Posting as I do from a really beautiful part of England (even on such a dismally cold and gloomy November day as today and set to become very, very wet later on ) it is now becoming increasingly clear that the economy of the UK is now, beyond all doubt, on the upturn in practically all sectors, and here in the Midlands the manufacturing business leaders all report positively in terms of business activity....a steady improvement right across the board.

The current economic situation is now, allegedly, the brightest for sixteen years, and certainly that ius the case since May 2010, when the last General Election took pplace, resulting in a change of Government.......

However...this could all change, quite drastically....as much will hang on what happens on Thursday 07 May 2015.

Economic fortunes in the UK depends almost exclusively on the private sector, and on private enterprise and initiative and the promotion of growth and overall national prosperity......and NOT on the public sector which has, in the recent past, been a considerable drag on the economy.

Britain has never been a naturally Socialist country, and it never will be.....attempts to turn it into one in the past...under wasteful and profligate Labour Governments, always experts at spending other people's money...have always turned out to be fiscal disasters.

Should the Labour Party leader "Red" Ed Miliband, operating under the diktats and overall mastery of extremely left wing pro Commie Trot Len McCluskey actually win that next General Election in the UK ..... ....then I suggest that all you good people who have emigrated to sunny climes but now consider a return to Britain......

........dismiss the notion altogether and remain precisely where you are!

Opinions will always vary as to politics. However, I would say that the world will be going through great changes in the years ahead in many ways (up to and including more and more wars).

International economic fortunes will probably have a greater effect on Britain than any domestic policies.

It's not like Cameron won the election in 2010 - the country didn't vote him in just like the country didn't vote Brown in. In the end the UK was condemned to a ConDem government.

Understandable really though.

At the time many folks took the view that the major political parties were all much of a muchness, substantially the same policies from all of them.

That's modern British politics. 70% of the people want the railways to be taken back into public ownership but none of the political parties is willing to commit to making that happen. Even though private ownership has been ruinously expensive for government and it likely to continue to be so. In England anyway, maybe different in Scotland.

So much is wrong. Chinese investment in British nuclear power at a time when world stability is on the brink?!

Well of course, there is a huge divide between rich and poor in practically every country in the world, I saw it in Australia and I see it here. Just change the locations of the examples in your last sentence and it will equally apply to anywhere.

Its a tough one, we have Abbott in Australia so that crosses that destination of the list, America is a accident waiting to happen, Europe a basketcase. It just shows that weather isnt everything

Yes a very good idea, a very valuable resource.

DR My apologies I did not put two and two together. Sorry.

No problems - thanks for posting the link.

British Rail was a ruinously expensive sinkhole prior to privatisation. Otoh, the concept of private ownership of the infrastructure failed miserably. But take a look at a graph of rail passengers in the UK and you'll see that after flat lining (or declining) prior to privatisation of rail services, there has been an inexorable climb in ridership since then, even with the high fares they can charge. Coincidence? Maybe, but personally I'd hate to see a return to the days of British Rail. Nostalgia doesn't make a rail service.

Edit: there's a chart of rail usage in this article in The Economist on the dubious economics of HS2:

http://www.economist.com/news/britai...counting-trips

BAE Systems cutting around 1,800 jobs - including ending shipbuilding altogether in Portsmouth.

It was basically the same with any public owned company, overstaffed, underresourced, uncompetitive and largely unpopular.

I would much rather see most of the public essential services run by the state, basically because I think profit should not drive how much we are charged for electricity, water, public transport, etc. The energy companies essentially have a monopoly - the idea of "competition" is bunkum, IMO.

I agree that in the "old days" things were bad, but that doesn't mean they'd necessarily be bad again if these services were handed back to the state.

Rail travel is still subsidised though.

BAE receive just over 4 billion a year in public subsidy.
They employ just under 40,000 people in the UK in total.

Each job costs the taxpayer in the region of ....

One hundred thousand pounds. Every year.

WE are paying BAE nearly two hundred million pounds every year to employ these 1800 people.

They are (nominally at least) in the private sector...where the average wage is 23,000 pounds

(Median wage - 18,000 pounds. )

The one thousand new jobs created every day receive NO public subsidy.

I doubt very much that the shipyard employees of BAE receive very much more than the average wage.

The numbers are so absolutely insane that the question really is - why don't we just give them all say 30,000 a year, they can play golf or whatever and we keep 3 billion a year?

Let's all write to BAE and suggest it. Or perhaps they might like to give us our money back

These numbers are so absolutely barking mad that I have difficulty in believing them. Somebody please tell me my calculator is wrong. Or me.