Jonathan Isaby suggests anti-capitalist protestors should get a job during debate with Polly Toynbee

The Guardian columnist responds by pointing out that youth unemployment is approaching one million. She says that the Taxpayers' Alliance should join the protest against banks who are ripping off 99% of taxpayers.

Comments

[Man in a Shed]

Poor Polly - she has all the facts to hand. She says the Banks caused this - and then taxpayers bailed them out without making the link in the middle - her hero Gordon Brown and his fellow economic drunken sailors in the Labour party.

Even her subconscious tries to drop her hints - but she's still without a clue.

[Paul]

It beggars belief that Toynbee is so idiotic as to blame it all on the banks. Didn't the debt have more to do with the £120bn structural deficit ?

How much was actually spent on the banks (as opposed to guaranteed, given that the rag for which she scrawls nonsense seems to think they are the same) ?

[Winston Smith]

Nothing changes. The same old posh students and luvvies seek attention for their failed ideology. Communism won't be coming back. You've missed the boat. Now toodle off back to your country pile and your pony, Arabella.

[Elaine Turner]

She is just extremely guilty of very lazy thinking. However, her parting remark bears some consideration. If these protesters stay out for long, across the world, they are going to start making an impact on people's thinking. When I think of some of the lousy deals done over the last few years - Kraft taking over Cadburys, the Southern Cross deals, youngsters in their mid 20s 'earning' millions off the back of gambling with other people's money, they have a point.

I hope to some degree that what they are doing does cause us to rethink personal remuneration. I find it galling that Labour's inability to manage the economy for 13 years has put us in a position whereby if you aren't loaded, you are going to start suffering a severe loss of income and living standards... and it is even more so when you think that some of these people who are raking it in are not Richard Bransons, Lord Sugars or other entrepreneurs who have earned it. They secure a golden handshake for turning up and another set of golden somethings when they leave... often not having improved profitability or increased the dividend or share value.

What right thinking TV company would ever ask Polly Toynbee to hold forth on fiscal matters? She hasn't a bloody clue!!

[Lord Salisbury]

While disagreeing with Polly Toynbee, her argument resonates within the country and I do not think Jonathan Isaby, who I generally like will have persuaded too many people with his view, that people should just look for work.

The real issue is that there is a far too close a relationship between the government and the financial sector, it is indeed the antithesis of capitalism, a 1960/70's corporatism. In a capitalist society, there would have been a re-ordering in 2008-present, some banks would have collapsed, many would have lost their savings yet that is indeed the risk one takes when depositing with a financial institution. Financial collapses have been commonplace throughout the last three centuries, if one wishes to live in a free capitalist society then there is no way around this. The economy booms, people speculate and then the boom becomes unsustainable and the system crashes, this is to me the iron law of capitalism. There is indeed no alternative.

Jonathan Isaby is quite correct, capitalism has been exceptionally beneficial in raising living standards over the past 200 years yet the idea that is somehow perfect is laughable. From that point of view the protesters may have something worthwhile to say yet their alternative would only create greater problems and reduce the improvement is living standards.

[Marcus]

Toybee 1 - Isaby 0

The TPA has lost all credibility I'm afraid and for Isaby to say the protesters should get a job is a total disgrace. Has he seen the jobless figures? Does he live in a cave?

[Ragu Denso]

Neoliberalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism) has had it's day and surely tranche one of this latest problem started in the USA mortgage industry. Not even Gordon Brown can be blamed for that.

[PEOPLE]

Once more i ask.Would it not have been cheaper and helped economies revive.If every household were given a few thousand.Instead of rewarding useless polititians and their banking friends.

[Peter Thurgood]

Polly Toynbee might as well be made out of very thin glass - so easy is it to see right through her and her propaganda, which is aimed so obviously at the uneducated, the un-politically aware, and the greedy section of our society.

The bankers caused all the problems we now face because they handed themselves large bonuses? Oh please Polly, give us a break. Do some figures -add up the trillions we are now in debt for and then come back and show us some figures to support your dribble about the bankers.

The saying goes that you can fool some of the people some of the time - but Polly - you are fooling no one!

[dorsetdumpling]

Polly Toynbee has only one track to run on.....bash capitalism. The needle is stuck in the same old groove....you won't budge her.

[Ultimo Tiger]

How has Neoliberalism had it's day?

[David Sergeant]

Polly came across far better, mostly because she knows people want to believe. Isaby came across totally out of his depths, all he needed to do was ask what Polly thinks should be done instead of throwing hysterical generalities about. So, e.g. if she complains about more bank regulation Isaby could point out that amateur, indeed corrupt, government bunggled it and the Tories are putting it right.

The Right seems to pick spokesmen based on personal freindships rather than an ability to get a message across.

[martin sewell]

Does Polly T really think that poor people have not become better off in recent years?
I have been in many poor people's homes and the consumer durables that are routinely to be found there were beyond the dreams of avarice of my grandfather when he was a poor man in the 1930's

[Ricardo's Ghost]

Toynbee kicked Isaby from pillar to post I'm afraid. Saying the protesters should go and get a job was particularly crass and stupid.

I wonder if this means that the TPA are going to come out with some recommendations for new regulations of the financial sector. I shan't be holding my breath mind...

[martin sewell]

PS Jonathan ought to have suggested the mob occupied the Guardian's offices for its own tax avoidance!

[Dolly]

All we ever hear is bankers bankers bankers. Yes the banks were bailed out (by a Labour government), but the taxpayer now owns them, and they will be sold off when they have returned to profit, hopefully netting a tidy profit for the taxpayer. The debts and deficit built up by the Labour government over thirteen years will not be paid off so easily.

Polly Toynbee was the cheerleader in chief of that government. She bears a heavy personal responsibility for the state we are now in.

[Sheumais]

Whilst Toynbee appears to have been given the media training to keep talking in an effort to prevent an opponent from making any points, all that really happened was her jaw flapped and some noise spilled out. At one stage she appeared to be becoming close to grinding to a halt as she couldn't conjure up yet another vacuous remark. It's a shame such nonsense is aired on a news programme striving for credibility.

Graduates will struggle to find jobs as they are not enhancing their prospects by having that degree in the first place. That issue was founded in thoughtless expansion of universities in the 1990s, later compounded by Blair's administration. Youth unemployment is high because those who were paid to remain in school rather than register for benefits have now registered, either by choice or necessity, just as the number placed on the disability register to reduce unemployment figures has been addressed. There are jobs out there, but the British workforce doesn't possess the skills to compete for too many of them, as the last government was told, long before the financial crisis erupted.

Blaming our financial ills on banks is lazy and ignorant and the Tax Payers Alliance might consider being a little more forceful in conveying that message in future.

[live sky]

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