The Politics Thread

[The Railway Man]

You have to laugh at the SNP.

 

Staying in the European Union is now so important they are preapred to call a second referendum on it, just two years after Scottish Independence was so important they were prepared to leave the European Union at any cost for it.

[Jon the Hat]

Scotland isn't going anywhere.

[Carl the Llama]

2 hours ago, MattP said:

Immigration has not delivered an economic boom, that's a lie that get's spouted so so often and now goes unchallenged, there is a case for saying EU migration over a small period has been a boost (which wouldn't surprise me given it's mainly low skilled low wage jobs) but overall immigration has been very costly to Britain, to the tune of about 114billion, almost a quarter of what the natives have cost the taxpayer despite being proportionately far smaller.

 

Yes you've said numerous times about how many people you heard bashing immigrants during the campaign, but I'm not sure it carries much leeway given you stated in your other posts you think anything who wants to control borders is a bigot who wants to keep out "Johnny Foreigner".

 

Didn't hear any of it myself around here, but I'll take your word for it that you couldn't move for these people, Cambridge must be a lot rougher and less educated than it used to be.

You do realise that if taken at face value that graph actually backs up the benefit of staying in the EU and shows we're apparently losing out to the people who we already had 100% control over the decision of letting them into the country, right?  But of course I'd quite like to see that statistic broken down and the costs explained in more detail.

[Guest MattP]

3 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

You do realise that if taken at face value that graph actually backs up the benefit of staying in the EU and shows we're apparently losing out to the people who we already had 100% control over the decision of letting them into the country, right?  But of course I'd quite like to see that statistic broken down and the costs explained in more detail.

Of course, however I don't think the stagnation of low wages and how deleterious it is to the lowest paid people in the country is a price worth paying for it.

[Carl the Llama]

6 minutes ago, MattP said:

Of course, however I don't think the stagnation of low wages and how deleterious it is to the lowest paid people in the country is a price worth paying for it.

Do you honestly think kicking out the immigrants will make wages magically rise?  The thing that people don't seem to get is that in a capitalist system like ours there will always the well-offs and the not-so-well-offs because as people earn more, prices shift maintaining - or in some cases exacerbating - that status quo, so even if that did somehow happen the people benefiting from it at the bottom would soon realise that their purchasing power is no better. Getting rid of immigrants won't change that but it will shrink the work force and make it even harder for the poor to claim essential benefits as the national purse strings get pulled ever tighter both by the decreased productivity (and therefore tax income) from businesses no longer able to find the most suitable people to fill their positions and by a shrinking, ageing population running out of straw men to blame for the growing public debt and lower quality of life for the masses.

[Webbo]

2 of the major problems with our economy are stagnant wage growth, admittedly it's improved recently, and low productivity. When there's a shortage of labour you have to either offer more money or do more with less, probably both.

 

Not being able to import foreign Labour also means you don't have to train up your own people. Free movement is good for business, not so good for the rest of us.

[Guest MattP]

10 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Do you honestly think kicking out the immigrants will make wages magically rise?  The thing that people don't seem to get is that in a capitalist system like ours there will always the well-offs and the not-so-well-offs because as people earn more, prices shift maintaining - or in some cases exacerbating - that status quo, so even if that did somehow happen the people benefiting from it at the bottom would soon realise that their purchasing power is no better. Getting rid of immigrants won't change that but it will shrink the work force and make it even harder for the poor to claim essential benefits as the national purse strings get pulled ever tighter both by the decreased productivity (and therefore tax income) from businesses no longer able to find the most suitable people to fill their positions and by a shrinking, ageing population running out of straw men to blame for the growing public debt and lower quality of life for the masses.

For the twentieth time no one is going to be "kicking out the immigrants" - I'm just going to put you on ignore if you keep resorting to this childish rhetoric to try and emphasise your points. Controlling who comes into your country is not deporting people, I can't actually believe I still have to explain this.

 

But yes of course it would, this isn't really something anyone deisputes anymore, if you have a saturated market at the lower end it means more people are prepared to take work for a menial wage, less of that means companies have to offer higher wages to get the best people and tradesman and blue collar workers won't face the undercuutting that has happened in the past. (Why you are going on about public debt I don't know, that has risen greatly over the same time as immigration from the EU had, but alas, it's nothing to do with it and the two things are not connected)

 

Even the chairman of the Remain campaign agreed, it was one of the few points in the referendum both sides were united on - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35707955

 

 

[Guest MattP]

Andrew Neil not pulling any punches on his Facebook page about Indyref2, he's supposed to be impartial isn't he employed by the BBC?

 

The case for the referendum since the failure of the last vote,

• Scottish oil revenue has fallen by 97% in just a year, going from £11 billion in 2011, to £1.8 billion in 2014/15 to a comical £60 million in 2015/16.

• Scotland's deficit has risen by £500 million in a year alone to £14.8 billion, proportionally speaking, the largest deficit in Europe.

• Despite this, public spending continues to rise so the SNP can promise 'FREE SHIT' to people. And they haven't bothered to raise taxes to balance the increase in public spending either. The Barnett Formula is sufficient.

• Scotland as an independent nation would have a deficit level comparable with GDP of 9.5%, twice the rate of the rest of the UK and worse than every EU member state, including Greece.

• Despite this, public spending continues to rise, reaching £12,800 per person in the last financial year.

• Scots on average pay £400 less tax than people living elsewhere in Britain. And on average receive £1,200 more in public spending per head than people living in England or Wales. That's a shortfall of £1,600 for every person.

• Nicola Sturgeon has promised Scots that they could maintain current levels of spending with independence despite the evidence to the contrary and her refusal to raise taxes.

 

If they do vote for it our Brexit issues will look like a stubbed toe in comparison to a broken leg.

[Carl the Llama]

14 minutes ago, MattP said:

For the twentieth time no one is going to be "kicking out the immigrants" - I'm just going to put you on ignore if you keep resorting to this childish rhetoric to try and emphasise your points. Controlling who comes into your country is not deporting people, I can't actually believe I still have to explain this.

 

But yes of course it would, this isn't really something anyone deisputes anymore, if you have a saturated market at the lower end it means more people are prepared to take work for a menial wage, less of that means companies have to offer higher wages to get the best people and tradesman and blue collar workers won't face the undercuutting that has happened in the past. (Why you are going on about public debt I don't know, that has risen greatly over the same time as immigration from the EU had, but alas, it's nothing to do with it and the two things are not connected)

 

Even the chairman of the Remain campaign agreed, it was one of the few points in the referendum both sides were united on - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35707955

 

 

So we're just ignoring the whole purchasing power side of the argument then?  One reason lots of foreign nationals seek passage to the UK is because as a nation even the lowest earners have pretty decent pp relative to the rest of the world but this is a point that goes ignored by most people at the bottom end of the wage ladder who simply see other people earning more and buying more things then ask why they don't have as much.  Logically you would expect the influx of manual workers to mean that British workmen struggle to find jobs but I meet some such undercut workmen on an almost daily basis and although there's often complaints that Poles are stealing their jobs or they've been told they can't work on a site without being able to speak Polish and whatnot it strikes me that what they often really mean is that a British company employing Poles won one of the contracts they were after and when all is said and done it's almost always rendered moot because these aren't jobless punters, no, they'll then move the conversation on to complain with no sense of irony about the ardour they're undergoing under a different contract they won at a different job site so they wouldn't have been able to fulfil the one they just complained about anyway.  I'm talking about guys who come into the pub for a night of expensive shots and beers at least once, usually two or three times a week.  Given that our prices aren't the lowest they're not exactly the penniless unfortunates you're trying to make out.  Now before you start accusing me of saying I'm alright Jack or judging their spending habits you ought to know that I'm right down there myself and indeed the way these guys spend their money on expensive hobbies outside of everything else (one of them's an avid motocross racer with all the costs that incurs) I'd say it's a safe bet they earn more than I do but I at least understand how the system works and consider myself fortunate to be living and working in such a prosperous nation that my meagre income is enough to live a relatively comfortable life on as long as I look after my expenditure.  I want to see many changes to the system, not least in the housing market which traps people like me in a vicious circle of rented housing, but I choose to aim my anger towards the greedy people exploiting the system and the policymakers who let them rather than the people uprooting their lives to come here hoping to enjoy the same relatively decent living standards we all currently enjoy while the bubble hasn't yet burst.

 

I go on about public debt because pensions and schools and healthcare and infrastructure and emergency services and so on all need to be paid for somehow and with less people contributing to the system we'll have to borrow even more to fund it which puts our future as a nation in an even more precarious situation and as you previously showed us, the EU migrants who are what this conversation's about are pretty much the only ones paying in more than they take.

[Nick]

On 11 October 2016 at 18:19, Alf Bentley said:

 

Although I'd like to see something more socially transformational, I'd settle for centrist politics, because I think we could be heading for something much more turbulent.

 

All over the West established centrist parties are hanging on by their fingernails and there has been a big surge in support for more radical, populist parties and movements, sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right:

Tea Party/Trump in the US; UKIP/Brexit/Corbyn/SNP in the UK; Le Pen in France; AfD in Germany; Syriza in Greece; Podemos in Spain. I know that politics is normally played out in the centre ground, but I reckon the current era could be one of those exceptional times - like the 1930s - when people get so frustrated or angry that moderate solutions lose their appeal and a lot more people are attracted to more populist, radical or extremist "solutions", if we're not very careful.

 

In the UK, overall living standards, prospects and opportunities have been stagnant or declining for many people since about 2008 (and not that wonderful for many before that). Maybe the carefully calibrated moderate compromises of centrism don't appeal to so many people just now. In different ways, the rise of the SNP and UKIP, the Brexit vote and 500,000 signing up to Corbynism show that a lot of people are pissed off and want serious, rapid change, not the usual moderation, surely? The dissatisfaction and appetite for instant radical change could be a lot greater if Brexit uncertainties or realities cause turbulence.

 

I'm quite glad we currently only have UKIP, a relatively moderate right-wing nationalist-populist party - and Farage, a man who enjoys being liked, and not some charismatic, hate-filled demagogue. It could become a lot worse. Probably not goose-stepping stormtroopers or anything that extreme, but if times get worse then a surge in support for views akin to the BNP wouldn't surprise me, with a minority indulging in hostility/violence to foreigners or perceived "foreigners". I bet a lot of people in Germany thought that Germany wouldn't "tolerate a far right rise" before the 1930s.....

 

I hope that I'm wrong and you're right. I'd settle for an Umunna, Clegg & Ken Clarke coalition right now. 

 

I dunno - when I look at articles like this its not the policies people have a problem with - it's the packaging and the baggage that comes with voting for a particular brand or party......

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-media-policies-labour_uk_57fe651be4b0010a7f3da76b

 

 

[Buce]

46 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

 

I dunno - when I look at articles like this its not the policies people have a problem with - it's the packaging and the baggage that comes with voting for a particular brand or party......

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-media-policies-labour_uk_57fe651be4b0010a7f3da76b

 

 

And that is where the media comes in.

 

 

[Nick]

Just now, Buce said:

And that is where the media comes in.

 

 

Yeah, its why i think a new party or a break away centralist party stands a chance.

[The Doctor]

7 hours ago, The Railway Man said:

You have to laugh at the SNP.

 

Staying in the European Union is now so important they are preapred to call a second referendum on it, just two years after Scottish Independence was so important they were prepared to leave the European Union at any cost for it.

The SNP were big on staying in the EU in 2014 during indyref 1; hence the regular mentions of Spains potential veto and what a yes vote would mean for Catalonia. They've been fair consistent - leave the uk and be a member of the eu in their own right.

[Sharpe's Fox]

1 hour ago, The Doctor said:

The SNP were big on staying in the EU in 2014 during indyref 1; hence the regular mentions of Spains potential veto and what a yes vote would mean for Catalonia. They've been fair consistent - leave the uk and be a member of the eu in their own right.

There's a difference between wanting something and being able to do it. The SNP knew it would take years to diversify their economy enough to join the EU, negotiate entry and potentially wait for a block of others to do the same so @The Railway Man is right in what he says.

[The Doctor]

48 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

There's a difference between wanting something and being able to do it. The SNP knew it would take years to diversify their economy enough to join the EU, negotiate entry and potentially wait for a block of others to do the same so @The Railway Man is right in what he says.

Not really - Salmonds position was of negotiating continued membership over about two years while they disentangled themselves from the UK, a time scale that was given as being realistic by one of the governments legal adviser: http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-independent-scotland-stay-eu/17767

 

Now it obviously wasn't viable, there'd be no end of issues sorting out negotiations with the EU to cover the other 27 countries; but at this point how is that any different to the current shambles the 52% have dumped us in? Yet the leave camp are still fairly adamant that jumping into our own noose will work. Just because something is obvious from the outside, doesn't mean that the people who don't want it to be true will give it the time of day.

[Guest MattP]

15 hours ago, Swan Lesta said:

 

I dunno - when I look at articles like this its not the policies people have a problem with - it's the packaging and the baggage that comes with voting for a particular brand or party......

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-media-policies-labour_uk_57fe651be4b0010a7f3da76b

 

 

14 hours ago, Buce said:

And that is where the media comes in.

Of course Corbyn's policies are going to be popular, he's promising nice things and spending lots of money on people, I'd imagine a lot of the public also realise those than the country is in absolutely no financial position to be carrying them out, I don't even think the current government can afford what it is promising, let alone what Labour are going to.

Although you can have the greatest set of policies in the World, but if you need the votes of the working class and a portion of middle England while appointing people like Diane Abbott, Emily Thornberry, John McDonnell and Shami Chakrabati to the shadow cabinet you aren't going to get them.

 

12 hours ago, The Doctor said:

The SNP were big on staying in the EU in 2014 during indyref 1; hence the regular mentions of Spains potential veto and what a yes vote would mean for Catalonia. They've been fair consistent - leave the uk and be a member of the eu in their own right.

With the political policy the SNP follow they know and knew back then was absolutely no chance of them joining the European Union, the deficit was still way beyond what it required and they never had any intention of doing anything about it, it's easy to promise Thatcherite levels of taxation with Brownite public spending whilst we give them £1,600 per person every year and just blame Westminster for everything that goes wrong..

 

Hence why we are seeing them try to stay in by the backdoor now.

[Bellend Sebastian]

That's a shame. Thought it was a half decent idea at the time:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37686888

[Guest MattP]

4 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

That's a shame. Thought it was a half decent idea at the time:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37686888

A shame yes, be interesting to hear why.

 

 

Surprised no one has mentioned the resignation of Woolfe, to say that is  massive loss to UKIP is an understatement, probably the person who could have turned them into a respectable party and not a cult of Farage,

 

Wouldn't surprise me one bit to see him in the Tory cabinet in the future.

[Darkon84]

26 minutes ago, MattP said:

A shame yes, be interesting to hear why.

 

 

Surprised no one has mentioned the resignation of Woolfe, to say that is  massive loss to UKIP is an understatement, probably the person who could have turned them into a respectable party and not a cult of Farage,

 

Wouldn't surprise me one bit to see him in the Tory cabinet in the future.

 

That's the first I'd heard of Woolfe resigning. I think what happened to him was probably the last straw, so he'll surely be heading off to the Tories soon, especially after admitting he had considered it recently (and getting a swift slap for doing so). He looked like the only person who could lead UKIP forward, so that'll be a huge blow to them. If Farage stays, it'll be more of the same without actually growing their base, and without someone like Woolfe to take them forward, I can see them possibly drifting off in to the ether now, having served their purpose.

[Guest MattP]

The party is 800,000 in debt and Aaron Banks is also leaving, they are screwed, I can see another party forming behind his money if Woolfe doesn't join the Tories.

 

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-ukip-leader

 

Raheem Kassam is third favourite for the leadership, that would be interesting

[Claridge]

9 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

That's a shame. Thought it was a half decent idea at the time:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37686888

Deal with people likes these every day, you could give them a million pounds and they would still be 'nightmare families' 

Just had one family who have sold their/our interior doors, still got their mobiles on when we went round to replace them so it can't be desperation,don't even get me started on the reasons for replacing the doors.

 

 

[Buce]

23 hours ago, Claridge said:

Deal with people likes these every day, you could give them a million pounds and they would still be 'nightmare families' 

Just had one family who have sold their/our interior doors, still got their mobiles on when we went round to replace them so it can't be desperation,don't even get me started on the reasons for replacing the doors.

 

 

 

They sold their doors!?

 

You can't stop there, Claridge..

[Claridge]

33 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

They sold their doors!?

 

You can't stop there, Claridge..

Mum came home to find that her sons had taken the doors of all the rooms and had sold them. I felt a bit sorry for her until she got social services involved because it was dangerous for her youngest and starting shouting at me for taking too long to get new ones fitted. We have had carpets/kitchens sold before and they are fitted specifically to the rooms. Can't help feeling there's a great sitcom to be made about housing associations. A cross between the new statesmen ( I can be Alan B'stard) and bread maybe. Will need a lefty social worker if you have any suggestions?

[Buce]

16 hours ago, Claridge said:

Mum came home to find that her sons had taken the doors of all the rooms and had sold them. I felt a bit sorry for her until she got social services involved because it was dangerous for her youngest and starting shouting at me for taking too long to get new ones fitted. We have had carpets/kitchens sold before and they are fitted specifically to the rooms. Can't help feeling there's a great sitcom to be made about housing associations. A cross between the new statesmen ( I can be Alan B'stard) and bread maybe. Will need a lefty social worker if you have any suggestions?

 

Has to be Rince - I don't like people.

[Guest MattP]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-mays-tories-open-up-18-point-lead-over-jeremy-corbyns-labour-a7370246.html

 

Tories opening up a huge lead now, getting to levels of support they haven't had since the 50's.

 

Conservatives 47% (+7)
Labour 29% (-5)
LDEM: 7% (+1)
UKIP: 6% (-3)
GRN: 4% (-1)