The General Election Thread

[Nigel Watts]

Please dont desert us Gervase!

I have found your arguments to be the most challenging and formidable and they have really forced me to think. Healthy, informed debate between people of different and strongly-held views is what we need more of, not less. This forum will be a poorer place without you.

 

[LadyArowana]

But perhaps, on reflection, this forum isn't the first place one would come for social inclusion or notions of fairness.

That seems a rather harsh judgement. In it's primary role as a place to discuss period property I think people here are inclusive and fair. Anyone however wealthy or otherwise that has issues about that topic gets the same treatment. If someone posted pictures of some grand country estate that they were proposing to gut and rebuild they would get the same abuse as someone with a modest cottage wanting to put in plastic windows. Politics and religion are never happy bedfellows with any forum that is dedicated to a different subject. I spend time online with a lot of artists and there are certain things related to their art/ craft on which there is broad agreement ( copying anothers work being taboo akin to UPVC windows here ), but once you stray into other territory there are massive differences of opinion.

My personal feeling is that there is almost no point discussing either politics or religion either online or IRL, people who care enough to type or flap their jaws are unlikely to change their minds on the topic. I very much enjoy the technical/ humourous discussions here and so I would miss your contribution, it would be a shame to stomp off over something that has very little to do with why most people come here.

 

[Schoolmarm]

I'm sorry, but alongside comments that suggest (in all seriousness, I believe - given that the writer is not someone one immediately associates with irony) that one cannot possibly survive on less than £80K a year, the post was richly redolent of an exhortation to eat cake.
But perhaps, on reflection, this forum isn't the first place one would come for social inclusion or notions of fairness. So, apologies for being merely a hairy-arsed tradesman with the temerity to question my betters. I'll just give a quick tug of the forelock and be off about my business, thank 'e kindly your lordships, leaving you to the smug contemplation of your good fortune and not clutter up the place.

I'm having to agree with all of this. REAL poor people, the kind on MSE expert forums are living on about 200 quid to feed a family for a month.
It costs 60 quid to shoe a horse every six weeks.
Hay.4 quid a bale.....3 bales a week.
Straw for bedding, 1.50 a bale 3 per week.
Food, 6 quid a sack, lasts 10 days.
Wormer
Rugs
Insurance 35 quid a month
God forbid the vets.

This is keeping mine at home. The cheapest way. Anyone taking part in hunting has money. Posh or not. It is an absolute luxury and no necessity.

The health visitor and hubby on benefits must have more income or less outgoings than first appears.

 

[Pford75]

'Marm - Far be it from me to disagree with you, but I can assure you that they are just a regular, one salary family. Perhaps they don't keep to the same high standards that you do with your horse(s)? I'm not aware that they reshoe every 6 weeks or that bedding is changed as regularly but, whatever, they do manage to keep a horse. Another way of looking at it by considering all the things they do not have (ie. they chose a horse instead)

They don't smoke - (A couple smoking 1 packet a day each will spend £150/week or £600/month) :shock:
They don't have satellite TV - £50/month
They don't head to the pub every week
They haven't had a holiday away in the 4 years we've known them

MY point is that there are plenty of people on benefits who manage all of the above. I'm sure I'll get some abuse for daring to mention this. Would we consider someone who smokes as 'rich'? Yet smoking is probably more expensive for a couple than keeping a horse.

 

[Pford75]

I'm sorry, but alongside comments that suggest (in all seriousness, I believe - given that the writer is not someone one immediately associates with irony) that one cannot possibly survive on less than £80K a year, the post was richly redolent of an exhortation to eat cake.
But perhaps, on reflection, this forum isn't the first place one would come for social inclusion or notions of fairness. So, apologies for being merely a hairy-arsed tradesman with the temerity to question my betters. I'll just give a quick tug of the forelock and be off about my business, thank 'e kindly your lordships, leaving you to the smug contemplation of your good fortune and not clutter up the place. I really don't think this forum is for me any more.
Should anyone want any advice, please feel free to contact me, but otherwise, goodbye.

Gervase - I really do think it's a shame if you decide to flounce off in a hissy fit. More than most, I have been subjected to a range of personal attacks, abuse and disagreement over the time I have been on the forum (including from yourself). However, I recognise that not everyone shares my views and that disagreements are a natural consequence. Biff and I are unlikely to ever agree on many issues...but we see able to coexist in the same space. If you can't tolerate anyone questioning your view (and both FF and I did it in far gentler ways than many other issues have been responded to) then that's a shame.

Forums/debates need more than one side or they would be moribund.

 

[Schoolmarm]

I agree, today's benefits system allows people to smoke.

I have a sister who I don't speak to.
Her husband pretends to earn approx 9k per year as a joiner. Not sure if that is profit. It enables them to get approx 500 pounds per month working tax credit.

So added to all the cash in hand he gets for all his joinery jobs they are feckin rolling in it. No exaggeration. Perhaps others do that too.

Perhaps the people over the road are getting LOADS of benefits.
Perhaps they bought their house cash.
Perhaps they have a legacy.

They have to spend money to keep a horse and hunt. No two ways about it. Our horses are a legacy from teenagers and I can't get rid because I am too soft. They are being kept at the lower end of costings.
I don't actually have them shod any more just trimmed.

There has been a strange rise in the "standard of living" on this forum recently. Some things have made me gasp.
We have got our own business that turned over 1.6 million last year with a healthy profit. I still am terrified to waste money after years of ups and downs and am worried about the cost of replacing our bathroom. I know I am in a different league than the "proper rich/posh" people on here and would be scared to meet some.

I often consider releasing Nigel from my fb list of friends to save him the embarrassment of having to do it. :lol: :lol:

I don't smoke
I don't drink
We have satellite at 30 something
I never holiday.
I drive an F reg swb defender worth £1200
I am an expert in frugality :lol:

 

[Flyfisher]

Anyone taking part in hunting has money. Posh or not. It is an absolute luxury and no necessity.

Agreed. I don't think anyone suggested hunting was not a luxury; clearly it is. But so are the smoking, sky TV, nights in the pub and holiday examples that Pford75 mentioned, as well as a whole host of other non-essential activities.

My point was that the cost of owning a horse is comparable to many other leisure activities and many people choose to spend their money on owning a horse in preference to other things. That doesn't suddenly make them rich or posh in my view (no offence 'marm :wink: ). Indeed, based on Pford75 smoking figures (which I found amazingly scary!), that alone would seem to easily cover the cost of owning a horse. Perhaps you have to be rich and posh to smoke these days?

Perhaps the problem is the definition of "rich" - but it's a funny world where someone owning a horse can be deemed rich and/or posh whereas someone spending the same amount of money on cigarettes would be unlikely to attract such a judgemental view.

 

[LadyArowana]

Some things have made me gasp.

Almost nothing surprises me any more, but then again I did once have the experience of standing in a gym changing room thinking I was looking fairly ok and then realising that the best looking "girl" there had previously been a man. I almost recovered from that and then was assigned to mind someone of staggering wealth who thought US$ 800 was too much to spend on something I thought fairly priced. That was it for me, I go about my own crazy schemes and foibles and enjoy everyone elses whatever they may be.

 

[Pford75]

Absolutely FF. I think there is a blurring of definitions where some people confuse 'rich' and 'posh'. Being candid for a moment, we might fit some people's definition of 'rich', but most certainly wouldn't fit definitions of 'posh'....yet as we have seen, there are many instances where the two are confused.

As you say, we haven't yet reached the point where we are demonising those who choose to smoke (yet it is blatantly more expensive for a couple to puff away, than it would be for them to own a horse)

And 'marm...one of the things I love about this forum is the eclectic mix of backgrounds. The unifying factor is a passion for period properties, big or small, country or city. I've been lucky enough to meet a few forum members in real life and can assure you than none are remotely scary.

It's possible round these parts to work as a beater on certain shoots and our neighbour wangled his 'gun' position on the basis of beating on a series of drives. I really don't think they have a big pile of cash or are receiving 000's of benefits...it's just that being country folk, they choose to spend their money on hunting, before spending on other things.

Many 'city folk' belong to a gym and pay £££'s every year - we wouldn't suggest they are 'rich', but to them, it's an alien concept that someone would choose to prioritise spending on a horse. I think it's just another one of those differences between town and country

 

[Nigel Watts]

I often consider releasing Nigel from my fb list of friends to save him the embarrassment of having to do it. :lol: :lol:

Oh dear. I do hope not.

Wealth and poverty is, except at the extremes, largely relative.

In the street I live in and among the parents at our kids' schools we are much nearer the bottom than the top end in terms of income. We dont have a second home (as many of them do), rarely eat out, dont take expensive holidays (trips to India to visit the in-laws excepted) and dont drive a smart car. I admit to having extravagent taste in home decoration, but that is about my only indulgence.

Of course compared to the majority of the population we are well off, and if we chose to move out of London and educate our children at the taxpayers' expense the relativities might appear rather different.

 

[biffvernon]

Oi! Gervase, don't leave me alone! You can't let the sillies win. Remember, this is where we start drawing up the list come the revolution.

 

[Nigel Watts]

Oi! Gervase, don't leave me alone! You can't let the sillies win. Remember, this is where we start drawing up the list come the revolution.

Not quite how I would have put it, but I detect a shared objective here - the basis for a coalition perhaps?

 

[Schoolmarm]

Sorry FF I didn't mean hunting was a luxury I meant actually having a horse was a luxury.
What activities they choose to do with said horse could be free, cheap or expensive depending on how they do it.
eg hacking around the village is free or competing at a far away show is expensive. I don't know what hunting costs.

I know only too well that posh and rich are nothing to do with each other :lol:

I typed hastily and it was off the top of my head and probably didn't even make a point.

I suppose what I was trying to say or demonstrate was that we never know how much disposable income anyone has. And that if you are truly poor you won't have a horse.

Truly poor is having to make a decision between buying a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. Because there is literally only 83p in your purse.

At the risk of stereotyping again. There are huge sections of the community who never work, buy all their fags from imported contraband at less than half price, sell drugs and stolen stuff to buy strange sports clothes and buy all the smart price foodstuff from asda. They confuse everyone because they wear the most expensive trainers and smoke. They walk or jump into taxis and drink beer in the pub.
They have many many children and grandchildren before the age of 36. They never intend to work and their children don't know what it means to attend school or work.
Until your daughter takes up with one of these lovely people :evil: you just don't know what is happening. Thank god she got rid of him two years ago.
So don't kid yourself that they can "afford" to smoke.
........................

Nigel, I know that you have no snobbery issues whatsoever which is why I hung on in there.

 

[Pford75]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

'Marm....the thought police will be knocking on your door very soon I'd imagine. Go hide under the sofa and I'll tell them you're not at home

 

[JoceAndChris]

I completely agree with all of you. :wink:

Round here people are mad about horses (and I suspect hunting as well, though I know nothing about the costs of that or whether you can hire a horse for the occasion) and there are all sorts of ways to get involved in horsiness without bearing the full costly brunt of ownership. The most popular is horse-share, and there is currently a horse share being offered in Sleaford for £20 per week. At the riding school I go to the workers there have their horses liveried as a perk of the job. When I go to Chandlers (a horse supply shop) I see all walks of life -mainly ordinary, working class folk with unstartling jobs and levels of wealth. Lincs is not a rich county, in the main, but it's a county with plenty of space for people to get into this hobby. I don't say the really poor can afford it, but I do go along with the view that people imagine the horsey world to be posher and richer that it really is.

Let's not fall out over horses and foxes - we all have different views, different levels of wealth - it doesn't matter! The forum is interesting because of that, and would be a much duller place is self-censorship was going on all the time.

 

[LadyArowana]

Truly poor is having to make a decision between buying a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. Because there is literally only 83p in your purse.

Just to save Biff the trouble, ( and in a self serving attempt to extract myself from his "list" ) I would respectfully point out that on a global scale that is not "truly poor".

 

[Schoolmarm]

Joce :lol: if people were honest about fox and deer hunting, like the hunter interviewed by Sasha Baron Cohen, and they said "I love it when the fox gets killed", "I love tearing about on my horse chasing small/large furries" then we could all discuss or argue it easily.
We know they love it and that is why we are so disgusted by them.

Controlling pests is a different matter entirely. Joce's rats would be into the millions if the hunt came once a month and chased around the garden to catch one

Truly poor is having to make a decision between buying a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. Because there is literally only 83p in your purse.

Just to save Biff the trouble, ( and in a self serving attempt to extract myself from his "list" ) I would respectfully point out that on a global scale that is not "truly poor".

Very true. That would be a lot of money elsewhere.

 

[Flyfisher]

Sorry FF I didn't mean hunting was a luxury I meant actually having a horse was a luxury.
What activities they choose to do with said horse could be free, cheap or expensive depending on how they do it.
eg hacking around the village is free or competing at a far away show is expensive. I don't know what hunting costs.

Yes, I entirely agree that owning a horse is a luxury. My basic point was that it needn't be an expensive luxury in comparison with many things that on which 'normal' people would spend their disposable income. I don't know the cost of hunting either (above owning the horse) as I've never participated, but I've known people that do who I certainly wouldn't regard as 'rich' . . . but then we're back to the definition of 'rich' again.

Truly poor is having to make a decision between buying a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. Because there is literally only 83p in your purse.

Agreed. Sadly, that end of the spectrum is rather easier to define, although Lady A's point is a salutory reminder that, in a global context, we're all immensely privileged really.

Your 'stereotyping' story was a bit scary and, if I've read it correctly, a lucky escape. :shock:

 

[Schoolmarm]

OMG Yes, he had a real svengali thing going on over her. Dreadful. I took her car off her to see if he would become less interested and they both moved into a TENT! In his mothers council house garden! He was 36 and she was 18.

Eventually thank god, she found out about the young girl living round the corner in a flat with a baby by him and another one due. He had been seeing them both for over a year.

Is all that too much information lol?

I can't believe we have lost Gervase . I am on another forum with him but he doesn't go on it much.

 

[Penners]

I can't believe we have lost Gervase . I am on another forum with him but he doesn't go on it much.

Given his professional commitments, I doubt that he has much time for such things.