I am very interested in buying - a desperate person, I'm told - knew that the difficulties and expense I would face in trying to set up shop in Spain might cancel out my wish to do so.


----------



## Muddy

chrisnation said:


> I am in the same situation. The more I research and read about the machinations of Spanish bureaucracy and 'docamenti' [Italian. Sorry] the less appealing the notion of trying to start a business in Spain. I make the distinction from _living_ in Spain but naturally to do the latter I must do the former.
> 
> The op is right but unfortunately it will take several decades to unpick the spider's nest that is the Spanish way of regulating things. I won't be around to benefit from the changes. I think it may possibly be accelerated when the generation now facing +/- 50% unemployment rates get to the age when they are running the country. They may see _now_ how obstructive and unproductive the current way of doing things is and do something about it when they are in a position to, in years to come.
> 
> My observation is that countries that have a legacy of dictatorship, whether home-grown as in the case of Spain, or imposed by an invader, like France, major on bureaucracy and obstructive over-regulation. This leads to cheating the system on a large scale, a substantial black economy, lost tax revenue and the temptation for civil servants to accept bribes from those who can afford to pay for short cuts and getting things through on the nod.
> 
> The latest bout of regulationitis, concerning residency registration, is an example of a bureaucratic system trying to do something big - save the country from ruin - by fiddling about in the margins. Having a few thousand foreigners batting about from pillar to post getting green cards or white cards or cards with purple polka dots - for Euros 10.50 a go - isn't going to solve the problem of the country being unable to fund its welfare system.
> 
> I wonder what the attitude to his government would be if the owner of the flat I am very interested in buying - a desperate person, I'm told - knew that the difficulties and expense I would face in trying to set up shop in Spain might cancel out my wish to do so.


I've been thinking about a move to Spain on and off for some years now. Feel very close to getting it done and dusted this year but I guess there will always be new problems. With recent events regarding residency and the issues with running a small business I'm 50/50 right now. I'm trying to keep motivated. Looking for jobs right now for example rather than running my own business which I've done for some years.
Hopefully it wont come to revolution with burning down the banks and the so called seats of power, but I can see it happening if honest, fair, common sense policy and action isn't given a voice very soon.
Greece voting out of the euro would be a start and a wakeup call for various governments to get their game in order ASAP or face the same.

Hope you make it! But if you don't make sure you tell the chap you can't buy his flat becuse of X, Y and Z and tell him to make sure the whole of Spain knows about it!


----------



## mrypg9

Muddy said:


> I've been thinking about a move to Spain on and off for some years now. Feel very close to getting it done and dusted this year but I guess there will always be new problems. With recent events regarding residency and the issues with running a small business I'm 50/50 right now. I'm trying to keep motivated. Looking for jobs right now for example rather than running my own business which I've done for some years.
> Hopefully it wont come to revolution with burning down the banks and the so called seats of power, but I can see it happening if honest, fair, common sense policy and action isn't given a voice very soon.
> *Greece voting out of the euro would be a *start and a wakeup call for various governments to get their game in order ASAP or face the same.
> 
> Hope you make it! But if you don't make sure you tell the chap you can't buy his flat becuse of X, Y and Z and tell him to make sure the whole of Spain knows about it!


But no party contesting tomorrow's elections wants Greece to leave the eurozone.
What they all seem to want is to keep the euro, have even more debt written off and to scrap the austerity programme.

In other words, carry on as before with someone else picking up the tab. 


The tax system in Spain is farcical and inhibits business start-ups. We all know that...the general question of tax and non-payment has been discussed on this Forum many times.
The complexity of the system and its obvious unfairness is an open invitation to ignore or circumvent it.
But just as in Greece, tax evasion at all levels here is a national pastime. How many times, when having some repair or other done, are you asked if you want a receipt?
How much work is done 'on the black'?
It's a vicious circle, clearly, but it's not just people trying to start a business who are innocently caught out. Every person who evades any tax whether on work or purchases is complicit.
I have discovered it's virtually impossible not to become complicit, however strong your views about this may be.
No Government can provide a decent social wage unless it has sufficient tax receipts to fund it. But when there is distrust of government at all levels and daily reports of financial scandal at all levels, town, regional, national, it's not surprising that otherwise honest citizens will collude in the tax evasion or avoidance game.
There should be an urgent national public debate about reform of the sclerotic unworkable tax system. Thatreform in itself, if sensibly done, will assist the growth needed to seal with debt and deficit and promote recovery.


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> No Government can provide a decent social wage unless it has sufficient tax receipts to fund it. *But when there is distrust of government at all levels and daily reports of financial scandal at all levels, town, regional, national, it's not surprising that otherwise honest citizens will collude in the tax evasion or avoidance game.*
> There should be an urgent national public debate about reform of the sclerotic unworkable tax system. That reform in itself, if sensibly done, will assist the growth needed to seal with debt and deficit and promote recovery.


Although I agree with your assessment that there needs to be an urgent public debate which will bring workable solutions to the tax system, I do not think that the majority blame financial scandals for the reason they deal with, or work in the black economy.
I think it is more a case of 'that is the way things are done here'.

There is an expectation that you will pay in cash for most things - sometimes even major things - and many businesses do not have the means in place for payment by debit or credit card. 
(Although I admit there is no reason they could not give a receipt....)

Changes in the traditional way of doing business here will be resisted by many, simply because of the cost of change.


----------



## chrisnation

*Docamenti*



Muddy said:


> I've been thinking about a move to Spain on and off for some years now. Feel very close to getting it done and dusted this year but I guess there will always be new problems. With recent events regarding residency and the issues with running a small business I'm 50/50 right now. I'm trying to keep motivated. Looking for jobs right now for example rather than running my own business which I've done for some years.
> Hopefully it wont come to revolution with burning down the banks and the so called seats of power, but I can see it happening if honest, fair, common sense policy and action isn't given a voice very soon.
> Greece voting out of the euro would be a start and a wakeup call for various governments to get their game in order ASAP or face the same.
> 
> Hope you make it! But if you don't make sure you tell the chap you can't buy his flat becuse of X, Y and Z and tell him to make sure the whole of Spain knows about it!


Thanks for the gee-up! Same to you. Your position matches my own very closely - except that I have absolutely no intention of giving myself repeated disappointment and grief by trying to get someone else to employ me. I'm 62 and nobody ever has, to date! 

I agree that Greece telling the Franco-German 'United States of Europe' mob where they can stuff their fiscal union would be a good start. It might make the US of E faction finally twig that there are countries that just don't belong in their club. It's the Groucho Marx Effect, "I wouldn't want to join any club that would have me as a member." 

Britain and other countries decided on political grounds to stay out. The PIIGS should have been kept out on economic grounds but the Euromeisters reckoned that in this case, size counts. The amazingly forbearing German taxpayers are footing the bill.

Spain is bounded to the north by more successful economies. It is bounded to the south by much poorer economies. If, by trying to avoid shelling out benefits to people from their southern neighbours, they obstruct people from the north from injecting enterprise and increasing revenue, they are doing themselves down.

Spain, Greece and Portugal have the choice right now of sticking to the same old same old and sliding back 25-30 years or going for an economy based more closely on the northern European model. It doesn't mean they have to give up what makes Spain a culturally attractive country to live in. It does mean they have to give up the bureaucratic m.o. inherited from times when they were totalitarian states.


----------



## Alcalaina

Muddy said:


> I'm same as you but in UK at the moment, *one-mad band *etc. I want to set up a biz in Spain but the more I read the more it puts me off ....


Typo of the Day award! :clap2:


----------



## chrisnation

mrypg9 said:


> But no party contesting tomorrow's elections wants Greece to leave the eurozone.
> What they all seem to want is to keep the euro, have even more debt written off and to scrap the austerity programme.
> 
> In other words, carry on as before with someone else picking up the tab.
> 
> 
> The tax system in Spain is farcical and inhibits business start-ups. We all know that...the general question of tax and non-payment has been discussed on this Forum many times.
> The complexity of the system and its obvious unfairness is an open invitation to ignore or circumvent it.
> But just as in Greece, tax evasion at all levels here is a national pastime. How many times, when having some repair or other done, are you asked if you want a receipt?
> How much work is done 'on the black'?
> It's a vicious circle, clearly, but it's not just people trying to start a business who are innocently caught out. Every person who evades any tax whether on work or purchases is complicit.
> I have discovered it's virtually impossible not to become complicit, however strong your views about this may be.
> No Government can provide a decent social wage unless it has sufficient tax receipts to fund it. But when there is distrust of government at all levels and daily reports of financial scandal at all levels, town, regional, national, it's not surprising that otherwise honest citizens will collude in the tax evasion or avoidance game.
> There should be an urgent national public debate about reform of the sclerotic unworkable tax system. Thatreform in itself, if sensibly done, will assist the growth needed to seal with debt and deficit and promote recovery.


Agree 100%. But I think there is something they need to do ahead of reforming the tax system and that is to reform the employment system - unless you had that included in 'the tax system' in mind.

Make it easier for people to do business and to be employed and the tax revenue will flow, given a fair economic wind. Then give them a fair, equitable and _trustworthy_ tax system. I don't think it would work the other way around.

But anything would be better than nothing.


----------



## Muddy

Alcalaina said:


> Typo of the Day award! :clap2:


I spotted that this morning and thought, what the heck, it's probably closer to the truth and left it LOL 
I'm seriously dis-lex-sick! but I'll put that one down to my unconscious!


----------



## baldilocks

mrypg9 said:


> No Government can provide a decent social wage unless it has sufficient tax receipts to fund it. But when there is distrust of government at all levels and daily reports of financial scandal at all levels, town, regional, national, it's not surprising that otherwise honest citizens will collude in the tax evasion or avoidance game.
> There should be an urgent national public debate about reform of the sclerotic unworkable tax system. That reform in itself, if sensibly done, will assist the growth needed to seal with debt and deficit and promote recovery.


Perhaps that should also be addressed to Camoron, Clogg, and Osbin?


----------



## chrisnation

*Not the case*



baldilocks said:


> Perhaps that should also be addressed to Camoron, Clogg, and Osbin?


Very good malapropisms but if you are implying that UK is subject to '_distrust of government at all levels and daily reports of financial scandal at all levels, town, regional, national,'_, you are wrong - absurdly so.

Distrust of government is not the same as disagreeing with their policies. One may believe a government is doing the wrong thing but still believe that what they are doing is not based on mendacious deceit. 

And I challenge you to come up with a report of a '_ financial scandal at all levels, town, regional, national_' in UK in recent years. Claiming parliamentary expenses for 'maintenance of duck house and weeding the lake' does not count. The fraudulent parliamentary expenses claims that were beyond the law have been dealt with by the courts and people, including a member or two of the House of Lords, are in prison as a result.

There is a cultural difference in civic integrity between UK and other northern European countries and Spain, Italy, Greece and other southern European countries. Spain's failings in this aspect of life is part of the problem that besets it now. 

Rajoy has not only survived the benefits of colluding in the multi-million Euros gravy-train in Valencia Province but has risen to the highest office in the land, unscathed.


----------



## Alcalaina

chrisnation said:


> There is a cultural difference in civic integrity between UK and other northern European countries and Spain, Italy, Greece and other southern European countries. Spain's failings in this aspect of life is part of the problem that besets it now.
> 
> Rajoy has not only survived the benefits of colluding in the multi-million Euros gravy-train in Valencia Province but has risen to the highest office in the land, unscathed.


I think the real difference is that in the Northern European countries many underhand practices which would be called financial scandals in the south have been going on so long they have become legal and institutionalised. Hence companies like Tesco get to open supermarkets where they like and Vodafone gets let off its £4 bn tax bill. 

Spain and Greece haven't had democracies for long enough to arrive at that stage. They haven't yet mastered the art of spin.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> I think the real difference is that in the Northern European countries many underhand practices which would be called financial scandals in the south have been going on so long they have become legal and institutionalised. Hence companies like Tesco get to open supermarkets where they like and Vodafone gets let off its £4 bn tax bill.
> 
> Spain and Greece haven't had democracies for long enough to arrive at that stage. They haven't yet mastered the art of spin.


Chris is right. There is no comparison in either depth or magnitude between the malpractices of Northern European Governments and corporations and the theft, bribery and general corruption that categorises states like Greece, Spain, Portugal and the former Soviet bloc states.
All these states have one thing in common: they have been subject to dictatorships of the fascist or socialist variety. Civic society was ruthlessly oppressed and corruption was the norm. Because the state held power over every aspect of personal and commercial life, there was a scarcity of all kinds of goods and the 'little gift' was a way for the ordinary citizen to get access to what s/he needed, whether health care, a good school for one's children or a flat. Corruption became a way of life and also a two-fingered salute to the 'system'.
I remember taking a bottle of good malt whiskey on a visit to friends in pre-1989 Prague, to be asked if I minded it being given to my friend's mother's doctor as she needed a 'western' drug in short supply.
We Brits love to find faults in how we live and God knows there are many to find. Political systems, like everything, are run by humans for humans and humans are fallible. 
But we in the UK not only are blessed with the capacity to be offended by public scandals but with the means to uncover and punish them. We have not got used to the idea that back-handers are a 'normal' part of everyday life. We have not experienced a socialist or fascist regime which has closed down our civil society. As for .mastering the art of spin'...well, there was no need for that under fascism or socialism.....'spin' was built into everyday life. In fact there was nothing but 'spin'....Big Brother was the answer to every question.

As for Tesco....I've been involved in planning wrangles for new Tesco stores and I can say without equivocation that they operate within the framework of planning law. Yes, they often work via 'sweetheart' deals...but if a community gets a sports centre in return for a Tesco out-of-town store....so be it.
People like Tesco and the majority welcome its arrival in town. Opposition is usually organised by the usual suspects who can afford to patronise dinky little local shops and boutiques.


----------



## mrypg9

chrisnation said:


> Agree 100%. But I think there is something they need to do ahead of reforming the tax system and that is to reform the employment system - unless you had that included in 'the tax system' in mind.
> 
> Make it easier for people to do business and to be employed and the tax revenue will flow, given a fair economic wind. Then give them a fair, equitable and _trustworthy_ tax system. I don't think it would work the other way around.
> 
> But anything would be better than nothing.


The reforms relating to redundancy compensation still leave Spain with the third or fourth highest level in the EU.
Can't remember which but it can easiliy be googled.
Businesses experiencing a downturn can't afford to make posts redundant. Anyone who has run a business knows that there are times when you either cut hours or lose someone to save everyone's jobs. Canny German Mittelstand firms cut hours and kept trained employees in order to keep their businesses afloat, sensible workers accepted this in order to keep their jobs.
I help run a charity which has three employees. One is constantly 'off sick' and over the last few years has had a lot of time off, causing extra work and expense for an organisation which depends 100% on public donation. He has worked for us for seventeen years and we simply cannot afford to 'let him go'.
Last year we were taken to court by an employee who was incompetent and stole from us. 
It cost us almost 6000 euros.
I think one of the problems in the UK at least is that far too many politicians are totally ignorant of the problems of the day-to-day running of small to medium-sized businesses. Labour politicians often have no experience of any life other than politics, the professions or work on the public payroll, Conservatives often have no experience of business other than that of the financial sector and no concept whatsoever of how 'ordinary' people live - although that could be said of most Labour politicians too.
Many on the Right sees all public spending as wasteful and many on the Left sees all private enterprise as intrinsically 'evil'.
We coulod learn a lot from the German Ordo-economic model...


----------



## chrisnation

*Not so*



Alcalaina said:


> I think the real difference is that in the Northern European countries many underhand practices which would be called financial scandals in the south have been going on so long they have become legal and institutionalised. Hence companies like Tesco get to open supermarkets where they like and Vodafone gets let off its £4 bn tax bill.
> 
> Spain and Greece haven't had democracies for long enough to arrive at that stage. They haven't yet mastered the art of spin.


There is a myth about Tesco being able to open s/mkts anywhere they like. But it is just that - myth. They were not allowed to open a big one on the eastern edge of Plymouth, when I lived near there. There was already a perfectly good Sainbury serving the area. They have been refused consent in _numerous_ sites around urban Britain, including a Tesco Metro in Stokes Croft, Bristol near me. 

I have a couple of friends who have swallowed whole a great load of BS about Tesco biz practices. One of them keeps bleating, "Tesco has destroyed the High St." But his local Tesco has done no such thing. Within 500 metres is a perfectly viable M & S Simply Food, a good old fashioned fishmonger, a branch of an off-licence chain - all sorts. Within 1km is a Waitrose, an American Health food supermarket... I could go on.

And Vodaphone did _not _avoid £4bn in tax. It wrote down the value of its assets thus 

"_The company wrote around £2bn off the value of its assets in Italy and a further £2bn off its businesses in Spain, Portugal and Greece."_ That from the Daily Telegraph.

Vodafone takes £4 billion writedown on European weakness

_LONDON (Reuters)_ - _Mobile operator Vodafone wrote down the value of its assets by 4 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) and cut its medium-term sales target on Tuesday, as the debt crisis hit customers in southern Europe, forcing them to save money on phone calls."_

This is not a financial scandal masquerading as 'legal & institutional' malpractice. It's perfectly legitimate commercial process. No business voluntarily write down its assets. It's a very painful thing to have to do.

Do you own a house? If you do and you want to raise finance on it to, say, start or expand a business, you will have to write down its value on your balance sheet from its value in 2005-6. That's not cheating. That is what the market is telling you your house is good for, as equity against loan finance.

By the way, my two friends are so down on Tesco that they will not shop there although I have repeatedly challenged them to show me convincing evidence that their disapproval is matched by fact. In addition as card-carrying members of the conservation fraternity I have never had a reply of _any sort_ to this question.

"I live within a 5 minute walk of a big Tesco. My next nearest s/mkt is a Sainsbury, a 10 minute car trip away. Should I not walk to Tesco but drive to Sainsbury?"

I perceive a lot of tree-hugging, knit-your-own-lentils mythologising about aspects of business and corporate life. I'm as up as as the next person for small, independent shops and businesses - it's one of the reasons I like Spain so much - but it doesn't help to regurgitate the vapourings of those who believe that 'big business' is, in itself, a social evil.


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> Chris is right. There is no comparison in either depth or magnitude between the malpractices of Northern European Governments and corporations and the theft, bribery and general corruption that categorises states like Greece, Spain, Portugal and the former Soviet bloc states.
> All these states have one thing in common: they have been subject to dictatorships of the fascist or socialist variety. Civic society was ruthlessly oppressed and corruption was the norm. Because the state held power over every aspect of personal and commercial life, there was a scarcity of all kinds of goods and the 'little gift' was a way for the ordinary citizen to get access to what s/he needed, whether health care, a good school for one's children or a flat. Corruption became a way of life and also a two-fingered salute to the 'system'.
> I remember taking a bottle of good malt whiskey on a visit to friends in pre-1989 Prague, to be asked if I minded it being given to my friend's mother's doctor as she needed a 'western' drug in short supply.
> We Brits love to find faults in how we live and God knows there are many to find. Political systems, like everything, are run by humans for humans and humans are fallible.
> But we in the UK not only are blessed with the capacity to be offended by public scandals but with the means to uncover and punish them. We have not got used to the idea that back-handers are a 'normal' part of everyday life. We have not experienced a socialist or fascist regime which has closed down our civil society. As for .mastering the art of spin'...well, there was no need for that under fascism or socialism.....'spin' was built into everyday life. In fact there was nothing but 'spin'....Big Brother was the answer to every question.
> 
> As for Tesco....I've been involved in planning wrangles for new Tesco stores and I can say without equivocation that they operate within the framework of planning law. Yes, they often work via 'sweetheart' deals...but if a community gets a sports centre in return for a Tesco out-of-town store....so be it.
> People like Tesco and the majority welcome its arrival in town. Opposition is usually organised by the usual suspects who can afford to patronise dinky little local shops and boutiques.


Can we leave the former communist bloc aside for a while, and stick to the North-South divide? And maybe a bit less of the "We Brits" and "We in the UK"? 

My point was that backhanders, backscratching and backstabbing are just as common in the UK and other mature northern European democracies like the UK as they are in recent southern ones like Spain. It's just that they have become so much a part of the system that they are accepted as normal. Of course they are within the law - because the law, especially planning law (which I know a bit about because I did a degree in it) has evolved to _facilitate_ these practices.

People like Tesco - until they realise all the local shops have been forced out of business (I'm not talking dinky delicatessens in Notting Hill, but the Spar at the end of the road which you could walk to if you ran out of milk). PFIs are another example of completely legal financial scandals. Price fixing by fuel companies. Subsidies to consortia of millionaire arable farmers. Privatisation of everything from school meals to prison education. The constant kowtowing to the Saudis and the Chinese because business needs are more important than human rights.


----------



## baldilocks

Don't forget the local shops that are supplied by local farmers etc not by international airlines - places where you can buy a savoy or potatoes or... that have been sourced just down the road rather than from another continent. 

At least, here in Spain, we do get a certain amount of seasonality of produce (rather than must have seasonal foods all the year round) and the quality of the produce is invariably higher especially when one considers taste, freshness and food value. On the question of appearance? does a lettuce or a potato or cabbage or .... have to be picture perfect? especially if the qualities that matter, are good?

The likes of Tesburys, Asco, Sainsda, etc *have* contributed to the demise of small local shops by virtue of their greater buying power allowing them to sell goods at a much lower price and the gullibility of the public in falling for the temptations offered to them.


----------



## Alcalaina

chrisnation said:


> There is a myth about Tesco being able to open s/mkts anywhere they like. But it is just that - myth. They were not allowed to open a big one on the eastern edge of Plymouth, when I lived near there. There was already a perfectly good Sainbury serving the area. They have been refused consent in _numerous_ sites around urban Britain, including a Tesco Metro in Stokes Croft, Bristol near me.
> 
> I have a couple of friends who have swallowed whole a great load of BS about Tesco biz practices. One of them keeps bleating, "Tesco has destroyed the High St." But his local Tesco has done no such thing. Within 500 metres is a perfectly viable M & S Simply Food, a good old fashioned fishmonger, a branch of an off-licence chain - all sorts. Within 1km is a Waitrose, an American Health food supermarket... I could go on.
> 
> And Vodaphone did _not _avoid £4bn in tax. It wrote down the value of its assets thus
> 
> "_The company wrote around £2bn off the value of its assets in Italy and a further £2bn off its businesses in Spain, Portugal and Greece."_ That from the Daily Telegraph.
> 
> Vodafone takes £4 billion writedown on European weakness
> 
> _LONDON (Reuters)_ - _Mobile operator Vodafone wrote down the value of its assets by 4 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) and cut its medium-term sales target on Tuesday, as the debt crisis hit customers in southern Europe, forcing them to save money on phone calls."_
> 
> This is not a financial scandal masquerading as 'legal & institutional' malpractice. It's perfectly legitimate commercial process. No business voluntarily write down its assets. It's a very painful thing to have to do.
> 
> Do you own a house? If you do and you want to raise finance on it to, say, start or expand a business, you will have to write down its value on your balance sheet from its value in 2005-6. That's not cheating. That is what the market is telling you your house is good for, as equity against loan finance.
> 
> By the way, my two friends are so down on Tesco that they will not shop there although I have repeatedly challenged them to show me convincing evidence that their disapproval is matched by fact. In addition as card-carrying members of the conservation fraternity I have never had a reply of _any sort_ to this question.
> 
> "I live within a 5 minute walk of a big Tesco. My next nearest s/mkt is a Sainsbury, a 10 minute car trip away. Should I not walk to Tesco but drive to Sainsbury?"
> 
> I perceive a lot of tree-hugging, knit-your-own-lentils mythologising about aspects of business and corporate life. I'm as up as as the next person for small, independent shops and businesses - it's one of the reasons I like Spain so much - but it doesn't help to regurgitate the vapourings of those who believe that 'big business' is, in itself, a social evil.


So given the title of this thread, do you think small businesses and multinationals can ever co-exist happily? It does seem to me that the odds are weighted heavily in favour of the big boys - and that, to me, is the "social evil" as you put it. How do we redress the balance?


----------



## chrisnation

*Much truth in that*



baldilocks said:


> Don't forget the local shops that are supplied by local farmers etc not by international airlines - places where you can buy a savoy or potatoes or... that have been sourced just down the road rather than from another continent.
> 
> At least, here in Spain, we do get a certain amount of seasonality of produce (rather than must have seasonal foods all the year round) and the quality of the produce is invariably higher especially when one considers taste, freshness and food value. On the question of appearance? does a lettuce or a potato or cabbage or .... have to be picture perfect? especially if the qualities that matter, are good?
> 
> The likes of Tesburys, Asco, Sainsda, etc *have* contributed to the demise of small local shops by virtue of their greater buying power allowing them to sell goods at a much lower price and the gullibility of the public in falling for the temptations offered to them.


One of my berth-holders at my boatyard in Devon had a thriving general store at the entrance to an extensive housing development on the edge of Tavistock. Residents could stop there in their cars coming home from work or walk there from home when en casa.

For the first couple of years I was there, Tavistock had no s/mkt. Then Safeway opened a full sized branch right opposite this shop. Within weeks he was down on his uppers. 

The first thing to go was, of course, his modest little 25 ft sloop - and my revenue from it. His shop went bust, his wife [who had money of her own] left him - all fall down.

The last sentence of Baldilock's piece is correct up to the word 'price'. After that, wha? 

People who shop at s/mkts are not 'gullible'. They may be lazy. They may be pushed for time. They may actually _prefer_ to shop at one place rather than at many. They will certainly be attracted by lower prices and BOGOFs. But what makes them 'gullible'? What, in buying a light bulb or toothpaste or coffee in a s/mkt rather than some other shop makes them '_easily persuaded to believe something_' [Concise OED]

But it is ridiculous to see strawberries on sale all year round and steak from Uruguay.

But then, in Eric the Cleric [E.Leclerc] in Ganges, Le Herault, France, I saw onions from NZ. And stone the crows! When I was in Auckland, NZ, I saw white onions from France!


----------



## baldilocks

chrisnation said:


> The last sentence of Baldilock's piece is correct up to the word 'price'. After that, wha?
> 
> People who shop at s/mkts are not 'gullible'. They may be lazy. T


But they *are* gullible in that they have been led to believe that produce free of blemishes (a.k.a. picture-perfect) is better than stuff that isn't. They will even reject that which has liitle marks on, etc. and the supermarkets compound this by throwing such produce away at the end of the day. 

When I lived in UK, there was a greengrocer's round the corner that would go to market each morning and buy up what the supermarkets declined because of its looks (ignore the taste, flavour and freshness) then bring it back and sell it at just a little over half the price of the supermarket's "looks good" produce. Should have made millions but for gullible "Joe Public" thinking the higher priced prettier supermarket stuff was better.

The trouble is this disease is spreading to Spain, especially among the younger members of city and town populations.


----------



## nigele2

Alcalaina said:


> So given the title of this thread, do you think small businesses and multinationals can ever co-exist happily? It does seem to me that the odds are weighted heavily in favour of the big boys - and that, to me, is the "social evil" as you put it. How do we redress the balance?


Simples. We use the little guys. And if we don't want to and we shop in the supermarket we have no right to complain - and I imagine many supermarket shoppers are very happy and have no idea what is the problem.

At the end of the day it is down to the customer to decide. In the UK I am between Basingstoke and Newbury. Both have markets of the traditional kind, both have supermarkets. In my village the 5 shops, four pubs, one take away, one restaurant thrive, including the post office. In the country there are farmers shops. There are organic veg deliveries by the dozen. Organic meat from farms within 11 miles. And within and around the village all are independent and legal businesses paying tax if and when they make sufficient money.

Small and large businesses not only co-existing but thriving


----------



## Alcalaina

nigele2 said:


> Simples. We use the little guys. And if we don't want to and we shop in the supermarket we have no right to complain - and I imagine many supermarket shoppers are very happy and have no idea what is the problem.
> 
> At the end of the day it is down to the customer to decide. In the UK I am between Basingstoke and Newbury. Both have markets of the traditional kind, both have supermarkets. In my village the 5 shops, four pubs, one take away, one restaurant thrive, including the post office. In the country there are farmers shops. There are organic veg deliveries by the dozen. Organic meat from farms within 11 miles. And within and around the village all are independent and legal businesses paying tax if and when they make sufficient money.
> 
> Small and large businesses not only co-existing but thriving


That's fine when you live in a nice place with plenty of choice and can afford to choose where to shop. But there are vast areas of the UK, particularly urban areas, where this is not the case - it's the supermarket or nothing, unless they are lucky enough to have an allotment - people on low incomes can't afford organic boxes. They have lost their corner shops and milkmen and bread deliveries forever. Tescos and other retail giants control what they eat, what they wear, and effectively control their lives. Isn't it true that one in eight pounds spent in Britain is spent in Tesco? How can such a monopoly be healthy?

Where I live in Spain (pop. 5,600) we have over 40 tiny shops selling food and lots of people selling their produce on the streets. There is a Día supermarket but it's usually empty. It's a deeply old-fashioned way of doing things but it's efficient, humane and sociable. But in ten or 20 years time I expect most people will prefer to drive 40 km to Carrefour or Lidl because they will have been persuaded by marketers that they get more choice that way. That's "progress" I guess.


----------



## chrisnation

"the 'little gift' was a way for the ordinary citizen to get access to what s/he needed" Not 'alf.

When I was working in Pakistan, I had to make a trip to Singapore to buy audio-viz gear for the outfit I was working at. I needed a 'visa' to leave the country and another one to get back in. When I went to the Interior Ministry Office in Peshawar to get the exit visa, the bloke with the rubber stamp commented on my shades and told me my re-entry visa would be _no trouble at all_ if i would bring him back a pair of shades like mine.

I got my re-entry visa at the High Commission in Singapore. They had all bought their own shades.

This media agency where I worked had only one international direct-dial line. Considering we were supplying AFP, AP, Reuters, BBC et al with print, photo and video news on Russia v Afghanistan, this was not convenient.

The local Pakistani telecoms were quite open about it. A kumshaw in the right place would get our lines up instanter. Our Director, an Afghan of unimpeachable integrity, steadfastly refused to go along with this. Eventually, the guys at the US Consulate, who had an interest in the place, finally persuaded Haji Daud to bung the telecoms. The day he did was the day the linemen went up our nearest pole.

Mind you, I then clocked up such a vast phone bill back to Blighty [98p/min] trying to soothe the squeeze, promising I was not running around with 6' blonde Swedish nurses from ICRC [oh, the 6' Swedish blondes from ICRC!] that I had to stay another month to work off my bill. She didn't believe that, either!

At my boatyard, people were always offering cash , no VAT. In a 12-month I only ever took on 4 of these, always from customers who would otherwise not have commissioned the work. These 4 'black' payments were Xmas bonuses for my 3 employees and me.

I recall a plumber saying on a radio prog about this sort of thing,"There's only so many holidays you can take. What else am I going to do with loads of cash?"

That's because there is limited scope in UK for cash deals.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> Can we leave the former communist bloc aside for a while, and stick to the North-South divide? And maybe a bit less of the "We Brits" and "We in the UK"?
> 
> My point was that backhanders, backscratching and backstabbing are just as common in the UK and other mature northern European democracies like the UK as they are in recent southern ones like Spain. It's just that they have become so much a part of the system that they are accepted as normal. Of course they are within the law - because the law, especially planning law (which I know a bit about because I did a degree in it) has evolved to _facilitate_ these practices.
> 
> People like Tesco - until they realise all the local shops have been forced out of business (I'm not talking dinky delicatessens in Notting Hill, but the Spar at the end of the road which you could walk to if you ran out of milk). PFIs are another example of completely legal financial scandals. Price fixing by fuel companies. Subsidies to consortia of millionaire arable farmers. Privatisation of everything from school meals to prison education. The constant kowtowing to the Saudis and the Chinese because business needs are more important than human rights.


Why 'less of the we Brits'??? You are British, I'm British, this is an immigrant forum. Living in Spain doesn't wipe that out. There is no shame or kudos in being British - it's an accident of birth. And it is relevant to lump Spain in its dictatorship era with the former sociallist states because as I pointed out corruption is inherent in dictatorships whether of left or right. In fact, I think it is a legacy of oppression of civil society.
The post was in reply to one (yours?) alleging that the situation in the UK is as bad as in Spain only more politely and opaquely so.
You did a degree in planning law, I sat on committees and used it to approve or deny applications according to the intricacies of these laws. I've also attended and spoken at Committees of Enquiry into planning decisions which have been objected to by local people.
I think you would find that if you polled the population of any area they would vote decisively in favour of Tesco and other big stores. Where the locals don't want Tesco, applications are turned down - Chris has given examples. Life has changed from the 1950s....women work, haven't time to go from shop to shop. People like 'big'. That may be unpalatable to a few but that's how it is.
As for 'price-fixing', 'subsidies to millionaire farmers' 'privatisation of everything'... yes, some of those things are wrong, especially PFI which is scandalous in your opinion - and mine - but found perfectly acceptable by others.
But without proof I cannot accept your statement that backstabbing, backhanders etc. are as much a part of life in the UK and Northern European countries as in Spain.
Human rights....they are not written on tablets of stone like the Ten Commandments, though, are they? They are human artefacts and subject to change. Fifty years ago gay men had none of the rights they have today. Trading with China may be helping not only to raise the standard of living of Chinese people but may help get them political freedom too.
I posted earlier about the dilemma of arms sales.....if we refuse, other countries will supply those arms. Tens of thousands of workers lose jobs. Whose rights are trumps? 
Whilst there is no 'human right' to shop where one chooses, people can and do vote with their wallets.
You can't and shouldn't force people to shop where you or I think they should. Big businesses can and do coexist with smaller companies. Our business wasn't ICI but we got a lot of business from large and multi-national companies.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> That's fine when you live in a nice place with plenty of choice and can afford to choose where to shop. But there are vast areas of the UK, particularly urban areas, where this is not the case - it's the supermarket or nothing, unless they are lucky enough to have an allotment - people on low incomes can't afford organic boxes. They have lost their corner shops and milkmen and bread deliveries forever. Tescos and other retail giants control what they eat, what they wear, and effectively control their lives. Isn't it true that one in eight pounds spent in Britain is spent in Tesco? *How can such a monopoly be healthy*?
> 
> Where I live in Spain (pop. 5,600) we have over 40 tiny shops selling food and lots of people selling their produce on the streets. There is a Día supermarket but it's usually empty. It's a deeply old-fashioned way of doing things but it's efficient, humane and sociable. But in ten or 20 years time I expect most people will prefer to drive 40 km to Carrefour or Lidl because they will have been persuaded by marketers that they get more choice that way. That's "progress" I guess.



Why is a private monopoly more evil than a state monopoly?
Maybe people choose without being persuaded by anything other than their own free decision....
Why do we assume that if the majority choose a commercial option over another they are doing so because they are too dim to make a free choice
Is this a case of knowing what's 'best' for people?


----------



## mrypg9

baldilocks said:


> ?
> 
> The likes of Tesburys, Asco, Sainsda, etc *have* contributed to the demise of small local shops by virtue of their greater buying power allowing them to sell goods at a much lower price and the gullibility of the public in falling for the temptations offered to them.


And small shops did away with market stalls and peddlars...
I daresay people moaned then...


----------



## baldilocks

mrypg9 said:


> Whilst there is no 'human right' to shop where one chooses people vote with their wallets.
> You can't and shouldn't force people to shop where you or I think they should.


But, unfortunately, the way things are run these days, it is often the case of having to go to the supermarket because the little shop no longer exists. You look in many of the villages that have been inundated with the chelsea-tractor brigade. The elderly and less well-off, who have no choice but to stay in their homes, are in an often fairly desperate situation. The little local shop has gone (the c/t brigade shop in the supermarkets in the towns) the bus service that the elderly could have taken to the town to get their shopping (this was never enough business to keep the local shop going) was axed by MT's crowd. So what choice do they have? what are their options? who's going to let them choose?


----------



## mrypg9

baldilocks said:


> But, unfortunately, the way things are run these days, it is often the case of having to go to the supermarket because the little shop no longer exists. You look in many of the villages that have been inundated with the chelsea-tractor brigade. The elderly and less well-off, who have no choice but to stay in their homes, are in an often fairly desperate situation. The little local shop has gone (the c/t brigade shop in the supermarkets in the towns) the bus service that the elderly could have taken to the town to get their shopping (this was never enough business to keep the local shop going) was axed by MT's crowd. So what choice do they have? what are their options? who's going to let them choose?


As a generality, choice in every aspect of our lives never has been and never will be on offer in any society..
I've not come across cases of elderly or less-well-off people starving in the UK because they didn't have a village shop. or means of transport of one kind or another...I lived in a rural area and the less well-off in villages preferred to get the bus to the nearest supermarket as their village store was so expensive.
It's the affluent weekenders who like to see their village shop, their village pub..Most locals are indifferent.
I've been involved in these 'save our village pub/shop/cinema/village hall campaigns..nearly all the campaigners were the more affluent residents. The lesser mortals preferred to stay at home with a supermarket bought six-pack and watch tv..as is their right in a free democratic society.


----------



## baldilocks

mrypg9 said:


> As a generality, choice in every aspect of our lives never has been and never will be on offer in any society..
> I've not come across cases of elderly or less-well-off people starving in the UK because they didn't have a village shop. or means of transport of one kind or another...I lived in a rural area and the less well-off in villages preferred to get the bus to the nearest supermarket as their village store was so expensive.
> It's the affluent weekenders who like to see their village shop, their village pub..Most locals are indifferent.
> I've been involved in these 'save our village pub/shop/cinema/village hall campaigns..nearly all the campaigners were the more affluent residents. The lesser mortals preferred to stay at home with a supermarket bought six-pack and watch tv..as is their right in a free democratic society.


You have obiously lived in the wrong areas. In the parts of Essex where I last worked, thanks to MT, they had no buses except for a school bus until that was stopped and the council started using taxis. They haven't starved because many have a bit of garden to help support them and there has been the occasional mobile shop (and you know their prices/quality) and the odd relative will get a bit of shopping for them or take them and a neighbour or two to the town. 

The County Council tried a minibus scheme that would link the villages to a nearby town or access to trains or bus services but they gave the contract to Arriva whereas another bus company in the area (that had links into the Council via...) managed to wangle the contract for themselves and provided a very minimal service (one each way on a few days a week) under it, which did little to serve the needs of the villagers. The previous Arriva contract provided an hourly service and was very successful and well used.


----------



## jimenato

I think people are hankering after a perceived better past - sometimes called The Rose Tinted Specs Fallacy. We could never have afforded the time to go from shop to shop buying bits and pieces - one stop all purchases - done. 

I am interested in this 'corruption in the UK is as bad as corruption in Spain" (I paraphrase) theory. The mayor of Marbella made millions out of corrupt planning deals and that is not an isolated incident. Where is the equivalent in the UK of a local government official, councillor or mayor profiting from planning deals in this way?



> chrisnation:
> By the way, my two friends are so down on Tesco that they will not shop there although I have repeatedly challenged them to show me convincing evidence that their disapproval is matched by fact. In addition as card-carrying members of the conservation fraternity I have never had a reply of any sort to this question.


You are making the common mistake of thinking that this kind of poilitical thinking is subject to logic and reason - it is not - it is a matter of blind faith and therefore far more akin to religion.



> Alcalaina:
> Hence companies like Tesco get to open supermarkets where they like and Vodafone gets let off its £4 bn tax bill.


I believe this statement has been refuted by mary and chrisnation.



> mrypg9:
> As for Tesco....I've been involved in planning wrangles for new Tesco stores and I can say without equivocation that they operate within the framework of planning law. Yes, they often work via 'sweetheart' deals...but if a community gets a sports centre in return for a Tesco out-of-town store....so be it.





> chrisnation:
> There is a myth about Tesco being able to open s/mkts anywhere they like. But it is just that - myth. They were not allowed to open a big one on the eastern edge of Plymouth, when I lived near there. There was already a perfectly good Sainbury serving the area. They have been refused consent in numerous sites around urban Britain, including a Tesco Metro in Stokes Croft, Bristol near me.


This part of the discussion is about corruption - talk of killing off high streets, destroying consumer choice and shipping food around the world are irrelevant to this and seem to be being used to justify the perception that the UK is as corrupt as Spain


----------



## mrypg9

jimenato said:


> This part of the discussion is about corruption - talk of killing off high streets, destroying consumer choice and shipping food around the world are irrelevant to this and seem to be being used to justify the perception that the UK is as corrupt as Spain


But to some people it all hangs together as part of a general indictment of capitalism.

Incidentally, where my mum lived Tesco supplied free buses to and from their superstore. My mum loved it. She'd never been in a supermarket like that, having ben obliged by necessity not choice to patronise expensive, poorly-stocked small local shops all of her life. Tesco was like an Aladdin's Cave. She saw fruits and vegetables she had never seen before...


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> Why is a private monopoly more evil than a state monopoly?
> Maybe people choose without being persuaded by anything other than their own free decision....
> Why do we assume that if the majority choose a commercial option over another they are doing so because they are too dim to make a free choice
> Is this a case of knowing what's 'best' for people?


I didn't say a private monopoly was more evil than a state monopoly. I'm not sure where you got that from. 

Manipulating consumer decision-making is crucial in a market economy. You don't have to be dim to be susceptible to marketing. 

People see 95 different types of toothpaste in Tescos (that's a genuine figure BTW) and think they have more choice. But IMO freedom of choice means being able to choose NOT to shop there, and that freedom is removed once all the small businesses are squeezed out.



mrypg9 said:


> Why 'less of the we Brits'??? You are British, I'm British, this is an immigrant forum. Living in Spain doesn't wipe that out. There is no shame or kudos in being British - it's an accident of birth.


Of course there is nothing shameful about being British. I guess I just have an aversion to any discussion that s based around "us and them". You talk about "We Brits" as if there is a consensus, a uniformity that makes Brits different from other nationalities. I don't hold with that view. And "We in the UK" is just geographically inaccurate!  



mrypg9 said:


> And it is relevant to lump Spain in its dictatorship era with the former sociallist states because as I pointed out corruption is inherent in dictatorships whether of left or right. In fact, I think it is a legacy of oppression of civil society.


Yes, but it's a deviation. This discussion is about the present day.




mrypg9 said:


> The post was in reply to one (yours?) alleging that the situation in the UK is as bad as in Spain only more politely and opaquely so.


In terms of financial corruption, I still hold that view.


mrypg9 said:


> You did a degree in planning law, I sat on committees and used it to approve or deny applications according to the intricacies of these laws. I've also attended and spoken at Committees of Enquiry into planning decisions which have been objected to by local people.
> I think you would find that if you polled the population of any area they would vote decisively in favour of Tesco and other big stores. Where the locals don't want Tesco, applications are turned down - Chris has given examples. Life has changed from the 1950s....women work, haven't time to go from shop to shop. People like 'big'. That may be unpalatable to a few but that's how it is.
> As for 'price-fixing', 'subsidies to millionaire farmers' 'privatisation of everything'... yes, some of those things are wrong, especially PFI which is scandalous in your opinion - and mine - but found perfectly acceptable by others.
> But without proof I cannot accept your statement that backstabbing, backhanders etc. are as much a part of life in the UK and Northern European countries as in Spain.


PFIs in the UK are the equivalent of Castellón airport and AVEs in Spain. Big profits for the private sector, authorised by the politicians, paid for in the long run by the taxpayer. Their backhanders just come in a different format - share options rather than shirts, non-executive directorships when they leave the House, that sort of thing.


mrypg9 said:


> Human rights....they are not written on tablets of stone like the Ten Commandments, though, are they? They are human artefacts and subject to change. Fifty years ago gay men had none of the rights they have today. Trading with China may be helping not only to raise the standard of living of Chinese people but may help get them political freedom too.
> I posted earlier about the dilemma of arms sales.....if we refuse, other countries will supply those arms. Tens of thousands of workers lose jobs. Whose rights are trumps?


Gay men still don't have those rights in most parts of the world, and Europe, which does have a fine human human rights charter, should be using its power as a trading bloc to persuade other countries to adopt it. Personally, I believe that should trump British jobs (or German for that matter) in arms factories. And as you know, it's not the workers' livelihood that governments worry about, so much as the vast profits made by the arms industries.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> I didn't say a private monopoly was more evil than a state monopoly. I'm not sure where you got that from.
> 
> Manipulating consumer decision-making is crucial in a market economy. You don't have to be dim to be susceptible to marketing.
> 
> People see 95 different types of toothpaste in Tescos (that's a genuine figure BTW) and think they have more choice. But IMO freedom of choice means being able to choose NOT to shop there, and that freedom is removed once all the small businesses are squeezed out.
> 
> 
> Of course there is nothing shameful about being British. I guess I just have an aversion to any discussion that s based around "us and them". You talk about "We Brits" as if there is a consensus, a uniformity that makes Brits different from other nationalities. I don't hold with that view. And "We in the UK" is just geographically inaccurate!
> 
> 
> Yes, but it's a deviation. This discussion is about the present day.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In terms of financial corruption, I still hold that view.
> 
> PFIs in the UK are the equivalent of Castellón airport and AVEs in Spain. Big profits for the private sector, authorised by the politicians, paid for in the long run by the taxpayer. Their backhanders just come in a different format - share options rather than shirts, non-executive directorships when they leave the House, that sort of thing.
> 
> Gay men still don't have those rights in most parts of the world, and Europe, which does have a fine human human rights charter, should be using its power as a trading bloc to persuade other countries to adopt it. Personally, I believe that should trump British jobs (or German for that matter) in arms factories. And as you know, it's not the workers' livelihood that governments worry about, so much as the vast profits made by the arms industries.


I think you are 100% wrong in thinking that corruption in the UK in any way resembles that in Spain. You really should provide evidence for that kind of statement which is based on supposition rather than fact, insinuation rather than actual cases.
It must be made clear: you choose to view things which are above-board, part of normal business practice as 'backhanders', somehow immoral and wrong. But if you know this and it's out in the open....then it isn't corrupt...it's not furtive or hidden, otherwise how would you know about it? You can scarcely compare this kind of thing to the downright fraud, bribery, theft and cynical misuse of public money. The public culture in the UK simply isn't like that in Spain. Yes, there's hypocrisy and of course some wrong-doing. Do you think that wouldn't happen in a 'fairer' system? 
These things are run by humans and always subject to human failing.
You disapprove of large projects funded by the taxpayer....incidentally a good description of the British welfare state or any state undertaking. But the majority of the voting public obviously are happy to go along with this way of organising our national affairs - when given the chance to vote otherwise as in 1983 they decisively rejected it.
As for British, German or Spanish workers' jobs being less important than some vague notion of 'human rights'....so the arms get sold anyway by a less fastidious government but in the name of some abstract concept workers and their families must suffer???? Apart from satisfying the conscience of people who put abstract concepts over real peoples' lives, what real good has been achieved? 
You are prepared to sacrifice the well-being of workers and their families for nothing since the arms will be sold anyway????? What will happen is that people will die and people will be unemployed. Nothing more or less...but you think that is a price worth paying in order to observe some abstract notion of 'human rights'???
The bottom line is this: you clearly disapprove of capitalism and see the world according to that judgment. I share some of your disapproval, certainly about the kind of capitalism we have been subjected to for the last thirty years or so.
But the majority don't and not just in the UK but in Spain, the rest of Europe and most definitely in those states which lived under a different system.
You see a political situation where the workers are exploited, by banks, big business, supermarkets, PFIs: but how come that unexploited workers under socialism had a lower material and social standard of living and certainly less freedom than their exploited brethren in the capitalist world?
People have to live in the real world, make a living as best they can under the most trying circumstances. That is what politics is about....dirty work, agreed, but dealing with the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be....


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> Gay men still don't have those rights in most parts of the world, and Europe, which *does have a fine human human rights charter*, should be using its power as a trading bloc to persuade other countries to adopt it. QUOTE]
> 
> In view of the Charter's role in forcing the UK to keep on its territory a terrorist who openly preaches jihad and racism, an illegal immigrant who is wanted on criminal charges....do you still think it 'fine'?
> 
> The suspicion that torture may have been involved - suspicion, no more, no less - allows him to flout the decisions of British courts, the will of Parliament and the vast majority of British people.....
> 
> 
> Human Rights Charters, although pious declarations observed more often in their breach than in practice, are an essential framework in that if nothing else they are a standing reminder of decent treatment of citizens.
> Should there perhaps also be a Charter of Responsibilities to accompany these rights?
> I would suggest that not encouraging susceptible young men to murder human beings of another race or religion should be amongst them?
> 
> Incidentally, your idea that the EU should use its power as a trading bloc to enforce gay rights in more benighted countries wouldn't be well-received by working people who might lose their jobs because of this stance, I fear.
> 
> Just a hypothetical question: how many Spanish jobs are worth sacrificing to get gay rights in China?
> These questions are a mere subject for interesting debate for us but out there in the real world they are much more than that for those elected to take those decisions.


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> I think you are 100% wrong in thinking that corruption in the UK in any way resembles that in Spain. You really should provide evidence for that kind of statement which is based on supposition rather than fact, insinuation rather than actual cases.
> It must be made clear: you choose to view things which are above-board, part of normal business practice as 'backhanders', somehow immoral and wrong. But if you know this and it's out in the open....then it isn't corrupt...it's not furtive or hidden, otherwise how would you know about it? You can scarcely compare this kind of thing to the downright fraud, bribery, theft and cynical misuse of public money. The public culture in the UK simply isn't like that in Spain. Yes, there's hypocrisy and of course some wrong-doing. Do you think that wouldn't happen in a 'fairer' system?
> These things are run by humans and always subject to human failing.
> You disapprove of large projects funded by the taxpayer....incidentally a good description of the British welfare state or any state undertaking. But the majority of the voting public obviously are happy to go along with this way of organising our national affairs - when given the chance to vote otherwise as in 1983 they decisively rejected it.
> As for British, German or Spanish workers' jobs being less important than some vague notion of 'human rights'....so the arms get sold anyway by a less fastidious government but in the name of some abstract concept workers and their families must suffer???? Apart from satisfying the conscience of people who put abstract concepts over real peoples' lives, what real good has been achieved?
> You are prepared to sacrifice the well-being of workers and their families for nothing since the arms will be sold anyway????? What will happen is that people will die and people will be unemployed. Nothing more or less...but you think that is a price worth paying in order to observe some abstract notion of 'human rights'???
> The bottom line is this: you clearly disapprove of capitalism and see the world according to that judgment. I share some of your disapproval, certainly about the kind of capitalism we have been subjected to for the last thirty years or so.
> But the majority don't and not just in the UK but in Spain, the rest of Europe and most definitely in those states which lived under a different system.
> You see a political situation where the workers are exploited, by banks, big business, supermarkets, PFIs: but how come that unexploited workers under socialism had a lower material and social standard of living and certainly less freedom than their exploited brethren in the capitalist world?
> People have to live in the real world, make a living as best they can under the most trying circumstances. That is what politics is about....dirty work, agreed, but dealing with the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be....


I don't have time to answer every point in detail. You seem to assume that because I am opposed to the excesses of unrestrained capitalism I am in favour of totalitarianism instead, which is not the case. It makes it difficult for me to defend my corner when you keep redefining my corner. 

For me, politics should be about maintaining the balance between human rights and market forces, that enables everyone to benefit - workers, investors, consumers, whatever. That includes (back to topic!) a level playing field for small businesses in a world dominated by multinationals.

If politics stops being about working to make things better, we might as well all give up now.

Have a nice day!


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> I think you are 100% wrong in thinking that corruption in the UK in any way resembles that in Spain. You really should provide evidence for that kind of statement which is based on supposition rather than fact, insinuation rather than actual cases.
> It must be made clear: you choose to view things which are above-board, part of normal business practice as 'backhanders', somehow immoral and wrong. But if you know this and it's out in the open....then it isn't corrupt...it's not furtive or hidden, otherwise how would you know about it?


But isn't that Alcalaina's point? At least partly.

The system which has developed in Britain over centuries allows dealings which, in any other context we would call corrupt, to appear as above-board.
And when certain dealings _still_ appear as corrupt, the public may be lucky enough to witness a public inquiry and then everything will get back to 'normal' again.

The inquiry into MPs allowance's is a case in point. A few heads were made to role, but most escaped.
Did this give the general public any more faith in the current system?
I doubt it.

The Leveson Inquiry is another case in point.
But it's getting too boring to even contemplate...


----------



## Solwriter

Alcalaina said:


> It makes it difficult for me to defend my corner when you keep redefining my corner.


Lol!


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> But isn't that Alcalaina's point? At least partly.
> 
> *The system which has developed in Britain over centuries allows dealings which, in any other context we would call corrupt, to appear as above-board.*
> And when certain dealings _still_ appear as corrupt, the public may be lucky enough to witness a public inquiry and then everything will get back to 'normal' again.
> 
> The inquiry into MPs allowance's is a case in point. A few heads were made to role, but most escaped.
> Did this give the general public any more faith in the current system?
> I doubt it.
> 
> The Leveson Inquiry is another case in point.
> But it's getting too boring to even contemplate...


My point is this: we may find certain dealings immoral and not to our taste....but there is a distinct legal definition of corruption. It is not a matter of opinion but of fact.
I think you recognise that point as you qualify your comments with terms such as 'in _any other context' _or _'appear as corrupt'._ We are talking of a particular context and reality not 'appearances'.
Aren't you merely expressing disapproval of certain perfectly legal practices, practices which the majority accept and may even approve of?
Neither you nor Alca has provided hard evidence of this 'corruption' which is allegedly as bad in the UK as in Spain.
The general public may or may not have faith in the current system. It seems they have no great desire to change it drastically.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> I don't have time to answer every point in detail. You seem to assume that because I am opposed to the excesses of unrestrained capitalism I am in favour of totalitarianism instead, which is not the case. It makes it difficult for me to defend my corner when you keep redefining my corner.
> 
> *For me, politics should be about maintaining the balance between human rights and market forces, that enables everyone to benefit - workers, investors, consumers, whatever. That includes (back to topic!) a level playing field for small businesses in a world dominated by multinationals.*
> 
> If politics stops being about working to make things better, we might as well all give up now.
> 
> Have a nice day!


Of course I don't think you are in favour of 'unrestrained totalitarianism' - nowhere have I said, suggested or implied that.
But I do think that you look at the wood and not the trees. Abstract principles are very fine things but the real world doesn't often provide opportunities to put them into practice.
That highlighted paragraph is about an ideal and gives no clue as to how this desirable state of affairs could be achieved.
I have said many times that the German model of Ordo-economics is the best way on offer to achieve the aims of that passage - wouldn't you agree?
Major elements of this social-market economy are co-determination, which as you know is a system whereby workers sit on the Boards of companies, a network of workers' councils for solving shop-floor problems on an individual enterprise level, a system of collective bargaining between the industry associations and unions by which wages, hours, benefits and the like are set on a sector or industry-wide basis and finally the still extensive social welfare legislation that stipulates health benefits, working conditions and hours, job security and the like.
Can you think of a better existing system?

Btw, I don't 'redefine your corner', do I... You introduce issues into discussions -such as human rights, the evil of arms sales which I pick up. 
If you find the time, I'd like to know your answer to some of the questions I raised, though. 

Yes, politics is about making life better. That became my sole aim and purpose in active political and trade union work: getting families decent homes, improving the local environment,getting workers decent pay and conditions. That's what I spent the best part of three decades doing.
But I only did anything remotely described as 'useful' once I had jettisoned my youthful and naive idealism and resigned myself to the fact that being useful involved taking the less unpalatable of the options on offer, having to cut corners and compromise and progressing by small steps rather than great leaps.
I learned that you can't change the world but you can make a real difference in your own back yard which is really all we can hope for.


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> My point is this: we may find certain dealings immoral and not to our taste....but there is a distinct legal definition of corruption. It is not a matter of opinion but of fact.
> I think you recognise that point as you qualify your comments with terms such as 'in _any other context' _or _'appear as corrupt'._ We are talking of a particular context and reality not 'appearances'.
> Aren't you merely expressing disapproval of certain perfectly legal practices, practices which the majority accept and may even approve of?
> Neither you nor Alca has provided hard evidence of this 'corruption' which is allegedly as bad in the UK as in Spain.


Because, as you say, *'there is a distinct legal definition of corruption'*.

The point is, that when certain dealings are enshrined in law as legal (and therefore not corrupt), it is hard to find exact examples.

So really this debate comes down to the choice of words used to describe and compare financial dealings between Spain and the UK.

Nevertheless, if I had the time or the inclination, I'm sure I could go off and find some examples. But to be honest, there would be no point in wasting my time, as I would be sent off to look for more.


----------



## nigele2

But some examples of the difference between the UK and Spain:

My spanish family justify criminality performed by them as a means of getting back at the crooks - the government, the corrupt and big business (mainly big business of the US but that directly links to how the US did business with Franco).

In the UK my family, if they commit crime, hide it and feel ashamed of it. 

In Spain my family do not trust spanish police despite, or perhaps because, my father-in-law was guardia civil.

In the UK my family hold the police in the highest regard.

Finally my dealings with spanish big business involved illegal activity from how I would define it. Dealing with hundreds of big business orgs in the UK, France and the US I have not seen similar activities being performed totally openly (criminal or not).

It is very easy for me to see that Spain is not the UK in these regards. And my spanish family fully accept that. 

Don't get me wrong I'd love to support Spain but the evidense is sadly all with Mary's side.

Of course I still strongly disagree with Mary's solution


----------



## jimenato

I have run businesses in the UK and Spain. 

My experiences tell me that the UK is relatively open and law abiding and Spain is corrupt from top to bottom. 

Sorry, that's just the way it is. I don't want it to be so but what I want doesn't make any difference.


----------



## nigele2

jimenato said:


> I have run businesses in the UK and Spain.
> 
> My experiences tell me that the UK is relatively open and law abiding and Spain is corrupt from top to bottom.
> 
> Sorry, that's just the way it is. I don't want it to be so but what I want doesn't make any difference.


I added a like jimento to get you to 200 likes  It's difficult in all honesty to like your post but it is the truth


----------



## XTreme

Everybody's on the make here.....tax evasion is a national sport, and the most corrupt are the ones with the most power.

There's created jobs for friends and family, nobody will accept accountability for anything, and those within the "system" will never go against it.

From the bottom to the top there's the stench of corruption, and if you try to play by the rules you'll be nailed to the wheel.

No big deal for me....I was born and brought up in Swansea....lying, cheating, and stealing all around me is all I've ever known!


----------



## mrypg9

nigele2 said:


> But some examples of the difference between the UK and Spain:
> 
> My spanish family justify criminality performed by them as a means of getting back at the crooks - the government, the corrupt and big business (mainly big business of the US but that directly links to how the US did business with Franco).
> 
> In the UK my family, if they commit crime, hide it and feel ashamed of it.
> 
> In Spain my family do not trust spanish police despite, or perhaps because, my father-in-law was guardia civil.
> 
> In the UK my family hold the police in the highest regard.
> 
> Finally my dealings with spanish big business involved illegal activity from how I would define it. Dealing with hundreds of big business orgs in the UK, France and the US I have not seen similar activities being performed totally openly (criminal or not).
> 
> It is very easy for me to see that Spain is not the UK in these regards. And my spanish family fully accept that.
> 
> Don't get me wrong I'd love to support Spain but the evidense is sadly all with Mary's side.
> 
> Of course I still strongly disagree with Mary's solution


What solution?? Do you mean adopting a social market economy on the German model?
If not, what solution would you put forward?


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> Because, as you say, *'there is a distinct legal definition of corruption'*.
> 
> The point is, that when certain dealings are enshrined in law as legal (and therefore not corrupt), it is hard to find exact examples.
> 
> So really this debate comes down to the choice of words used to describe and compare financial dealings between Spain and the UK.
> 
> *Nevertheless, if I had the time or the inclination, I'm sure I could go off and find some examples. But to be honest, there would be no point in wasting my time, as I would be sent off to look for more.*


Yes, it comes down to the choice of words. We agree.
The words you choose will be those that fit your pre-existing view of an issue.
Nigel has neatly summed up the real as opposed to theoretical differences, a summary which incidentally confirms my view that oppressive regimes whether of right or left suffocate civil society and trust.
That is why my comparisons of socialist and right-wing regimes is apt and relevant: both are riddled with institutionalised corruption which simply does not exist in the UK.

Is this an example of backhanders and 'corruption', I wonder? Our UK businesses had dealings with the road transport industry. At Christmas our suppliers would deliver to our workshops all kinds of 'goodies'....crates of wine, bottles of good whiskey, gin etc., boxes of chocolates, cosmetics.
We used to put them all on a long table for our employees to help themselves.
Was that wrong? Should we have sent them back?
That is how business works -has done and always will do.
I think your last sentence is a bit unfair. Don't we usually make our arguments sound by providing proof? 
When I'm told that we should stop arms sales and I reply that people will lose jobs but the arms sales will go ahead...doesn't that deserve to be refuted if it can be?
I'm still waiting to hear how many Spanish workers jobs are worth trading for gay rights in China.
These are the dilemmas those we elect have to deal with in the real world. They can't be treated like a uni seminar discussion...decisions have to be made. Should a Jordanian terrorist be extradited -or not, as the ECHR has judged, in the face of opposition from the majority of people in the UK? How to fairly allocate scarce resources? Who 'deserves' to get a council house? 
After a decade of dealing in abstractions and impossibilities-which is the usual fare of much far-left politics- I decided to get my hands dirty and on a small scale try to improve a few people's lives.


----------



## mrypg9

nigele2 said:


> But some examples of the difference between the UK and Spain:
> 
> My spanish family justify criminality performed by them as a means of getting back at the crooks - the government, the corrupt and big business (mainly big business of the US but that directly links to how the US did business with Franco).
> 
> In the UK my family, if they commit crime, hide it and feel ashamed of it.
> 
> In Spain my family do not trust spanish police despite, or perhaps because, my father-in-law was guardia civil.
> 
> In the UK my family hold the police in the highest regard.
> 
> Finally my dealings with spanish big business involved illegal activity from how I would define it. Dealing with hundreds of big business orgs in the UK, France and the US I have not seen similar activities being performed totally openly (criminal or not).
> 
> It is very easy for me to see that Spain is not the UK in these regards. And my spanish family fully accept that.
> 
> Don't get me wrong I'd love to support Spain but the evidense is sadly all with Mary's side.
> 
> Of course I still strongly disagree with Mary's solution




This one?


_Major elements of this social-market economy are co-determination, which as you know is a system whereby workers sit on the Boards of companies, a network of workers' councils for solving shop-floor problems on an individual enterprise level, a system of collective bargaining between the industry associations and unions by which wages, hours, benefits and the like are set on a sector or industry-wide basis and finally the still extensive social welfare legislation that stipulates health benefits, working conditions and hours, job security and the like.
Can you think of a better existing system?_


----------



## nigele2

mrypg9 said:


> This one?
> 
> 
> _Major elements of this social-market economy are co-determination, which as you know is a system whereby workers sit on the Boards of companies, a network of workers' councils for solving shop-floor problems on an individual enterprise level, a system of collective bargaining between the industry associations and unions by which wages, hours, benefits and the like are set on a sector or industry-wide basis and finally the still extensive social welfare legislation that stipulates health benefits, working conditions and hours, job security and the like.
> Can you think of a better existing system?_


Mary no problem identifying a better system and saying that's where we should be. But that won't happen unless the underlying problems are addressed. And it is the identification of the problems that is the difficult bit. What you see as part of the solution I see as part of the problem.

Sometimes it is better to build a new house than spend time wallpapering over the cracks.

But can't debate this further Mary. I'm currently translating an Asturian miners letter helping get the real message across and not that of the crumbling Spanish Government. No surprise it relates to PP and PSOE corruption.


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> I think your last sentence is a bit unfair. Don't we usually make our arguments sound by providing proof?


Sorry!
Yesterday was a long, hot and tiring day, so my comment was also tired and unfair....partly. 

On tired days, I object to someone organising the debate for me.
And although I know I am quite capable of backing up my statements, I really can't be bothered.
But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't post.

This is a forum, not an undergraduate seminar.
If everyone had to go off and research their proof before joining in a forum debate, this forum and many others would be pretty quiet.

When giving advice about living in Spain, moving to Spain, Taxes, Healthcare, etc, then yes - we should try our best to provide the correct answers.
But a political debate.... 
Tell that to some politicians!


----------



## chrisnation

*Thank goodness*



XTreme said:


> Everybody's on the make here.....tax evasion is a national sport, and the most corrupt are the ones with the most power.
> 
> There's created jobs for friends and family, nobody will accept accountability for anything, and those within the "system" will never go against it.
> 
> From the bottom to the top there's the stench of corruption, and if you try to play by the rules you'll be nailed to the wheel.
> 
> No big deal for me....I was born and brought up in Swansea....lying, cheating, and stealing all around me is all I've ever known!


... my old Dad was brought up in Cardiff!


----------



## chrisnation

*Most escaped?!*



Solwriter said:


> But isn't that Alcalaina's point? At least partly.
> 
> The system which has developed in Britain over centuries allows dealings which, in any other context we would call corrupt, to appear as above-board.
> And when certain dealings _still_ appear as corrupt, the public may be lucky enough to witness a public inquiry and then everything will get back to 'normal' again.
> 
> The inquiry into MPs allowance's is a case in point. A few heads were made to role, but most escaped.
> Did this give the general public any more faith in the current system?
> I doubt it.
> 
> The Leveson Inquiry is another case in point.
> But it's getting too boring to even contemplate...


They most certainly did not! The ones who had committed criminal offences were prosecuted - yes. The large number who had violated the rules were made to repay what they had claimed in excess. Some repaid tens of thousands, some only a few hundred. But they did not 'escape'. 

The MPs' claims scandal showed British civic rectitude in a very good light. A system had slowly built up over the years that had clearly gone a long way from the original intention of providing reasonable claims against expenses. When this was revealed, all MPs were audited. Those deemed to have claimed excessively - including those who had violated _the spirit_ of the rules - were made to pay.

In addition, the nasty stink that the British public smelled coming out of this episode materially affected voters' preferences. It had political, as well as moral repercussions.

Mr. Rajoy and others of his ilk must have been amazed how the British politicos had allowed themselves to be held to account and politically tarnished by, for instance, claiming for a £1500 TV [Gerald Kaufmann] when the 'John Lewis List' guide indicated a max for a TV of £800.

The episode itself was a stinker. The way it was subsequently cleaned up gives great credit to the probity of British life.

The only truly Rajoyesque scandal I can think of in UK was the Poulson affair. The result of that was long jail sentences for Poulson and others. Reginald Maudling, a Cabinet Minister, was forced to resign. He and another MP escaped prosecution by dint of a Commons loophole. This was immediately stopped up and the 'Members' Interests' leger was created.

What Poulson, Maudling and others got up to in this incident was property development on the nod, with bungs. Sound familiar?


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> Sorry!
> Yesterday was a long, hot and tiring day, so my comment was also tired and unfair....partly.
> 
> On tired days, I object to someone organising the debate for me.
> And although I know I am quite capable of backing up my statements, I really can't be bothered.
> But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't post.
> 
> This is a forum, not an undergraduate seminar.
> If everyone had to go off and research their proof before joining in a forum debate, this forum and many others would be pretty quiet.
> 
> When giving advice about living in Spain, moving to Spain, Taxes, Healthcare, etc, then yes - we should try our best to provide the correct answers.
> But a political debate....
> Tell that to some politicians!


I take your point...but I do think that if you make a statement such as 'Spain is corrupt' 'arms sales are immoral' and so on one really should be able to give reasons , not merely assert.
Otherwise it's not debate, it's just trading opinions.
Throughout my political activity..as Councillor, standing for UK and European Parliament and as trades unionist specialising in employment rights I've rarely been given the luxury of an unchallenged opinion. I am used to being asked to justify a viewpoint, to give examples and I've had to deal with hecklers ranging from the humorous to the downright vicious and nasty.
As I've said, politics for me is about doing what is achievable. I've learnt to distrust large assertions and what are often meaningless wish-lists!


----------



## mrypg9

nigele2 said:


> Mary no problem identifying a better system and saying that's where we should be. But that won't happen unless the underlying problems are addressed. And it is the identification of the problems that is the difficult bit. What you see as part of the solution I *see as part of the problem.*
> 
> Sometimes it is better to *build a new house* than spend time wallpapering over the cracks.
> 
> But can't debate this further Mary. I'm currently translating an Asturian miners letter helping get the real message across and not that of the crumbling Spanish Government. No surprise it relates to PP and PSOE corruption.


Funny how people are reluctant to enter into debate about interesting issues they've raised...and you accused me of being a 'politician' and not giving straight answers, Nigel...

When you have time, can you elaborate what you see as the 'underlying problems'?
I think it's easy to identify the problem....the adoption of neo-liberal economic theory by too many European and U.S. governments.
If you mean by 'building a new house' some kind of socialist revolution...forget about it. People have seen what socialist regimes are like in practice and wherever they have been imposed on people they have succeeded only in equalising poverty....and were removed at the first opportunity in 1989, the year of freedom for many European peoples.

There seems to be a subtle 'anti-Germanism' abroad in some quarters....strange when it comes from the democratic left as Germany is a model of social democracy and has succeeded in providing a high standard of material comfort plus a good social wage for its citizens. 
The old Nicholas Ridley (remember him) anti-Germanism was simply typical right-wing antagonism towards a country that, in spite of losing two wars, had achieved a position of economic and political strength in Europe and the world.
Left-wing hostility is partly based on that, partly on a resentment that yes, there is a form of capitalism which has done more for the people who have lived under it than all the socialist regimes in the world...


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> I take your point...but I do think that if you make a statement such as 'Spain is corrupt' 'arms sales are immoral' and so on one really should be able to give reasons , not merely assert.
> Otherwise it's not debate, it's just trading opinions.


Actually I don't think I have ever made either of these statements (not on here anyway ).

But let's take 'arms sales are immoral'.

How on earth can anyone back up a statement to please everyone in terms of morality?

One could say 'selling arms is immoral because arms manufacturers are making a fortune out of people killing people'.
If they are a Christian, they may point to the commandment 'thou shalt not kill' as their justification.

The arms dealer, on the other hand, could argue that arms sales are not immoral when arms are sold to a nation fighting an oppressive force.
They could also argue that arms sales, and particularly the manufacture of arms, provide jobs.

As an agnostic, I could say that arms sales are immoral, simply because _I feel_ it is wrong to kill others. But then faced with (for example) a fight against fascism, I may change my mind....

But all these arguments are based upon how we as individuals and groups see the World and at a particular point in time.

So, a debate on arms sales would be trading opinions.

Does that mean we shouldn't have that debate?



mrypg9 said:


> Throughout my political activity..as Councillor, standing for UK and European Parliament and as trades unionist specialising in employment rights I've rarely been given the luxury of an unchallenged opinion. I am used to being asked to justify a viewpoint, to give examples and I've had to deal with hecklers ranging from the humorous to the downright vicious and nasty.
> As I've said, politics for me is about doing what is achievable. I've learnt to distrust large assertions and what are often meaningless wish-lists!


Yes, I fully understand why you take this viewpoint.

But many others do not. And to make change, you have to take their opinions, and the way they voice those opinions, into account too.
Otherwise, everyone simply ends up talking to themselves.


----------



## XTreme

chrisnation said:


> ... my old Dad was brought up in Cardiff!


Cardiff and Swansea have a relationship like Liverpool and Manchester....only worse!


----------



## Alcalaina

This exchange prompted me to re-read Robin Cook's famous ethical foreign policy speech that got some of us so excited in 1997:



> The Labour Government does not accept that political values can be left behind when we check in our passports to travel on diplomatic business. Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves. The Labour Government will put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy and will publish an annual report on our work in promoting human rights abroad.


Labour's manifesto pledged that they would not "permit the sale of arms to regimes that might use them for internal repression or international aggression."

But over the next few years Britain sold arms to Indonesia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Colombia, Israel, Iraq, China, Nigeria etc for just those purposes ... how come?

The Arms Export Criteria drawn up by Robin Cook was tweaked and modified by Tony Blair and the lobbyists from British Aerospace (later BAE Systems) that it ended up with more loopholes than Ena Sharples´ hairnet.

Blair's justification was the same as Mary's - "If we don't supply them, somebody else will." To cement a deal with the Saudis, BAE and Blair promised to supply 24 jets ahead of schedule, jets that had previously been allocated to the RAF. Later he quashed a fraud enquiry into the affair because it was "against national interests".

OK, it helps protect jobs. But the British government subsidises arms exports to the tune of around £890m per year. Given the 65,000 employees estimated to be working on military exports, the subsidy amounts to over £13,000 for each job each year. Could they not be paid to make something useful?

That's my contribution to the "legalised corruption" list for today.


----------



## baldilocks

Alcalaina said:


> But over the next few years Britain sold arms to Indonesia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Colombia, Israel, Iraq, China, Nigeria etc for just those purposes ... how come?


Arms supplied to the legitimate democratically elected government in Colombia are used against the FARC terrorists who, nowaday, run the drug business - OK, it is internal "repression" of whom? Terrorists - do you object to that? Coca growers and processors - do you object to that? Drug shippers - do you object to that?

I, as sure as hell don't! The drug problem in the USA is not Colombia's problem, it is the USA's and until they can stamp out its usage, they will not get rid of the problem. They can defoliate Colombia and they won't get rid of the problem. They can do the same to Brazil, Bolivia and all the other Latin American states and they won't get rid of the problem simply because the supply will come from elsewhere.


----------



## Alcalaina

baldilocks said:


> Arms supplied to the legitimate democratically elected government in Colombia are used against the FARC terrorists who, nowaday, run the drug business - OK, it is internal "repression" of whom? Terrorists - do you object to that? Coca growers and processors - do you object to that? Drug shippers - do you object to that?
> 
> I, as sure as hell don't! The drug problem in the USA is not Colombia's problem, it is the USA's and until they can stamp out its usage, they will not get rid of the problem. They can defoliate Colombia and they won't get rid of the problem. They can do the same to Brazil, Bolivia and all the other Latin American states and they won't get rid of the problem simply because the supply will come from elsewhere.



I'm sure that's all true, you know more about it than I do. Nonetheless, Colombia is listed by the UK Foreign Office as country of major concern for human rights abuses. Therefore, according to the principles of the 1997 policy, it shouldn't have been supplied with arms.

Perhaps it's got something to do with this?



> Colombia has long been the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists with almost 4,000 murdered in the past 15 years. Last year saw 128 labor leaders assassinated. Most of the killings have been attributed to right-wing paramilitaries belonging to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), who view union organizers as subversives and, therefore, “legitimate” targets in their dirty war against Colombia’s guerrilla insurgents. Three out of every five trade unionists killed in the world are Colombian.


----------



## nigele2

mrypg9 said:


> When you have time, can you elaborate what you see as the 'underlying problems'?
> I think it's easy to identify the problem....the adoption of neo-liberal economic theory by too many European and U.S. governments..


The underlying problem is that a culture of greed, misstrust and corruption has established itself in Spain. You pointed out some of the reasons why this might be the case in earlier posts.

To build a new culture you need to build foundations based on community, trust, honesty and participation. And these foundations need to be supported by a fair, transparent legal system. 

As I see it:

M-15 and DRY among others are trying to address these issues through education and participation. 

PSOE, PP and friends (eg. the directors of Bankia ) are trying to protect the guilty parties within their own organisations and maintain their position of power. at all cost.

The miners of Asturias are taking a more radical approach which if things don't change quickly could get very nasty (if you don't consider spaniards exchanging rockets and rubber bullets, and the derailing of trains not nasty enough ).

What could all the loyal members of PSOE and PP do to help? Well they could suspend all members suspected of corruption. Then they could ensure each case is thoroughly investigated and where necessary taken to court. They might then have some credibility.

Debating political systems at this stage might be a nice academic exercise but isn't going to be worthwhile till the foundations are in place. 

I know when I raised revolution here a while back it got a shocked reaction but if the politicians don't get real very soon please don't let them say they are surprised by what happens in the future.


----------



## jimenato

Alcalaina said:


> This exchange prompted me to re-read Robin Cook's famous ethical foreign policy speech that got some of us so excited in 1997:
> 
> 
> Labour's manifesto pledged that they would not "permit the sale of arms to regimes that might use them for internal repression or international aggression."
> 
> But over the next few years Britain sold arms to Indonesia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Colombia, Israel, Iraq, China, Nigeria etc for just those purposes ... how come?
> 
> The Arms Export Criteria drawn up by Robin Cook was tweaked and modified by Tony Blair and the lobbyists from British Aerospace (later BAE Systems) that it ended up with more loopholes than Ena Sharples´ hairnet.
> 
> Blair's justification was the same as Mary's - "If we don't supply them, somebody else will." To cement a deal with the Saudis, BAE and Blair promised to supply 24 jets ahead of schedule, jets that had previously been allocated to the RAF. Later he quashed a fraud enquiry into the affair because it was "against national interests".
> 
> OK, it helps protect jobs. But the British government subsidises arms exports to the tune of around £890m per year. Given the 65,000 employees estimated to be working on military exports, the subsidy amounts to over £13,000 for each job each year. Could they not be paid to make something useful?
> 
> That's my contribution to the "legalised corruption" list for today.


Are you suggesting that a government subsidy to safeguard British jobs is corruption? 



> BAE and Blair promised to supply 24 jets ahead of schedule, jets that had previously been allocated to the RAF.


That sort of thing happens all the time in business and simply isn't corruption.


----------



## Alcalaina

jimenato said:


> Are you suggesting that a government subsidy to safeguard British jobs is corruption?


I don't believe the subsidies are given to safeguard jobs. I believe they are given to protect corporate profits following lobbying and threats by multinationals and foreign governments. The government has no qualms about failing to protect jobs in other sectors. 




jimenato said:


> That sort of thing happens all the time in business and simply isn't corruption.


It's immoral and dishonest though, IMO. 

My point was always that immoral, dishonest but legal practices in Northern European countries like the UK are just as destructive as the illegal corrupt practices in immature democracies like Spain.


----------



## baldilocks

I'll give you a prime example of corrupt practices:
Pharmaceutical companies providing international jollies to doctors as an inducement to prescribe brand Y rather than brand X drugs.

and another:
The hospital specialist who has a private practice and works for the NHS as well but keeps an artificially long waiting list for patients under the NHS and says to them there's a 3/4/6 month waiting list but I can see you privately next week. The cheeky s*d then treats the patient using NHS facilities for which he pays nothing.

and yet another:
Local government employees getting bonuses for doing (often not very well) the job they are paid to do. Isn't pay sufficient now?


----------



## Pesky Wesky

jimenato said:


> Are you suggesting that a government subsidy to safeguard British jobs is corruption?
> 
> 
> 
> That sort of thing happens all the time in business and simply isn't corruption.


I would suggest that the phrase "to safeguard British jobs" is pulled out of a hat of similar such expressions if the government thinks it's going to get criticised for breaking electoral manifestos, is going to be in the public eye for going back on agreements etc. It's the kind of phrase that will get the patriotic amongst us whipped up into a frenzy of Union Jacks, stiff upper lips and fish n' chips

It's a load of bull in other words


----------



## jimenato

Alcalaina said:


> I don't believe the subsidies are given to safeguard jobs. I believe they are given to protect corporate profits following lobbying and threats by multinationals and foreign governments. The government has no qualms about failing to protect jobs in other sectors.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's immoral and dishonest though, IMO.
> 
> My point was always that immoral, dishonest but legal practices in Northern European countries like the UK are just as destructive as the illegal corrupt practices in immature democracies like Spain.


When I worked for a computer company we often diverted kit destined for one customer to another just to get the business - all companies do it. Not immoral - and not dishonest.

Why do you say that what the Blair government did with BAE/Saudi Arabia was destructive?

The mayor of Marbella running off with hundreds of millions of Euros from dodgy property deals - now that's illegal and dishonest.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

jimenato said:


> When I worked for a computer company we often diverted kit destined for one customer to another just to get the business - all companies do it. Not immoral - and not dishonest.


Jimenato.
I think you realise that "all companies do it" doesn't mean that it's OK. Many Spanish workers don't declare tax. Is that OK?

That, at least for me, is not a convincing argument.

So that leaves us with delivering equipment destined for one company to another. If you therefore didn't fulfil your delivery date with the original company, and that effected their trade, well yes, that would be dishonest. It might not be good buisness, but if what you do is to the detriment of others (and you have given them a delivery date in this case and have not fulfilled it) well,...


----------



## Alcalaina

jimenato said:


> When I worked for a computer company we often diverted kit destined for one customer to another just to get the business - all companies do it. Not immoral - and not dishonest.
> 
> Why do you say that what the Blair government did with BAE/Saudi Arabia was destructive?
> 
> The mayor of Marbella running off with hundreds of millions of Euros from dodgy property deals - now that's illegal and dishonest.


It was dishonest because the government tried to hide what they were doing. It was destructive because dishonesty on that scale has led to a complete lack of trust amongst the electorate. It is hard these days to find anyone in Britain who believes what politicians say, even when they are telling the truth.


----------



## jimenato

Nope - sorry. I actually laughed when I saw that you considered diverting allocated goods was corruption. Any company in the world will urge priority orders - possibly sometimes to the detriment of others. We obviously are miles apart on this one.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

jimenato said:


> Nope - sorry. I actually laughed when I saw that you considered diverting allocated goods was corruption. Any company in the world will urge priority orders - possibly sometimes to the detriment of others. We obviously are miles apart on this one.


Yes!

This where people usually start talking about naivity/ utopia/ reality etc and where I think about big business not being the way forward, not being something to be admired and being unsustainable in the long run.
Not miles, but worlds apart!


----------



## jimenato

Pesky Wesky said:


> Yes!
> 
> This where people usually start talking about naivity/ utopia/ reality etc and where I think about big business not being the way forward, not being something to be admired and being unsustainable in the long run.
> Not miles, but worlds apart!


Nothing to do with big business. ALL businesses do it - it's standard business practice to prioritise workload and delivery schedules, woe betide the enterprise (company, government organisation - anything) that doesn't do that. 

Anyway in this case the customer from whom the goods were being diverted was the RAF so they weren't really disadvantaging anyone but themselves...


----------



## Alcalaina

jimenato said:


> Nope - sorry. I actually laughed when I saw that you considered diverting allocated goods was corruption. Any company in the world will urge priority orders - possibly sometimes to the detriment of others. We obviously are miles apart on this one.


There was much more to the deal than that, obviously. The Serious Fraud Office were forced by Blair to drop their investigation into bribery and corruption by BAE Systems, and their report was kept secret even from Parliament.
BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Call to end arms probe 'cover-up'


----------



## Solwriter

Words, words, words.... 

Arguing about their precise definitions can derail many a debate.

The plain fact is that there are dishonest and immoral dealings on both sides, but some are enshrined in law and others are not.

The mayor of Marbella running off with hundreds of millions of Euros from dodgy property deals was dishonest, immoral (in most peoples terms of immoral), his actions were illegal, and not good for business in the long term.
However, he was sentenced to 7 years in prison and told that he must pay back over 1.8 million Euros to the municipality. 
So corruption, yes, but this action was not enshrined in law. 

BAE/Saudi Arabia...
Blair said that the decision to drop the corruption inquiry into the BAE arms deal with Saudi Arabia was made because of national security (and we had heard that one before...) and doubts about the likelihood of any prosecution. And that the decision not to proceed was nothing to do with commercial pressure from Saudi Arabia. 
But it is strange that the decision came shortly after Saudi threats to pull out of a deal to buy Eurofighter jets from BAE. 
Perhaps corrupt is the wrong word as this was a legal decision.
Perhaps dishonest could also be challenged (although many would disagree).
But what was seen as bare-faced cynicism on behalf of the Blair Government was definitely destructive.

On a smaller scale, a company diverting allocated goods is not corrupt, but (however we like to phrase it) it is dishonest.
Sure, it goes on on a large scale and is accepted (if disliked) by many business owners.
But it doesn't make it right.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

jimenato said:


> Nothing to do with big business. ALL businesses do it - it's standard business practice to prioritise workload and delivery schedules, woe betide the enterprise (company, government organisation - anything) that doesn't do that.
> 
> Anyway in this case the customer from whom the goods were being diverted was the RAF so they weren't really disadvantaging anyone but themselves...


I KNOW it's not just big businesses, but big businesses have the potential to wield more power and do more harm, which they do, constantly.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> There was much more to the deal than that, obviously. The Serious Fraud Office were forced by Blair to drop their investigation into bribery and corruption by BAE Systems, and their report was kept secret even from Parliament.
> BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Call to end arms probe 'cover-up'



THe SFO dropped the investigation because the Saudis threatened to withdraw from the contract unless they did so.
A French company was prepared to take over the contract, no questions asked.
Tens of thousands of British jobs would have been lost.
For what?
What would have been achieved? Nothing...nada. The arms would have been supplied and French workers employed while British workers and their families suffered.
I would love a straight answer to this question: how many jobs is your conscience worth?
We live in the real world, not an ideal one.
Any Government whether of right or left that acted in the way you would like would never be re-elected.
I think we need to inject a bit of realism here...


----------



## mrypg9

You know, it's so easy to take the moral high ground from a computer keyboard.
There is the world of high moral principles and the world that works.
In spite of all this talk of principles, the evils of big business and so on there is one fact that cannot be ignored: the vast majority of the world's peoples have gained more in material, social and political terms from the often corrupt machinations of business and politics than any other system that has been tried....and they are just as 'evil' and corrupt.

Apart from condemning and wringing of hands no-one has considered what would happen if we stopped selling arms, told China to give gays rights etc.
Very easy to say: they should make something else....You do not turn a business round to alternative manufacturing overnight. You also need markets...

The reason people like Robin Cook who start out full of good intentions they cannot fulfil is that they come up against reality. Do they like it? No. But it's how the world has worked for a thousand years or more and has continued to do so in spite of all efforts to change it.
Whoever said it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness was right.
A lot of righteous cursing here but little illumination..

As for Nigel's 'revolution' romantic dangerous talk. A revolution that isn't backed by the majority isn't a revolution, it's a coup. Revolutions mean bloodshed.
The Spanish people know that from experience, to us it's empty talk.

As for 15M...as some of us said -and were shouted down for it - their impact has been negligible. The 'movement' has split as was inevitable. You cannot forge a political force from a rag-bag of disparate aims and philosophies. Like all these 'movements', they fragment.

But Nigel is right: anyone proved to be involved in corruption should be brought to trial and booted out of their parties.

In our little corner of Andalucia we have one enormous case, the Malaya case in Marbella, the Astapa trial coming up in Estepona, ...these involve PP and PSOE...and 'smaller' scandals in several other municipalities involving IU as well.

There really is no comparison with the UK ....you'd have to imagine similar cases going on with Surrey County Council, Dorking Town Council, Guildford Town Council and several others....


----------



## mrypg9

Pesky Wesky said:


> I KNOW it's not just big businesses, but big businesses have the potential to wield more power and do more harm, which they do, constantly.


Are they incapable of 'doing good' merely because they're big


----------



## jimenato

Also, the kind of things that the northern Europe countries are being accused of are almost certainly done by southern countries as well - and then there's the corrupt mayors on top of that...


----------



## Pesky Wesky

mrypg9 said:


> Are they incapable of 'doing good' merely because they're big


No, I don't think one necessarily excludes the other. Why do you ask?


----------



## mrypg9

jimenato said:


> Also, the kind of things that the northern Europe countries are being accused of are almost certainly done by southern countries as well - and then there's the corrupt mayors on top of that...


I think that the main issue in all this hasn't been raised...

These things which are undoubtedly 'immoral' according to our western standards (but are not so thought of in other cultures) have been going on since the beginning of recorded history. 
In spite of all the moralising and preaching, nothing has changed.
Perhaps we should stop thinking in terms of systems and look instead at 'human nature'.
Every political theory has to be based on a view of human nature...it needs a philosophical anthropology. People to the left politically and humanists generally believe in the possibility of human spiritual and moral progress. They believe that human nature can be altered by bringing about political change...hence the awful phrase 'Engineers of souls', used by Lenin and Stalin.
I used to believe that.
It seems to me now that this is a very 'western' concept of human nature, this view of history as progress. Oriental philosophies do not on the whole share this view. They see history as a series of cycles which humanity, because of its flawed nature, is doomed to repeat. The most superficial study of history would seem to lend support to that view.
Religion, with its 'original sin' doctrine, may be nearer the truth than we care to think!

Wow..that's a bit heavy...candidate for Pseud's Corner, perhaps
So to lighten things up:

Leftist 'comedian' and scourge of bankers, big business etc. Jimmy Carr has been exposed as a tax dodger, using an offshore fund which enables him to pay 1% tax on his multi-million earnings.
Carr, who drives a Bentley, has made no comment...


----------



## XTreme

Hell.....you women could talk a glass eye to sleep!

One of you make yourself useful......go and put the put the kettle on!

And where's Jo? I need a massage!


----------



## mrypg9

Pesky Wesky said:


> No, I don't think one necessarily excludes the other. Why do you ask?


Because several of these posts give the impression that no good can be done by any business larger than a corner shop.

Don't get me wrong....I think the way much of our lives, whether business, political or personal, is conducted is shabby and distasteful. 
We set standards which are observed more in the breach than in practice.
Do I like this? No. When ever possible, I tried to do what I saw as the 'right thing'. But it could only be done on a very small scale, within the realms of the possible.
But to use another apt metaphor, it is better to construct a shelter against the elements, however fragile, than to stay outside and rail against the storm.


We should also consider that what we see as immoral may not be so viewed by other cultural traditions.
We abhor forced marriage and honour killings but some Muslims think they are perfectly moral and justifiable.
The same with bribery. I spent time in Turkey, in a small town living with a middle-class Turkish family that owned a business. 'Gifts' were seen as a necessary and traditional accompaniment to any business transaction and were not thought of as corrupt or immoral.


----------



## mrypg9

XTreme said:


> Hell.....you women could talk a glass eye to sleep!
> 
> One of you make yourself useful......go and put the put the kettle on!
> 
> And where's Jo? I need a massage!


I shall report you to the Ministry Responsible for the Elimination and Suppression of Sexism and Sexist Comments. 
You will be sent to a reeducation centre where you will be reprogrammed by whip-wielding lesbian feminists who will show you photos of nubile maidens and beat you viciously if you indicate a pleasurable response.
You will then be locked in a cell with the collected works of Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Bea Campbell and other noted feminist philosophers until you show you have the correct attitude...


----------



## mrypg9

Just had this e-mail from a local Spanish vet..a lovely woman, helps us out.

_. have been so busy the last four weeks with internal problems at work changing all my staff because found out they were cheating and steeling…(a nightmare) and after I paid all the money to get ridd of them (almost 10.000 Euros finiquito) One of my ex- vet denounced me so I had a work inspection of the Junta de Andalucia with costed me another fortune because they always find something even if your were told before that all your paperstuff is alright. So I am just recovering from all that trouble but very happy that the surgery is now on the right way and thinks looking positive._


Tells you a lot about business in Spain from the sharp end..


----------



## nigele2

mrypg9 said:


> I shall report you to the Ministry Responsible for the Elimination and Suppression of Sexism and Sexist Comments.
> You will be sent to a reeducation centre where you will be reprogrammed by whip-wielding lesbian feminists who will show you photos of nubile maidens and beat you viciously if you indicate a pleasurable response.
> You will then be locked in a cell with the collected works of Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Bea Campbell and other noted feminist philosophers until you show you have the correct attitude...


Mary do they offer this as a two week package deal? I'm free in August 

ps I knew you would turn round Spain's failing tourism in the end


----------



## mrypg9

nigele2 said:


> Mary do they offer this as a two week package deal? I'm free in August
> 
> ps I knew you would turn round Spain's failing tourism in the end



Cheeky

You don't need such comprehensive re-educating, Nigel...you are basically sound...just a few edges need smoothing

Btw...the lesbian feminists are all graduates of a local sumo wrestling school...the curvaceous blondes that used to do the reeducating have left for local government jobs...

Still interested?


----------



## Pesky Wesky

mrypg9 said:


> Because several of these posts give the impression that no good can be done by any business larger than a corner shop.
> 
> Don't get me wrong....I think the way much of our lives, whether business, political or personal, is conducted is shabby and distasteful.
> We set standards which are observed more in the breach than in practice.
> Do I like this? No. When ever possible, I tried to do what I saw as the 'right thing'. But it could only be done on a very small scale, within the realms of the possible.
> But to use another apt metaphor, it is better to construct a shelter against the elements, however fragile, than to stay outside and rail against the storm.
> 
> 
> We should also consider that what we see as immoral may not be so viewed by other cultural traditions.
> We abhor forced marriage and honour killings but some Muslims think they are perfectly moral and justifiable.
> The same with bribery. I spent time in Turkey, in a small town living with a middle-class Turkish family that owned a business. 'Gifts' were seen as a necessary and traditional accompaniment to any business transaction and were not thought of as corrupt or immoral.


I would beg to differ, at least when talking about my posts, and I would say that that is your (and other people's) *interpretation *of certain posts. I said before that people tend to put certain perceptions down as naive and immature and I think that's a mistake. Of course I would say that, wouldn't I? However, I do believe there's another way to do business that respects and offers instead of exploits and downtreads. For me it's not tarring the big businesses and putting PYME's on a pedestal; it's approaching business in another way.
Of course, you yourself said some thing about reality.


> You know, it's so easy to take the moral high ground from a computer keyboard. (BTW, I don't see myself as taking moral high ground - just pointing out a few truths ie in reply to Jimenatos posts about supplies)
> There is the world of high moral principles and the world that works.


So, I realise that the way I'd like to do business isn't in fashion at the moment, but that doesn't mean that today's business doesn't use methods that are immoral, damaging and sometimes illegal. And talking about big business there are obvious candidates that fit those negative labels ; Shell, Dow, Nestlé, Starbucks, De Beers... plus "The Others" Enron, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros etc.These are large corporations that have power - the power to influence world economy and therefore world politics which I think is obvious to all. 
Now do these companies actually do any good? Well, they would like to make us think they do and they all have Corporate Social Responsabilty programmes, otherwise known as green washing, but if you want to believe that this "good" offsets the "bad" you can, but I don't. 
If they *were* regulated and played by the rules, life really could be different, but that doesn't happen, does it? And I do agree with you that unfortunately human nature does not play by the rules.
To summarise, in answer to your question 


> Are they incapable of 'doing good' merely because they're big


My opinion is that no. They have the possibility to "do good", but they rarely do because what they are actually doing is trying to redress the balance for something "bad" that they've done previously (Exploit local people, poison areas of land, destroy local markets...)
Some people criticise Spain for allowing 100% mortgages to be given to people who couldn't pay them, for putting all a bank's money into the property market, for allowing construction with little control, but everyone was doing it. That was how business was being done. Does that make it "right", "OK", "Legal" - "Moral"? I think not, and the same arguments could be applied to big business.

Unfortunately, for me, this is another thread that has become so loooong that I can't find my way round it and I tend to skip the longer, in depth posts, so I don't blame anyone who goes glassy eyed and skips this post.


----------



## mrypg9

Pesky Wesky said:


> I would beg to differ, at least when talking about my posts, and I would say that that is your (and other people's) *interpretation *of certain posts. I said before that people tend to put certain perceptions down as naive and immature and I think that's a mistake. Of course I would say that, wouldn't I? However, I do believe there's another way to do business that respects and offers instead of exploits and downtreads. For me it's not tarring the big businesses and putting PYME's on a pedestal; it's approaching business in another way.
> Of course, you yourself said some thing about reality.
> So, I realise that the way I'd like to do business isn't in fashion at the moment, but that doesn't mean that today's business doesn't use methods that are immoral, damaging and sometimes illegal. And talking about big business there are obvious candidates that fit those negative labels ; Shell, Dow, Nestlé, Starbucks, De Beers... plus "The Others" Enron, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros etc.These are large corporations that have power - the power to influence world economy and therefore world politics which I think is obvious to all.
> Now do these companies actually do any good? Well, they would like to make us think they do and they all have Corporate Social Responsabilty programmes, otherwise known as green washing, but if you want to believe that this "good" offsets the "bad" you can, but I don't.
> If they *were* regulated and played by the rules, life really could be different, but that doesn't happen, does it? And I do agree with you that unfortunately human nature does not play by the rules.
> To summarise, in answer to your question
> My opinion is that no. They have the possibility to "do good", but they rarely do because what they are actually doing is trying to redress the balance for something "bad" that they've done previously (Exploit local people, poison areas of land, destroy local markets...)
> Some people criticise Spain for allowing 100% mortgages to be given to people who couldn't pay them, for putting all a bank's money into the property market, for allowing construction with little control, but everyone was doing it. That was how business was being done. Does that make it "right", "OK", "Legal" - "Moral"? I think not, and the same arguments could be applied to big business.
> 
> Unfortunately, for me, this is another thread that has become so loooong that I can't find my way round it and I tend to skip the longer, in depth posts*, so I don't blame anyone who goes glassy eyed and skips this post.*




Well, I would as your posts deserve not only a thoughtful read but a thoughtful reply.
I do not disagree with a single word you have written. If I merely replied:'' And?' that would be flippant.
My point is merely this: there is very little that can be done to change the big picture. But that doesn't mean to say that in spite of the mire of corruption and all kinds of evil that have characterised history humans in most countries have achieved considerable gains in how we live. There is no comparison between life for 'ordinary' people in the UK or Spain now and a hundred years ago.
Could things be better? Of course and by small steps they may well improve, incrementally though, not large scale at once.

The way I see it, there is the politics of the lecture room, the pulpit, the seminar....I have been involved in this kind of politics and to a smaller extent still am - but I point out that principles are void and meaningless until put into practice.
Very nice to say we shouldn't sell arms to wicked regimes - of course we shouldn't. 
But then we descend from the pulpit into the murky muddled world where the world works...greedy, crooked, unprincipled...a world where trade-offs between competing values is the sorry stuff of every-day life.

As Sartre wrote: 'If you want to live in the real world you must be prepared to plunge your arms into **** up to the elbows'.
The old fraud was right there...

As for 'perceptions'....I think that to make a point or statement you can't support with evidence or to evade a straight querstion is the kind of thing Nigel accuses politicians of doing, with some justice. 

I have been used to having my opinions, statements and recommendations thoroughly scrutinised and criticised and often rejected as daft or impractical. It doesn't bother me, that's debate and it's how we learn...subjecting our views to critical scrutiny and rejecting or sticking to them accordingly.But that is when I sound off in the 'real' world of councils, working parties and union committees, where actions are circumscribed by how things are and not, alas, as we'd like them to be.


----------



## MaidenScotland

mrypg9 said:


> I think that the main issue in all this hasn't been raised...
> 
> These things which are undoubtedly 'immoral' according to our western standards (but are not so thought of in other cultures) have been going on since the beginning of recorded history.
> In spite of all the moralising and preaching, nothing has changed.
> Perhaps we should stop thinking in terms of systems and look instead at 'human nature'.
> Every political theory has to be based on a view of human nature...it needs a philosophical anthropology. People to the left politically and humanists generally believe in the possibility of human spiritual and moral progress. They believe that human nature can be altered by bringing about political change...hence the awful phrase 'Engineers of souls', used by Lenin and Stalin.
> I used to believe that.
> It seems to me now that this is a very 'western' concept of human nature, this view of history as progress. Oriental philosophies do not on the whole share this view. They see history as a series of cycles which humanity, because of its flawed nature, is doomed to repeat. The most superficial study of history would seem to lend support to that view.
> Religion, with its 'original sin' doctrine, may be nearer the truth than we care to think!
> 
> Wow..that's a bit heavy...candidate for Pseud's Corner, perhaps
> So to lighten things up:
> 
> Leftist 'comedian' and scourge of bankers, big business etc. Jimmy Carr has been exposed as a tax dodger, using an offshore fund which enables him to pay 1% tax on his multi-million earnings.
> Carr, who drives a Bentley, has made no comment...




Not a dodger.. he is using the system as it stands.. the system is wrong,


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> Wow..that's a bit heavy...candidate for Pseud's Corner, perhaps
> So to lighten things up:
> 
> Leftist 'comedian' and scourge of bankers, big business etc. Jimmy Carr has been exposed as a tax dodger, using an offshore fund which enables him to pay 1% tax on his multi-million earnings.
> Carr, who drives a Bentley, has made no comment...


I was just about to post this as another example of "legal corruption"! I've never liked him and would certainly not regard him as a leftist comedian. Some of his jokes are downright offensive.

Matthew Norman: Let Jimmy Carr's hypocrisy be a timely lesson to the Chancellors - Matthew Norman - Commentators - The Independent


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> I was just about to post this as another example of "legal corruption"! I've never liked him and would certainly not regard him as a leftist comedian. Some of his jokes are downright offensive.
> 
> Matthew Norman: Let Jimmy Carr's hypocrisy be a timely lesson to the Chancellors - Matthew Norman - Commentators - The Independent


He is a hypocrite. Like many so-called comedians of his type -who would regard themselves as leftist, going by various comments and interviews - I agree that he is crude, coarse, offensive and deeply unfunny.
Tax evasion or avoidance ...both wrong in principle, surely? Isn't that what this discussion is about?


----------



## mrypg9

MaidenScotland said:


> Not a dodger.. he is using the system as it stands.. the system is wrong,


But he *is* a dodger...he is a tax avoider not evader. He is also a rank hypocrite since part of his stage act involves castigating people who take advantage of such schemes that he sees no contradiction in using himself.

Unlike many of the evils of capitalism which have been described in posts on this topic, there is a quick and simple fix to this kind of legal but morally objectionable practice: bung up the loophole.

Whenever something that is clearly wrong can be put right without much complexity, it should be done.
I never have and never would deny that.


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> THe SFO dropped the investigation because the Saudis threatened to withdraw from the contract unless they did so.
> A French company was prepared to take over the contract, no questions asked.
> Tens of thousands of British jobs would have been lost.
> For what?
> What would have been achieved? Nothing...nada. The arms would have been supplied and French workers employed while British workers and their families suffered.
> I would love a straight answer to this question: how many jobs is your conscience worth?
> We live in the real world, not an ideal one.
> Any Government whether of right or left that acted in the way you would like would never be re-elected.
> I think we need to inject a bit of realism here...


OK, I know you'll just lambast me for being a deluded idealist but here goes. If nothing else, it might help me clarify my own thoughts.

I don't share your view that a British job is worth more than a French one, or a Spanish one or a Chinese one for that matter. An unemployed French worker needs to feed her family just as much as a British one does.

Most jobs in arms factories are dismally repetitive, badly paid and soul destroying. My mother worked in one for a couple of years, and got RSI from pushing a press all day every day. They were never allowed to know what the components they were making would end up in, because that might damage morale.

Paying workers to make devices that are cleverly designed to kill their fellow workers in other countries; how can that _not_ be immoral? Let them make medical equipment, renewable energy components, other useful stuff - prosthetic limbs for all the children maimed by your landmines and cluster bombs, for example. Use all that technical expertise to tackle climate change, food shortage, mass transportation. Tell the Saudis they can keep their oil until they stop treating women worse than animals. Let Britain regain its dignity, for heavens sake!


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> OK, I know you'll just lambast me for being a deluded idealist but here goes. If nothing else, it might help me clarify my own thoughts.
> 
> I don't share your view that a British job is worth more than a French one, or a Spanish one or a Chinese one for that matter. An *unemployed French worker needs to feed her family just as much as a British one does*.
> 
> Most jobs in arms factories are dismally repetitive, badly paid and soul destroying. My mother worked in one for a couple of years, and got RSI from pushing a press all day every day. They were never allowed to know what the components they were making would end up in, because that might damage morale.
> 
> Paying workers to make devices that are cleverly designed to kill their fellow workers in other countries; how can that _not_ be immoral? Let them make medical equipment, renewable energy components, other useful stuff - prosthetic limbs for all the children maimed by your landmines and cluster bombs, for example. Use all that technical expertise to tackle climate change, food shortage, mass transportation. Tell the Saudis they can keep their oil until they stop treating women worse than animals. Let Britain regain its dignity, for heavens sake!


But I didn't ask how many British jobs were worth French or Chinese jobs...I asked how many jobs you were prepared to sacrifice in any country for the sake of nothing but satisfying a principle. I used the Al Yamani arms deal as a concrete example: if Blair had cancelled that contract the French would have picked it up....Saudi Arabia gets the arms, the French get the jobs, the Brits are on the dole. 
I think you are wrong in saying that a job for a British worker is worth no more than a job for a French etc. worker because firstly, the British Government is elected to ensure as far as possible that British people get jobs and secondly because tax revenue from working people in the UK funds the UK welfare, education and health services, admittedly amongst other things. I'm afraid that if you went out canvassing at election time and told your voters that their jobs mattered no more to you than the jobs of French or Chinese people you'd get short shrift!
Saudi Arabia is a dreadful country. It treats women like third-class citizens and is a great funder and exporter of Islamic terrorism. We all know that just as we know that selling arms isn't the best of trades to be engaged in. I share your view that the world is a grossly immoral place. It always has been and always will be because it is inhabited by deeply flawed humans. 
But where we differ is in recognising the limits of the possible. 
Britain cannot afford to tell the Saudis to keep their oil.. What 'dignity' would Britain have if our industry ground to a halt, the lights were switched off, the elderly died of hypothermia because we had no electricity? Is mass unemployment dignified?
Why should the British people suffe rfor an ideal that could never be realised? 
There's nothing wrong in being an idealist...but ideals are....ideals.
Why do we use the phrase 'in an ideal world'?
Because our actions are sadly constrained by real-life contingencies. 
That doesn't mean we can never do good...as I said in an earlier post,there have been huge improvements in the material and social condition of the majority of the world's peoples...through democratic parliamentary institutions too.
But our moral and spiritual development has not marched in step with these material improvements and I have come to accept it never will.

Incidentally, Sandra's mother and father worked for what was the Royal Ordnance Factory in the West of Scotland before and after it was taken over by BAE. It was the largest employer in the area.
He was a fireman, she ran the canteen. Both were well aware of what they were helping to manufacture...high explosives .... and knew what the product would do.
They were also aware that they lived in an area of high unemployment and that they got subsidised accommodation with the job - not to be sniffed at.
They were also aware that if BAE hadn't got the contract it would have gone to another supplier.
Would they have preferred to make prosthetic limbs or medical equipment? Of course. But they lived in the real world of compromise.


P.S. I am now reading 'Suite Francaise' by Irene Nemirovsky...


----------



## mrypg9

Wanted to add a bit about 'workers making devices to kill their fellow workers'....Well, their fellow workers are busily engaged in making devices to kill them too!
Isn't it just as well that British workers, amongst others, were happy to do so in 1939?
The myth of internationalism, whatever that vague concept means, was surely killed off in 1914 when workers all over Europe gladly joined up in order to be able to kill each other.

I loathe and abhor violence. My weapons are words. I saw corporal punishment in action when I started teaching and saw how futile and demeaning it was for both parties. If I could intervene to stop a single human or animal being hurt I would do so and have done so.
But I have learned to live with the world as it is and to do what realistically can be done to bring about small improvements.


----------



## MaidenScotland

mrypg9 said:


> But he *is* a dodger...he is a tax avoider not evader. He is also a rank hypocrite since part of his stage act involves castigating people who take advantage of such schemes that he sees no contradiction in using himself.
> 
> Unlike many of the evils of capitalism which have been described in posts on this topic, there is a quick and simple fix to this kind of legal but morally objectionable practice: bung up the loophole.
> 
> Whenever something that is clearly wrong can be put right without much complexity, it should be done.
> I never have and never would deny that.




I have no idea who he is or if he is a hypocrite or not and it really isn't the point. I would bet he has employed an accountant who has played this loop hole and rightly so, is the accountant not there to save his client money. Would he not be negligent in not using it>

Morally is a different story.. but we don't all have the same morals.


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> But I didn't ask how many British jobs were worth French or Chinese jobs...I asked how many jobs you were prepared to sacrifice in any country for the sake of nothing but satisfying a principle. I used the Al Yamani arms deal as a concrete example: if Blair had cancelled that contract the French would have picked it up....Saudi Arabia gets the arms, the French get the jobs, the Brits are on the dole.
> I think you are wrong in saying that a job for a British worker is worth no more than a job for a French etc. worker because firstly, the British Government is elected to ensure as far as possible that British people get jobs and secondly because tax revenue from working people in the UK funds the UK welfare, education and health services, admittedly amongst other things. I'm afraid that if you went out canvassing at election time and told your voters that their jobs mattered no more to you than the jobs of French or Chinese people you'd get short shrift!
> Saudi Arabia is a dreadful country. It treats women like third-class citizens and is a great funder and exporter of Islamic terrorism. We all know that just as we know that selling arms isn't the best of trades to be engaged in. I share your view that the world is a grossly immoral place. It always has been and always will be because it is inhabited by deeply flawed humans.
> But where we differ is in recognising the limits of the possible.
> Britain cannot afford to tell the Saudis to keep their oil.. What 'dignity' would Britain have if our industry ground to a halt, the lights were switched off, the elderly died of hypothermia because we had no electricity? Is mass unemployment dignified?
> Why should the British people suffe rfor an ideal that could never be realised?
> There's nothing wrong in being an idealist...but ideals are....ideals.
> Why do we use the phrase 'in an ideal world'?
> Because our actions are sadly constrained by real-life contingencies.
> That doesn't mean we can never do good...as I said in an earlier post,there have been huge improvements in the material and social condition of the majority of the world's peoples...through democratic parliamentary institutions too.
> But our moral and spiritual development has not marched in step with these material improvements and I have come to accept it never will.
> 
> Incidentally, Sandra's mother and father worked for what was the Royal Ordnance Factory in the West of Scotland before and after it was taken over by BAE. It was the largest employer in the area.
> He was a fireman, she ran the canteen. Both were well aware of what they were helping to manufacture...high explosives .... and knew what the product would do.
> They were also aware that they lived in an area of high unemployment and that they got subsidised accommodation with the job - not to be sniffed at.
> They were also aware that if BAE hadn't got the contract it would have gone to another supplier.
> Would they have preferred to make prosthetic limbs or medical equipment? Of course. But they lived in the real world of compromise.
> 
> 
> P.S. I am now reading 'Suite Francaise' by Irene Nemirovsky...


Well I guess we'll just have to agree to differ. I would rather beg in the streets and eat roadkill than work in a weapons factory. We can only follow our own consciences on such matters.


----------



## MaidenScotland

When I was in business in the U.K we paid what we had to.. not a penny more.


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> THe SFO dropped the investigation because the Saudis threatened to withdraw from the contract unless they did so.
> A French company was prepared to take over the contract, no questions asked.
> Tens of thousands of British jobs would have been lost.
> For what?
> What would have been achieved? Nothing...nada. The arms would have been supplied and French workers employed while British workers and their families suffered.
> I would love a straight answer to this question: how many jobs is your conscience worth?
> We live in the real world, not an ideal one.
> Any Government whether of right or left that acted in the way you would like would never be re-elected.
> I think we need to inject a bit of realism here...


I've read your further comments on this and other subjects (so many new posts, so little time!), but thought I would have a go at this one anyway.

Blair, as the British electorate would expect of a British PM, put British jobs first. As he represented British citizens, from a political perspective I see nothing wrong with that. One could say that Blair was simply doing his job.

However, the calling off of the SFO investigation was perceived in many quarters as hiding serious issues in the way the Blair Government was doing business, particularly at an international level.
Couple this with the earlier insistence to go into Iraq, despite being against public opinion and a great deal of advice to the contrary, and the later admission that the evidence of WMDs relied upon was flawed, and you were presented with a leader who was prepared to ignore many of his advisors and the wishes of those he represented (and I know he was legally allowed to do this) and, in the case of the arms probe cover up, to cynically use the argument for jobs to hide illegal business practices.

So I take your point that jobs (and losing the contracts that would provide those jobs) have to be a very important factor for a Government to consider in all international negotiations, but in the BAE/Saudi Arabia case, I personally think that the jobs issue was not the main factor at all.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

MaidenScotland said:


> When I was in business in the U.K we paid what we had to.. not a penny more.


I don't understand why you've posted this Maiden???
Is it in answer to something?


----------



## baldilocks

Pesky Wesky said:


> I don't understand why you've posted this Maiden???
> Is it in answer to something?


She wouldn't be talking abut slush money would she?


----------



## MaidenScotland

Pesky Wesky said:


> I don't understand why you've posted this Maiden???
> Is it in answer to something?




Lol it wasnt for this forum.. sorry 

but it is relevant to the tax dodger/evader..


----------



## Solwriter

Alcalaina said:


> OK, I know you'll just lambast me for being a deluded idealist but here goes. If nothing else, it might help me clarify my own thoughts.
> 
> I don't share your view that a British job is worth more than a French one, or a Spanish one or a Chinese one for that matter. An unemployed French worker needs to feed her family just as much as a British one does.
> 
> Most jobs in arms factories are dismally repetitive, badly paid and soul destroying. My mother worked in one for a couple of years, and got RSI from pushing a press all day every day. They were never allowed to know what the components they were making would end up in, because that might damage morale.
> 
> Paying workers to make devices that are cleverly designed to kill their fellow workers in other countries; how can that _not_ be immoral? Let them make medical equipment, renewable energy components, other useful stuff - prosthetic limbs for all the children maimed by your landmines and cluster bombs, for example. Use all that technical expertise to tackle climate change, food shortage, mass transportation. Tell the Saudis they can keep their oil until they stop treating women worse than animals. Let Britain regain its dignity, for heavens sake!


Throughout most of his working years, my husband worked with some equipment which his conscience would say was immoral. As his skills, qualifications and experience were in this area and jobs were increasingly hard to come by, he did the work and took the pay packet.
As to building prosthetic limbs or working with renewable energy components, he was not trained for that as his work was highly specialised. So yes, had he been trained differently, he probably would have happily done this (although speaking to him about this, he doubts whether even considering the latest technology and re-training, his skills and qualifications would have been transferable).

I am with Mary on the realism issue. 

Most of us do what we have to do, not only to survive, but to build a decent standard of living for ourselves and our families.

But many of us are also aware that we are caught in a trap.
We know that the only way we can survive (with little fuss) in the present system is to go along with it, especially when we have our families to consider.

I don't think that makes our compliance immoral.
But it does raise a larger question of why we are in this situation in the first place.

But that's going way off topic, so I'll stop there.


----------



## jimenato

Alcalaina said:


> Well I guess we'll just have to agree to differ. I would rather beg in the streets and eat roadkill than work in a weapons factory. We can only follow our own consciences on such matters.


Would you not have worked to build Spitfires to protect the UK when it was in danger of being invaded in WWII? If you wouldn't have, don't you think it's a good thing that some did?


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> Well I guess we'll just have to agree to differ. I would rather beg in the streets and eat roadkill than work in a weapons factory. We can only follow our own consciences on such matters.


So would I ....now. I don't have a family to support any longer but if I did my responsibility would be to them to them so I would work in a munitions factory, play the violin in a brothel...even work in the UKIP office.
Because family welfare comes first.


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> Throughout most of his working years, my husband worked with some equipment which his conscience would say was immoral. As his skills, qualifications and experience were in this area and jobs were increasingly hard to come by, he did the work and took the pay packet.
> As to building prosthetic limbs or working with renewable energy components, he was not trained for that as his work was highly specialised. So yes, had he been trained differently, he probably would have happily done this (although speaking to him about this, he doubts whether even considering the latest technology and re-training, his skills and qualifications would have been transferable).
> 
> I am with Mary on the realism issue.
> 
> Most of us do what we have to do, not only to survive, but to build a decent standard of living for ourselves and our families.
> 
> But many of us are also aware that we are caught in a trap.
> We know that the only way we can survive (with little fuss) in the present system is to go along with it, especially when we have our families to consider.
> 
> *I don't think that makes our compliance immoral.
> But it does raise a larger question of why we are in this situation in the first place*.
> 
> But that's going way off topic, so I'll stop there.


No, Sol...you are right on topic...bullseye. That imo is THE issue.
I would say we are in this position because we are human and humanity is deeply flawed.
That snake and apple myth has more resonance than we care to admit.
I agree with almost everything you, Alca, PW and others have posted. I am not in favour of solving problems by violence, I think that it is dreadful that half the world dies from hunger and the other half has diseases from over-eating....that and all the other terrible things that go on in the world.
But wringing my hands and appeasing my conscience through other people isn't my way to go. 
People who are close to me matter more than those I don't know and will never meet. Is that so strange? Isn't it normal to put family and friends before strangers?
I know that sometimes you have to choose between two equally disagreeable alternatives...and for businesspeople, ordinary people, politicians...those dilemmas, moral dilemmas are the stuff of everyday life. It is not a good position to be in ..but it's life. **** happens.
If you are lucky you may never have to confront such dilemmas. But all the fine principles in the world won't change human nature.


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> I've read your further comments on this and other subjects (so many new posts, so little time!), but thought I would have a go at this one anyway.
> 
> Blair, as the British electorate would expect of a British PM, put British jobs first. As he represented British citizens, from a political perspective I see nothing wrong with that. One could say that Blair was simply doing his job.
> 
> However, the calling off of the SFO investigation was perceived in many quarters as hiding serious issues in the way the Blair Government was doing business, particularly at an international level.
> Couple this with the earlier insistence to go into Iraq, despite being against public opinion and a great deal of advice to the contrary, and the later admission that the evidence of WMDs relied upon was flawed, and you were presented with a leader who was prepared to ignore many of his advisors and the wishes of those he represented (and I know he was legally allowed to do this) and, in the case of the arms probe cover up, to cynically use the argument for jobs to hide illegal business practices.
> 
> So I take your point that jobs (and losing the contracts that would provide those jobs) have to be a very important factor for a Government to consider in all international negotiations, but in the BAE/Saudi Arabia case, I personally think that the jobs issue was not the main factor at all.


Agree about Iraq, a total disaster. 
But I cannot agree about the BAE deal. There is no evidence whatsoever to disprove that the reason for the decision to drop the SFO case was the jobs dimension. Blair made that very clear at the time.
I'm going to try to find something -from Hansard, a piece from The Independent etc. to underline that contention.


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> However, the calling off of the SFO investigation was perceived in many quarters as hiding serious issues in the way the Blair Government was doing business, particularly at an international level.
> *Couple this with the earlier insistence to go into Iraq, despite being against public opinion* and a great deal of advice to the contrary, and the later admission that the evidence of WMDs relied upon was flawed, and you were presented with a leader who was prepared to ignore many of his advisors and the wishes of those he represented (and I know he was legally allowed to do this) and, in the case of the arms probe cover up, to cynically use the argument for jobs to hide illegal business practices.
> 
> .


It is often said that Blair went into Iraq 'against public opinion' but there is little hard evidence for this. Whilst it is true that a large number marched against the war before it started, Blair was reelected with a sixty-plus majority in May 2005, two years and two months after the attack.
I agree with you...it was an unnecessary act of dubious legality.
But the fact that many people supported a march (organised largely by the SWP) proves nothing about majority public opinion.


----------



## Alcalaina

jimenato said:


> Would you not have worked to build Spitfires to protect the UK when it was in danger of being invaded in WWII? If you wouldn't have, don't you think it's a good thing that some did?


No, I'd have been a Land Girl. But yes, I suppose it's a good thing that most people aren't as squeamish as me. Self defence is a different matter though.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

mrypg9 said:


> It is often said that Blair went into Iraq 'against public opinion' but there is little hard evidence for this. Whilst it is true that a large number marched against the war before it started, Blair was reelected with a sixty-plus majority in May 2005, two years and two months after the attack.
> I agree with you...it was an unnecessary act of dubious legality.
> But the fact that many people supported a march (organised largely by the SWP) proves nothing about majority public opinion.


In Spain an opinion poll run by the CIS (government run) found 92% of the population were against the war in Iraq. Whilst Aznar lost some votes over this the PP were predicted to win the election in 2004. Then there were the bombings, the mishandling of the situation by the PP and the rest is history, as they say. What I mean is it seems that despite the vast majority of both the UK and Spain voicing opinions against the war it didn't make them change their vote, and perhaps it shouldn't have either.I'm sure there were lots of other issues that had to considered closer to home...


----------



## Pesky Wesky

MaidenScotland said:


> Lol it wasnt for this forum.. sorry
> 
> but it is relevant to the tax dodger/evader..


Ah, OK. I thought I'd really lost all understanding there for a minute


----------



## Pesky Wesky

Solwriter said:


> I am with Mary on the realism issue.
> 
> Most of us do what we have to do, not only to survive, but to build a decent standard of living for ourselves and our families.
> 
> But many of us are also aware that we are caught in a trap.
> We know that the only way we can survive (with little fuss) in the present system is to go along with it, especially when we have our families to consider.
> 
> I don't think that makes our compliance immoral.
> But it does raise a larger question of why we are in this situation in the first place.
> 
> But that's going way off topic, so I'll stop there.


Yep...

I am proud to say that my husband put his money where his mouth was though. He used to work in DOW Chemical which had, and still has, lots of murky dealings with lots of nasty substances which can be used to kill people directly (Napalm) or can effect people in its environment due to disasters that are not handled properly (Bhopal).
He left, retrained and is now a teacher of Business Administration in the state system. The thing most people comment on is the salary reduction from DOW to State teacher, but don't forget the salary is going down even more now!!
He has also worked on a voluntary basis for several NGOs.
It's not going to make the world much more of a better place. DOW didn't collapse 'cos he left, but it made our world better, and sometimes that's as far as you can make it.


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> So would I ....now. I don't have a family to support any longer but if I did my responsibility would be to them to them so I would work in a munitions factory, play the violin in a brothel...even work in the UKIP office.
> Because family welfare comes first.


Interesting. Would you have knowingly worked on the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima? Same question for Jimenato.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

mrypg9 said:


> [/b]
> 
> well, i would as your posts deserve not only a thoughtful read but a thoughtful reply.
> i can't deny i like to be heard mary, and i like my thoughts to be considered. Maybe i'm a bit over sensitive after a weekend away with the in laws who ride roughshod over me. You'd have a grand old time with them!!
> i do not disagree with a single word you have written. If i merely replied:'' and?' that would be flippant.
> and would have been a little flippant i think, but... I do understand it
> my point is merely this: There is very little that can be done to change the big picture. But that doesn't mean to say that in spite of the mire of corruption and all kinds of evil that have characterised history humans in most countries have achieved considerable gains in how we live. There is no comparison between life for 'ordinary' people in the uk or spain now and a hundred years ago.
> Could things be better? Of course and by small steps they may well improve, incrementally though, not large scale at once.
> We agree essentially - not totally, but on many points. The only thing is we are looking at "it" from different angles
> 
> the way i see it, there is the politics of the lecture room, the pulpit, the seminar....i have been involved in this kind of politics and to a smaller extent still am - but i point out that principles are void and meaningless until put into practice.
> Very nice to say we shouldn't sell arms to wicked regimes - of course we shouldn't.
> But then we descend from the pulpit into the murky muddled world where the world works...greedy, crooked, unprincipled...a world where trade-offs between competing values is the sorry stuff of every-day life.
> 
> As sartre wrote: 'if you want to live in the real world you must be prepared to plunge your arms into **** up to the elbows'.
> The old fraud was right there...
> 
> As for 'perceptions'....i think that to make a point or statement you can't support with evidence or to evade a straight querstion is the kind of thing nigel accuses politicians of doing, with some justice.
> 
> I have been used to having my opinions, statements and recommendations thoroughly scrutinised and criticised and often rejected as daft or impractical. It doesn't bother me, that's debate and it's how we learn...subjecting our views to critical scrutiny and rejecting or sticking to them accordingly.but that is when i sound off in the 'real' world of councils, working parties and union committees, where actions are circumscribed by how things are and not, alas, as we'd like them to be.
> we agree essentially - not totally, but on many points. The only thing is we are looking at "it" from different angles. I from how things "should" be, and you from how things are, but neither point of view cancels out the other. That's how i see it anyway....


I did use capital letters etc, but they have all disappeared and I can't be ****d to correct it


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> It is often said that Blair went into Iraq 'against public opinion' but there is little hard evidence for this. Whilst it is true that a large number marched against the war before it started, Blair was reelected with a sixty-plus majority in May 2005, two years and two months after the attack.
> I agree with you...it was an unnecessary act of dubious legality.
> But the fact that many people supported a march (organised largely by the SWP) proves nothing about majority public opinion.


Lindsey German and a handful of other SWP people (there were so few of them left by then they could practically fit into one room over a pub) started the Stop the War movement. But the demonstration was organised by a coalition which included CND, numerous Muslim and Christian groups, students, schoolchildren, trades unions, constituency Labour party groups, Women's Institute branches ...

Two million people made it to London, but many more were stuck around the country because the trains and coaches were full. There were so many people we couldn't actually march, just stand and wait till we could squeeze into Hyde Park. There were smaller demonstrations in Glasgow and Belfast. It was the most unambiguous expression of majority public opinion I've ever seen, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who supported the invasion - have you?


----------



## jimenato

Alcalaina said:


> Lindsey German and a handful of other SWP people (there were so few of them left by then they could practically fit into one room over a pub) started the Stop the War movement. But the demonstration was organised by a coalition which included CND, numerous Muslim and Christian groups, students, schoolchildren, trades unions, constituency Labour party groups, Women's Institute branches ...
> 
> Two million people made it to London, but many more were stuck around the country because the trains and coaches were full. There were so many people we couldn't actually march, just stand and wait till we could squeeze into Hyde Park. There were smaller demonstrations in Glasgow and Belfast. It was the most unambiguous expression of majority public opinion I've ever seen, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who supported the invasion - have you?


No - I don't know anyone who supported the invasion but as Mary says, he was re-elected. Beats me how that happened - possibly because he was sitting squarely where MT and the Tories had been entrenched for years and the Tory supporters therefore had no-one to vote for?:confused2:


----------



## jimenato

Alcalaina said:


> Interesting. Would you have knowingly worked on the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima? Same question for Jimenato.


With hindsight? Probably yes - I think. But it's a complicated and difficult question.


----------



## mrypg9

Pesky Wesky said:


> In Spain an opinion poll run by the CIS (government run) found 92% of the population were against the war in Iraq. Whilst Aznar lost some votes over this the PP were predicted to win the election in 2004. Then there were the bombings, the mishandling of the situation by the PP and the rest is history, as they say. What I mean is it seems that despite the *vast majority of both the UK and Spain voicing opinions against the war *it didn't make them change their vote, and perhaps it shouldn't have either.I'm sure there were lots of other issues that had to considered closer to home...




But the vast majority in the UK did not voice opinions against the war. There is no evidence to show that the majority were anything other than indifferent but as you suggest had other issues to consider.

There was a march, quite a big one but nothing like the massive anti-Vietnam War marches I participated in when at Uni in the 1960s.

A lot of noise from both the usual suspects and the 'middle class 'Not in My Name' brigade -what a twee slogan, by the way...
But no evidence to support the view that in the UK most were against the war...

But didn't the attitude in Spain change dramatically as a result of the Atocha atrocities?


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> It is often said that Blair went into Iraq 'against public opinion' but there is little hard evidence for this. Whilst it is true that a large number marched against the war before it started, Blair was reelected with a sixty-plus majority in May 2005, two years and two months after the attack.
> I agree with you...it was an unnecessary act of dubious legality.
> But the fact that many people supported a march (organised largely by the SWP) proves nothing about majority public opinion.


You have already seen Alcalainer's post on the march. I was there too, admittedly via a coach organised by the local SWP, but stood alongside people with many different political opinions, but all adamant that the invasion of Iraq was wrong.

But I was also referring to public opinion poles, conducted by all the major newspapers and television channels at the time. It's late and I am just back from the dentist (), so wont look for evidence now, but from memory, I think that the anti-invasion opinion varied between 78% and 92%, averaging out at around 84%.
Sure, the results of poles are only as good as those who present them, but (again, as I remember) these were some of the widest-ranging opinion poles ever taken and the results were startling, particularly for the right wing press who arranged some of them.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> Interesting. Would you have knowingly worked on the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima? Same question for Jimenato.


At the time, yes. Day and night. It can be argued that dropping the bombs shortened the war and saved tens of thousands of American and Japanese lives.
Easy to look back with hindsight and say how evil it was but in times of war you have one objective: to win.
Ask the mother or wife of a U.S. soldier who might have had to participate in a long and bloody land invasion what she would have done.
We should be thankful that the scientists working on the use of the atom for destructive purposes were mainly Jews who fled Nazi Germany for the U.S. and Britain. If the Nazis had possessed nuclear weapons they would have used them.

But after the war had been won I would have done the same as Alan Nunn May, Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs who passed on secrets to the Russians thus enabling them to build a bomb. Reason: mutual deterrence.


The point is that whether I would have worked on the bomb or not is irrelevant....because someone would have done. At that time it was a race between the Allies and the Nazis as to who would get to make the A Bomb first.

Again...the real world versus the seminar.....


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> You have already seen Alcalainer's post on the march. I was there too, admittedly via a coach organised by the local SWP, but stood alongside people with many different political opinions, but all adamant that the invasion of Iraq was wrong.
> 
> But I was also referring to public opinion poles, conducted by all the major newspapers and television channels at the time. It's late and I am just back from the dentist (), so wont look for evidence now, but from memory, I think that the anti-invasion opinion varied between 78% and 92%, averaging out at around 84%.
> Sure, the results of poles are only as good as those who present them, but (again, as I remember) these were some of the widest-ranging opinion poles ever taken and the results were startling, particularly for the right wing press who arranged some of them.


People can find opinion polls to support the war and those that show a majority opposing the war.


I rank Trotskyite organisations along with the BNP, I'm afraid and I have refused to share platforms with them both. That goes for marches. The SWP tries to butt in on our Union marches but we manage to get rid of them..gently.

The poll that mattered took place in May 2005. Blair won.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> No, I'd have been a Land Girl. But yes, I suppose it's a good thing that most people aren't as squeamish as me. Self defence is a different matter though.


Well, someone had to grow the spuds and carrots. 

But you wouldn't have been able to put up much of a defence against a well-armed enemy with your spade and hoe...

Don't you think a machine gun might have been more useful?

Mind you, I dread to think what damage my gran would have inflicted with a hoe or rake if she had spied a German invader pinching her runner beans....


----------



## mrypg9

Pesky Wesky said:


> I did use capital letters etc, but they have all disappeared and I can't be ****d to correct it



Yes, we are essentially in agreement.

But I have admittedly become an old cynic because the principles and theories I believed in for many years began to appear unrealistic, unfounded in the evidence from past and contemporary history and unworthy of continued adherence.

Remember you are debating with someone who was a committed socialist and one-time Communist Party member. For about twenty-five years hard-left politics was my life....

A friend once decided to visit us when we lived in North London. He knew the road we lived in but not the number. Our house was one of those big Edwardian houses with a bay window. He passed several houses until he found a house with a bookcase visible through the window and saw on the shelf 'The Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism' 'Left-wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder' and other such tomes, along with a small bust of Karl Marx -I was very proud of that!.
He knew it was the right house.....
The decor in our house consisted of framed Russian Revolutionary posters. We had various Soviet and Polish ornaments all over the house. We spent our holidays with 'comrades' and visited socialist countries.

Sandra went along with it in a detached kind of way. I was married when I joined the CP and did it partly to provoke my husband who although left-wing wasn't sufficiently so, in my opinion.


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> The poll that mattered took place in May 2005. Blair won.


Or you could say that the opposition lost because they were not seen as a viable alternative to Blair, _despite the flaws of his government_.

And then you could look at voting figures and see that a huge number of people didn't vote at all.

Public opinion and voting in general elections doesn't necessarily go hand in hand, any more than we can say for sure that opinion poles truly reflect public opinion.

Basically, we cannot know for sure, whatever facts we use.
In which case, all we can go on are our experiences of living through the event and of talking to and listening to others at that time (and here I'm talking about people in shops, on buses, down the pub, waiting at the school gates, etc, not those who would necessarily hold the same point of view as ourselves).

And I realise that is not a great answer, but my tooth hurts, so there you go.


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> At the time, yes. Day and night. It can be argued that dropping the bombs shortened the war and saved tens of thousands of American and Japanese lives.
> Easy to look back with hindsight and say how evil it was but in times of war you have one objective: to win.
> Ask the mother or wife of a U.S. soldier who might have had to participate in a long and bloody land invasion what she would have done.
> We should be thankful that the scientists working on the use of the atom for destructive purposes were mainly Jews who fled Nazi Germany for the U.S. and Britain. If the Nazis had possessed nuclear weapons they would have used them.
> 
> But after the war had been won I would have done the same as Alan Nunn May, Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs who passed on secrets to the Russians thus enabling them to build a bomb. Reason: mutual deterrence.
> 
> 
> The point is that whether I would have worked on the bomb or not is irrelevant....because someone would have done. At that time it was a race between the Allies and the Nazis as to who would get to make the A Bomb first.


Despite my misgivings, I have to agree with this.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> No, I'd have been a Land Girl. But yes, I suppose it's a good thing that most people aren't as squeamish as me. Self defence is a different matter though.


You asked me a straight question to which I gave a straight answer.
I'd like to know your thoughts on this.

Assuming that you had lived in 1939 - 1945....and been male and held the same opinions.

Would it be true to say that your conscience would be guaranteed by people who were prepared to fight and die for it?

My father, who came home after the war so badly injured beyond recovery that he died when I was a toddler, was probably just as 'squeamish'as you. He endured the siege of Malta where he was bombed. No doubt he vomited at the sight of his friends' guts strewn around.
One of my uncles, a teenager, was killed in the Thousand Bomber Raid over Cologne. Another fought with the Desert Rats. A Great-Uncle was killed at Arnheim. Another Great Uncle lost a leg at the Rhine.
These people weren't bloodthirsty warriors. I'm told my father was a gentle, quiet man who loved painting in water colours. They were reluctant soldiers, all of them, but they knew that they had a job to do.

Because of them and millions like them we are free to live in Spain and move freely about our daily business.
We did not give in and allow our country and people to be subjected to Nazism.

These were real events in the life of my family, shared by many other families in Britain and Europe.
War is endemic in human nature,we are an aggressive animal species. Every year of recorded history tells a tale of v iolence somewhere in the world. You and I both share an abhorrence of war and violence in all forms.

You have an inalienable right to refuse to participate in something you find so repellent. I would fight for that....
But this right has to be underpinned by people who may share your loathing of violence but who realise they have to overcome their 'squeamishness' to enable you to exercise that right


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> Despite my misgivings, I have to agree with this.


Well, I wouldn't exactly have whistled a merry tune as I went to work in the lab...

But I believe that there are times when 'conscience' has to be weighed against the good of others. 

To lighten the mood...there is a story I read about a homosexual conscientious objector....not sure who but I think one of the Bloomsbury Set.

When grilled by the Recruiting Officer as to his reasons for objecting to active military service, he replied that as a pacifist, taking up arms was against his deeply held convictions.

'But what would you do if a tall, strong, blond German was attempting to rape your sister?', bellowed the irate Officer.

'I would juxtapose my body between them', was the reply.....


----------



## baldilocks

Originally Posted by Alcalaina 
No, I'd have been a Land Girl. But yes, I suppose it's a good thing that most people aren't as squeamish as me. Self defence is a different matter though.



mrypg9 said:


> You asked me a straight question to which I gave a straight answer.
> I'd like to know your thoughts on this.
> 
> Assuming that you had lived in 1939 - 1945....and been male and held the same opinions.
> 
> Would it be true to say that your conscience would be guaranteed by people who were prepared to fight and die for it?


Unfortunately one can't draw a line under *self*-defence, because one can be in the position where the defence of others is of a greater priority (a.k.a. putting others before oneself, just like the policeman who died rescuing two people yesterday)

Those of us who are males (and females) and lived during WWII, would have (I was way too young) been glad to go off to war to defend our country and our allies, a cause which we saw as just. However, I am a coward and squeamish but realise that one has to put one's personal feelings to one side at times. There have been times during my working life when I have had to leap into action because of an emergency (aircraft on fire, trainload of explosives derailed and live explosives scattered about, body of somebody who had fallen from a train, etc.) and my own feelings of fear, cowardice and squeamishness have had to be put on the shelf and ignored, especially while there was work to be done.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

I do think it's all a bit of a futile exercise wondering about what you'd do if there was a war, or if you were in xyz situation 'cos you just don't know how you're going to react until you're there, living it.
I have been situations where I've reacted in a totally different way to that which I would have expected - positively, and negatively unfortunately...


----------



## mrypg9

Pesky Wesky said:


> I do think it's all a bit of a futile exercise wondering about what you'd do if there was a war, or if you were in xyz situation 'cos you just don't know how you're going to react until you're there, living it.
> I have been situations where I've reacted in a totally different way to that which I would have expected - positively, and negatively unfortunately...


I can say without hesitation that if I'd lived in war time I would have been ****-scared.

When I think back to my mother-in-law, who spent the war in Central London and saw the City burn, I marvel that she was a 'normal' person after her experiences.

My own family weren't in a real danger zone, although bombers returning from raids on Southampton or Plymouth occasionally dropped a bomb in the area and our house was partly destroyed in 1944 by a plane crashing into it.....we lived near a war-time RAF airfield.

I'm told that my grandmother used to stand in the garden and watch the RAF go off to bomb some town in Germany....she would rub her hands gleefully and say happily: 'Jerry's going to get it tonight!!

She was not a bloodthirsty monster but she had seen the carnage caused by German bombs on Bristol, Southampton and Plymouth. She did not think of the German women and children beneath those bombs but of the dead of her family, the dead in the bombing in Southampton, the people sleeping in the fields through sheer terror of being caught in a raid.

Like most people, her chief thoughts were for her family, her friends and her fellow-countrymen and woman.

Isn't that normal human nature? It's certainly mine. I feel more affinity with people on this forum I've never met in the flesh but with whom I share opinions, differences of opinion and so on, than with total strangers I pass in the street...


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> You asked me a straight question to which I gave a straight answer.
> I'd like to know your thoughts on this.
> 
> Assuming that you had lived in 1939 - 1945....and been male and held the same opinions.
> 
> Would it be true to say that your conscience would be guaranteed by people who were prepared to fight and die for it?
> 
> My father, who came home after the war so badly injured beyond recovery that he died when I was a toddler, was probably just as 'squeamish'as you. He endured the siege of Malta where he was bombed. No doubt he vomited at the sight of his friends' guts strewn around.
> One of my uncles, a teenager, was killed in the Thousand Bomber Raid over Cologne. Another fought with the Desert Rats. A Great-Uncle was killed at Arnheim. Another Great Uncle lost a leg at the Rhine.
> These people weren't bloodthirsty warriors. I'm told my father was a gentle, quiet man who loved painting in water colours. They were reluctant soldiers, all of them, but they knew that they had a job to do.
> 
> Because of them and millions like them we are free to live in Spain and move freely about our daily business.
> We did not give in and allow our country and people to be subjected to Nazism.
> 
> These were real events in the life of my family, shared by many other families in Britain and Europe.
> War is endemic in human nature,we are an aggressive animal species. Every year of recorded history tells a tale of v iolence somewhere in the world. You and I both share an abhorrence of war and violence in all forms.
> 
> You have an inalienable right to refuse to participate in something you find so repellent. I would fight for that....
> But this right has to be underpinned by people who may share your loathing of violence but who realise they have to overcome their 'squeamishness' to enable you to exercise that right


All perfectly valid - who knows how we would behave under such direct threat.

But if you remember, my original point was that the British government, despite having stating publicly that it wouldn't do this, sells arms to regimes who are using them to repress their own people or fight bloody pointless wars with their neighbours, 

There's a world of difference between producing weapons to defend yourself, and profiting from the misery of others.


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> All perfectly valid - who knows how we would behave under such direct threat.
> 
> But if you remember, my original point was that the British government, despite having stating publicly that it wouldn't do this, sells arms to regimes who are using them to repress their own people or fight bloody pointless wars with their neighbours,
> 
> There's a world of difference between producing weapons to defend yourself, and profiting from the misery of others.


Not really. Most countries with the capacity to sell arms, do so. Sometimes they do so to prevent misery for their own people.

Do you really expect the British Government to be the only one in the world to refuse to sell arms to wicked regimes? Whoever stated that it wouldn't -Robin Cook - was extremely naive.

That brings us back to my previous -unanswered - question which I'll repeat...
If Britain had refused to sell arms, other countries would have swiftly taken its place and merrily supplied them.
Result: loss of British jobs, arms sold in spite of our refusal.
Question: what* real* gain, other than a satisfied conscience, comes from this refusal?

This is basically the same as the other -also unanswered - question: is it fair and just that other people should suffer and sometimes die if the only gain is to your -or my or anyone's - conscience?

Now I answered your question about working on the bomb...


----------



## Solwriter

Pesky Wesky said:


> I do think it's all a bit of a futile exercise wondering about what you'd do if there was a war, or if you were in xyz situation 'cos you just don't know how you're going to react until you're there, living it.
> I have been situations where I've reacted in a totally different way to that which I would have expected - positively, and negatively unfortunately...


I think that anyone who says they would not be scared in a war situation is lying to themselves, but I agree that we don't know how we are going to _react_ until we are put in a situation.

One thing I do know, however, is that when my children were little and, despite my misgivings about some of the assumptions behind the poem (and the context), I felt like Kipling's Female of the Species.


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> I think that anyone who says they would not be scared in a war situation is lying to themselves, but I agree that we don't know how we are going to _react_ until we are put in a situation.
> 
> One thing I do know, however, is that when my children were little and, despite my misgivings about some of the assumptions behind the poem (and the context), I felt like Kipling's Female of the Species.


Yes, it's a normal human instinct. Our affinities/loyalities attachments whatever you like to call them are for those we know and our familiar to us..the closer the bond, the stronger the attachment.
I realised how true that was when I junked all the solidarity/fraternity propaganda I'd swallowed.


----------



## mrypg9

I've been thinking...the world would be in an even worse state without people who retain a positive outlook on life.
Too many 'realists' and cynics without any reminder that there are principles and standards we should always have at our backs would result in a state of moral anarchy.
It may be true - I think it is - that circumstances rarely permit the exercise of these values and there may be many choices which are all unpleasant and undesirable but we need some kind of moral framework and people to remind us of it.
That's why I feel religion is a 'useful myth' to quote John Gray...by religion I don't mean the set of beliefs like transubstantion, the resurrection and so on but religion as a collective act, a set of rules, something giving social cohesion and fellowship.
I envy people who can still believe in something.
My experience of life in Spain has done a lot to remind me that most people are essentially decent. I've been helped here by many kind acts by people I scarcely knew or didn't know at all.
Alcalaina and others will recognise the origin of an apt phrase which partly describes what I mean: 
'I have come to rely on the kindness of strangers'.


Well, I'm no Blanche DuBois and I'm still fairly self-reliant but it kind of sums it up.


(Pretentious or what  probably due to consumption of several glasses of Rueda - have just realised that this could be yet another contender forPseud's Corner )


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> I've been thinking...the world would be in an even worse state without people who retain a positive outlook on life.
> Too many 'realists' and cynics without any reminder that there are principles and standards we should always have at our backs would result in a state of moral anarchy.
> It may be true - I think it is - that circumstances rarely permit the exercise of these values and there may be many choices which are all unpleasant and undesirable but we need some kind of moral framework and people to remind us of it.
> That's why I feel religion is a 'useful myth' to quote John Gray...by religion I don't mean the set of beliefs like transubstantion, the resurrection and so on but religion as a collective act, a set of rules, something giving social cohesion and fellowship.
> I envy people who can still believe in something.
> My experience of life in Spain has done a lot to remind me that most people are essentially decent. I've been helped here by many kind acts by people I scarcely knew or didn't know at all.
> Alcalaina and others will recognise the origin of an apt phrase which partly describes what I mean:
> 'I have come to rely on the kindness of strangers'.
> 
> 
> Well, I'm no Blanche DuBois and I'm still fairly self-reliant but it kind of sums it up.
> 
> 
> (Pretentious or what  probably due to consumption of several glasses of Rueda - have just realised that this could be yet another contender forPseud's Corner )


Think I'll have to try what you're drinking. 

Take away the word 'religion', and I may begin to agree with you.
Take away the prejudices found in so many religions and I'll agree with you some more.
The question also has to be asked...
'Who exactly will define this new religion, set of social ethics, or whatever we decide to call it?'

I can see where you are coming from - that human nature is not that nice, particularly in certain circumstances, and this is why there has to be some element of control - or perhaps more _accepted control_ in the form of shared values.
So, I'm not saying the idea isn't a good one. Just questioning it.

As to positivity, I also think that a sense of humour goes a long way too.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

Solwriter said:


> I think that anyone who says they would not be scared in a war situation is lying to themselves, but I agree that we don't know how we are going to _react_ until we are put in a situation.
> 
> One thing I do know, however, is that when my children were little and, despite my misgivings about some of the assumptions behind the poem (and the context), I felt like Kipling's Female of the Species.


I didn't mean whether you'd be scared or not. I would imagine that anyone with any intelligence would be, although in times of war aren't we "encouraged " by the authorities to channel that fear into hatred?
I meant that perhaps your alliegences and beliefs are challenged in such a way as that they may change. You wouldn't know until your there.
Anyway, what was the title of this thread?
Maybe it doesn't matter 'cos the OP seems to have gone MIA !!


----------



## baldilocks

Pesky Wesky said:


> Anyway, what was the title of this thread?


But the thread hasn't gone too far off course since many people in Spain, despite the period of "forgetting" still have many of their old prejudices stemming from the Civil War and Franco's time and they spill over from the older ones into the lives of the younger generation and they are influenced, thereby, in their approach to businesses and shopping.


----------



## Alcalaina

Pesky Wesky said:


> Anyway, what was the title of this thread?
> Maybe it doesn't matter 'cos the OP seems to have gone MIA !!


The OP's post was from his blog "A load of old Bull".

I think if he ever comes back and sees what we've done with his thread, he'll realise we on the Expat Forum are masters of that particular art! 

Seriously though, it's one of the best threads for a long time. Discussions like this are what keep me here.


----------



## Solwriter

Pesky Wesky said:


> I didn't mean whether you'd be scared or not. I would imagine that anyone with any intelligence would be, although in times of war aren't we "encouraged " by the authorities to channel that fear into hatred?.


Agreed.
That is the horrible part, especially when this feeling is encouraged in the popular press. The Sun's 'Gotcha' headline springs to mind.... And the fact that this does appear to work speaks a great deal for Mary's premise that human nature is often not what we would wish it to be.


Pesky Wesky said:


> I meant that perhaps your alliegences and beliefs are challenged in such a way as that they may change. You wouldn't know until your there.


Yes, hence my Kipling reference-
A man whose opinions and beliefs I would have often disagreed with, but who has always hit the spot with me with _Female of the Species_.



Pesky Wesky said:


> Anyway, what was the title of this thread?
> Maybe it doesn't matter 'cos the OP seems to have gone MIA !!


Lol!


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter said:


> Think I'll have to try what you're drinking.
> 
> Take away the word 'religion', and I may begin to agree with you.
> Take away the prejudices found in so many religions and I'll agree with you some more.
> The question also has to be asked...
> 'Who exactly will define this new religion, set of social ethics, or whatever we decide to call it?'
> 
> I can see where you are coming from - that human nature is not that nice, particularly in certain circumstances, and this is why there has to be some element of control - or perhaps more _accepted control_ in the form of shared values.
> So, I'm not saying the idea isn't a good one. Just questioning it.
> 
> As to positivity, I also think that a sense of humour goes a long way too.


A sense of humour and a sense of proportion has helped me keep whatever sanity I retain but I do have a headache today. Spritzers and Bucks Fizz for me this evening....

Religion.....there seems to be a deep need in human nature to believe in something, whether a transcendental or secular religion. Humanism, socialism, fascism, neo-liberalism...all are secular religions which have replaced God with some doctrine or other. Some secular religions do have god-figures: Karl Marx, Lenin for socialism being the most obvious example. They have hymns -the Internationale, Red Flag, Cara Al Sol and so on. Many have sacred texts: 'The Road to Serfdom', The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf...
Humanists have replaced god with man...Christians believe in life after death, humanists believe in human progress and perfectability, however delayed.
Most people 'believe' in science and technology as the solution to all our problems.
Very few people are totally without a belief in something or other.

So a godless religion isn't that strange a notion. Imo it would be based on rules of conduct but without the 'faith' element which characterises humanism and transcendental religion.

The French Positivists in the 18th century were aware of this innate human need to believe in something beyond the material, the here-and-now. They invented a religion which even had priests and temples but was based on what they saw as rational principles. It had meetings with rules and rituals.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

Solwriter said:


> Yes, hence my Kipling reference-
> A man whose opinions and beliefs I would have often disagreed with, but who has always hit the spot with me with _Female of the Species_.


OK, OK, I'll read it! I've never been a Kiplinger...


----------



## mrypg9

Solwriter;820124Yes said:


> Female of the Species[/I].
> 
> 
> Lol!


Kipling is a writer who, like Adam Smith, G.K. Chesterton and others who are dismissed as 'right-wing', is more often quoted than read.

Kipling often 'hits the spot' as you rightly say because unlike 'sound' writers and poets like McNeice or Auden, he is a genuine populist in the best sense of the word.

Like George Orwell, who often upset people merely by saying what most people think.

I don't 'like' Kipling, though...


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> Kipling is a writer who, like Adam Smith, G.K. Chesterton and others who are dismissed as 'right-wing', is more often quoted than read.
> 
> Kipling often 'hits the spot' as you rightly say because unlike 'sound' writers and poets like McNeice or Auden, he is a genuine populist in the best sense of the word.
> 
> Like George Orwell, who often upset people merely by saying what most people think.
> 
> I don't 'like' Kipling, though...


I never took much notice of him till I heard Peter Bellamy singing the Barrack Room Ballads, Cholera Camp in particular. Horrible to read because of the silly dialect, but wonderful to listen to.

We've got the cholerer in camp -- it's worse than forty fights;
We're dyin' in the wilderness the same as Isrulites;
It's before us, an' be'ind us, an' we cannot get away,
An' the doctor's just reported we've ten more to-day!

Oh, strike your camp an' go, the Bugle's callin',
The Rains are fallin' --
The dead are bushed an' stoned to keep 'em safe below;
The Band's a-doin' all she knows to cheer us;
The Chaplain's gone and prayed to Gawd to 'ear us --
To 'ear us --
O Lord, for it's a-killin' of us so!​And my favourite verse:

Our Chaplain's got a banjo, an' a skinny mule 'e rides,
An' the stuff 'e says an' sings us, Lord, it makes us split our sides!
With 'is black coat-tails a-bobbin' to Ta-ra-ra Boom-der-ay!
'E's the proper kind o' padre for ten deaths a day.​


----------



## baldilocks

mrypg9 said:


> I don't 'like' Kipling, though...


But he does make some rather delicious bakewell tarts.


----------



## baldilocks

Pesky Wesky said:


> I didn't mean whether you'd be scared or not. I would imagine that anyone with any intelligence would be, although in times of war aren't we "encouraged " by the authorities to channel that fear into hatred?


Just as in '1984' where the party channels fear of Goldstein into the daily Two Minutes Hate and Hate Week.


----------



## jimenato

Pesky Wesky said:


> OK, OK, I'll read it! I've never been a Kiplinger...


The correct verb is 'to kipple'

'Do you like Kipling?'

'I don't know, I've never kippled'.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

jimenato said:


> The correct verb is 'to kipple'
> 
> 'Do you like Kipling?'
> 
> 'I don't know, I've never kippled'.


I just know he makes Exceedingly Good Cakes.*
Well, somebody had to say it, didn't they?!

*Best said in a cholesterol laden voice of an 85 year old male


I think we may be into Full Silly Mode now. What do you think??


----------



## Solwriter

mrypg9 said:


> Kipling is a writer who, like Adam Smith, G.K. Chesterton and others who are dismissed as 'right-wing', is more often quoted than read.
> 
> Kipling often 'hits the spot' as you rightly say because unlike 'sound' writers and poets like McNeice or Auden, he is a genuine populist in the best sense of the word.
> 
> Like George Orwell, who often upset people merely by saying what most people think.
> 
> I don't 'like' Kipling, though...


I like some of his works...
And agree with your comments.

Actually, here is part of the Kipling poem _Tommy_, which is very relevant to some of the debates in this thread....

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,

......

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,

......

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,

......


----------



## jimenato

mrypg9 said:


> So a godless religion isn't that strange a notion. Imo it would be based on rules of conduct but without the 'faith' element which characterises humanism and transcendental religion.
> 
> The French Positivists in the 18th century were aware of this innate human need to believe in something beyond the material, the here-and-now. They invented a religion which even had priests and temples but was based on what they saw as rational principles. It had meetings with rules and rituals.


Have a look at this lot - The Church of Reality



> The Church of Reality provides a religious identity for people who have made a personal commitment to pursue reality the way it really is. When we are asked, "What religion are you?," we answer that we are Realists; we practice Reality because we believe in Reality. We also provide a sense of community, a social structure, and a moral compass to define right and wrong. We provide a sense of purpose about who we are, why we exist, and how we live our lives, in the context of science and logic.


----------



## mrypg9

Pesky Wesky said:


> I didn't mean whether you'd be scared or not. I would imagine that anyone with any intelligence would be, although *in times of war aren't we "encouraged " by the authorities to channel that fear into hatred*?
> I meant that perhaps your alliegences and beliefs are challenged in such a way as that they may change. You wouldn't know until your there.
> QUOTE]
> 
> And a good job that we are...although if your family has been personally affected you wouldn't need much encouragement to hate your enemy. It doesn't take much to arouse violent feelings either.
> 
> Interestingly, though, although our family lost several members during the last WW I don't recall the hatred spilling over afterwards. I had a German penfriend who came to stay when I was barely in my teens and she was received with our usual family warmth, courtesy and consideration.
> 
> I think my family were aware at the time that not all Germans were Nazis, that many were deeply against Hitler and all he stood for and that many Germans who were innocent of any wrong-doing would perish because of those bombers my Gran applauded.
> 
> But this is where real life brutally intrudes, as it always does. In order to defeat Hitler the innocent had to suffer with the guilty.
> My penfriend's mother walked, pregnant, for weeks across Western Germany to escape Allied bombing in 1945. She slept in fields and barns and literally gave birth to her first child in a stable. Her family was staunch Social Democrat, trades unionist and anti-Nazi but she suffered along with those who marched in enthusiastic lock-step.
> 
> All ideals, 'shoulds' and 'oughts' float somewhere in a very rarified mental stratosphere, far from the cruel contingencies of lived experience.


----------



## baldilocks

jimenato said:


> The correct verb is 'to kipple'
> 
> 'Do you like Kipling?'
> 
> 'I don't know, I've never kippled'.


I like your imagination - there is no such word.


----------



## mrypg9

baldilocks said:


> I like your imagination - there is no such word.


Ah but Baldy...it may just be that you haven't tried it yet


----------



## Pesky Wesky

mrypg9 said:


> Pesky Wesky said:
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't mean whether you'd be scared or not. I would imagine that anyone with any intelligence would be, although *in times of war aren't we "encouraged " by the authorities to channel that fear into hatred*?
> I meant that perhaps your alliegences and beliefs are challenged in such a way as that they may change. You wouldn't know until your there.
> QUOTE]
> 
> And a good job that we are...although if your family has been personally affected you wouldn't need much encouragement to hate your enemy. It doesn't take much to arouse violent feelings either.
> 
> Interestingly, though, although our family lost several members during the last WW I don't recall the hatred spilling over afterwards. I had a German penfriend who came to stay when I was barely in my teens and she was received with our usual family warmth, courtesy and consideration.
> 
> I think my family were aware at the time that not all Germans were Nazis, that many were deeply against Hitler and all he stood for and that many Germans who were innocent of any wrong-doing would perish because of those bombers my Gran applauded.
> 
> But this is where real life brutally intrudes, as it always does. In order to defeat Hitler the innocent had to suffer with the guilty.
> My penfriend's mother walked, pregnant, for weeks across Western Germany to escape Allied bombing in 1945. She slept in fields and barns and literally gave birth to her first child in a stable. Her family was staunch Social Democrat, trades unionist and anti-Nazi but she suffered along with those who marched in enthusiastic lock-step.
> 
> All ideals, 'shoulds' and 'oughts' float somewhere in a very rarified mental stratosphere, far from the cruel contingencies of lived experience.
> 
> 
> 
> Well, that's actually what I was trying to express in the sentence
> 
> 
> 
> I meant that perhaps your allegiances and beliefs are challenged in such a way as that they may change. You wouldn't know until you're there.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> which now has the word *allegiances *spelt correctly!!
Click to expand...


----------



## mrypg9

jimenato said:


> Have a look at this lot - The Church of Reality


Interesting. I had a quick look and will revisit later but it seems to be a group whose credo is based on abstract notions of rights and equality in spite of its supposed adherence tothe reality principle.

It supposes a 'one size fits all' philosophy of the best way for humans to live and imo this is the greatest fallacy afflicting much that passes for political thought these days.

We ignore at our peril the importance of ethnic, religious and national allegiances, even if we find them disagreeable or consider ourselves immune from them...

Much talk about 'rights' and 'justice', ignoring the fact that, as someone once said, 'fashions in rights and justice change faster than fashions in women's hats'.


----------



## Alcalaina

jimenato said:


> Have a look at this lot - The Church of Reality





> The Bible says, "Thou shalt not eat of the Tree of Knowledge". The Church of Reality says, "Who's hungry?"


Love it!


----------



## mrypg9

Alcalaina said:


> Love it!


Now what, precisely, do you think that means....apart from a soundbite

Seems a line from another poet applies here:

'Go, go said the bird
For humankind
Cannot bear 
Too much reality'.

(T.S.Eliot)

_
The Church of Reality is Religion 2.0 that is based on reality rather than books containing old stories. We attempt answer the great questions that other religions address, *like what is right and wrong,[/*_*B]

Views of what is right or wrong are derived from culture and history. They often - not always - evolve.

There are very few basic principles upon which we could all agree......including the 'sanctity of human life'.
When we decide to fasten on a principle it is nearly always not because it is rational but simply because we have chosen it, because we like it, it appeals to us.
'Reality' is often confused, chaotic, irrational.

The difference between knowing and believing is knowing is based on the scientific method, which we call the Sacred Method. 

All is revealed....they believe that science, knowledge, will save the world.....just another tired old Enlightenment fallacy...
Presumably not the scientific method that invented the atom and hydrogen bomb, biotechnology, cloning, quick and clean methods o0f mass extermination, then?*


----------



## jimenato

mrypg9 said:


> *The difference between knowing and believing is knowing is based on the scientific method, which we call the Sacred Method. *
> 
> All is revealed....they believe that science, knowledge, will save the world.....just another tired old Enlightenment fallacy...
> Presumably not the scientific method that invented the atom and hydrogen bomb, biotechnology, cloning, quick and clean methods o0f mass extermination, then?


Eh? How on earth do you conclude that - 



> they believe that science, knowledge, will save the world


from 



> The difference between knowing and believing is knowing is based on the scientific method, which we call the Sacred Method


?:confused2:

All they are saying as far as I can see is that they do not base their 'religion' upon unevidenced belief (aka faith) but upon demonstrable and repeatable (real) phenomena. Nothing about saving the world...

Although if anything were to save the world it would far more likely be a good dose of reality and critical thinking rather than faith in a supernatural being who almost certainly doesn't exist and if he does is either a complete incompetent or a complete *******.


----------



## Alcalaina

mrypg9 said:


> Now what, precisely, do you think that means....apart from a soundbite


I think it's a splendid soundbite. I'm not feeling very precise at the moment so I'll leave you and Jimenato to sort it out.
:bolt:


----------



## mrypg9

jimenato said:


> Eh? How on earth do you conclude that -
> 
> 
> 
> from
> 
> 
> 
> ?:confused2:
> 
> All they are saying as far as I can see is that they do not base their 'religion' upon unevidenced belief (aka faith) but upon demonstrable and repeatable (real) phenomena. Nothing about saving the world...
> 
> Although if anything were to save the world it would far more likely be a good dose of reality and critical thinking rather than faith in a supernatural being who almost certainly doesn't exist and if he does is either a complete incompetent or a complete *******.


Saving the world was my take on it....but they place great faith in 'scientific method' and therefore presumably the power of reason.

I totally agree about the supernatural being...utter tosh....but I think that whilst ruthless critical thinking is essential,reason can take us only so far and is not the 100% infallible tool some imagine it to be.
What should you be guided by if you are faced with two options which are both equally undesirable? How do you choose between incommensurable principles?

That's when emotion,preference, instinct, whatever you like to call it, takes over because reason alone is insufficient.

That happens often in everyday life.


----------



## jimenato

mrypg9 said:


> What should you be guided by if you are faced with two options which are both equally undesirable? How do you choose between incommensurable principles?
> 
> That's when emotion,preference, instinct, whatever you like to call it, takes over because reason alone is insufficient.
> 
> That happens often in everyday life.


Thought and reason - anything but prayer and faith.

I think I'm turning into:










but I also have some illogical feelings as well:


----------



## mrypg9

jimenato said:


> Thought and reason - anything but prayer and faith.
> 
> I think I'm turning into:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> but I also have some illogical feelings as well:


Agree prayer and faith are useless as guides when making a decision.
But my point is merely that there are many times in everyday life when thought and reason can't give us an answer and therefore your decision is made through preference of some kind or other.


----------



## Abyss-Rover

Interesting thread on "Give small businesses in spain a chance". I guess this is probably how the Spanish government end up, if they ever discuss the situation.


----------



## mrypg9

Abyss-Rover said:


> Interesting thread on "Give small businesses in spain a chance". I guess this is probably how the Spanish government end up, if they ever discuss the situation.


Now why do I have a sneaking suspicion that there may be just a few tiny, unimportant differences between what goes on on this Forum and what goes on around the Cabinet table in the Moncloa Palace??


----------



## Solwriter

Abyss-Rover said:


> Interesting thread on "Give small businesses in spain a chance". I guess this is probably how the Spanish government end up, if they ever discuss the situation.


This thread has many twists and turns, so I can see how you would think that.


----------



## jimenato

I deliberately engineer the direction of threads just so I can post a picture of 7 of 9:eyebrows:


----------



## baldilocks

Solwriter said:


> This thread has many twists and turns, so I can see how you would think that.


Isn't that how most of our minds work? The diversions and digressions enable us to see, better, the other person's point of view.


----------



## Abyss-Rover

jimenato said:


> I deliberately engineer the direction of threads just so I can post a picture of 7 of 9:eyebrows:


Bad Boy


----------



## jojo

Abyss-Rover said:


> Bad Boy


  pot, kettle..... 

Jo xxx


----------



## Abyss-Rover

jojo said:


> pot, kettle.....
> 
> Jo xxx



??????????????????????


----------



## mrypg9

The point is: does it matter

Whenever I look at other 'expat/immigrant' forums, they all seem dead....few posts, not many provocative or interesting ones, some consisting of whinging about property deals gone sour (usually down to stupidity or lack of due diligence...)


----------



## Pesky Wesky

mrypg9 said:


> The point is: does it matter
> 
> Well, I can understand the OP's getting fed up sometimes...
> 
> Whenever I look at other 'expat/immigrant' forums, they all seem dead....few posts, not many provocative or interesting ones, some consisting of whinging about property deals gone sour (usually down to stupidity or lack of due diligence...)
> 
> This I fully agree with, not that I think the majority of posts have to be provocative - but interesting is good . One thing that makes a forum interesting is traffic, users and posters, so all you voyeurs out there - get posting!!


***


----------



## jimenato

> Originally Posted by mrypg9
> The point is: does it matter
> 
> Well, I can understand the OP's getting fed up sometimes...
> 
> Whenever I look at other 'expat/immigrant' forums, they all seem dead....few posts, not many provocative or interesting ones, some consisting of whinging about property deals gone sour (usually down to stupidity or lack of due diligence...)
> 
> This I fully agree with, not that I think the majority of posts have to be provocative - but interesting is good . One thing that makes a forum interesting is traffic, users and posters, so all you voyeurs out there - get posting!!





Pesky Wesky said:


> ***



I don't really think it matters too much. If the OP gets fed up it's their own fault for not coming back. We only drift off into random ramblings if the original point has been addressed and the OP has gone silent (I think).



> so all you voyeurs out there - get posting


Perhaps if I posted some more pictures of pretty ladies?


----------



## mrypg9

Sometimes there's little that can be said in reply to OPs.
It's the ramifications that are interesting...
Anmd it's very rare indeed that subsequent posts don't have some link, however tenuous, with the OP.


----------



## Pesky Wesky

jimenato said:


> so all you voyeurs out there - get posting
> 
> Perhaps if I posted some more pictures of pretty ladies?
Click to expand...

Not really what I was thinking of Jimenato...


----------



## XTreme

jimenato said:


> Perhaps if I posted some more pictures of pretty ladies?


French Maids would be nice! I've always thought something like that would suit Jo!


----------



## jojo

XTreme said:


> French Maids would be nice! I've always thought something like that would suit Jo!


 I'm not french and too lazy to be a french maid, sorry to disappoint lol!!!

Jo xxx


----------



## XTreme

jojo said:


> I'm not french and too lazy to be a french maid, sorry to disappoint lol!!!
> 
> Jo xxx


Those are just minor aspects Jo....us Welsh boys are not known for being too choosy....so you're still in with a shout.

Where's my old mate Steve Hall? The place isn't the same without him!


----------



## jojo

XTreme said:


> Those are just minor aspects Jo....us Welsh boys are not known for being too choosy....so you're still in with a shout.
> Where's my old mate Steve Hall? The place isn't the same without him!


Thanks for that Pete :eyebrows:! 

Not a clue - "networking" and being important somewhere else - facebook???

Jo xxx


----------



## Abyss-Rover

XTreme said:


> French Maids would be nice! I've always thought something like that would suit Jo!


A little light humor often helps too.


----------

