There Are Some Sad People In Brussels.

originally posted by: uncommitted
It's pointless being bitter, anyway, I'm lucky enough to have two passports.

I'm pleased for you

It was your pathetic call to fight 'snatch squads' that I was responding to in particular

I didn't call anyone, I just aired my opinion and intentions about a hypothetical situation in a reasoned debate. Again, stop trying to put a spin on my words, that is frankly quite pathetic.

and how childish you came across

Which bit exactly was childish in your opinion? All I see is you attacking ideas about my character instead of focusing on my message.

and of course your 'millions of friends' who would be there with you

Again, no, I said millions of good people, not millions of friends. It really is your good self who is appearing childish in debate. Don't invent added value to my words.

when the sad truth is, it's the millions who voted to stay who would be a damn sight more sympathetic.

I would imagine more Remain voters would be likely to defend our settled EU friends in the event of deportations.
I didn't say anything to the contrary anywhere in this thread.
Again, more spin from you. You debate like a petulant child sir, twisting words and assuming added value.

We agree on pretty much everything as far as I can see except for how we actually voted on the 23rd.
I have no idea why you are so desperate to find something to disagree with me.

Oh, and you didn't say if you would sit back and watch people being deported or if you would resist it?
Of course, in a hypothetical situation just dropped in to the conversation and on-topic due to the failure of the Home Secretary to provide assurance to settled EU nationals.

Seeing as you called my intentions to resist in extreme ways if the situation arose, I suspect you'd do nothing and look the other way. I don't think direct action is pathetic in such a circumstance, but hey.

a reply to: uncommitted

Yet it was only called Consignia for 15 months or so?

originally posted by: SprocketUK
a reply to: uncommitted

Yet it was only called Consignia for 15 months or so?

I think it was Consignia for roughly a few months of the '90's and a little of the 21st Century. It was always the post office, and if you referred to it collectively as the Royal Mail to the 'wrong' people, you were liable to get a bollocking as the Royal Mail always only referred to the letters sector.

If your interested, Consignia means nothing, it's not a clever play on words, it's not a derivation from for example Latin around the word Consign...... it's a word made up by an ad agency that cost roughly in the region of £200,000 to £250,000. Scary isn't it?

originally posted by: Denoli
a reply to: uncommitted

So you didn't see that the Internet and home shopping wasn't going to be a booming industry ?

Nothing like selling at the worst possible time.

Great business sense , no wonder it was sucked of all its blood .

I didn't sell anything, please don't get the impression I was at that level, but I was close enough to understand the challenges. In the mid to late '90's, online shopping was niche at best, trust me, even by the late '90's when the company moved away from Dos, a lot of people had never used a mouse - sounds weird? Yes. Is it true? In my experience at the time, yes.

a reply to: uncommitted

Merely a comment on how in your first post you referred to Consignia yet the subsequent one alluded to your being there for years. The dates I gave you were when it was called Consignia.

To be honest, we could all see RM failing once the good business got cherry picked and that would not have happened without the enablers in Brussels.

I doubt very much that the CWU can be blamed for the failings of Royal Mail.

I know how it goes re. Names etc, I joined British Rail, which became Rail track, then Network Rail. Each new name cost bloody millions.

originally posted by: SprocketUK
a reply to: uncommitted

Merely a comment on how in your first post you referred to Consignia yet the subsequent one alluded to your being there for years. The dates I gave you were when it was called Consignia.

To be honest, we could all see RM failing once the good business got cherry picked and that would not have happened without the enablers in Brussels.

I doubt very much that the CWU can be blamed for the failings of Royal Mail.

I know how it goes re. Names etc, I joined British Rail, which became Rail track, then Network Rail. Each new name cost bloody millions.

I referred to it as Consignia mainly because roughly (very roughly) that's when the EU directive was put in place, or at least was in the process of being put in place - I was there for ten years in all ending with the outsourcing of IT services.

I'm not sure I would blame CWU as such, but personally I despised them to an extent, not the least of which for them taking a subscription from me for a couple of years and then when I wanted their help with something they told me they didn't actually work for me as I was 'admin' rather than a driver. I stopped payment there and then but of course never got a refund. During the '90's which is the only period I can talk with from experience the business at the operational end was massively unionised. I've seen directly where a worker threw items marked as fragile into a loading van and them being smashed. When he was suspended - with pay mind - the union threatened strike action until he was reinstated with no further action. The CWU is/was one of the last dinosaurs of the trade union movement as far as I'm concerned that was always more interested in fighting than discussing.

RMG failing, or risking failure really had nothing to do with the EU - I'm guessing that's rhetoric you've picked up from somewhere and don't want to drop. It's structure was based on a 1970's model that was forever fighting against technology and processes 20 or 30 years advanced from it. Sorry, but in this particular example I have a lot more background than you. Maybe one of the biggest issues in RMG at the time was this thought that when you got in you had a job for life with a union that would back you regardless of whether you were good, bad or indifferent at your job. Those days anywhere have long since gone but the culture takes time to die - generations by the look of it.

British Rail, British Leyland - both fairly much ruined through a lack of foresight and a rigid rabid need to keep doing the same thing even though it was patently failing, RMG came very close to being the same and arguably the NHS is still in the same malaise of trying to keep rigidly to a concept created in a post war environment 60 years ago.

Nothing is ever black and white.
www.telegraph.co.uk...


Unions share a bit of blame, though even the Torygraph can't quite spin it completely that way, which tells a story all of its own.

And don't you find it funny that the big failures in nationalised industry run almost concurrently with increases in the power of Brussels to set limits on government subsidies etc. ?

One day we may well find out that it was far more than an ideologically driven Thatcher government that was the driver.

originally posted by: SprocketUK
Nothing is ever black and white.
www.telegraph.co.uk...


Unions share a bit of blame, though even the Torygraph can't quite spin it completely that way, which tells a story all of its own.

And don't you find it funny that the big failures in nationalised industry run almost concurrently with increases in the power of Brussels to set limits on government subsidies etc. ?

One day we may well find out that it was far more than an ideologically driven Thatcher government that was the driver.

Personally, I don't think there's any doubt that the key unions during the late 70's, through to at least the 90's saw themselves as aggressors - probably still do with some. A union should quite rightly look after the interests of the workers who pay their fees, but when it becomes more of a fight to 'put one over the man' then nobody is really going to win.

I know what many think of the Thatcher government on here, and while I'm by no means a cheerleader for her, if we look at the miners strike I think it's massively shallow to paint her/her government as the sole problem. Scargill was looking to make his name and to fight his fight - he didn't seem to bothered that it was his foot soldiers (union members) that ultimately paid the price.

Are we in a better place today? Well, due to companies I worked for in the past, unions I've never been a member of ultimately have control over my salary - and not in a good way. I'd rather not go into more detail than that in this thread, but if you are interested please feel free to pm me as long as it stays between you and me.

a reply to: uncommitted

I can understand your dissatisfaction with the CWU. Unions aren't perfect. I actually left the RMT towards the end of Jimmy Knapp's tenure but rejoined when Bob Crow was going for leader and stayed in for the rest of my time on the railway.


At times it seems the union is about itself and they have scant regard for the members, at others though, it's vastly different.


Your pay deals aren't my business and I don't distrust you as a person so there's no need to pm me private info.
I'm happy to take your word for such stuff at face value even though we may argue over things.