What does "normal life" mean to you?

[mint]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7033290.ece

Does he realise that, in "normal life", people pay their own mortgages, buy their own food and drive themselves in their own cars, putting up with petrol price rises, lack of parking spaces and clean them out themselves?  Also, most "normal" people (with some notable exceptions [:D]) do not get all of the summer off and then take a "recess" at Christmas and at Easter.

It does say later on in the article that the remunerative "package" is not so attractive post expenses reform.  Package indeed!  Many would settle (nay, die) for a job with just the statutory holidays and no other frills.

It would serve him right if he finds "normal life" not whatever it is he envisages it to be.

[Hoddy]

The whole idea of a 'normal life' is an odd one isn't it ? In a sense none of us live a normal life do we ? It strikes me as odd that people imagine that their life is somehow different, and therefore worse, than that of others. My own life at present seems like one of privilege because I am no longer the time slave I used to be.

Hoddy

[tegwini]

"I

wonder which aspects of 'normal' life Purnell is keen to experience -

endless anxiety about money, crime, job security and old age? The fear

of losing one's home? The fear of crime or the loss of one's nation and

culture under the onslaught of mass immigration, the EU and insane

social engineering? The depression caused by the obliteration of

manufacturing and the crushing of our farming industry by bully boy

supermarkets? The agony of losing a son or daughter fighting a

pointless, vanity project war? All of these have become 'normal' life

for millions of Britons, thanks to Purnell and this appalling

Government".

Posted on the Timesonline comments - and I do agree with this poster,

Rats, and deserting the sinking ship springs to mind, although GBroon should be obliged to stay and sort out his dreadful mess -  is it possible it could be messed up any more than it is?

Typical of a socialist government to mess up like this, but a lot worse than the last time lefties messed up.

Tegwini

[just john]

I would venture that in this context normal life to me is not spending other peoples money and futures without fear of redress;
as for Moron Gorgon, I'm just waiting for him to say that Labour can tackle the "root cause" of Britain's economic problems, and it does not mean that the pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued.[Www]

[Quillan]

[quote user="tegwini"]

"I wonder which aspects of 'normal' life Purnell is keen to experience - endless anxiety about money, crime, job security and old age? The fear of losing one's home? The fear of crime or the loss of one's nation and culture under the onslaught of mass immigration, the EU and insane social engineering? The depression caused by the obliteration of manufacturing and the crushing of our farming industry by bully boy supermarkets? The agony of losing a son or daughter fighting a pointless, vanity project war? All of these have become 'normal' life for millions of Britons, thanks to Purnell and this appalling Government".

Tegwini

[/quote]

Gosh if you read the French national and local newspapers it could be here.

[Gluestick]

[quote user="tegwini"]

 

"I wonder which aspects of 'normal' life Purnell is keen to experience - endless anxiety about money, crime, job security and old age? The fear of losing one's home? The fear of crime or the loss of one's nation and culture under the onslaught of mass immigration, the EU and insane social engineering? The depression caused by the obliteration of manufacturing and the crushing of our farming industry by bully boy supermarkets? The agony of losing a son or daughter fighting a pointless, vanity project war? All of these have become 'normal' life for millions of Britons, thanks to Purnell and this appalling Government".

Posted on the Timesonline comments - and I do agree with this poster[/quote]

 

 

[quote user="Quillan"]

 

Gosh if you read the French national and local newspapers it could be here.

[/quote]

 

Whilst naturally, one is compelled to accept, Q, that quoting the old saw, “The grass on the other side…..” and plagiarising the alleged quotation of Lincoln (Which may well have actually been first stated by P T Barnum!),” You can please some of the people all of the time: and all of the people some of the time: but you cannot please all of the people all of the time!”, then there are those who would moan and whinge about Utopia, Shangri La  and even probably, Heaven!

 

However and that said, those of us still here most of the time in dear old Blighty have legitimate cause for forward concern.

 

Anxiety about money: thanks to wholly incompetent management of Britain’s economy, most do indeed have clear cause to suffer, “Endless anxiety about money, job security and old age.”

 

2010, I fear will clearly become a Watershed: as the stats just released demonstrate clearly on retail sales, unemployment and perhaps worst of all, Britain’s PSBR and Government’s urgent need to borrow approaching £5 billion to balance treasury books: unheard of before, as January is normally the month of massive tax receipts. Pensions are in meltdown: the spectre of uncontrollable monetary inflation lurks ready to spring out: more people than ever are surviving on keeping jobs, but suffering swingeing pay cuts: more still have had to resort to ill-paid part time work: all of which impacts benefit payments negatively.

 

As interest rates rise (For technical reasons on the back of the gradually collapsing bond markets and sovereign debt generally), then mortgage defaults will start rapidly mounting.

 

To the best of my knowledge, the Fifth Republic has not created enabling statute which allows local authorities the clear right to sequestrate houses when unoccupied.

 

Neither has it engaged in a disastrous social engineering experiment to allow unfettered immigration in the single cause of breaking the hegemony of the right: this is not fantasy; a senior civil servant, Andrew Neather blew the whistle last year. And the net result is that London now presents with on average 30+% of residents not having been born in the UK: and boroughs such as Westminster, with in excess of 50% of residents not having been born in the UK. Similar statistics pertain to many large towns and cities in Britain.

 

These statistics BTW may be readily reviewed on the London government’s own website.

 

British farming has indeed been seriously impacted by monopolistic supermarket groups: so much so, that the Government is now urgently considering what to do.

 

French farmers I would suggest are more concerned with abolition of CAP, as much produce is sourced locally in supermarché.

 

France has once again been recently excoriated by the USA for failing to send many troops to Afghanistan: and, of course, refused point blank to participate in the illegal invasion of Iraq

 

In overall socio-economic terms of reference, France and Germany have emerged in much better shape from the recession: French government leverage as a ratio of gross government debt to GDP is perhaps the most telling statistic of all: more so when Britain’s is necessarily weighted (adjusted) to include un-funded state and local/regional/county pension obligations.

 

 

 

[Dog]

He is living in a dream world - sadly the people running councils earn even more!

[Quillan]

I think it funny that people in the UK think they are the only ones who have problems, everyone has problems and the French certainly have theirs.

The French worry about money, loads of it going to Haiti, they could also be paying a lot to the Greek's and the average bloke in the street sees the money coming from him via tax's. When you lump tax and cotistations together they feel they are paying more than enough and at the same time they see the presidents wife trying to be a pop star, thankfully something GB's wife has never attempted.

Like the UK the French are planning on raising the retirement age over the next 5 or so years. There's problems in the pension sector just as there is in the UK because of the recession. French papers are saying that economic growth is going to slip by as much as 3% in the next few months.

Just the other week in Toulouse teachers refused to work because of the amount of violence against them in classrooms after a teacher was badly beaten up. A few weeks back 2 teenagers were stabbed to death in Perpignan and another (12 year old) last week in Carcassonne. Talking of Carcassonne the council is to close benefit offices in one of the suburbs because the people working there are concerned for their safety. The police won't enter these areas unless they are in groups of 4.

Unemployment in France was at 9.2% in January compared to 7.8% in the UK (Source.: National Statistics Office and the EU-LFS). Immigrants account for 18.89% of the population according to INSEE over 4% more than the UK (NSO). There's 300,000 French in London according to France 5 most of whom are working because there just is no work in France. Amazing when you hear all the stories on UK TV about there being no work in the UK. Difference is I guess to the French a job is a job whatever it is and they are just glad to have one.

Farmers in France are concerned about their subsidies going but then farming is different in France, there's loads and loads of small farms which is a result of the stupid way they get shared out amongst the offspring when the farmer dies. French arable farmers are going to see their average salary of 30k per year drop by an average of 5.9k were as the meat farmers who currently get paid about 20k per year will receive an extra  7.8k. Meat is not cheap in France and the French can see the price of meat going up by over 40% in the next few years. Looks like France will become almost vegetarian at this rate.

People are already complaining in the national press (read the peoples comments on articals) about the dead soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Although France refused to send troops in to Iraq it's air force did and still does play a major logistics role moving supplies in and out. Since 2009 it has 15,000 troops there. The French have just under 3,000 troop in Afghanistan and have recently refused to send more which got up the US nose but then most French people (just like people in the UK) don't believe their troops should be in either place.

France also has is political scandals, probably the most recent memorial one was back in 2009 and concerned Sarkozy's son with some saying that Sarkozy was trying to set up a dynasty like Napoleon.

So the French also have their share of worries about the present and the future just like the UK and other countries and I have just mentioned a few. People outside the big cities see their money going out quicker than its coming in and then to top it all they stopped part of the winter fuel allowance this year. Just like in the UK the poor get poorer and the rich get richer and the most vulnerable in society get left on the side. I have to say having felt my French is more up to it now I started reading the national and regional newspapers on a daily basis for about 5 or 6 months now and is been quite an eye opener.

[Dog]

[quote user="Quillan"]

I think it funny that people in the UK think they are the only ones who have problems, everyone has problems and the French certainly have theirs.

The French worry about money, loads of it going to Haiti, they could also be paying a lot to the Greek's and the average bloke in the street sees the money coming from him via tax's. When you lump tax and cotistations together they feel they are paying more than enough and at the same time they see the presidents wife trying to be a pop star, thankfully something GB's wife has never attempted.

Like the UK the French are planning on raising the retirement age over the next 5 or so years. There's problems in the pension sector just as there is in the UK because of the recession. French papers are saying that economic growth is going to slip by as much as 3% in the next few months.

Just the other week in Toulouse teachers refused to work because of the amount of violence against them in classrooms after a teacher was badly beaten up. A few weeks back 2 teenagers were stabbed to death in Perpignan and another (12 year old) last week in Carcassonne. Talking of Carcassonne the council is to close benefit offices in one of the suburbs because the people working there are concerned for their safety. The police won't enter these areas unless they are in groups of 4.

Unemployment in France was at 9.2% in January compared to 7.8% in the UK (Source.: National Statistics Office and the EU-LFS). Immigrants account for 18.89% of the population according to INSEE over 4% more than the UK (NSO). There's 300,000 French in London according to France 5 most of whom are working because there just is no work in France. Amazing when you hear all the stories on UK TV about there being no work in the UK. Difference is I guess to the French a job is a job whatever it is and they are just glad to have one.

Farmers in France are concerned about their subsidies going but then farming is different in France, there's loads and loads of small farms which is a result of the stupid way they get shared out amongst the offspring when the farmer dies. French arable farmers are going to see their average salary of 30k per year drop by an average of 5.9k were as the meat farmers who currently get paid about 20k per year will receive an extra  7.8k. Meat is not cheap in France and the French can see the price of meat going up by over 40% in the next few years. Looks like France will become almost vegetarian at this rate.

People are already complaining in the national press (read the peoples comments on articals) about the dead soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Although France refused to send troops in to Iraq it's air force did and still does play a major logistics role moving supplies in and out. Since 2009 it has 15,000 troops there. The French have just under 3,000 troop in Afghanistan and have recently refused to send more which got up the US nose but then most French people (just like people in the UK) don't believe their troops should be in either place.

France also has is political scandals, probably the most recent memorial one was back in 2009 and concerned Sarkozy's son with some saying that Sarkozy was trying to set up a dynasty like Napoleon.

So the French also have their share of worries about the present and the future just like the UK and other countries and I have just mentioned a few. People outside the big cities see their money going out quicker than its coming in and then to top it all they stopped part of the winter fuel allowance this year. Just like in the UK the poor get poorer and the rich get richer and the most vulnerable in society get left on the side. I have to say having felt my French is more up to it now I started reading the national and regional newspapers on a daily basis for about 5 or 6 months now and is been quite an eye opener.

[/quote]

 

So the average people are all being robbed?

French farming and the way land is owned  is not stupid it is more beneficial to all than in UK as it employs far more people - I suppose you think it's good that a minority own most of the land in UK?

[Quillan]

[quote user="Dog"]

So the average people are all being robbed?

French farming and the way land is owned  is not stupid it is more beneficial to all than in UK as it employs far more people - I suppose you think it's good that a minority own most of the land in UK?

[/quote]

It is stupid because not all the children want to farm and some may not even live in the area anymore. Sometimes they can sell the land but other times it can sit there for years, just like some of the houses, doing nothing, and France ends up importing veg from Spain. Its not like you can sell it to the farmer next door because with farmers being poor they can't always afford to buy it. Sure there are lots of farmers in France, some of them English (remember how the French government gave incentives to English farmers to come over, buy the land and farm it rather than let it go to waste). No I don't think its a good idea that the minority own most of the land in the UK nor do I think its OK that the supermarkets have such a hold on the farmers but at least food is cheaper there. Look round your local French supermarket, some of the veg is rubbish and over priced. Sure many grow their own but its not because it's a nice thing to do it's because they can't afford to buy veg in the shops.

Talking of food, well wine really I don't know how many are aware of the great Pinon Noire scandle. There has been a big court case in Paris concerning the selling of Languedoc wines as Pinon Noire to the Americans, they love the stuff apparently. The main concern is the that the Americans are now asking what other wines are not whats on the label and may consider banning French wines. All sorts of incriminations are going round the wine industry expecially down here in Languedoc. With wine sales continuing to drop in general the wine growers are starting to get rather angry.