":::Jerry::::" wrote in message
eenews.net...

"John Cartmell" wrote in message
...
snip

The present government do. You may have noticed that they are not
playing that
game. That's why there is no opposition.


If the Tories have got it so wrong over the last twenty odd years why
is the leadership of the current (new) Labour copying Tory policy and
not the pushing the policies of old Labour?....

Jerry, you are confused. New Lab doens't want people living on the streets.

On Fri, 4 Nov 2005 00:30:51 -0000, ":::Jerry::::"
wrote:


"Geoffrey" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 3 Nov 2005 23:56:45 -0000, ":::Jerry::::"

wrote:



Unless you are going to tell someone what they can import or buy
(never mind trying to export) which product do you think people
will
buy, the one costing 10 GBP or the one costing 30 GBP?



sigh Maggie's legacy. Once upon a time not (quite) everything
was
about profit.


sighthe legacy of Karl Marks/sigh....


Che Guavara was better looking (allegedly)



--
Warning: Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye.

Doctor Drivel wrote:
"John Cartmell" wrote in message

If you're thinking of gas, electricity and building - I'd probably agree;

What? Have you seen the state of the crap the developers turn out? I would
incraese it in building


The main reason our current buildings are so poor is overregulation,
for 2 reasons.

1. The excessive regulation has driven prices to many times the free
market price, so we cant afford decent. Expalined more further down.

2.. All the creative ideas I came up with: nope, not permitted.
Sometimes for fair reason, but in most cases not at all. Too often the
regs are leading clearly and drectly to lower quality stock.


Look at our building history before planning. We have a wealth of
creative innovative quality buildings from then: but not today. Just
about all of our very finest buildings would be illegal to build today!
Look at Ben Law's house, a lovely piece, yet it took a vast effort just
to get permission to build it. AND it has to be pulled down when he
dies. What a farce.


In the 1800s, with nearly zero regulation, anything went, and
everything was built. The free market addressed quality issues as
usual. Generally the good stuff survives, and the bad is almost
entirely erased. The result was the country gradually built up an
increasing stock of quality builds.

Realise that today we have way more resources than 100-150 years ago,
yet are living in houses of similar quality. Instead of affording much
better, we afford the same because the cost has risen excessively.

Today with more resources, more information, and the existence of
voluntary quality schemes, the mistakes of the 1800s are simple and
easy to avoid. The same process could be done today without the sort of
errors made then - not that they were in reality especially
problematic.

But today one mostly can not innovate, and one mostly can not afford
luxurious touches because the costs of even basic buildings are pushed
astronomically high by anal planning laws, illogical building regs, and
silliness from start to finish.

Yes there are good reasons for build regs, but they fail in so many
ways as to end up being counterproductive. In numerous cases cutting
one very trivial corner can bring a gain of far more value than the
loss of value entailed. I dont mean occasionally, old houses especially
are like this. Time after time improvement work would be seriously
beneficial, yet can not be implemented because some completely trivial
point doesnt meet current OTT practice.

Not always, no, but our build regs have gone so far that this sort of
problem is an every day occurrence, with stupid decisions resulting
again and again. Build regs once seemed a good thing, wiping out some
poor practices. (This could be done today just as well with todays easy
access to information.) But they seem to have forgotten their purpose,
and now be leading us by the nose, making building today very much more
costly, causing problems routinely, and preventing most competent
diyers from constructing their own houses, a process which in itself is
not especially difficult.

Build regs fail to take this weighing up, or putting into perspective,
into account in any way, stopping serious improvements over trivial
non-issues. Theyre fair enough as a quality benchmark for new builds, a
standard that may be met when chosen, but not fine as a requirement for
new houses, where they can escalate costs unnecessarily, and prevent
self build, and they are hopelessly inappropriate when applied to
improvements of older houses. For example it is common to find one
would have to demolish an existing 70s/80s 1 storey bathroom extension
to add an extra room on top, because the rules on foundations require
deeper. Even though the existnig extension migth have foundations
measured in feet, while the whole road full of original houses, all in
good condition, have only 13" foundations. BRs just dont make good
sense far too often.

Dont even get me started on the requirement for sockets high up even on
3rd floor flats, paper pushing just to replace your hot water tank, the
requirement to draughtproof then add ventilation, the requirement for
DPCs based on dodgy science, the requirement for deep foundations
instead of lime mortar, the upcoming requirement to air pressure test
houses, ad nauseam.

In a free market there would be competing standards companies, each
with its own set of requirements and inspectors, and buyers could
choose what they wanted, or specify for themselves if they wish. With
todays level of comms technology this is easy to do. There would also
be much less restricitve planning, the end result of these being that
first time buyers would see prices nosedive, and those with more in the
bank would be able to afford some very nice houses, instead of another
small airtight box.


We're now unhappy about our legal right being taken away to do our own
plumbing, for reasons that really make no sense, but rarely is it
mentioned we've lost the basic human right to build (and improve) our
own house. If we wound the clock back 100 years, most of us on this
group would have done exactly that, built our house, just as we want
it. How many of you would like to be able to extend, yet are prevented
from doing so? How many would like to build a 2nd house on the
property, but cant? How many here would rather have bought land and
built for 6 months, at a fraction of the cost, than pay through the
nose for 25 years for a restricted houses on restricted land?

Rip-off Britain is a term each of us earns by working 25 years just to
buy a house. Even Africa has 8-10 year mortgages!


NT

On 3 Nov 2005 17:16:21 -0800, wrote:

Even Africa has 8-10 year mortgages!


Oh

My

God


--
Warning: Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye.

That explains Tony's lips, how do you explain Cherie's?

Some kind of rectangular frame fitted in front of the teeth.
Must be a fashion accessory.

Oh

My


God

What did you want?

:::Jerry:::: wrote:

[1] a lot of the current ills of 'society' can, IMO, be directly
linked back to many of Thatcher's values - was it not her who once
said that "their is no such thing as society", well there certainly
doesn't deem to be one today... :~(


Yes she did say that but, you need to consider its context, if you take
it as indicative of her values. It was said as a counter to the view all
too common at the time that 'society was to blame' that the ills of the
world were to be fixed by government, 'society', or anyone but the
individual, their family and friends.
Yes, today the sense of society as a community of people with a common
purpose, interests, and values is often lacking. But 'society' in the
sense of busybody governments, and lobby groups, and corporations and
guilds, all promoting their own self interest in the name of it being
for your own good, is all too prevalent. Which brings us back to the
original subject of this thread.


--
David Clark

$message_body_include ="PLES RING IF AN RNSR IS REQIRD"

andy hall wrote:
That explains Tony's lips, how do you explain Cherie's?

Some kind of rectangular frame fitted in front of the teeth.
Must be a fashion accessory.

Wallace & Grommet?

wrote in message
ups.com...
Doctor Drivel wrote:
"John Cartmell" wrote in message

If you're thinking of gas, electricity
and building - I'd probably agree;

What? Have you seen the state of the
crap the developers turn out? I would
increase it in building

The main reason our current buildings are so poor is overregulation,
for 2 reasons.

What strange logic.

1. The excessive regulation has driven prices to many times the free
market price, so we cant afford decent. Expalined more further down.

You are making this up.

2.. All the creative ideas I came up with: nope, not permitted.
Sometimes for fair reason, but in most cases not at all. Too often the
regs are leading clearly and drectly to lower quality stock.

Check the regs. A BCO will have his pet hates. If it is within the regs and
they say no, then ask them to give it to you chapter and verse. If you know
you are "definitely" within regs, and he opposes, then spell it out on paper
and proceed. The BCO is not God.

Look at our building history before planning. We have a wealth of
creative innovative quality buildings from then: but not today.

Name some.

Insulated blocks: Sweden
TJI I beams: USA
SIP panels: USA
Art Deco Design: France
Advanced modern architectu Germany (Bau Haus)

You forget the Victorian crap that was pulled down. Only the best survived.
The term Jerry Built comes from a Victorian construction company, Jerry
Bros.

The Brits did do the first iron framed glass curtain walled building: Oriel
Chambers in Liverpool, 1864.

Just about all of our very finest buildings would be illegal to build
today!

Nonsense

Look at Ben Law's house, a lovely piece, yet it took a vast effort just
to get permission to build it. AND it has to be pulled down when he
dies. What a farce.

That is planning, not Building regs. Increase checks on quality of
construction and we all benefit.

In the 1800s, with nearly zero regulation, anything went, and
everything was built.

And lots fell down. I did a search and thjis came up:
http://www.toxteth.net/places/liverp...20lane%202.htm

The free market addressed quality issues as
usual.

It never, it just promoted greed. Building control should be increased to
prevent shoddy workmanship, which the UK is famed, and planning totally
relaxed. The free market and solve the housing problem, not the quality
problem.

Generally the good stuff survives, and the bad is almost
entirely erased. The result was the country gradually built up an
increasing stock of quality builds.

The quality of the existing housing stock is abysmal. Much needs demolishing
right now.

Realise that today we have way more
resources than 100-150 years ago,
yet are living in houses of similar quality.
Instead of affording much
better, we afford the same because the
cost has risen excessively.

The UK is backwards in technology. This is mainly because of the land being
in the hands of the few and 80% of homes built by about 20 companies. We
need to build 466,000 homes per ann.

The following text is taken from a short article by James Woudhuysen,
Professor of Forecasting & Innovation at de Montfort University and author
of "Why is construction so backward ?". The data being drawn from The Office
of National Statistics.

"In Britain 57.5m people live in about 24m dwellings. If household growth is
to match population growth, 64m people will, by 2030, need a stock of 26.7m
homes. But households are getting smaller, so call that 2030 total for homes
29m - five million more homes than exist in Britain in 2005.

Then there is the rate of stock replacement. Today, ordinary flats or houses
will just about last 100 years - given lots of refurbishment and DIY. So
take it that, over the next 25 years, Britain will need to replace, on a
100-year cycle, stock that rises
from 24m to 29m units. That means building an additional 242,000 new homes
in 2006, racking up to 290,000 in 2030. Over 25 years, therefore, 6.65m new
homes will be needed just to replace worn-out old ones. Add the 200,000
homes required for annual new household formation to the average of 266,000
required for annual stock replacement and one gets an annual output of
466,000 homes -11.65m over 25 years. That's a little different from the
annual average of 171,225 homes built in Britain since 1997.

Wouldn't the millions of new homes we propose concrete over Britain's green
and pleasant land? Wouldn't they mean, at the very least, still more urban
sprawl? It's time to lay these myths to rest. The land cover of Great
Britain is 23.5m hectares, used in 2002 as follows:

1. intensive agricultural land - 10.8m hectares, or 45.96 per cent
2. semi-natural land - 7.0m hectares, or 29.78 per cent
3. woodland - 2.8m hectares, or 11.91 per cent
4. settled land accounts for 1.8m hectares, or 7.65 per cent
5. water bodies - 0.3m hectares, or 1.28 per cent
6. sundry other categories - 0.8m hectares, or 3.42 per cent.

If settlements are added to the `sundry' component (largely transport
infrastructure such as roads and railways), then built-up Great Britain
consists of about 2.3m hectares, or just 10 per cent of the land available.
Clearly, considerable growth in both population and household numbers can be
accommodated - both in high
urban concentrations, and as dispersed settlements integrated into the
landscape."

I think an increase of about 40% or so to accomadate future population
growth is a bit steep, when currently only 7.65% of the land is settled.
Nevertheless, I like then way he destroys the the concreting over the
countyside myth.

Read some of the articles he
http://www.audacity.org/JW-Writes.htm

Yes there are good reasons for build regs,
but they fail in so many ways as to end up
being counterproductive. In numerous cases
cutting one very trivial corner can bring a
gain of far more value than the loss of value
entailed. I dont mean occasionally, old houses especially
are like this. Time after time improvement work
would be seriously beneficial, yet can not be implemented
because some completely trivial
point doesnt meet current OTT practice.

It is not perfect, but to imply to roll back BC is madness. Have a look at
the shoddy developer Estates going up. Better still look at the blockwork
and the cavities filled with 6" of cement. hey get plasterers in to cover
the lot up.

Dont even get me started on the requirement for sockets high up even on
3rd floor flats, paper pushing just to replace your hot water tank, the
requirement to draughtproof then add ventilation, the requirement for
DPCs based on dodgy science,

It is clear you understanding of this limited.

the requirement for deep foundations
instead of lime mortar,

You can still do that. many do.

the upcoming requirement to air pressure test
houses, ad nauseam.

One the best regs to come out is pressure testing. It ensures the quality
in the building of the fabric is stop on.

You really don't know.

We're now unhappy about our legal right being taken away to do our own
plumbing, for reasons that really make no sense, but rarely is it
mentioned we've lost the basic human right to build (and improve) our
own house.

We have lost the basic right to build a house where we want to (within
reason of course) . No one is stopping you renovating.

If we wound the clock back 100 years,
most of us on this group would have
done exactly that, built our house, just as
we want it.

Yep.

How many of you would like to be able
to extend, yet are prevented from doing so?

Depends on if you want to be right up to someone's window.

"andy hall" aka Matt wrote in message
ups.com...
Oh

My

God

What did you want?

Matt, you can't be three people all at once: Matt, Lord Hall and now God.
You have got to get professional help.

In article ws.net,
:::Jerry:::: wrote:
By that I take it that you are no more than about 30 years old (and thus
have no memory of that winter), or are you saying that all the film that
exists of locked grave-yards, rubbish in the streets and various other
'problems' were just film sets used by the right wing media (funny that,
the media is always the opposite to what the Government is at the time...)?!

I was dealing with the strikes, layoffs, &c in the North West. I *know* what
was really behind the tabloid headlines and I know where they were
(deliberately) wrong.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article ws.net,
:::Jerry:::: wrote:
That is your take on the facts, but if the UK was in such a good
state (economically) why did Callaghan lose?

People were fed up of tightening their belts - getting the raging inflation
down without damaging industry or people is hard. And Thatcher promised much
reduced unemployment which was slowly creeping up to 1million.
And the Liberals left the coalition/alliance to gain political advantage and
the tabloids swooped on strikes by low paid workers and whooped it up.

I'm not defending most of what Thatcher did, in retrospect much was bad if
not vindictive [1] but I do think that the reconstruction of the British
manufacturing base (yes I do mean the cutting out of out-dated and
uneconomic work practises) was necessary and beneficial to 'UK industry
Ltd'.

It was necessary - try reading the 'White-hot Technology' speech of Harold
Wilson in Glasgow. No one questioned the need. The problem was that most of
the shake-up was required in management and the Labour government wanted to do
it without irreparable harm to industry or workers. It could have been done
but had to be done slowly and carefully or it wouldn't work. Only a blithering
idiot would have (let's get the DIY ideas in!) pulled the house down in order
to sort out bad old plastering - and blame it on the wallpaper!
Part of the reconstruction would come from the income from North Sea Oil.
Instead that was used to pay for high unemployment levels designed to destroy
industry.

Thatcher's idea was that if the statistics showed that, at any one time, 30%
of hospital beds were empty then you could close 30% of hospitals. She didn't
appreciate that by trying to get 100% hospital beds full you had people lying
in hospital corridors for days and endemic disease.
She didn't appreciate that industry employed people who weren't particularly
bright to do mundane work. She wanted such people out. Out where? Out on the
streets drawing benefit that the rest of us, and industry, had to pay for
instead of making the best use of their capabilities and making them a useful
part of society.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article ws.net,
:::Jerry:::: wrote:
Getting back to something close to uk.d.i.y. I worked at finding jobs for
people in the building industry during the 70s and managed a close-on
100% success rate to get joiners, brickies, plasterers, H&V Engineers, &c
in work at the end of a six-moth training course. Employment prospects
never got back to that in the 80s and 90s - and house prices didn't go
down because that 'over-employment' had disappeared.

'Finding jobs', were they real jobs or were they created to keep people off
the dole?

I'm very glad you asked that question. I was finding them *real* jobs in
industry and - in most cases - with a small element of continued training over
the following 6 months.

However: I also worked with those who were given 'training/work' during the
Thatcher years and that was a totally different matter where (one real example
that I dealt with myself) a group of six 20-somethings were removed from the
unemployment statistics by forming a 'band'. They had to show that they were
gainfully self-employed and had capital. Each of them showed a photocopy of a
cheque for 1000 GBP from the mother of one of them. The same photocopy for all
six of them. The cheque was never cashed and there never was 1000 GBP in her
account anyway. The group got together once. On the strength of that they were
not required to sign-on or look for work, were each paid a top-up support
income to get their 'business' going (the sum was more than the unemployment
benefit would have been for each of them) - but most importantly were taken
off the unemployment register for a year. I dealt with them at the end of the
year.

When I say that the Thatcher unemployment statistics were fraudulent, I know
what I'm talking about.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article . com,
wrote:
In the 1800s, with nearly zero regulation, anything went, and
everything was built. The free market addressed quality issues as
usual. Generally the good stuff survives, and the bad is almost
entirely erased. The result was the country gradually built up an
increasing stock of quality builds.

Are you forgetting the people who lived at eg 22 Back Blacow Street Preston -
but only because falling income for hand-loom weavers (down by two-thirds) in
the 1830s forced them to move out from the fresh air of Ribchester? Would you
really like to return to non-regulation?
Just because some of the houses that were built at the time - that my
g'g'g'grandfather couldn't afford to live in anyway - have survived OK doesn't
mean that there was anything good about non-regulation.

If you have any doubt I could give you a detailed description of life in a
non-regulation house.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article . com,
wrote:
1. The excessive regulation has driven prices to many times the free
market price, so we cant afford decent. Expalined more further down.

The market determines what houses sell for. When bid for sites their
bid is (in simple terms) ultimate sales - (building costs + other costs
+ required profit). So if you increase building standards you reduce
the amount developers are willing to pay for land and at the margin Mr
X decides not to sell to a developer after all.

When you look at overregulation by HMG you are only seeing half the
picture. With few exceptions you cannot build and sell a new house
without NHBC or equivalent certification and back in my BCO days NHBC
had rules for all sorts of things that fell outside or were more
onerous than Bulding Regs including minimum foundation depths near
trees,compulsory treatment of roof timbers, minimum numbers of power
sockets, finishings etc. Someone who has a copy of the NHBC current
standards can expand on this list no doubt.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
Free SEDBUK boiler database browser http://www.sda.co.uk/qsedbuk.htm
[Latest version QSEDBUK 1.10 released 4 April 2005]

On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 10:26:43 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

Thatcher's idea was that if the statistics showed that, at any one time, 30%
of hospital beds were empty then you could close 30% of hospitals. She didn't
appreciate that by trying to get 100% hospital beds full you had people lying
in hospital corridors for days and endemic disease.

Personally, I believe she did appreciate it, she just didn't care.



--
Warning: Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye.

"Tony Bryer" wrote in message
...
In article . com,
wrote:

1. The excessive regulation has driven
prices to many times the free
market price, so we cant afford decent.
Expalined more further down.

The market determines what houses sell for.

You keep saying this. and it is partially true. Housing is rigged in the
UK. An artificial land shortage is created distorting house prices.

What we need is little regulation on where you can build and more regulation
on building standards and quality.

In article ws.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"dennis@home" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
eenews.net...

We now have full employment;

Not due to Thatcher. If you think that get professional help.


Has anyone actually looked at how many unemployed there are?
There are lots and there is noway we have full employment.

A skills mismatch. We are desperately short of building skills.

So its not unemployment at all then, just a skills mismatch?, I can see
why you're a nu labour supporter
--
David

John Cartmell wrote:
In article . com,
wrote:

In the 1800s, with nearly zero regulation, anything went, and
everything was built. The free market addressed quality issues as
usual. Generally the good stuff survives, and the bad is almost
entirely erased. The result was the country gradually built up an
increasing stock of quality builds.

Are you forgetting the people who lived at eg 22 Back Blacow Street Preston -

am not familiar with the address unfortunately. There was a lot of very
poor housing in Victorian times, and I believe I addressed that
question.

Firstly the financial situation is very different today, and we can
afford safe functional minimum standards. This is what housing regs
initially were. But they have mission crept a long way from that now.

Second, information is free flowing enough to permit widespread use of
independant standards companies for those who want better stadards than
basic. NHBC is one such organisation, not one I'd especially recommend,
but it does have certain standards and meansures for redress. Its a
fairly poor example, but its one standards option for buyers. If our
current regs were trimmed back to what is required, more such standards
companies would set up, including at least one that works to the
current national BRs.

Differing sets of standards would allow each new buyer to choose
according to their desires and budget, with safe and functional
building practice carried out in every case.

The array of standards would permit quicker open assessment of options,
and democratically chosen shifts in what standards are used. As an
example, the mandating of whole house RCDs would have been part of some
companies standards, rather than a nationwide requirement. The
requirement for 6' deep foundations on a 1 storey bathroom added to a
stable Victorian 9" founded building would again be part of some
companies standards, but not all. With the free flow of information
today, prospective buyers could easily either find out the merits and
issues with each company, or choose to simply go with a large well
known brand name. Or, if they have sufficient understanding of the
issues themselves, they would be free to specify what they wanted, if
they wanted.


Just because some of the houses that were built at the time - that my
g'g'g'grandfather couldn't afford to live in anyway - have survived OK doesn't
mean that there was anything good about non-regulation.

that much is fairly obvious.


If you have any doubt I could give you a detailed description of life in a
non-regulation house.

Uncoincidentally I lived in one for 9 months or so, and am glad I was
fortunate enough to do so. It was very basic, had a steel roof, and
enabled me to save up lots of money, which at the time was precisely
what I wanted. It really opened my eyes to this whole question to some
extent. Its an experience I'm fortunate to have had. It has eliminated
those illfounded fears most people today in Britain have.

As I said, the mistakes of the Victorian period are easy to avoid
today. What is I think not so well appreciated is that all the
complicating attempts to avoid minor issues today are ending up costing
us far more than living with the minor issues that were part of the
middle ground of Victorian buildings.

Lets say - and this is only a finger in the air for the moment, due to
the difficulty of putting exact figuers on it - I could buy a new build
in todays system for 200k, and work full time for 25 year paying it off
- paying aruond 400k in total due to interest over a long time. Or,
under the approach I suggest, I could buy the land for 30k, spend 6
months full time constructing my own house, for material cost of maybe
another 30k, and incur total additional downline costs of up to 5k in
maintenance/repair as a result. Now thats a total cost of 60 upfront, 5
downline, as opposed to 200 upfront, and will take me _less_ than 1/3
the time to pay off. I need hardly ask which is the better way to buy a
house!

Nor need I ask what numerous improvements in quality I could afford to
incorporate at those prices.

House building is a process clogged to near standstill by our current
level of regulation. For most of us on this ng our housebuilding plans
are stopped dead. For commercial builders they have to jump through so
many hoops that prices are truly excessive.

It all stems from the modern fashion for naivety and simplicity, the
expectation and desire for perfectly issue free lives. We have invested
so much in the quest for better housing that it has ended up costing us
out of all proportion to the initial problem. It has ended up causing a
far bigger cost problem than it is solving. Todays cure is worse than
the disease of imperfect housing. The cure is 5x the cost of the
problem.

Just ask yourself why we live in houses similar to 100 years ago,
despite the huge leaps in material wealth that have ben made since
then. Our housing policies are so inappropriate they keep us stuck some
ways in the Victorian era. The cart is now before the horse.

Drivel is right about planning and land ownership, if nothing else.


NT

In article .com,
writes
Frank Erskine wrote:

I'm not sure about Maggie, but somebody other than this current lot
might make some sense.

Yes, keep playing the game, the duopoly game.

Lab pushes the electorate as far as it can, until eventually everyone
says "somebody other than this current lot might make some sense"

Con pushes the electorate as far as it can, until eventually everyone
says "somebody other than this current lot might make some sense"

Rinse & Repeat.

Yes, "same trough, different pigs"
--
David

In article , Matt
writes
"andy hall" wrote:

intrusion

What might that be?

Cherie working Tony's lever at the back to make his lips move.

That explains Tony's lips, how do you explain Cherie's?

Which ones?

--
David

John Cartmell wrote:

Getting back to something close to uk.d.i.y. I worked at finding jobs for
people in the building industry during the 70s and managed a close-on 100%
success rate to get joiners, brickies, plasterers, H&V Engineers, &c in work
at the end of a six-moth training course. Employment prospects never got back
to that in the 80s and 90s - and house prices didn't go down because that
'over-employment' had disappeared.

When anyone can get jobs any time they want, theyre not competing for
those jobs, and standards fall and fall. Too many British workers are
far too lazy for my liking.

NT

In article .com,
wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:

Getting back to something close to uk.d.i.y. I worked at finding jobs for
people in the building industry during the 70s and managed a close-on
100% success rate to get joiners, brickies, plasterers, H&V Engineers, &c
in work at the end of a six-moth training course. Employment prospects
never got back to that in the 80s and 90s - and house prices didn't go
down because that 'over-employment' had disappeared.

When anyone can get jobs any time they want, theyre not competing for those
jobs, and standards fall and fall. Too many British workers are far too
lazy for my liking.

When no-one can get the job they want they take whatever comes and don't do
themselves justice. their lazy bosses think that because they are getting work
for practically nothing they're doing well whilst in fact the whole system is
working way below potential. Your 'liking' makes for a sick society.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article .com,
wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:
In article . com,
wrote:

In the 1800s, with nearly zero regulation, anything went, and
everything was built. The free market addressed quality issues as
usual. Generally the good stuff survives, and the bad is almost
entirely erased. The result was the country gradually built up an
increasing stock of quality builds.

Are you forgetting the people who lived at eg 22 Back Blacow Street
Preston -

am not familiar with the address unfortunately. There was a lot of very
poor housing in Victorian times, and I believe I addressed that question.

What you failed to address was the misery of the people forced to live there.

If you have any doubt I could give you a detailed description of life in
a non-regulation house.

Uncoincidentally I lived in one for 9 months or so, and am glad I was
fortunate enough to do so. It was very basic, had a steel roof, and enabled
me to save up lots of money, which at the time was precisely what I wanted.
It really opened my eyes to this whole question to some extent. Its an
experience I'm fortunate to have had. It has eliminated those illfounded
fears most people today in Britain have.

You are deluding yourself. Non-regulation does *not* mean very basic.
Non-regulation means illness and poverty and debt. Do tell me how many kids
you brought up under your steel roof, how far you could tust the water that
was supplied, how much it cost to heat the room, and how you dealt with the
black mould.

As I said, the mistakes of the Victorian period are easy to avoid today.

They are, By strict regulation. If you're suggesting that companies are much
more benign today you are seriously unhinged.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article ,
David wrote:
In article ws.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"dennis@home" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
eenews.net...

We now have full employment;

Not due to Thatcher. If you think that get professional help.


Has anyone actually looked at how many unemployed there are?
There are lots and there is noway we have full employment.

A skills mismatch. We are desperately short of building skills.

So its not unemployment at all then, just a skills mismatch?

If you don't appreciate that there are different sorts of unemployment then
you realy need to go away and do some background reading before you start
discussing the matter. If you don't understand about the unemployment you
cannot begin to tackle the problem.
You will always have frictional unemployment - the gaps between jobs - and
seasonal unemployment, though it's possible to reduce both. Structural
unemployment (vacancies match unemploed but in the wrong skills) demands
re-training and demand-deficient unemployment needs a new government. The last
is what we had throughout most of the Thatcher era.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

"David" wrote in message
...
In article ws.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"dennis@home" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
eenews.net...

We now have full employment;

Not due to Thatcher. If you think that get professional help.


Has anyone actually looked at how many unemployed there are?
There are lots and there is noway we have full employment.

A skills mismatch. We are desperately short of building skills.

So its not unemployment at all then, just a skills mismatch?,

Bertie, yes.

"David" wrote in message
...
In article , Matt
writes
"andy hall" wrote:

intrusion

What might that be?

Cherie working Tony's lever at the back to make his lips move.

That explains Tony's lips, how do you explain Cherie's?

Which ones?

Bertie, Cherie Blair (nee Booth) is the daughter of Anthony Both the actor,
of Till Death Us Do Part, the Scarce Git. He ancestor was Wilkes-Booth from
Liverpool, who assassinated Abe Lincoln.

So the British Prime Minister is indirectly related to the murderer of an
American president.

"John Cartmell" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:
In article . com,
wrote:

In the 1800s, with nearly zero regulation, anything went, and
everything was built. The free market addressed quality issues as
usual. Generally the good stuff survives, and the bad is almost
entirely erased. The result was the country gradually built up an
increasing stock of quality builds.

Are you forgetting the people who lived at eg 22 Back Blacow Street
Preston -

am not familiar with the address unfortunately. There was a lot of very
poor housing in Victorian times, and I believe I addressed that
question.

What you failed to address was the misery of the people forced to live
there.

If you have any doubt I could give you a detailed description of life
in
a non-regulation house.

Uncoincidentally I lived in one for 9 months or so, and am glad I was
fortunate enough to do so. It was very basic, had a steel roof, and
enabled
me to save up lots of money, which at the time was precisely what I
wanted.
It really opened my eyes to this whole question to some extent. Its an
experience I'm fortunate to have had. It has eliminated those illfounded
fears most people today in Britain have.

You are deluding yourself. Non-regulation does *not* mean very basic.
Non-regulation means illness and poverty and debt. Do tell me how many
kids
you brought up under your steel roof, how far you could tust the water
that
was supplied, how much it cost to heat the room, and how you dealt with
the
black mould.

As I said, the mistakes of the Victorian period are easy to avoid today.

They are, By strict regulation. If you're suggesting that companies are
much
more benign today you are seriously unhinged.

The great thing about the latter part of the Victorian era was that they
introduced standards. Hygiene, water, housing, building control,
engineering (screw threads etc). Because of what they saw in the early part
of the 1800s, they changed matters. This has been going on even to today.
Some, like planning went too far and is a classic case of regulation to
suppress.

A free for all creates poverty and greed. The free market has it place, but
only when inside a framework that works for all.

In article s.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
Bertie, Cherie Blair (nee Booth) is the daughter of Anthony Both the
actor, of Till Death Us Do Part, the Scarce Git.

Very scarce. Like your brain cells.

--
*No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article s.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
The great thing about the latter part of the Victorian era was that they
introduced standards. Hygiene, water, housing, building control,
engineering (screw threads etc). Because of what they saw in the early part
of the 1800s, they changed matters. This has been going on even to today.
Some, like planning went too far and is a classic case of regulation to
suppress.

A free for all creates poverty and greed. The free market has it place, but
only when inside a framework that works for all.

I think someone mentioned informed decisions. But you only get such decisions
if you have the information - and companies will often want to hide
information that's of potential use to their customers. You have to have the
right balance.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article s.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
Bertie, Cherie Blair (nee Booth) is the daughter of Anthony Both the
actor, of Till Death Us Do Part, the Scarce Git.

Very scarce. Like your brain cells.

Richard, you didn't understand did you. Sad to see such senility.

So the British Prime Minister is indirectly related to the murderer of an
American president.

So history is repeating itself......

On Fri, 4 Nov 2005 15:42:19 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


"David" wrote in message
.. .
In article , Matt
writes
"andy hall" wrote:

intrusion

What might that be?

Cherie working Tony's lever at the back to make his lips move.

That explains Tony's lips, how do you explain Cherie's?

Which ones?

Bertie, Cherie Blair (nee Booth) is the daughter of Anthony Both the actor,
of Till Death Us Do Part, the Scarce Git. He ancestor was Wilkes-Booth from
Liverpool, who assassinated Abe Lincoln.

So the British Prime Minister is indirectly related to the murderer of an
American president.


Very indirect indeed, as Anthony Booth is not a direct descendant of
John Wilkes Booth. John would be Cheries great-great-great-grand
uncle. So he can't have been an ancestor of the "Scouse Git".

Though what that has to do with the greedy conniving cows lips (either
oral or ****-related) I don't know.

Cheers
Clive

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
eenews.net...

snip most of drivels clap-trap

[ re '78 - '79 winter ]

Jerry, that winter was few high profile strikes. There was no mass
employment

To right, people *were* loosing their jobs (or at least being laid
off) due to a shortage of raw materials because the transport unions
came out in strike...

"John Cartmell" wrote in message
...
In article
ws.net,
:::Jerry:::: wrote:
By that I take it that you are no more than about 30 years old
(and thus
have no memory of that winter), or are you saying that all the
film that
exists of locked grave-yards, rubbish in the streets and various
other
'problems' were just film sets used by the right wing media
(funny that,
the media is always the opposite to what the Government is at the
time...)?!

I was dealing with the strikes, layoffs, &c in the North West. I
*know* what
was really behind the tabloid headlines and I know where they were
(deliberately) wrong.


So you admit that there were strikes and layoff's then...

John Cartmell wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:
In article . com,
wrote:

In the 1800s, with nearly zero regulation, anything went, and
everything was built. The free market addressed quality issues as
usual. Generally the good stuff survives, and the bad is almost
entirely erased. The result was the country gradually built up an
increasing stock of quality builds.

Are you forgetting the people who lived at eg 22 Back Blacow Street
Preston -

am not familiar with the address unfortunately. There was a lot of very
poor housing in Victorian times, and I believe I addressed that question.

What you failed to address was the misery of the people forced to live there.

I already said basic standards would be in place to ensure safety and
functionality. I already said I lived in a shack and experienced no
such illness or misery. Its a bogeyman.


You are deluding yourself.

snip the sillies.

Non-regulation does *not* mean very basic.

it means a wider range, more basic, and more quality. More basic
because those that want to cut spending are free to do it, and more
quality because those with more money neednt waste it on the artificial
price increases inherent in todays system.


Non-regulation means illness and poverty and debt.

How does cheaper housing cause debt exactly?
How does fit housing cause illness exactly?


Do tell me how many kids
you brought up under your steel roof,

none. It was quite fit for my purpose at the time, but would not suit
everyone.

how far you could tust the water that
was supplied,

no problem there

how much it cost to heat the room,

trying to remember, was very cheap, it was paraffin

and how you dealt with the
black mould.

there was none, it had adequate ventilation

As I said, the mistakes of the Victorian period are easy to avoid today.

They are, By strict regulation.

yes... but we have gone far beyond that today.


If you're suggesting that companies are much
more benign today you are seriously unhinged.

Youre not entirely following this.


NT

Doctor Drivel wrote:

The great thing about the latter part of the Victorian era was that they
introduced standards. Hygiene, water, housing, building control,
engineering (screw threads etc). Because of what they saw in the early part
of the 1800s, they changed matters. This has been going on even to today.
Some, like planning went too far and is a classic case of regulation to
suppress.

A free for all creates poverty and greed. The free market has it place, but
only when inside a framework that works for all.

This man is making remarkable sense today.


NT

"John Cartmell" wrote in message
...
In article
ws.net,
:::Jerry:::: wrote:
That is your take on the facts, but if the UK was in such a good
state (economically) why did Callaghan lose?

People were fed up of tightening their belts - getting the raging
inflation
down without damaging industry or people is hard. And Thatcher
promised much
reduced unemployment which was slowly creeping up to 1million.
And the Liberals left the coalition/alliance to gain political
advantage and
the tabloids swooped on strikes by low paid workers and whooped it
up.

That is the point, companies / countries can only pay what they can
afford, and when they are paying ten people to do one mans work....
The problems started in '74, when Wilson gave the miners what they
were demanding, every union then played catch-up...


I'm not defending most of what Thatcher did, in retrospect much
was bad if
not vindictive [1] but I do think that the reconstruction of the
British
manufacturing base (yes I do mean the cutting out of out-dated
and
uneconomic work practises) was necessary and beneficial to 'UK
industry
Ltd'.

It was necessary - try reading the 'White-hot Technology' speech of
Harold
Wilson in Glasgow. No one questioned the need. The problem was that
most of
the shake-up was required in management and the Labour government
wanted to do
it without irreparable harm to industry or workers.

But the problem was with manning levels, ten people doing one persons
job, if anyone was to blame it was the unions - trying to keep their
members - the more members they had the more cough they had within
the TUC and at the pay bargaining table.

It could have been done
but had to be done slowly and carefully or it wouldn't work. Only a
blithering
idiot would have (let's get the DIY ideas in!) pulled the house
down in order
to sort out bad old plastering - and blame it on the wallpaper!
Part of the reconstruction would come from the income from North
Sea Oil.
Instead that was used to pay for high unemployment levels designed
to destroy
industry.

If that was the only problem you might well be correct, but if the
house is in such a bad state of repair it's sometimes quicker and
better to just demolish and rebuild. What ever you did with it,
renovate and modernise or demolish and rebuild, you are going to 're
house' the occupant in the mean-time.


Thatcher's idea was that if the statistics showed that, at any one
time, 30%
of hospital beds were empty then you could close 30% of hospitals.
She didn't
appreciate that by trying to get 100% hospital beds full you had
people lying
in hospital corridors for days and endemic disease.

Couldn't agree more, but we have changed from industry to hospitals,
the last 25 years has not been good for the hospitals at all - to
many non medical staff trying to run them, and it's still going on
under a 'Labour' government!

She didn't appreciate that industry employed people who weren't
particularly
bright to do mundane work. She wanted such people out. Out where?
Out on the
streets drawing benefit that the rest of us, and industry, had to
pay for
instead of making the best use of their capabilities and making
them a useful
part of society.


So, north sea oil reserves should have been used to keep people in
non existent jobs, or making things that people didn't want or
wouldn't buy due to cost? Yes, I can see benefits in doing that,
keeps people happy, keeps people off the streets and keeps union
membership high no doubt...

"Geoffrey" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 10:26:43 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

Thatcher's idea was that if the statistics showed that, at any one
time, 30%
of hospital beds were empty then you could close 30% of hospitals.
She didn't
appreciate that by trying to get 100% hospital beds full you had
people lying
in hospital corridors for days and endemic disease.

Personally, I believe she did appreciate it, she just didn't care.


Indeed, but the people always had the choice to go private - NOT...

"John Cartmell" wrote in message
...
snipped for bandwidth reasons only

When I say that the Thatcher unemployment statistics were
fraudulent, I know
what I'm talking about.


....and I *totally* agree with all you have said in your above
message!