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Posted by: Common Sense 1st October 2016, 07:43 AM

The Chancellor will apparently announce this week in his Tory conference speech that people on Full Support ESA with severe illnesses that aren't likely to improve or will get progressively worse, won't be re-assessed as often. The example given was autism and people severely mentally ill but hope it applies to people like me who have had depression for 30+ years. Should also apply to terminally ill cancer patients as they won't get any better obviously. I've not been assessed for over 3 years now and didn't even have an Atos meeting last time. Corbyn said this week that he'd do away with the esa assessments if they got in to power but this doesn't go so far. Many people will still be regularly asessed.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 1st October 2016, 11:02 AM

I'll wait until it's announced at the party conference and has been enacted into practice before I pop open the champagne to celebrate. If one were of a cynical nature, one could potentially read into this as Theresa May's attempt to gain some positive headlines for her government before announcing a snap election in the new year to exploit Labour's internal issues, but I think if that were the case, we'd have heard more rumblings by now.

Posted by: Common Sense 1st October 2016, 02:01 PM

She can't just "announce" a snap election! She has to either change the fixed term parliament legislation or the Tories initiate a no confidence vote in their own government. My betting is that she'll wait until the boundary changes come in and then it'll be nearly 2020 so I think the parliament will run it's full term.

Posted by: Suedehead2 1st October 2016, 03:35 PM

Or she can win a two-thirds vote in the Commons for an early dissolution. If Labour support it, the vote will be won with ease. The Telegraph are running a story predicting a Tory majority of around 60 in an early election. Labour could consider that to be acceptable if it means they can get rid of Corbyn and hope to deprive the Tories of a majority in 2022.

Posted by: Qassändra 1st October 2016, 03:57 PM

Said Labour backbenchers will be in for a very nasty surprise if they genuinely think the party will only lose twelve seats. Labour's support is up in inner city stronghold seats and they're down in the polls overall. I guess there's an outside chance the difference will be made up entirely in Labour support going down in Tory strongholds but somehow I suspect that's not on the cards.

Posted by: Suedehead2 1st October 2016, 04:31 PM

Where do you get twelve from? A Tory majority of 60 means Labour will lose around twice that figure, unless you envisage the Tories winning several seats from the SNP.

Posted by: Danny 1st October 2016, 05:48 PM

This is flatly contradicted by the local elections, where they were up compared to 2015 by considerably more in the marginals than nationally.

In particular, on current polls, they'd probably fall quite a bit in some of the "traditional" Leave-voting seats (their poll ratings with "C2DE" voters are about the same or sometimes even worse than with middle-class voters), but with the opposition too split between the Tories and UKIP for them to actually lose many of the seats - thus making the Labour vote more "efficient". They physically *can't* climb much more in the inner cities since they already climbed so near to the ceiling in 2015 (how are they going to improve on 80% in Liverpool Walton or East Ham, for example?).

Posted by: Danny 1st October 2016, 05:54 PM

On topic, Theresa May is proving to be a vast improvement on Cameron/Osborne. I always found it baffling that Osborne was considered by the clueless pundits as "centre ground", when in terms of welfare he was far more cruel than Thatcher ever was. May seems atleast a bit more genuinely concerned about poorer people.

Posted by: Qassändra 1st October 2016, 06:15 PM

Correction - 17, not 12. The http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/01/exclusive-tories-call-for-early-general-election-as-polls-show-t has the Tories gaining 16, Labour losing 17, the SNP losing 1, the Lib Dems gaining 1 and Others gaining 1 (UKIP?).

Though that said, 346 seats plus the Speaker would be a majority of 43, so I'm not sure where they're getting 62 from.

Posted by: Qassändra 1st October 2016, 06:18 PM

Bristol and anywhere in North London with a Green vote worth writing home about will probably see a Corbyn bonus. In any case, in a snap election in the next six months I think it's extremely unlikely the Tories will be on 30% of the vote.

Posted by: Qassändra 1st October 2016, 06:20 PM

Give with one hand, take with the other. If grammar schools come back en masse it would do more to harm the less well-off than anything Thatcher or Osborne ever did.

Posted by: Danny 1st October 2016, 06:34 PM

They won't be as low as that, but it's fair to assume the rise in their support from this year's locals will be roughly proportionally the same. After all, virtually all the big trends in the 2015 general election were foreshadowed by the European elections a year earlier (HUGE swings to Labour in the big cities especially in London/Manchester/Liverpool, far smaller swings in most of the marginal small-town territory, a significant swing from the Lib Dems to the Tories in the marginal-heavy South West) - though the exception is that the big Scottish swing wasn't foreshadowed.




Although I'm not sure whether grammar schools will help that much, they're not going to actively harm poor people in the same way as snatching away the very few crumbs that welfare claimants have. Not getting the chance to go to the best school in town is nowhere near as bad as not getting decent food on the table.

Posted by: Qassändra 1st October 2016, 06:44 PM

It's an depth/breadth comparison. The whole reason secondary moderns were so unpopular towards the end of the grammar system was because so many were cut off and sent to substandard schools. It wasn't so much a case of not going to the best school in town as the ones who didn't get into the two or three good schools in town getting sent to actively poor schools. It's something that means plenty who don't get decent food on the table now will lose one of the main lifelines that allows them to ever get decent food on the table.

Posted by: popchartfreak 3rd October 2016, 12:35 PM

Tories have slways had compassion...

Compassion for wealthy bankers, for poor rich people having to stick their stash out of the country, for encouraging the best jobs go to offspring of the rich and powerful, for rich goreign businessmen wanting control of and interfering in domestic affairs.

I could go on, of course, but reigning in the cynicism im sure the promises to boost housing will be as successful as the last 4 governments assurances, im sure the funds to academies will match grammar schools, im convinced uk industry will get a boost from all those foreign countries lining up to buy our goods, and thus create a lovely neat circle for the failed grammar school kids to get training for industry which will allow them yo buy the new houses and stay off benefits.

I have nothing yo back that view up other than what theyve announced, but i trust tories implicitly to fo what they say they will do.

Pemwiv

Posted by: Suedehead2 3rd October 2016, 12:40 PM

Ah, but the Tories have a plan. Take that nice Mr Hunt as an example. He has stated that it won't be a problem if all those nasty foreign doctors leave after we've quit the EU, because they will be replaced by British doctors. Just try not to think too carefully about where those trained British doctors will come from given that training takes several years. We wouldn't want to confuse Hunt by bothering him with minor details like that.

Posted by: popchartfreak 3rd October 2016, 08:58 PM

given that the nice British doctors prefer nicer salaries and less hours which they can get elsewhere, that plan has the usual Tory logic in it. A bit like that lovely plan to sell off council housing half price to boost the housing market to keep the banks afloat at tax payer expense (again) which is failing to replace them at the rate they are being sold off nationally.

Tories: crap at theory, crap in practise, crap with logic, excellent at being economical with the truth, decades of experience.....

Posted by: Common Sense 4th October 2016, 04:39 PM

Back on topic, the Work and Pensions Secretary confirmed today at the conference that people with the most serious illnesses or people who's condition can only get worse won't be continually assessed. Hope this applies to life-long depression.

Posted by: popchartfreak 4th October 2016, 06:53 PM

...and yet more compassion from Teresa May who has gracefully decided to allow doctors who have been saving our lives for decades to stay in the country until some British (eg white, by inference) are trained up. Repeating what Suedey points out Hunt said.

Don't know about anyone else but I would MUCH rather be operated on by an experienced foreign doctor than a young fresh new white British doctor. maybe it's just me, but comes over as a bit racist, a bit ungrateful, a bit simple-minded (the qualified doctors will all bugger off to better paid jobs elsewhere anyway after a decade or so). There are course plenty of well-paid white doctors in the private sector in the UK, not overworked, the private hospitals are calm, well-staffed, subsidised by the NHS who can't cope - yes I've seen them, been in them, they are terrific, and as long as rich powerful people have them on call the NHS will continue to be seen as a nuisance needlessly keeping drains on society (ie poor people, old people, ill people) alive.

Very compassionate Mrs May, who sounds like a Hunt it would seem.

Posted by: Suedehead2 4th October 2016, 09:04 PM

Indeed. Note how Hunt has threatened to fine doctors who go abroad, but doesn't seem to have said anything about doctors who use their training to go straight into private practice. Equally, he seems to have forgotten to suggest that governments which have paid to train doctors who have found a job in the UK might also want "their money back". Funny that.

Posted by: Common Sense 5th October 2016, 03:56 PM

Brilliant speech from May today. She's looking at a landslide similar to 1997 at the election in 2020.

Posted by: PeaceMob 5th October 2016, 05:05 PM

^
I agree, finally we might just have a Prime Minister that listens to the ordinary people, Theresa May looking at that 17.4 million voters who voted for Brexit and thinking I want some of that and if she delivers on what she says then she is going to win BIG in 2020.

Posted by: Suedehead2 5th October 2016, 05:37 PM

Oh, which bits of Mein Kampf did she use then?

Posted by: Suedehead2 5th October 2016, 11:12 PM

So, if "the ordinary people" said they wanted to double spending on the NHS, reduce VAT to 5% and abolish income tax, should the government go ahead and do it?

Posted by: Soy Adrián 6th October 2016, 07:39 AM

Well they're adopting the rest of the UKIP manifesto, so may as well.

Posted by: PeaceMob 6th October 2016, 08:01 AM

I was talking about immigration which is probably the number one issue for British people today, for example ordinary people want full control over our borders, proper vetting for anyone that migrates to the UK, and the exploitative cheap labour which undercuts jobs for British people to be seriously dealt with by the government. Theresa May has talked about all of these things and more and if she delivers then I'm sure a heck of a lot of people will vote for her.

And do tell me Suedehead2 where exactly this quote could be found in Mein Kampf:

Quote from Theresa May's speech yesterday

Posted by: Qassändra 6th October 2016, 09:42 AM

Let's see how happy everyone is having immigration policy as their number one issue once we're out of the Single Market, with all the extra charges that entails.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 6th October 2016, 09:46 AM

Many people at the top of this government have got used over the last six years to making economic figures say what they want them to and covering up the particularly damning ones. It'll be a challenge to keep that up once we're out of the Single Market, but I'm sure they'll give it a go.

Posted by: Qassändra 6th October 2016, 09:55 AM

It's quite difficult to cover up the price of someone's shopping basket going up by about 15% and the economic consequences of being subject to WTO tariffs, to say the least.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 6th October 2016, 10:01 AM

This is true. There was a good Stephen Bush article the other day about how it's likely that immigrants and minorities will still end up being blamed for the inevitable economic consequences.

Posted by: Qassändra 6th October 2016, 10:15 AM

Start the countdown for 'it's the fault of Remain voters for talking down the economy'.

Posted by: Silas 6th October 2016, 12:15 PM

!!!


I've been trying to catch up on some of the stuff i've missed while being on holiday and the Third Reich was certainly what came to mind. f***ing frightful woman.

Posted by: popchartfreak 6th October 2016, 04:15 PM

Her speech was just meaningless drivel with handy populist phrases designed to appeal to people who fall for that sort of thing. She's trying to grab the ukip voter now they are all up for grabs.
All pms make vague speeches and generally fail to deliver even the vaguest approximation of what their vague speeches delivered. For a start bankers are already campaigning not be part of the halt on immigrants and free Labour movement. Tories will do their utmost to give them special treatment while hammering lower paid immigrants so UK born benefit people can be forced to do the shifty jobs they are willing to take on.

Grammar schools? Hammer the poor. Build houses? Heard that every 5 year's. Infrastructure? Be specific. What where when.

Just words. Going to be too busy trying to limit brexit damage.

Personally I lobe the metropolitan liberal attitudes. Small minded little Englanders can pies off back yo the 19th century where they belong. If only time travel existed then they could see for themselves what being English means - note not Scottish Welsh or Irish.

Posted by: Danny 6th October 2016, 06:37 PM

The people who are now saying leaving "the Single Market" will be a disaster are largely the same people who said there would be an immediate economic shock and market crash straight in the aftermath of a Brexit vote, even before the formal process started. Not to mention they were talking about "extra charges" and "increases at the checkout" if we stayed out of the Euro all those years ago.

**

Anywho, allowing myself to get steadily more optimistic about May. I did fear at first her talk about being for the ordinary person and finally ending big business fatcats' destructive hold on our economy was just the type of bullshit that Cameron and Osborne spun, but the fact she's saying it so often, and starting to back it up with some concrete policies, presumably means she really is serious. If the Labour "centrists" had any self-awareness, they'd be questioning why a Tory PM is coming out with a more left-wing agenda than the manifesto they forced on Labour at the last election -- but no doubt they'll continue to avoid that kind of self-analysis and just carry on whining about Corbyn not being on course to win all 650 seats at the next election, or something.

Posted by: Suedehead2 6th October 2016, 06:59 PM

One of the reasons the market hasn't crashed is because the value of the pound has plummeted instead. As for the economy in general, the Bank of England have spent a cool £70bn making sure it remains reasonably stable. They have also been forced into a cut in interest rates to steady the ship.

Posted by: Kath 6th October 2016, 07:03 PM

Can't stand the woman. She's just as bad as every other Conservative leader. So much for people 'having more control over their lives' when her government has overturned Lancashire County Council's decision to block Fracking.

Posted by: Addy K!ng 6th October 2016, 07:11 PM

Kath!!!

Posted by: popchartfreak 6th October 2016, 07:45 PM

yay Kath! and ditto...

as for the "remoaners" doomladen prophecies, as Suedey says, things pretty much have already plummeted and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED YET!!!! This is without invoking article 50, without any country agreeing to any trade deals (or more likely not for 3 years and more). The City Of London banking is a crisis in waiting depending on what the EU decides to do (NOT the UK government), that's the biggest UK earner. Never mind all the British goods that may or may not have an actual market in 5 years time....

Posted by: PeaceMob 6th October 2016, 10:25 PM

The UK has the fastest growing economy in 2016 out of the G7 countries and that includes after the country decided to leave the EU, so when liberal loonies say things has plummeted in the UK because of Brexit, what exactly are you seeing?

Posted by: Qassändra 6th October 2016, 10:30 PM

Yes, there was an immediate economic shock and market crash. The main reason you didn't feel it was because the Bank of England immediately put in the largest wave of quantitative easing in British history and pumped £70bn into the economy. That we haven't had a sudden massive spike in inflation despite that massive stimulus to the economy is the giveaway of how much of an economic shock the vote to leave was.

What you're saying is the equivalent of crashing the car and going "see, I told you that was fine!" because the airbags deployed. The part where we start driving again and notice the car isn't working quite like it was before isn't too far off. When retailers' hedging contracts (i.e. fixed agreements to buy foreign goods at a certain price for a 12 month period so they don't get hit by short-term price shocks and have the chance to anticipate any longer-term price changes) expire in January, we're in for a very nasty shock if the pound is still trading at 15% less than it was pre-referendum - as it has done consistently for the last few months.


Well no, not quite. The argument for joining a common currency for the efficiency of avoiding currency conversion charges isn't an argument that there will be "extra charges" if you stay out of the currency - it's an argument that charges that are currently already paid to convert currency would no longer exist. It's also a pretty poor argument for changing currency if that's the only benefit you can point to, as it's a tiny benefit when compared with the far bigger economic effects of being in a monetary union but not a fiscal one, or entering monetary union with a lot of different nations on different economic cycles. Hence why it didn't really fly in the end.

Additionally, the Venn diagram of people who think leaving the Single Market will have pretty calamitous economic effects and those who insisted our economy would be wrecked if we didn't join the euro is...very much not a circle. You'll notice Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were not in favour of joining the euro in the end and are similarly not in favour of us leaving the Single Market. Similarly, half of the Leave campaign spent the referendum arguing we could leave the EU but stay in the Single Market. They weren't doing that for their health.

We're not talking about hypotheticals here - we know exactly how much extra WTO export tariffs will cost when trading with Single Market members if we leave. Having to pay extra for the exact same product you were buying before (which is now also at a price disadvantage to competitors in the Single Market) has big knock-on effects, to put it lightly.


Nixon/China.


Also, there's a reason they're calling her Mayliband. It isn't a 'more left-wing agenda' - it's one or two of the same policies (but not a mansion tax, nor a 50p top rate, nor a cap on energy prices...) mixed in with a platform of taking us out of a trade zone so we can reduce immigration to a trickle. Additional spending is also given tremendous leeway by the fact we've just had a big economic shock. It's no great mystery why they trust the Tories to turn on the spending taps at a time like this but not Labour - the Tories didn't spend the last six years looking like they were champing at the bit to start increasing spending massively, regardless of whether the economic climate was good or not.

Posted by: Silas 6th October 2016, 10:34 PM

Not that you appear to let facts get in your way, but that only includes 6 days of the Brexit aftermath. Q3 statistics are unsurprisingly (given it only ended a week ago) yet to be released and they hold a better picture of any impact the vote will have had.

Also, if the Steling swan-diving to a 31 year low in June and then going lower again this past week, causing us once more to slip behind France in the ranking of Global economies, while staying at a exceedingly low rate for the past quarter isn't plummeting then what is?


edit - this is aimed at that peace mob creature, not you tyron. Although you probably gathered that given that you have a functioning brain.

Posted by: Silas 6th October 2016, 10:41 PM

I have crunched numbers on this, as an Accountant, and the cost to business is frightful. Many businesses are very concerned about the tariffs and the cashflow impact this will have.

Going for a hard BrExit, which is not what this country voted for (not that the bigotted moronic 52% had a f***ing clue what they were voting for beyond some w*** about control and a humongous lie about £350m that doesn't exist and the NHS), will see thousands of firms go bankrupt under the strain of having to pay tariffs.


Even if we get a good deal of below the WTO rates we're in for billions of revenues going on tariffs and a hoard of bankruptcies.

Posted by: Qassändra 6th October 2016, 10:51 PM

Exactly. Plenty of small firms are operating on narrow profit margins. When you suddenly have to pay 8 percent extra to access the same market you relied on for your revenues before, that only ends in job losses or price increases - or bankruptcy, if you're now resoundingly outcompeted by another firm doing what you do cheaper from another Single Market country.

The reason Theresa May is terrifying is because most other leaders would look at that and see what could be done instead to stay in the market but work to alleviate any negative side-effects of immigration. Theresa May has made clamping immigration down to a trickle (because let's be real - you don't make *that* much of an economic sacrifice just to get the option to control immigration) the ultimate aim here, regardless of the economic consequences.

The upside is that we've got about two years' warning that this is her aim. I really don't want to be a siren voice here, but if anyone is genuinely not sure if they would be secure enough to withstand another recession on a par with the crash - or worse - I'd advise saving now to move to another country for the year or two of the storm after we leave.

Posted by: Qassändra 6th October 2016, 10:55 PM

One of my company's clients deals with big data for financial services firms. The second we lose financial services passporting across the Single Market...well, that 10% of UK tax revenues from the City was nice while it lasted.

Posted by: Danny 6th October 2016, 11:07 PM

When did Miliband regularly talk about "curbing excessive pay in the private sector", and regularly talk in as blunt terms about "corporate irresponsibility"? Hell, even with the workers in boardrooms thing, Miliband was barely mentioning that by the end, Chuka Umunna (who would've been responsible in this area) certainly wasn't talking about it, and I really don't see that it would've happened if Labour had won last year.



And the problem is? Maybe then, to fill the hole, maybe politicians will be forced to build a different economic model, one which isn't just geared towards the international mega-rich and a tiny sliver of the British upper-middle-class.

Posted by: Qassändra 6th October 2016, 11:33 PM

The 2015 manifesto:
The reason it was barely mentioned is because neither are exactly the kind of policy that shifts many votes. Or really get much attention when it isn't someone from Labour saying it. I mean, I know you're fond of the meme that Ed Miliband was too terrified to do anything because of the press (despite being the only opposition leader until that point to directly attack Murdoch's interests), but in the event of a Labour government they probably would've done, y'know, maybe at least ONE OR TWO things to justify a Labour government, if only because if Ed Miliband really wanted an easy life as an Opposition leader he probably would've given the whole 'saying anything at all that pissed off the papers' thing a miss. I'm not really sure why you think they wouldn't have done the free measure of mandating workers on boards.


The problem is you lose the best part of £66bn in tax revenues a year for the foreseeable. I presume you quite like the idea of a 60 percent top rate of tax? That would generate one twentieth that amount. Assuming there were no knock-on effects on the economy (which is a generous assumption, to say the least), it's the equivalent of raising everyone's taxes by 12p in the pound. Or closing two thirds of the UK's schools.

Building a different economic model that gives you the same huge tax revenues from one world-leading sector is...easier said than done. It's like setting fire to your Ferrari and saying 'well, this will encourage me to build my own railway!'. You're starting from scratch with a massive building task to create a new sector that will definitely already have a few long-established world leaders. Just getting rid of one globally influential sector doesn't give you a headstart in making a new one. It just means a long time with less tax revenue (which also means less tax revenue to invest in any new sector development), waiting in the hope you eventually get a replacement.

(Oh, and you're also attempting to do this during a period of huge economic turmoil after you've just left the Single Market, aren't getting loads of skilled labour in from immigration because you've just made a decision to reduce it to a minimum, etcetcetc)

Posted by: Danny 6th October 2016, 11:56 PM

Because it would've provoked the usual squealing from the Tories, the press, the CBI, Blair and Mandelson, about how it was "anti-business" and would "destroy the economy". Before you know it, Ed Balls and Chuka Umunna would've been demanding a U-turn, and Miliband would've caved in within about a week.

(Also, the idea that Miliband was "brave" in taking on Murdoch is nonsense -- for the first year he was leader, he sucked up to them endlessly and didn't say anything about the phone-hacking scandal, he only spoke out after the Milly Dowler story broke when he thought it was a sure thing that Murdoch was finished in Britain, and then when it turned out that Murdoch was staying, Miliband as usual caved in and http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/304/media/images/75506000/jpg/_75506566_022667108-1.jpg.)

Posted by: Qassändra 7th October 2016, 04:10 AM

You're doing that thing where you go off into a rabbit hole of ludicrous caricature again. Mandelson as Business Secretary took inspiration from Germany all the time - why would he come out and say something commonplace in Germany would "destroy the economy"? Why would Chuka Umunna, who proposed it as Shadow Business Secretary, demand a u-turn on a policy he drove forward? Why would literally any Labour MP (all of whom have to be members of at least one trades union) claim the concept of workers having mere *representation* on a board would in any way stop business from working or destroy the economy?

Also...why exactly do you think Ed Miliband would go through the emotional trauma of shattering a relationship with his brother, finally make it into government by taking the long way around and trying to be more left-wing than a straight-forward Blairite approach (which if he really wanted to he could have done easily from the start), and then do literally nothing left-wing in government? What exactly do you think he wanted to get there for?!

Miliband's actions blocked Murdoch's purchase of BSkyB and led to the Leveson Charter - hardly sucking up.

Posted by: PeaceMob 7th October 2016, 07:47 AM

The pound sterling has been overvalued for years so it was overdue that it would drop so much, of course anyone with the slightest idea about economics would know that. And if you weren't so doom and gloom, you'd know that so far in Q3 2016 all sectors of the British economy is looking good, services is up, construction is up, manufacturing is up.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 7th October 2016, 08:07 AM

...Craig?

Posted by: Qassändra 7th October 2016, 11:09 AM

OMG IT IS

Posted by: Qassändra 7th October 2016, 11:14 AM

Traders sold the pound en masse because we voted to do something that is awful for our economic prospects and will almost certainly leave us trading on unfavourable terms with our biggest economic bloc partner. They didn't sell the pound as part of a considered adjustment that they'd been overestimating how strong the UK's economic fundamentals are on a day-to-day basis.

Posted by: popchartfreak 7th October 2016, 12:01 PM

Agreeing with all Qassandra and Silas are saying here.

Countries, on the topic of overvalued currency, who have currency declining find imports of raw materials and foreign goods increasing, that includes all the cheap Lidl and co, clothes, oil going up. So everyone has less money to spend on British goods, so British firms get hit hard.

The notion that May will hit her fellow megarich Tories and the press barons and have any power over what private companies pay their directors is laughable. Just words. Cut their own economic throats for the benfit of poor people? Not in a million f***ing years. Those in charge of important gov roles have million stashed away in offshore accounts, like they will do ANYTHING to change that!! Only a fool would think it's anything other than a soundbyte.

Housing? A million homes on 2 billion pounds? Err what sort of homes? Council Housing? Flats? Where? Who's building them? In case anyone hadnt noticed their aren't enough British builders to build that many houses. That means getting some Polish and other foreign skilled workers into the country. Who'd want to come here not knowing whether they would get kicked out an any time? I also make with my shoddy maths re house building that they intend building houses at 2,000 pounds per house, which is really economical. 2 billion divided by 1 million? I'll have half a dozen please!

The banks have power. We are still supporting British banks financially (and mortgage stretched people paying little out compared to what they should be paying) savings get less and less as the pound drops, so there will be a permanently poor underclass. Foreign banks will insist on passporting deals. If they dont get it they will move. British economy will collapse. Think things are tough now? They will be MUCH worse.

All these things are entirely logical and predictable. To make bland statements about all being fine is like the whale in hitchikers falling to earth humming to itself, thinking the ground rushing up towards it is a friend.

Splat!

Posted by: Taylor Jago 7th October 2016, 04:28 PM

To anyone saying this country hasn't plummeted, the UK economy fell behind France's within minutes of the result being announced. And I know this since one of my friends was happy about Brexit for that reason.

Posted by: Danny 7th October 2016, 07:14 PM

Oh come on, you must be allowing yourself serious selective amnesia about the 2010-15 period. These people were all squealing in horror just at the suggestion of rich people having to pay a bit more tax, or the suggestion that energy companies should drop their prices --- you really think they would've been sanguine about the idea of a Labour government letting workers overrule their bosses (the so-called "wealth creators"), giving the average employee pay rises, and capping the pay packets of the top guns? You really think that wouldn't've provoked the usual round of taunts about how it was "Marxist", "anti-business", "anti-aspiration", "a recipe for unproductivity", "scaring the wealth creators overseas"? And you really think Miliband wouldn't've caved in, despite having a record of ALWAYS doing so whenever he was faced with those kind of attacks?





Yes, in the brief period where it seemed like Murdoch was toast in the midst of the huge public uproar at Milly Dowler's phone being hacked, so Miliband thought he could safely jump on the bandwagon without any risks. Yet both before and after that period, when it was obvious Miliband would actually have something to lose by standing up and saying something, his backbone was MIA as usual.

Posted by: Qassändra 8th October 2016, 01:03 AM

Mmm. Squealing so much in horror they proceeded to put those policies in their manifesto. When your definition of 'they retreated and caved in on the policy' seems to be 'they stopped mentioning it in every TV clip', does any Opposition policy exist at all after three months?

Posted by: popchartfreak 8th October 2016, 12:08 PM

I'm a little confused on Corbyn Labour's policies right now. Given there could be a Gen Election at any time, in theory, just what is Labour Party Policy on important topics?

1) The EU. He stated the day after the referendum he wanted to trigger Art 50 immediately, but hasn't given any clearer idea what he would now be doing about it, or intends to do about it, other than he supports it. No actual details?

2) Council Housing building - fab idea. How many? How's he paying for it? Council's are decimated and have no cash. Where is he going to build the housing, what areas, what land, how's he going to tackle NIMBYism? Where are the skilled builders coming from?

3) Trident: is this or isn't this official Labour policy?

4) Indie Scotland?

5) Explain how a nationalised railway industry is going to guarantee seats for everyone during busy periods - just back from Spain, fab, cheap railway network, but to say it's packed in the rush hour is to understate a bit, and they have double-decker trains. I saw some people choosing to sit on the floor (skateboarder, frinstance) despite many vacant seats. That makes Jezza cool I guess. The taxpayer will of course pay for the railway network (which I'm not against) but how is this going to be costed? more tax on the lower paid, or higher paid, or both?

6) NHS support. Issue of foreign doctors and staff. Can they stay? Where's money coming from to stop cuts? More borrowing? More tax?

Ta....

Posted by: Doctor Blind 8th October 2016, 12:41 PM

I thought that this was a thread about the Tories having some compassion...

Which after the overturning of Lancashire council's democratic decision to ban fracking seems to be ROLLING MERRILY ALONG as per.

He seems to have about as much of a clue about how the EU works as the three dopey stooges from government currently in charge of negotiations on behalf of the UK, i.e. 'fuck all'. He is ‘pressing for full access to the European single market’ but like the Tories doesn't seem to want to accept all of the conditions adding ‘There are directives and obligations linked to the single market, such as state aid rules and requirements to liberalise and privatise public services, which we would not want to see as part of a post-Brexit relationship’, which matches the Tories and their ‘but we don’t want free movement of people’ having-their-cake-and-eating-it mantra.



Agreed, it is a good idea. Paying for it will be achieved by removing the artificial local borrowing cap to allow councils to borrow against their housing stock. That single measure alone would allow them to build an extra 12,000 council homes a year. NIMBYism can be tackled by providing more investment in local services, transport and jobs - plenty of places to build in the UK!



It is official Labour policy, whether Jeremy likes it or not.



Yes.



2 words: SOUTHERN RAIL.



Would suggest reading this for more: http://www.jeremyforlabour.com/policies

Posted by: Soy Adrián 8th October 2016, 01:42 PM

It's quite telling that he came up with more policy initiatives in a two month leadership campaign than he did in the previous nine months as party leader.

Anyhow, back on topic. Sajid Javid being at DCLG made the fracking somewhat inevitable.

Eager not to be outdone, his planning minister Gavin Barwell the other day suggested that the problem with the housing crisis is that developers aren't building units small enough for millennials to live in.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 8th October 2016, 03:10 PM

Yes I saw that, despite the fact that we already build the smallest houses in Europe!

What with Cherie Blair representing landlords against the governments forthcoming 2017 change to taxation which takes away the ability of higher and additional-rate taxpaying landlords to deduct their mortgage interest from their rental income before calculating their tax bill, they really are trying to do everything they can to keep house prices high!

Good luck with that when we leave the EU.