Minor point of fact

“It is not paying for pensions but going straight to the Treasury to fill the hole left by the bonus tax.”

The bonus tax was a one-off windfall tax. It takes some stretch of logic to assume that not repeating a one-off tax creates a hole, particularly when the tax raised around STG 2bn of government spending of STG 700bn.

“But it’s proved to be the only language the government understands.”

Well, obviously not… 1% cap on pay rises; 310,000 more public sector redundancies than previously stated; possible withdrawal of previous pension offer (“generous” or otherwise).

Gideon’s quaking at the thought of strikes, eh?

These strikes are not about fair pay and pensions. They are not about protecting women. More women work in the private sector and they receive less than the women in the public sector.

Women in the public sector receive 10% higher wages than the equivalently educated women in the private sector (and 28% higher if you ignore the education level).

80% of women in the public sector have pension schemes and fewer than 40% do in the private sector.

Comparing the higest pay banker with the lowest pay nurse is misleading. Entry level workers in both jobs start at about 15k/year. It is not about comparing the wages of a bank employee and a NHS nurse. The difference is that the nurse will have a better pension.

These strikes are not about fair wages, they are about keeping an unfair advantage for the public sector.

http://mrnonnymouse.blogspot.com/2011/11/them-and-us.html

@ 3 They are not about keeping an unfair advantage at all. They are about keeping what is promised and fair. The world is not divided between private and public sector but this is how I feel the Tories like the country to operate by divide and rule.

The question and action now should be that the private sector should start allowing a good pension and pay for the people who work in the private sector. For to long now people have been belittled with small pay increases and pensions that are going to pot. It’s about time pensions a worth there while in the private sector and not to allow them to go to race to the bottom.

The union was wasting it’s time dealing with the Murdoch crime family. Should have told them to swivel.

They are not a legitimate news organisation. They are an international crime orgainsation, which uses criminal espionage to expand it’s empire.

All these moaning minnies in the private sector complaining about their pensions and rights should not have been so quick to dump the union movement. There is a reason you get shit pensions, work long hours, and get treated lie scum.

You chose to smash the trade union movement. You chose to side with the tory elites who hate all workers.

what I don’t understand is why the government just doesn’t say the new pension arrangements (higher contributions, later retirement) apply to new starters, which surely nobody can object to, leave existing staff pensions deal the same and if they need to save money do it by holding down wage increases.

Brendan should have left the contents as a voice mail, it would have been in the Murdoch press in a shot,

Failing that he should have offered to pose topless next to the text!

It’s sad that we have got to a position where the trade unions are effectively now a lobby group for the public sector and growing the state.

My left-wing friends were amazed to learn that I belonged to a union; they, who also worked in the private sector, hadn’t even considered it. When I sought help from my union it didn’t really work out. Unless you work in a large organisation for a long time it seems as though there’s nothing really that can be done.

(Continuing my disillusioned theme: the biggest supporter of strikes I know is someone who quite literally sponges off my best mate, doesn’t work and tells people what they should do all day.)

When most private sector companies began to realise that, because of changes in demographics, the money they were collecting from employees and contributing to company pension schemes would not cover the potential liabilities, they quickly closed down these final salary schemes and moved on to money purchase alternatives.

To have done anything else would have been suicidal.

Of course, when the employer was the state, there did not seem to be the same pressure. Public sector pension schemes were infinitely sustainable because any shortfall in funding would ultimately be paid from future tax revenues appropriated from future citizens. A theoretically limitless sum of money.

Or at least that was what the Greek government thought…….

@ 9 – (Continuing my disillusioned theme: the biggest supporter of strikes I know is someone who quite literally sponges off my best mate, doesn’t work and tells people what they should do all day.)

He sounds like a lazy tory.

@7

what I don’t understand is why the government just doesn’t say the new pension arrangements (higher contributions, later retirement) apply to new starters, which surely nobody can object to,

Divide and rule is usually the first recourse of the British, perhaps Georgey boy missed that part of his history tutoring.

“and get stuck into trying to reach the fair negotiated settlement that unions want.”

As opposed to the fair negotiated settlement that Mniisters want?

I think it’s quite generous of Osborne only to sack 710,000 indolent public sector employees as Brown created 1 million non jobs over 14 years.So they’re still up by 290,000. Kerching!

Oh, BTW, an editorial is what the editors of the newspaper writes.

This would be a comment piece or possibly, in American, an Op/Ed…..opposite editorial.

>> They are about keeping what is promised and fair.

Promised by Labour, paid for by letting the banks gamble.

Labour destroyed private sector pensions and promised the public sector over generous pensions that are unaffordable. That was not fair.

Labour have gone. The money has gone. Now it is time to live within our means and make pay and pensions fair for all, not for the few.

Fair is increasing the state pension (like this government is doing) and taking the poor out of the tax system (which this government is doing). Public sector unions are demanding more for them and that means less for everybody else. That is not fair.

I bet all those public sector workers who voted for that nice Mr Clegg must be delighted with their choice.

And now Osborne’s policy of austerity has failed, he has decided that the answer is even more austerity. It is the elites global policy that everyone must have austerity except them. So lots of free corporate welfare, so the elites get richer. Nice!

@11 am afraid not – it’s not a “he” and is a prominent left-wing twitterer

@3
hateful nonsense that completely ignores (i) the interdependence of public and private sectors (nearly 1 in 2 households with two earners will have a public sector worker) (ii) the most important divide in our labour market/economy is between top and bottom and (iii) that the neoliberal economic policies ushered in during the 80s and pursued ever since aren’t, despite the rheotirc about the benefits of free markets, delivering decent jobs in the private sector.

I was on strike today and I am embarrassed to be associated with such cock waffle.

@10. pagar: “When most private sector companies began to realise that, because of changes in demographics…”

More than demographics, it was about the fact that companies do not employ Jo for 30 years. It doesn’t happen.

What does happen is that Jo works in the civil service for 30 years. Pay Jo the pension.

@16 Fair would in fact be a decent, independent assessment of the (minimum) size of pension required to live reasonably comfortably in older age, as well as a decent definition of when `old age’ begins. Your view that public sector pensions are overly generous is easily mirrored by the view that private sector pensions are too little and insuffucient to provide for the elderly.

Additionally, things like pension payments are a matter of political will rather than a lack of money. Consider the defence commitments in nuclear weaponry, as well as large yet potentially pointless infrastructure projects, multiple governments obsession with expensive PFI schemes and the Olympics. We unquestionably have the money for these things in the context of future balanced budgets, but not pensions. Right.

“80% of women in the public sector have pension schemes and fewer than 40% do in the private sector.” Are you saying that 40 per cent in the public sector should too? Why aren’t you saying that everybody should have a pension? Why is accepting and spreading such a shameful state of affairs so important to you? You don’t you want people to have good pensions? Private sector workers should stand up and go on strike too.

@17. Sally: “I bet all those public sector workers who voted for that nice Mr Clegg must be delighted with their choice.”

Have you tried inserting the module labelled “Brain”, Sally? It makes life a lot more fun.

Here’s a question I don’t know the answer to: “should unions actively seek out non-unionised workers in the private sector, or should private sector workers seek out a union?”

With all the “I hate you public sector!” and “I hate you private sector!” discussion over the past months, it seems the unions have done little to get non-members in the private sector on side except shouting “fair pensions for all” but then not suggesting how. Why can’t they do an active bit of empire building?

For me, the strike has made me quite sad – workers who have lots in common have turned against one another. Well done, David and George. It’s possibly also encouraged the belief in some quarters that all unions do is go on strike. (Which obviously isn’t the case.)

(For the record, I’m in the LGPS, I wasn’t at work today… and I feel I can’t say what I just have in public for fear of being branded an apologist for the tories. Not true at all. But it can be hard when it’s a case of “if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”)

@7

Where I worked (a hated bank, etc etc) with a final salary scheme this (different terms for new starters etc) was done in the mid 90′s – agreed with Unions etc. Meanwhile Governments (who cannot run anything) don’t do this as most of the pension schemes are just Ponzi.

@ Sally, Horsetrader and few others – here’s the question – where do you think government money comes from? All government spending is raised from tax. It is finite, unless of course you just keep borrowing. The government already liberates me from approx 30% of my gross income every month. I’m not even a higher rate taxpayer. I pay into a company pension scheme (~defined contribution of course) and an additional free standing pension. On current annuity rates I will need £100k of pension pot for every £5k of pension I want to receive. It p*sses me off, but I also recognise that money does not just flow out of the ground.

Hmmmm, positively crawling with scum this thread. The shrillness of the right-wing squealing is because they simply can’t believe that they have the majority of the press on their side, they have the government propoganda machine on their side, we have a strike which has massively inconvenienced millions of people, and yet STILL over 60% have declared their support for the strike. This is what the voice of the people looks like my friends. You’d better get used to hearing it, because its going to be comign back again, and again………

Clarkson on the BBC tonight’s one show said that strikers should be shot in front of their families.

Just another example of the right wing bias on the BBC. Are they going to sack him?
Don’t know ,lets ask the top man at the BBC Chris Pattern…. Oh wait, he is a tory tosser as well.

@pagar #10:

When most private sector companies began to realise that, because of changes in demographics, the money they were collecting from employees and contributing to company pension schemes would not cover the potential liabilities, they quickly closed down these final salary schemes and moved on to money purchase alternatives.

I’m old enough (albeit I don’t need to be very old) to remember the days when large numbers of large private sector companies took “pension holidays” because their pension schemes were sufficiently well-funded to meet their anticipated liabilities to existing members. I wonder what happened to that money?

30. Robin Levett

” I’m old enough (albeit I don’t need to be very old) to remember the days when large numbers of large private sector companies took “pension holidays” because their pension schemes were sufficiently well-funded to meet their anticipated liabilities to existing members. I wonder what happened to that money? ”

The fund managers lost it in the dot com crash. A quarter of a trillion sterling, albeit they got some back in recent years. I think they said something like, oops.

@3/16 – No, they get something like 75% less than Women in the private sector in equivalent jobs. Equal pay!

And right, no pensions for the 99% in your world. The old can just die, as far as you’re concerned, 1%er.

@10 – They changed their pensions into scams. Now the government wants to do the dame. Why are you supporting scams?

@27 – So you’re stupid enough to support a scam, then whine about it?

@30 – Yes, amazing isn’t it. The funds for deacent pensions are and were there.

Clarkson is an overrated streak of paralysed piss

Sack the cock.

What is absolutely essential that we all stand up to, is the laziest (and, you will excuse me, most dim-witted) bit of criticism as thrown at the strikers. That is, “how dare those ‘privileged’ public workers stage a mass walkout and disrupt the country when most private sector workers are condemned to worse pension schemes”.

Leave aside the trite lie of “privileged pensions” in the public sector (the average being £7,800 – see this). Also, leave aside the fact that there’s nothing wrong, and everything right, in fighting to uphold the contractual conditions that public sector workers had signed up to in the first place.

What we should focus on is the warped logic according to which, because millions of people in the private sector are getting supremely exploited and taken for a ride with pension schemes ranging from very poor to non-existent (65% of all private sector workers have no pension at all – how’s that for a ticking bomb?), the right whingers’s solution isn’t to try and improve everybody’s pension.

No, they tell you, glaze-eyed, that the straightforward way out is simply crappier pensions for all.

They don’t think we urgently need to tackle head-on a future packed with even more millions of impoverished pensioners who will live longer, but with looser safety nets, less assets and even more deprivation than today. No, they just demand that the shrinking chunk of the population who still enjoy some protection for when they’re old and frail relinquish that too. Perhaps with a round of lashings before bed to beef up the penance.

Except, would they apply the same yardstick to any other walk of life? I don’t think so either.

They wouldn’t demand that people who expect decent treatment on the NHS stop acting like spoilt brats because what about those unluckier souls who catch MRSA in their hospital bed…

this perverted race-to-the-bottom logic of “shit working conditions for all” instead of “better conditions for all” can only lead to one place – and with a series of socially devastating long-term consequences.

@25 asks the right question – the unions now largely represent the public sector making events like this inevitably divisive between public and private sector workers.

@34 makes the correct point that it should be a focus to make good pensions available to all. However, the fact is that in a low yield investment environment while people live longer, the cost of providing a good pension has increased substantially. The debate is about where this extra cost will come from; the strike is a negotiating tool, they usually fail in the long run.

@34 – Without cast-iron guarantees, I’m not willing to pay into ANY pension, because it’s no different from a scam. And yes, as a university worker I could technically get into a “deacent” pension scheme.

I don’t believe it, bluntly. (Plus, I can’t afford it if I want to eat)

@10
I used to work for a (then) FTSE100 company. It had a final salary pension scheme, but during the 1990′s, took a pension contribution holiday. Around 2000, it restarted the empoyer contributions, and then a year later closed the scheme to new entrants, and then a year after that, closed it all together.

Directors and Senior managers (those paid > £100,000/year) still got the final salary pension, despite it being closed to other employees/

Around this time (2003) the performance of the company started sliding, as it was difficult to retain well trained and experienced staff, and to recruit good staff to replace them. As I said, it is no longer a FTSE100 company, and has also dropped out of the FTSE250.

Directors and senior managers still get the final salary pension, and still get substantial bonuses every year. Morale is poor and this is reflected in the service customers receive, I can see little hope for the company (which thankfully I left several years ago) regaining its former brilliance.

My colleagues there deserve a decent pension. The fact that their bosses decided that such as thing was something only they should have doesnt mean I should not have a decent pension in my present position.

@6. Sally

Really, I thought i was trying to feed my family

@38 – And stuff anyone who gets in the way, regardless of how counter-productive it is in the long term. Right, as Sally said.

@nonny mouse #16:

Labour destroyed private sector pensions and promised the public sector over generous pensions that are unaffordable.

I’m actually struggling to find a word in that sentence that is actually true.

The idea that PLCs could withdraw money from their pensions schemes (by taking “pension holidays”) came in 1988 (under a Tory Government) by SSAP24. The contractual commitments upon the PLCs to make contributions seems to have fallen by the wayside… Private sector companies subsequently found that the money they had taken out, with changign economic conditions, had left their funds under-funded, and rather than put the money back, they decided to change the terms of their schemes.

So far as public sector pensions are concerned, they have historically been reasonably generous, given the generally lower pay rates available when calculated on a like for like basis. They were however no more generous than the schemes provided by substantial private sector employees. The Labour government reformed public sector schemes, reducing and deferring benefits, in 2008. The schemes as they now stand are not unaffordable – you may remember that a Lord Hutton was asked to produce a report on this fairly recently.

@ 39 Leon

“And stuff anyone who gets in the way, regardless of how counter-productive it is in the long term.”

What, are you demonising everyone in the private sector now? How the fuck is Dave “stuffing anyone who gets in the way” merely by not working for the state?

@39 –

Well yes actually, fuck anyone who gets in the way of feeding my family.

If im an evil brownshirt overlord 1% for earning less than the national average in the public sector, what do you suggest? Sensible answers only please.

@Leon and @Sally

Perhaps you two should grow up and stop blaiming all your woes on the right wing boogey man, 1% browsnhirt et al.

Greed, selfishness and hatred are the causes and this is something common to every man woman and child on the planet.

Read through some of your posts and look at the anger and vitirol you both spew daily, surely even two as blinkered and arrogant as yourselves can see you are certainly part of the problem, not the solution.

@ 43

It’s been tried. Doesn’t work, nothing ever gets through.

@44 – That’s right, Tory trolling don’t stop me posting. Funny that!

@43 – I’m not blaming abstracts. I’m blaming people. I’m blaming YOU. Personally. You are supporting government policy, you are to blame for the result.

That you feel current policy is acceptable speaks of YOUR morality. Nothing else. That you feel that you can speak for others us typical far right paternalist hate tactics of false appeals to authority, pretending that you “really” know what’s better for everyone, and the left should shut the flip up and submit to the “proper people”.

Tory Troll, go back to ConHome. Stop disrupting discourse here. Also, of course, I never mentioned brownshirts, you are a typical lying 1% Tory troll who can’t differentiate between anyone on the left, we’re all the same to you. Not PEOPLE, after all.

@ 45

So appealing for calm and sensible discussion is yet another thing we can add to the list of Tory troll behaviours under your system.

As a non-Tory, I’m somewhat offended by your constant implications that “non-Tory” is synonymous with “irrational paranoid liar”. Although all the actual Tories on the thread are no doubt charmed by you.

Idiot.

@46 – Tory troll demanding that left-wingers shut up, to use the correct, non-ideologically biased terminology. Funny, nope, not shutting up on command.

And I’m calling you a Tory. I have no time for your sophistry. Unless of course you’re saying that the Tories are not right wing ENOUGH for you… Strange, I was almost willing to believe that you had some actual leftist views given your other posts lately, thanks for dispelling that illusion.

“I’m not blaming abstracts. I’m blaming people. I’m blaming YOU. Personally. ”

Fair enough, weak people often blame others, and most people are weak.

“That you feel cyrrent policy is acceptable speaks of YOUR morality. Nothing else.”

I don’t remember saying that, I said I was in employment to feed my family, not to feed your or Sallys paranoid delusions.

“Tory troll who can’t differentiate between anyone on the left, we’re all the same to you. Not PEOPLE, after all.”

Funny, Im sure my comment began @Leon and @Sally. Surely you read that?

@ 47 Leon

“Tory troll demanding that left-wingers shut up, to use the correct, non-ideologically biased terminology. Funny, nope, not shutting up on command.”

Who’s telling you to shut up? Oh, wait, you never quote the things you claim others have said, because it’s never true.

“And I’m calling you a Tory. I have no time for your sophistry. Unless of course you’re saying that the Tories are not right wing ENOUGH for you… ”

According to you, I’m not right-wing enough to be left-wing (I care about freedom of speech, for example). I know you don’t understand sourcing, but could you kindly point to one of these apparently many examples of me being right-wing? And I mean actually expressing right-wing views, not just defending right-wingers from you when you’re being an arsehole.

“Strange, I was almost willing to believe that you had some actual leftist views given your other posts lately, thanks for dispelling that illusion.”

So, once again, I express left-wing views but dislike your behaviour, and in your incredibly self-centred world that makes me right-wing. Where more logically it would make me both left-wing and anti-dickhead.

I don’t know why I bother, you’re obviously impervious to logic and incapable of normal human resources.

@ 48 Dave

“I don’t remember saying that, I said I was in employment to feed my family, not to feed your or Sallys paranoid delusions.”

You don’t understand, Dave. If you disagree with Leon on anything, that PROVES that you are Hitler Griffin Powell McBastardface. It’s how politics work, because the only important facet of humanity is how one feels about Leon.

PS – If im an evil brownshirt overlord 1% for earning less than the national average in the public sector, what do you suggest? Sensible answers only please.

@50.

We should all just hug a Leon

@49 – Tory Troll

I’m quite willing to debate with left wingers. You’ve made it BLINDINGLY plain you’re a right wing troll, like SMFS, and deserve all the contempt you get for posting here to disrupt the conversation. Go back to ConHome.

The words don’t change because your behaviour doesn’t change. You’re spewing crap to muddle up the thread again. I made a mistake, in that you almost seemed reasonable, but looking back you’re simply undermining the left with subtle positions which are irrational again.

And oh hey, the social darwinist attacks on my mental health start! Thanks, Tory. Typical personal attacks on anyone not quick enough to chant the One True Tory Way! …..Oh, are the Tories not right wing ENOUGH for you? I keep on making this mistake with right-wing trolls.

@51 – You’ve already proven you’re a liar, so why would I take your word on anything?

You’re dodging and weaving to refuse responsibility for YOUR personal attacks on the poor, by supporting this government.

Moreover, you’ve made it plain you can’t differentiate between left wingers (I disagree with Sally. A lot), and you’re using the typical far-right social darwinist tactics of labelling anyone who disagrees with you in any degree as mentally ill.

(I’ve only said that to one person here, Bob, because of his “scottish menace”. Which IS nuts.)

And hug me? Oh, is that what assualt is called these days.

@ 53 Leon

“I’m quite willing to debate with left wingers. You’ve made it BLINDINGLY plain you’re a right wing troll, like SMFS, and deserve all the contempt you get for posting here to disrupt the conversation. Go back to ConHome.”

Nope. You decided I was right-wing because I don’t like your behaviour, and in your mind the accusation is the same as fact. You’ve never cited evidence and have evaded or ignored requests for it on multiple occasions.

“The words don’t change because your behaviour doesn’t change. You’re spewing crap to muddle up the thread again.”

God, you’re self-centered. I only “muddle the thread” if that means “diverting the thread from its correct course in which everyone agrees with Leon”.

“I made a mistake, in that you almost seemed reasonable, but looking back you’re simply undermining the left with subtle positions which are irrational again.”

Actually, leave out the “subtle” and that’s a description of you, not me. Irrational positions (starting with “people who disagree with me are Tory trolls”) are your M.O. And your general behaviour undermines the left by making people judge us based on you.

“And oh hey, the social darwinist attacks on my mental health start! Thanks, Tory.”

“Social darwinist?” I wasn’t attacking your mental health, I was saying you were stupid. There’s a difference. Although if you want an assessment of your mental health, I’d say you showed pretty major signs of paranoia – you create conspiracies and think everyone in the world is defined in relationship to yourself. Admitting the existence of mental health problems does not make one a social darwinist, that requires an unpleasant political position on the topic of mental health.

“Typical personal attacks on anyone not quick enough to chant the One True Tory Way”

No, personal attacks on someone who repeatedly spreads malicious and unfounded lies about me and uses these lies as a basis for ad hom personal attacks on me. If you act like an arsehole, you don’t deserve courtesy.

@43

“Greed, selfishness and hatred are the causes and this is something common to every man woman and child on the planet”

1. Every man, woman and child?
2. Greed and selfishness are highly regarded by neoliberals. I take it you’ve read Ayn Rand?

@54 – You act like a right winger, quack like a right winger and react like a right winger. Every time you seem to do something sane, the next thing you do is launch an attack on a left winger. No, I’m not falling for your jedi mind trick.

You’re so self-centred that you have to project your shortcomings onto everyone else. And then you try and undermine the left by saying that anyone on the left is a moron and mentally ill. As usual for SMFS’s kindred. You ARE a social darwinist using the old mental health trick, exactly, thanks for admitting it. When will you stand ranting about the power of phrenology, for reference?

Tory Troll, go back to ConHome.

@55 – Ah, so you’re a Randroid. Explains a lot.

@55 – Grah! Sorry, typo. You’re *SAYING HE IS* a Randroid. Explains a lot.

Hmm!

@ 56 Leon

” You act like a right winger, quack like a right winger and react like a right winger.”

And yet, in every single thread where you’ve launched this attack on me, you’ve never been able to cite an example of me doing anything like that. Funny.

“Every time you seem to do something sane, the next thing you do is launch an attack on a left winger.”

I’m wondering whether you’re actually incapable of seeing the flaw in your logic here, or whether you’re just refusing to. These are the only two possible options.

Once again: disagreeing with a left-winger does not make one right-wing. If a left-winger told you the sky was green, and you said it was blue, would that make you a Tory troll? I guess it would by your logic.

You honestly seem to think that debate is entirely about backing your “side”. Even if someone ostensibly on your side says something stupid, offensive or factually incorrect, you HAVE to support them, or you’re a traitor. That’s the root cause of this row between us; you can’t or won’t see any motivation other than allegience.

“No, I’m not falling for your jedi mind trick.”

I have no idea what that means, and I suspect you don’t either.

“You’re so self-centred that you have to project your shortcomings onto everyone else.”

Name one. Give me an example of a shortcoming that I project onto others.

“And then you try and undermine the left by saying that anyone on the left is a moron and mentally ill.”

Another flat lie, from someone who throws the word “troll” around. I didn’t say that anyone on the left must be a moron and mentally ill. I said that YOU are a moron and quite possibly mentally ill. Regret to inform you that you do not define the left-wing, thank fucking Christ.

“As usual for SMFS’s kindred. You ARE a social darwinist using the old mental health trick, exactly, thanks for admitting it.”

So you interpret me saying that I’m NOT a social darwinist as me admitting that I am one. What’s it like in your fantasy world? Got any unicorns?

“When will you stand ranting about the power of phrenology, for reference?”

I assume that on Planet Leon I already have. In fact, I suspect that you KNOW that I believe in phrenology, that you’ve seen me talk about phrenology all the time and constant observed me giving support and comfort to phrenologists. You can’t provide any evidence or give any examples of course, but what does that matter?

Over the last few months you have constantly accused me of holding views that I do not hold and have given no evidence of holding, called me every name under the Sun, gone around saying that I support absolutely digusting philosphies such as social darwinism, for fuck’s sake, and on one occasion fabricated, out of thin fucking air, a threat that I apparently made against you.

And of course, you have failed to provide evidence, to point to something I’ve said and say “see, that’s what I’m talking about”. Over and over and OVER again. Your politics are pretty good, Leon, and I’d probably vote the same way as you on 90% of issues you could name. On a human level, however, you’re one of the most dishonest and fundamentally unpleasant people I have ever had the misfortune of coming across. That’s why I and most of the others on this thread would love it if you would just fuck off and leave the conversation to those of us who aren’t libellous, childish, vicious little cunts.

@58 – I don’t care what propaganda you’re pushing today, Tory. It’s THAT SIMPLE.
You’ve deliberately trolled left-wingers off this site, and I refuse to be the next.

And your blatant dishonesty over your little jedi mind trick is precisely why you’re a bastard.

Tory Troll, go back to ConHome. Stop trying to shiv people here.

@ Leon

I’m starting to think that you’re just a bot program to randomly attach itself to certain posters and shout “Tory”, “troll”, and, for some bizarre reason, “Jedi” at them all day long. The most obvious sign is that you can write but apparently can’t read.