General Election 2017

[WonderingSoton]

Tory response to Labour manifesto - Where is the money coming from?

Leaver response to Remainer worries about leaving the EU - We're the FIFTH richest economy in the WORLD! We'll be totally fine!

If you are a Tory and a Leaver, which is it? You can't have both. Either the money IS there to implement to Labour manifesto, OR we are economically ****ed by leaving the EU.

Saying we can't afford these things when plenty of European countries with smaller economies yet much greater life satisfaction can....the maths doesn't quite add up, does it?

You're comparing apples and oranges

We're the 3rd largest contributor to the EU budget, paying far more than many of your happiness index European nations contribute. Maybe when we cease that we'll have more money for Corbynisims?

We're also the 2nd largest donor of foreign aid in the world second only to the USA, spending as much on aid as we spend on Wales believe it or not. And the UK is in the top half dozen military spenders in the world, spending 2% of GDP which few other nations do. Expenditure not applicable to many of the nations you'd cite.

 

[Surf's Up]

No news here - there isnt a political party in this country that is fit for purpose any more - They are all bound by their largely redundant and often irrelevant political philosophies with the left being in a bigger mess than the right thus paving the way for the right to stay in power for the forseeable future on the basis of an increasingly lower and lower share of the vote by a disinterested, shrinking and disenfranchised active electorate. Truly depressing.

 

[Mellotron]

You're comparing apples and oranges

We're the 3rd largest contributor to the EU budget, paying far more than many of your happiness index European nations contribute. Maybe when we cease that we'll have more money for Corbynisims?

We're also the 2nd largest donor of foreign aid in the world second only to the USA, spending as much on aid as we spend on Wales believe it or not. And the UK is in the top half dozen military spenders in the world, spending 2% of GDP which few other nations do. Expenditure not applicable to many of the nations you'd cite.

I agree that our military budget could come down MASSIVELY. So, as you say, the money is absolutely there. Glad we're agreed on that.

 

[Bold Seagull]

£350m a week?

Genius. No tax rises needed as we know this is coming our way shortly.

 

[beorhthelm]

Government control, markets and banks have nothing to do with Socialism. Go back to basics - common ownership, not state ownership.

an awful lot of socialist would disagree with you. why the desire to redefine socialism? its almost like its recognised for the flaws it has, yet politicians claim to be socialist, so lets change what they mean.

 

[Bodian]

Why do they get a VAT exemption? Those poor private school guys, they need all the help they can get!

When this first came out there was a fascinating interview with a lady whose children were at private school. She was wibbling on that it was already hard to manage, and that if VAT exemption was removed, then to continue sending her children to private school would mean things like 'both us parents would have to work' and 'fewer overseas holidays', and so on.

 

[BigGully]

Genius. No tax rises needed as we know this is coming our way shortly.

Why do you keep throwing this about as if we are not a net contributor of £Billions per year ?

If we do not then pay it, it then becomes an immediate saving, we are a net contributor of about £140 odd million a week, why would you not deem that as a serious amount of money and not worth some serious consideration.

By all means wrap it up as a worthwhile cost to gain preference to the EU single market or other if you want, but what is it with the political left and your total ambivalence to money and costs.

 

[Guinness Boy]

No news here - there isnt a political party in this country that is fit for purpose any more - They are all bound by their largely redundant and often irrelevant political philosophies with the left being in a bigger mess than the right thus paving the way for the right to stay in power for the forseeable future on the basis of an increasingly lower and lower share of the vote by a disinterested, shrinking and disenfranchised active electorate. Truly depressing.

Yep

 

[peterward]

Nonsense, more tax does not always equal more revenue, it stifles business, slows growth, and the super rich with their clever tax accountants will either avoid it somehow or simply bugger off. 40% of something is more than 60% of nothing. Lower taxes bring in more to the exchequer by fuelling spending and encouraging business, which in turn provides employment, reducing unemployed benefits bill . France is the perfect example if any is needed of another failed socialist state. Socialist policies are good, it's the funding of them that is damaging. High tax high borrowing shuts down growth and is self defeating. Free tuition fees, great idea.... How you paying for it? Debt, high tax, that's foolish and does more damage than good.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Why do you keep throwing this about as if we are not a net contributor of £Billions per year ?

If we do not then pay it, it then becomes an immediate saving, we are a net contributor of about £140 odd million a week, why would you not deem that as a serious amount of money and not worth some serious consideration.

By all means wrap it up as a worthwhile cost to gain preference to the EU single market or other if you want, but what is it with the political left and your total ambivalence to money and costs.

Or yours to justifying lies.

 

[GJN1]

It would (will) astonish me that anyone living in Brighton would think the bringing the railways back in to public ownership isn't a good idea.

Precisely. Show me the rail franchises and energy companies (most of which have foreign governments as major shareholders) that are doing a decent job and then tell me how much worse it will be if they're taken back under state ownership...

 

[GJN1]

Watch this and tell me it's not worth having another go at running the trains ourselves...

 

[Lower West Stander]

Loving this thread.

Listening to the idealistic rantings of Corbyn supporters is such good fun........

I'm guessing they winning isn't important as long as they develop an anarcho syndicalist commune where the mandate is derived from the masses...

Oh hang on - that's Monty Python.....

 

[Buzzer]

Government control, markets and banks have nothing to do with Socialism. Go back to basics - common ownership, not state ownership. Production for use, not profit. Free access to goods, no currency, no exchange, no borders, no nations. Etc, etc. I'm sure you've heard it all before, so I'm not going into a long definition. Obviously, that's nothing like Chavez and Maduro's experiment, and I'm sure you're not really surprised when people say "that's not socialism". It's state capitalism.

I love the way that socialists argue that it isn't real socialism even though the market and money supply is clearly planned and controlled all because the means of production are owned by the people via the state rather than directly. And if it isn't socialism it must be capitalism.

All that other stuff about no currency and the withering of the state isn't socialism, it's full blown Marxism.

Capitalism needs competition and an ability to trade openly without intervention. Sorry but if you don't accept the definition of socialism based solely on the way in which workers control the means of production then there's no bloody way you can counter claim that it must therefore be some form of capitalism.

 

[Gwylan]

The strange thing about this 'far left' manifesto is that there's little in it that the centre-right German chancellor would object to.

Free university tuition? Yep, Germany has that. State-run rail? Germany has that too. Better healthcare? Germany has more doctors per head than any other country, so we'd go with that? Publicly owned energy companies to provide local competition? Well, Germany doesn't have state-owned energy but does have stricter competition rules to ensure the market's fair - not six oligopolies. A fair and flexible immigration policy? Germany has that in spades - it wants more immigration, not less.

Merkel would quibble with some of the finer points but there's nothing in there that would truly frighten her. And yet this is 'far left' ... we live in strange times

 

[BigGully]

Precisely. Show me the rail franchises and energy companies (most of which have foreign governments as major shareholders) that are doing a decent job and then tell me how much worse it will be if they're taken back under state ownership...

I do not use trains but from afar when you stand on the station platform you do not have a choice of a rail operators to take you to your destination, so I guess the positive dynamic of privatisation and choice is lost, I suspect the best option would be to get a good private company to do the job better.

As far as my electric and gas is concerned, I do have a choice of providers and switch regularly albeit to a tariff I always assume is still too high, but I am struggling to see why the energy companies should be seen as similar to the train operators.

It seems that we do not pay anywhere near the most for our electric and gas compared to other EU countries, so although I am in favour of lower bills I cannot see beyond genuine competition delivering it.

I sense you have an appetite for re-nationalisation, what else takes your fancy ??

 

[Albumen]

Efforts towards Utopia vs efforts towards Dictatorship.

That's your choice, vote away.

 

[GJN1]

I sense you have an appetite for re-nationalisation, what else takes your fancy ??

Not really. I just want things to work better.

 

[BigGully]

Not really. I just want things to work better.

Same here, but as I said the water, electric, gas seems to be pumping through to my house without a problem, would prefer it cheaper so I switch when appropriate and it seems that we are cheaper than many of our European partners, I am all for giving them a kicking but cannot see much justification for nationalisation.

 

[Machiavelli]

The strange thing about this 'far left' manifesto is that there's little in it that the centre-right German chancellor would object to.

Free university tuition? Yep, Germany has that. State-run rail? Germany has that too. Better healthcare? Germany has more doctors per head than any other country, so we'd go with that? Publicly owned energy companies to provide local competition? Well, Germany doesn't have state-owned energy but does have stricter competition rules to ensure the market's fair - not six oligopolies. A fair and flexible immigration policy? Germany has that in spades - it wants more immigration, not less.

Merkel would quibble with some of the finer points but there's nothing in there that would truly frighten her. And yet this is 'far left' ... we live in strange times

This. But it just provokes the question how anything other than the usual neoliberal mantra can be passed off as 'far left'. I do recognise that even May is departing just a little from that usual neoliberal mantra, but that's because those opinion-formers (clue: they're not 'metropolitan elites', they're 'global elites', 'provincial elites', and 'pornographer elites') are somewhat preoccupied with Brexit, and trying to shove as narrow-minded an approach to this down our throats.