o/t litter

[gm_gm]

I don't work for the council. I'm from London but live in London. My sister however works as a senior community liaison with the council and we often talk about some of the RMBC posts on here. All my family work for other public services in Rotherham and Sheffield and the stretching of public services and the impact on how well they can provide services to the public is a constant source of frustration and discussion. She can be quite critical of the council too but is fully informed and puts things into perspective.

So I assure you that I am not 'upset', I am putting an opposite point of argument to yours and others on here that are complaining about RMBC services and suggesting that whilst I agree with you that there are is some waste and some terrible decisions which you have experienced, I think it is plain unfair to say that there are substantial savings to be made so as to pay for large scale service increases in waste disposal. The overall big report I linked to yesterday discusses the councils spending decisions and rationale and the council invites both feedback on last year's spending as well as suggestions for how local people would like their money to be directed next year. Have you personally communicated with them about how you think your money should be spent?

Getting back to litter, it's good that you actively reported the fly tipping. We have similar problems here in Redbridge. However, likewise, our council are slow to act and have spoken to them on the phone about substantial waste that was left in some green land from some travelers I think. It is logged and is down on the list of environmental priorities but there is simply no one available to go out and remove it at the moment.

Interestingly you mention the fact that you now have to pay for garden waste. We had the same thing happen last spring, our council trying to claw some money back from central cuts to their funding by passing it on to us. I remember moaning to my conservative voting pal up North who retorted why should the people without gardens pay for my garden waste. I actually couldn't argue with that, and am in agreement in principle with councils extracting and directing money to the people who mainly use the services. BUT, having done this, the council then experienced meltdown at their local waste disposal site with loads of people driving their waste in and being stuck in hours worth of queues! So now they have gone back to the free service again... Good luck to RMBC on this one!

In short, I guess I come at the problem of councils providing services with a large degree of sympathy. Some obviously will be better than others and I'd love to read any articles that could be posted from posters that think any council has got it right in serving their community. Of course they should be criticised, and your experience with them is frustrating and annoying. But at the same time, others are peddling lies and untruths about the council saying things like RMBC are the only council not to recycle plastic etc, and unfounded claims that we have a greater problem with waste than other towns of similar demographic. I'm sorry but there is no evidence of this, no one can present this evidence, so I won't accept it and I will defend it.

I wish that people would direct their anger to the repeated cuts to council funding that in my opinion is the real cause of council service deterioration. You pay peanuts...

(And for the record, we Londoners have just had a CT rise with a substantial part of it directed to increasing police services in opposing the recent spike in violent crime, police presence, youth services. We have to accept this. If you want better services, you generally have to pay for them one way or another. To this effect, the government agenda is to hold down income tax (so as to keep their reputation as the party of low tax) and instead have us normals pay for services by other means - in this case, increased council tax. Sadly, for us normals, it works... We have a deterioration in services, and instead of anger against the government, it is directed against the councils...)

When Ive read most of your posts RP (pre and post snowflake comments) they are all basically the same, they all suggest you can be turned from your entrenched views..."give me the evidence and I'll change" "can you provide the links and I' will swap religions" "Im not really a full time socialist"

We have you sussed fella, and thats one fact you dont need Google for

[ragingpup]

When Ive read most of your posts RP (pre and post snowflake comments) they are all basically the same, they all suggest you can be turned from your entrenched views..."give me the evidence and I'll change" "can you provide the links and I' will swap religions" "Im not really a full time socialist"

We have you sussed fella, and thats one fact you dont need Google for

Look closely at my post: I argued with my tory voting mate up North on waste disposal and he provided an argument (why should non garden owners pay for garden waste disposal?) which totally changed my prior views on the issue. Kerr sometimes provides good enough arguments to at least slant my views as he generally backs up his arguments and is evidence based.

However, if you look back over my posts I frequently throw questions back at posters that go to the heart of their arguments and ask them to either provide more evidence or consider other evidence.

I rarely even get an attempt at a response from the vast majority on here to these questions.

Why might that be?

[gm_gm]

I argued with my tory voting mate up North on waste disposal and he provided an argument

Gotcha!

[ragingpup]

Gotcha!

Sorry - are you implying that I am hiding my labour supporting political views? I have had many debates on here totally revealing my general political party views and in these debates I generally back up my arguments with reasoned evidence from various sources. People may disagree with these arguments and sources but at least I generally try and back them up. My left leaning is no secret on here and why should it be?

Your point seemed to be that I was not willing to budge on my arguments when given evidenced arguments that contradict my own views. I provided one example with tory mate that contradicted that and gives credit to Kerr for weighing in with evidenced arguments that might not entirely change my stance but definitely inform and sway them. I like having my views challenged and I lilke amending them.

the problem is that many views on here are horribly flawed, un-evidenced and just come down to personal opinion based on just the poster's own personal experience and world view. that of course is valid but when I disagree with such views my most common input to MM threads is to question the argument and ask for evidence to back it up. I am of course aware that in many cases, there is not a hope in hell that such evidence can be produced and that the poster doesn't have the ability to back up their arguments. I like to expose such views for what they are and leave the non replying posters looking empty and vacuous to all readers that can discern.

My biggest suggestion would be for such posters to just stop posting ill informed personal opinions on football messageboards if they get upset, or in your case, try and turn the attention away from the subject and my arguments (as you clearly can't answer the argument points I've made either) when they are challenged.

I personally don't start threads spouting my own political convictions. I would advise all not to. If you don't post bollo arguments then those that are able to won't take them apart and make you (generally, not you personally I should add) look stupid and uneducated. It's that simple...

[monty_rhodes]

Sorry - are you implying that I am hiding my labour supporting political views? I have had many debates on here totally revealing my general political party views and in these debates I generally back up my arguments with reasoned evidence from various sources. People may disagree with these arguments and sources but at least I generally try and back them up. My left leaning is no secret on here and why should it be?

Your point seemed to be that I was not willing to budge on my arguments when given evidenced arguments that contradict my own views. I provided one example with tory mate that contradicted that and gives credit to Kerr for weighing in with evidenced arguments that might not entirely change my stance but definitely inform and sway them. I like having my views challenged and I lilke amending them.

the problem is that many views on here are horribly flawed, un-evidenced and just come down to personal opinion based on just the poster's own personal experience and world view. that of course is valid but when I disagree with such views my most common input to MM threads is to question the argument and ask for evidence to back it up. I am of course aware that in many cases, there is not a hope in hell that such evidence can be produced and that the poster doesn't have the ability to back up their arguments. I like to expose such views for what they are and leave the non replying posters looking empty and vacuous to all readers that can discern.

My biggest suggestion would be for such posters to just stop posting ill informed personal opinions on football messageboards if they get upset, or in your case, try and turn the attention away from the subject and my arguments (as you clearly can't answer the argument points I've made either) when they are challenged.

I personally don't start threads spouting my own political convictions. I would advise all not to. If you don't post bollo arguments then those that are able to won't take them apart and make you (generally, not you personally I should add) look stupid and uneducated. It's that simple...

I see you're back to the verbosity, raging. I also note that you and roly constantly refer to your own arguments as being "reasoned", "reasonable", evidence based and so on. I have read through a few of your posts and while they are undoubtedly pompous to an excrutiating degree I have so far failed to find a single example of what might pass for objective evidence.

[ragingpup]

I see you're back to the verbosity, raging. I also note that you and roly constantly refer to your own arguments as being "reasoned", "reasonable", evidence based and so on. I have read through a few of your posts and while they are undoubtedly pompous to an excrutiating degree I have so far failed to find a single example of what might pass for objective evidence.

Where have I claimed to produce 'objective' evidence? How can you do that in political arguments that by nature are subjective? It's not possible so why are you inferring that I have claimed to be objective?

Sorry you think I sound pompous. I think some people said the same about Kerr when he disagreed with them and provided arguments and evidence that contradicted theirs. Just cos someone provides a cohesive argument, doesn't make them pompous. You could always try and come up with a contrary argument that blows me out of the water! Instead, just snide personal abuse. Is that the best you can manage?

I'd dearly love for their to be no more political threads on MM but it seems that certain people keep starting them to try and advance their own political agendas. I certainly don't start any - I'm genuinely not interested in ramming my political views down peoples throats on a football message board. But sorry - as I said above, if someone is trying to put over what I think are flawed arguments then I will question them and as is often the case (you've obviously scrutinised my posts so you should know) the posters don't respond. I can only assume they don't because their arguments are shown to be flawed. If people don't like that, then they can always stop posting them! No one will be more pleased than me!

Sorry if that annoys you as it clearly does, but tough...

[gm_gm]

Where have I claimed to produce 'objective' evidence? How can you do that in political arguments that by nature are subjective? It's not possible so why are you inferring that I have claimed to be objective?

Sorry you think I sound pompous. I think some people said the same about Kerr when he disagreed with them and provided arguments and evidence that contradicted theirs. Just cos someone provides a cohesive argument, doesn't make them pompous. You could always try and come up with a contrary argument that blows me out of the water! Instead, just snide personal abuse. Is that the best you can manage?

I'd dearly love for their to be no more political threads on MM but it seems that certain people keep starting them to try and advance their own political agendas. I certainly don't start any - I'm genuinely not interested in ramming my political views down peoples throats on a football message board. But sorry - as I said above, if someone is trying to put over what I think are flawed arguments then I will question them and as is often the case (you've obviously scrutinised my posts so you should know) the posters don't respond. I can only assume they don't because their arguments are shown to be flawed. If people don't like that, then they can always stop posting them! No one will be more pleased than me!

Sorry if that annoys you as it clearly does, but tough...