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You are very funny, quick witted and one of the easiest poster's on here to reply to (only one smiley icon thingy required) I have indeed replied to you many times with one of these.......Here's another!
Argus!
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 17:02 - Apr 5 with 2054 views
One of you mentioned earlier that you haven't seen the unions praising Welsh Labour for working to secure jobs. In many ways, you're right.
I don't know this for a fact, (I'm not a member of a union that represents the steel workers), but I think there is a very good reason for the unions to not name and shame/praise the various political parties involved.
Unions are self-interested, as they should be. Unions are motivated by protecting the jobs of their members and improving conditions and wages etc. So, in the case of Tata and Port Talbot, the only thing that matters is the protection of jobs for thousands of steel workers, it is largely irrelevant to them which government or political party does this. The unions are not asking for better pay or conditions (unlike the situation in England with the doctors' strike), they only want the jobs to be saved.
Thus, why would they publicly say "Welsh Labour are good/bad or David Cameron's Tory party are good/bad? In my opinion, it would be bad politics or negotiation to make the issue of thousands of jobs a thing which pits one party against another, when the reality is that the steelworkers will need the support of David Cameron and Welsh Labour (which already support nationalisation anyway) if there is any hope of their members' jobs being saved.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 18:40 - Apr 5 with 2001 views
That Port Talbot plant (I’ve contracted there as a rigger myself!) and Welsh Steel had better be saved because well paid jobs like that tend never ever to be replaced in SW Wales! The alternatives in these parts for most would mostly be minimum wage, part-time, short term contract temporary, zero-contract and agency work.
The amount of agencies down these parts now is absolutely unbelievable! They are now the absolute norm for example in the construction industry!
Go onto Jobcentre Plus do a job search type in Bricklayer, Plasterer, Labourer and Hey Presto?…..Agency!.....Agency!......Agency!.......Agency! What a desperately bleak area we now all live in! That’s why the (never worked for myself) public sector jobs e.g. DVLA etc desperately need to be protected……public sector jobs generally offer vastly better pay and conditions than anything offered by the private sector down this part of the world. I fear for the future(s) of the kids. The fear of Tata workforce is both palpable and distressing!
Argus!
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 19:28 - Apr 5 with 1975 views
Ah. That was me and I agree with you in part. It would be folly to criticise any potential support while it remains just that. I think there will be a different response if the closure of the works is the end product however. On the other hand why would they confide to just a few sources that they are happy with the way WAG have handled this to date? I would have thought there would be more mileage in going public with it therefore hoping for greater support than their current £30m, and they would helping Welsh Labour to retain a workable majority in Cardiff Bay. Two birds, one stone.
You have mission in life to hold out your hand,
To help the other guy out,
Help your fellow man.
Stan Ridgway
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 19:35 - Apr 5 with 1966 views
The Plaid manifesto, launched in Cardiff today (oh the irony), made for interesting reading.
Plaid has identified £300m of savings to the Welsh NHS, a staggering amount given that we are already stretched beyond our means as it is (even the BBC reporter at the manifesto launch noted that health boards have already needed to be bailed out by the WAG). I would suggest that Plaid do the patriotic thing and tell the current government about how it can save money on the NHS and save lives elsewhere, but I fear that their pledge to save £300m is a little familiar to another government who plucks figures out of the air and says they know how to "streamline" and be "efficient" (I'm looking at you, David Cameron).
A group of experts, who Plaid commissioned themselves, remarked that these efficiency savings (read "cuts") to some parts of the Welsh NHS "won't be easy or painless".
The main policy difference to me seems to be the decision not to spend £1bn on the M4 relief road, which again is not a one-off grant but staggered over many years. £1bn is a lot of money, and if Plaid intended on using that money for Swansea, or some other town/city in West Wales, they sure didn't put it in their manifesto. I accept however, that just because the manifesto doesn't explicitly say that, it doesn't mean they won't do that. Just an interesting omission.
Plaid supports the continued public ownership of Cardiff Airport (seems like they don't think it was a crazy idea, then).
Plaid supports the urgent development of a "south-east metro" system. Again, seems to go against the grain of some here.
Oh, and before anyone just reads the headlines about how Plaid will eradicate the Severn Bridge toll, they can't. The U.K. Government has complete authority over that.
Their manifesto really illustrates how difficult it is to work within a very confined budget, with little to no room whatsoever to manuever or raise your own resources.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 20:00 - Apr 5 with 1937 views
They have had a say in the HMRC offices. They offered up a site in Cardiff. Can you honestly see Westminster currently offering up a centralised Public Sector body, of a similar size, to Wales and not contacting WAG? 'Ah yes Minister. We have just the site you are looking for......... In Tiger Bay' ;-)
You have mission in life to hold out your hand,
To help the other guy out,
Help your fellow man.
Stan Ridgway
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 20:11 - Apr 5 with 1981 views
Yet throughout the last four years or so the DVLA has rationalised its entire estate, closed every regional office in the entire UK (including the quite large one in Cardiff) and centralised everything in...Swansea. Without so much as a peep of protest from those nasty Welsh Labour Cardiff lovers.
This thread id ridiculous. No one's provided a shred of actual, proper and official evidence of DISPROPORTIONATE WG spending in Cardiff yet the same three or four of you have managed to convince yourselves with almost religious fervour that it's a fact and that only Leanne fecking Wood and Plaid bleedin' Cymru offers any hope for anywhere in Wales west of Cardiff Gate.
You still don't get it do you? Many are going to vote Plaid as a protest vote as they are deemed to be the best of a bad bunch. The best way to stop the crazy imbalance in investment that is leading to Wales becoming a wasteland outside of the SE. I was disappointed in them launching their campaign in the Cardiff City Stadium. I am disappointed that they will support the Metro. I am not surprised they are supporting Rhoose. That would be a vote loser in the SE and public money has already been committed there. As for the problems of working within a constrained budget then I am with you. A good start would be spreading the spending and the support across the whole of Wales and not just in the SE. Trampie may come on and defend Plaid's manifesto but that is not the debate for me.
You have mission in life to hold out your hand,
To help the other guy out,
Help your fellow man.
Stan Ridgway
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 20:27 - Apr 5 with 1956 views
Cheers for that. I take you are another worried Welsh Labour voter concerned that protest votes are going to Plaid. I would be interested to know how many more jobs have been brought to Clase at the expense of the rest of Wales. Believe it or not I would be consistent in my concerns at jobs being lost outside of the SE. Less so outside of Cardiff which has by far the largest number of Public Sector and media jobs in Wales. The media ones third highest in the UK for a population the size of Manchester council. There is none so blind that cannot see. You carry on fiddling whilst Rome burns. There may only be a few of us protesting so you will be very happy that the status quo will continue. Still the thread is heading for 8k views so it may be getting through to a few. And.....'almost religious fervour'...... Do me a favour.
You have mission in life to hold out your hand,
To help the other guy out,
Help your fellow man.
Stan Ridgway
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 20:29 - Apr 5 with 1949 views
I don't care for Labour and haven't for years. I haven't decided who to vote for next month yet. It might be Labour, LibDems or Plaid. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that I won't vote Tory or UKIP.
No new jobs were created in Clase as a result of the closure of the regional offices. What it did do was ensure as far as possible that the site remains open and viable for years to come.
Its terrible when the likes of you or me have zero faith in Welsh Labour! I used to look upon them to be on the working class side. I genuinely fear what Wales will be like if we have another 10-20 years of their utter sh1t? Bleak, deprived, ruined and barren until you arrive at Labour H.Q Nirvana Cardiff.
Of course all the donkey voting ex-nationalised industry Labour voting loyalists will barring a remaining minuscule minority have passed away along with the entrenched family hand-me-down habits to actually vote for them...........................Then it will be?.................."We must get back to the people and reconnect with the voters". Too late mugs you've destroyed a once great political party! Oh BTW Gower will be perceived as a Conservative safe seat by then!
Argus!
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 21:04 - Apr 5 with 1905 views
They actually have. Have you even bothered to read some of the numbers involved in the projects they've committed to, or built in the past?
Can you name me something even remotely similar they've built in Swansea? Or developed? Everything done here is through EU funds - illustrated by this graph ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zq6f2p3#zqqnqty) - click the heading 'EU economic aid'. We're the poorest part of Wales, yet still get the least investment. How is that fair? How can that be right under a supposed Left-wing government?
The numbers have already been posted in this thread about some of what they've spent in Cardiff and that's the tip of the iceberg. Like I said, I'd challenge anyone to name me a similar project in Swansea using Welsh taxpayer money.
Many of us, as pointed out, see Plaid as a protest vote. Labour doesn't even bother advertising down here because Swansea is such a safe seat. They don't need to promise us developments and investment because we'll vote them in regardless. That's the reason so few people comment on this thread - Swansea East has the lowest electoral turnout in the country, what does that tell you about how interested we are in who governs us? No wonder they treat us with disdain.
Ideally, we need people writing letters and emails to our AMs demanding investment or we'll take our vote elsewhere. At the moment, few do, and they can continue to get away with running Wales into the ground.
Its a bizarre situation down these SW Wales parts? The Tories couldn't give a f#ck because the SW Wales electorate vote for them in low numbers and Labour couldn't give a f#ck because the SW electorate vote for them in high numbers? We've got the worst of both worlds down here. Talk about rock and hard place stuff?
The trouble with most Taffs? Half-soaked, apathetic, oblivious to whats actually going around them, tribal to the extreme, no fire in bellies, happy to form a queue to be treated like dirt and not Scottish when it comes to elections?
Argus!
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 22:45 - Apr 5 with 1855 views
Gower is not taken for granted in general elections, as shown last May when the Tories won.
Swansea East is represented at the Assembly level by Mike Hedges, who is an extremely hard working AM. Maybe if you don't live in that constituency you wouldn't know, but to call him complacent or someone who looks upon others with "disdain" is ridiculous, and proves that you've probably never actually spoken to the guy. He doesn't represent my constituency, but he is just about as visible an AM as there is (aside from the ministers).
[Post edited 5 Apr 2016 22:47]
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 23:05 - Apr 5 with 1840 views
And for those who were wondering why the WAG cannot temporarily nationalise the steelworks, it was said today that the taxpayer will have to fund the plant for at least three years to make it sustainable again (although of course there is no guarantee that there will be a buyer in three years, or 10 years for that matter).
The WAG cannot reduce taxes any more on Tata, else they will fall foul of EU competition laws.
Any buyer or government will have to take on a £15bn pension fund for the 130,000 present and former workers. That puts things into perspective when the WAG block grant itself is £15.3bn.
The block grant the WAG received is based on population, and, to some extent, need. It does not cover the possibility of nationalising an industry of this size. The misinformation that Leanne Wood and others have been speaking has not helped the debate at all.
It is obvious that any nationalisation must originate from the UK government, which can and should budget for crisis' such as this. At the very least it can raise taxes, if it felt as though that was the only way to do it. The WAG cannot do that.
I for one hope they are nationalised. And I would like to see many of our other great industries follow suit, but this won't be done by any of the devolved governments.
[Post edited 5 Apr 2016 23:08]
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 08:55 - Apr 6 with 1792 views
The mask is slipping with a few of them. They call themselves disenchanted voters but I'm not so convinced anymore.
They've taken on the unmalliable personality traits of the worst kind of cyber-nats. they've stopped listening to anything that's fact shaped, especially if that contradicts the narrative that Welsh labour would rather sh*t in their hands than clap than help any of the poor downtrodden masses of South West Wales. This is bread and butter to the nationalists as they need a vicious oppressor to fight against, otherwise the cause is meaningless.
"Plaid will make things better for all of Wales" as they launch from the CARDIFF CITY STADIUM. There is absolutely nothing in that manifesto that signals any sort of change for the people of West Wales but I'm sure we've got plenty of excuses lined up ready. You couldn't make it up.
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 09:06 - Apr 6 with 1782 views
Well, perhaps it won''t be next time, but before the last GE, it had had a Labour MP for over a century. Swansea East has had one even further back.
A family member spoke to Mike Hedges and the jist he gave to him was that, he understands the disparity, but can't do much to combat it. Instead, he spends his time arguing about what position we are on MOTD. Focus on the more important things like attracting government investment, and less on trivialities like that.
Either way, I think we need a change. Welsh Labour isn't working for Swansea. If we keep this government, chances are our city deal & city centre redevelopment won't go ahead, because it's relying solely on private funding at the moment.
I agree with many on here that Plaid aren't the knight in shining armour we hope they will be, but even if voting them out once shakes up the establishment so they start to fight for our vote and stop taking us for granted, it'd be worth it.
I have consistently said they are not a cure all. They are the best of a bad job. I would Class the Lib Dems in that group but it would seem they are lost cause at the moment. Guess what? I too want a Labour Government both Nationally and Regionally. Regretfully Corbyn's Labour is very different from Carwyn's.
You have mission in life to hold out your hand,
To help the other guy out,
Help your fellow man.
Stan Ridgway
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The 2016 Assembly Elections: Which way will you be voting & why? on 09:26 - Apr 6 with 1776 views
The Tories did outspend Labour in Gower tenfold in the general election and Byron Davies had been trying to win the seat for about 10 years. That probably didn't help.
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