Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Jon the Hat]

18 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

And would he take you, your co-workers, and all the company's clients and business assets with him?

 

Maybe. Or maybe he'd sell up and somebody else would take over the business and you'd notice no difference?

 

Or maybe he'd just realise he has a successful business, and that paying a bit more corporation and income tax was worth accepting?

 

I don't know. Millionaires are important to the economy and people shouldn't be discouraged from being rich. There's nothing wrong with being rich. There is something wrong though with allowing such personal wealth to accrue when the country has such a massive deficit and working people are using food banks.

 

it's just about balance. The balance is totally wrong at the moment in favour of the super-rich. All I want is to see a shift in the distribution of wealth towards working people like me and you.

 

 

He could probably move production to China, HQ to Switzerland and keep profits offshore, paying tax on a much reduced profit in the UK.  

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

A millionaire pays my wages. Without him, and his investment in engineering in Leicester, I'd be ****ed. His benefit is my benefit. He has no connection to this country beyond his business, make it unviable, or at the very least less profitable, he has no reason to stay. 

If the customers are there another company - perhaps one owned by you - would fill the gap. 

[Innovindil]

13 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

And would he take you, your co-workers, and all the company's clients and business assets with him?

 

Maybe. Or maybe he'd sell up and somebody else would take over the business and you'd notice no difference?

 

Or maybe he'd just realise he has a successful business, and that paying a bit more corporation and income tax was worth accepting?

 

I don't know. Millionaires are important to the economy and people shouldn't be discouraged from being rich. There's nothing wrong with being rich. There is something wrong though with allowing such personal wealth to accrue when the country has such a massive deficit and working people are using food banks.

 

it's just about balance. The balance is totally wrong at the moment in favour of the super-rich. All I want is to see a shift in the distribution of wealth towards working people like me and you.

 

 

He'd take the assets and offer to move us abroad I'd imagine. Hard to say since he's not that far from retirement. But the building is rented, so if I was in his shoes I'd move all the tools and machinery to a new place and offer the current workers jobs in said place. Whether I'd go or not would be a different story. 

 

To a point I agree with what you've said, and I can understand why people feel that way. But for me, the "feel good" factor of trying to help the "poor" at the expense of the "rich" is not enough for me to remotely want labour in charge threatening my boss's business. In the end, he's been good to me and my family, he's been there when I've needed him (when my grandad was sick) and pays me a fair wage for the talents I have. 

 

Make no mistake though, the second those wages aren't fair I'll sail that irishman straight down the Labour river. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

He could probably move production to China, HQ to Switzerland and keep profits offshore, paying tax on a much reduced profit in the UK.  

Was he operating in this country begore the tories reduced corporation tax? If so labour are proposing putting it up but to still less than the level he was paying before.

[Innovindil]

1 minute ago, toddybad said:

If the customers are there another company - perhaps one owned by you - would fill the gap. 

Whilst I may be comfortable, I don't have the millions needed to set up my own engineering firm, as awesome as that would be. 

 

And our customers are everywhere, my boss setting up shop in a different country could serve them just as well, more than likely. He's here because it makes financial sense to be here. Like I imagine most business owners are. 

 

[Guest]

Just now, Innovindil said:

Whilst I may be comfortable, I don't have the millions needed to set up my own engineering firm, as awesome as that would be. 

 

And our customers are everywhere, my boss setting up shop in a different country could serve them just as well, more than likely. He's here because it makes financial sense to be here. Like I imagine most business owners are. 

 

But which specific policy do you think would drive him to move an entire business overseas and further from his customers?

 

Putting corporation tax up but still to less than he was paying 5 years ago isn't going to do that is it? 

 

And if he's as dishonest as mattp says all business owners are he'll be using all sorts of dodgy tactics to avoid paying a slightly increased income tax - only on anything he earns over £80k - too. 

 

The idea that these small tax rises will destroy business in this country is nuts. Fair enough if it was proposed to go to 89p in the pound or something but we're talking about small rises. 

 

And as webbo has said in the past, labour and tory plans for the minimum wage are very similar so that can't be used either. 

[The Guvnor]

Listening to Barry Gardiner, always sounds aggressive or is it just passionate, anyway , interesting to hear him discussing Privately Financed initiatives and the absurd costs they will cost the taxpayer, for example  £8000 to change a blind in a school and billions in interest rates, truly a shambolic 'fix' . I believe it was John Major who first looked into this but it was Tony Blair who took up and ran with this as one of his pre election pledges was to reduce waiting times in the NHS which he did, how, by PFI initiatives and boy at what cost.  So although I applaud the idea of bringing these initiatives to an end  and  bringing the existing  initiatives back into public ownership it is only fitting as it was them who got us in the PFI mess .

[Sampson]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

I love how everyone makes out that if Labour got in we'd all be on a minimum wage state salaries, eating rationed state food parcels and surrendering our assets to the state bank. 

 

Corbyn might be left of New Labour but he's not Josef Stalin and they'd still need to get any policy through parliament. 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing Corbyn to Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot or anyone like that for one second and neither am I saying we're going to decend into Venezuela (who we all know Corbyn is a big admirer of despite the fact several of their policies go completely against all mainstream Economic thought). Even if Corbyn and McDonnell are self-confessed Socialists, there's far too many checks and balances in this country for them to make us a real Socialist state.

 

It's more that I saw someone on the last page say for example that a lot of young people are worried about the lack of jobs (which is fair enough) and want a party to come in and fix what they perceive as being wronged by the previous 2 generations. But immediately following us leaving the EU which (I think a lot of people would agree) we get to the position where we have to try and keep and/or make as many trade deals as possible and it's probably the most important moment to do that in any of our lifetimes, I think electing a government to do things like hiking up the minimum wage so quickly and putting extra taxes on businesses is potentially dangerous and could see us lose a hell of a lot of jobs in this country.

 

Hiking up the minimum wage in a short space of time as Labour propositioned in their manifesto is what Chavez and Maduro did in Venuzuela. All that happens is while it may seem great on the surface for a year or two, businesses have to adapt and that involves getting rid of jobs or not creating new ones and putting prices up because otherwise companies are suddenly going to have much less profit or go into the red (especially with extra business taxes which Labour also proposed in their manifesto on top of that). Say you want a loaf of bread from the supermarket for example, the milling company has to adapt to things being more expensive by either buying from the farmer at a cheaper price, selling to the supermarket at a higher price or else sack some of its staff or not create any new jobs (or a combination of these things), the supermarket too (to keep its profits coming in) has to put the price of the bread up or sack some of its staff or not build those new stores and create those new jobs it was planning as its profits aren't as high anymore. Alongside that, small businesses with great innovative ideas and technology that can make or jobs or lives easier or make certain products easier find it much harder to grow their business and do that now. 

 

All that ends up happening is two or three years down the line, milk and bread cost the same in real terms because companies have to adapt to these minimum wage hikes but less jobs are available because certain companies (especially small or modest sized ones) cannot cope or cannot afford to create the new jobs thry eere planning on, while many international companies - given Britain has now left the EU - decide to take the new chains they were going to build to create nee jobs or the products they were going to buy or sell to Britain go to another country instead given that Britain is now both suddenly much more expensive to run a business and you have to pay more tax and it's no longer part of the biggest market in the world.

 

I'm genuinely interested as to how any Corbyn supporter who's worried about the lack of opportunites atm thinks that a Corbyn government would actually increase the number of jobs being created rather than decreasing them. I'm not being glib, I'd like someone to respond with how those two things fit because I struggle to see how those things fit together.

 

I get why people are frustrated that under austerity our real wages have stagnated or gone gown, but a sudden jolt in the raising of them is absolutely not the answer, its even more dangerous to go the other way and spike minimum wage suddenly. Minimum wage should be risen at a very steady and predictable rate based on inflation - not the other way round (inflation rising as a result of minimum wage is far more volatile and potentially scary). 

 

And this is why I'm just personally worried that people who are worried about a lack of jobs and opportunities for them atm are wanting to usher in a government who are going to hike up minimum wage and add corporation taxes at the exact point where we leave ourself vulnerable from international trade pulling out of this country after Brexit. To me, it's just a massive contradiction and just makes absolutely zero Economic sense and sounds like a surefire way to make sure the number of jobs available and being created only decreases and businesses who want to create innovative technology and products that make things cheaper or more efficient find it harder to get through.

 

And yes, to add to that, the extra government spending of upping public service worker wages at a similar rate, the renationalising of the railways when we're right on the cusp of self driving cars which could easily make railways extinct in a generation or twos time (given that self driving cars should safely be able to go much faster as they should in theory never crash and there would be tens of millions on the road meaning we could easily end up with far quicker instant taxi services) - I'm not sure where the prospective Labour government thinks it's getting the money for all this either If it still genuinely thinks it's going to get all this money from extra corporation tax and high end wage tax and this won't see any of the side effects of either businesses going elsewhere, businesses cutting jobs or not creating new jobs or new innovation and products not getting through.

Edited 27 September 2017 by Sampson

[Fox Ulike]

16 minutes ago, MattP said:

Germany is moving away from state ownership and that's a country running a budget surplus.

 

On the bolded bit, I appreciate your honesty, some would certainly leave the country, but it's far more likely anyone who earns millions of pounds would just divert money away, it's not hard to do, Corbyn and his government are never going to be in aposition where they can access a bank account and they aren't going to invade Switzerland, instead of paying the extra tax you'll just see them divert - what would the plan B be though? If this does result in a shortfall to the treasury then who does the tax fall out for things like the public sector payrise?

 

P.S The last Daily Mail I read (about 6 months ago) they were campaigning for a nurses pay rise.

 

What's more likely is he bases his business elsewhere and instead of getting an amount to the treasury we get nothing, even more so in this day and age where a lot of people can run a business from a laptop in any country they want.

 

Corporation tax receipts have increased the more we have dropped it.

Yes it's a fair point and one I don't really have an answer to now we're leaving the EU.

 

The EU's plans to harmonise corporation tax would have gone some way to helping reduce the inequality gap... but once we're outside the EU, and under-cutting them, it's not really good news for anyone - apart from all those poor billionaires who we all love so much!  

[Innovindil]

8 minutes ago, toddybad said:

But which specific policy do you think would drive him to move an entire business overseas and further from his customers?

 

Putting corporation tax up but still to less than he was paying 5 years ago isn't going to do that is it? 

 

And if he's as dishonest as mattp says all business owners are he'll be using all sorts of dodgy tactics to avoid paying a slightly increased income tax - only on anything he earns over £80k - too. 

 

The idea that these small tax rises will destroy business in this country is nuts. Fair enough if it was proposed to go to 89p in the pound or something but we're talking about small rises. 

 

And as webbo has said in the past, labour and tory plans for the minimum wage are very similar so that can't be used either. 

His incomes, his investments for expansion, for maintaining and improving machinery are all based on the money he now makes. How a 7% rise can be seen as small is absurd. And it's not even just that that would make it difficult, the talks of banning zhc (some of our workers are on them, by their own choice), increasing paternity leave, messing with apprentice wages, income tax increases like you said, we have some engineers on over 80k, they would be unhappy having a reduction in wages. Then there's talks of bereavement leave on top. 

 

How much of it would happen I don't know, but they're all things I've heard mumbled somewhere or another. It all just stinks of anti big business. By all means, do what you can to raise up the little guys, but doing it at the expense of established and successful big companies is truly baffling. 

[Fox Ulike]

27 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

He could probably move production to China, HQ to Switzerland and keep profits offshore, paying tax on a much reduced profit in the UK.  

Yes he could. Which gets to the real crux of the problem I guess. Individuals are amassing huge personal wealth by playing off different nations tax schemes against each other.

 

We all lose. Well, not the billionaires obviously. They are laughing. But the rest of us are stuck in an endless cycle of low wages and poor public services. And our only option is to sell our labour to one or other of these super-wealthy people.

 

Should politicians try and overcome this by more global co-operation networks such as the EU, or do we just accept it as it is? 

[katieakita]

You have to speak as you find and seeing just how well the  government has handled the separation of the Royal Mail group and the overseeing of  the alleged computer issues with the Post Office not to sure they can claim to be that business savvy. The impending Group litigation order will not benefit the taxpayer.

[Guest MattP]

28 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

Yes it's a fair point and one I don't really have an answer to now we're leaving the EU.

 

The EU's plans to harmonise corporation tax would have gone some way to helping reduce the inequality gap... but once we're outside the EU, and under-cutting them, it's not really good news for anyone - apart from all those poor billionaires who we all love so much!  

How on earth will countries like Ireland compete if the EU harmonises tax?

 

I thought you backed wealth redistribution rather than the rich getting richer.

[Guest MattP]

Not a cult at all this is it

[Footballwipe]

10 minutes ago, MattP said:

Not a cult at all this is it

I've only seen one clip on the news from the other day with the "oh Jeremy Corbyn" but I can imagine what it's like right now. What's going to happen to this party when he's finished? Will he ever finish? He's what, 68 now? He'll be there until he drops and if that's into his 90's then it'd be no surprise.

 

I might be considered Liberal or on the left but this cult of personality sickens me. Every day must be like a wet dream for Corbyn, the result of the election was a wet dream for Corbyn. No power, more kudos and a bigger platform to spread his cult-like influence on the Labour Party to turn them into what they want it to be, an unattainable utopia. 

 

Ardent Corbyn supporters are no better than ardent Trump supporters.

[Fox Ulike]

7 minutes ago, MattP said:

How on earth will countries like Ireland compete if the EU harmonises tax?

 

I thought you backed wealth redistribution rather than the rich getting richer.

You're suggesting that tax havens are a way of helping wealth redistribution?

 

How?

 

I can't wait for this.

 

[Guest MattP]

 

2 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

You're suggesting that tax havens are a way of helping wealth redistribution?

 

How?

 

I can't wait for this.

Where have I said that?

 

Do you want to answer my question first? Would you block countries like Ireland from having a lower corporation tax rate than a country like Germany?

 

 

Edited 27 September 2017 by MattP

[Guest MattP]

6 minutes ago, Footballwipe said:

I've only seen one clip on the news from the other day with the "oh Jeremy Corbyn" but I can imagine what it's like right now. What's going to happen to this party when he's finished? Will he ever finish? He's what, 68 now? He'll be there until he drops and if that's into his 90's then it'd be no surprise.

 

I might be considered Liberal or on the left but this cult of personality sickens me. Every day must be like a wet dream for Corbyn, the result of the election was a wet dream for Corbyn. No power, more kudos and a bigger platform to spread his cult-like influence on the Labour Party to turn them into what they want it to be, an unattainable utopia. 

 

Ardent Corbyn supporters are no better than ardent Trump supporters.

It's weird watching it, he could literally announce he's going to blow up the moon as it's a Tory at the moment and the audience would cheer.

 

Speaking of America, the way the Labour moderates have downed arms over this last week has been as bad as the way Republicans did with Trump after he was elected (and it least his was a national election), politicians are supposed to fight for what they believe it right.

[Fox Ulike]

3 minutes ago, MattP said:

 

Where have I said that?

 

Do you want to answer my question first? Would you block countries like Ireland from having a lower corporation tax rate than a country like Germany?

 

 

 

Where have I said that?

 

I genuinely don't have any pre-conceptions about any of this. I'm learning as I go.

 

To go back a step: My thinking was around harmonising corporation tax rates across the EU. Is it a good thing or a bad thing if the objective is to reduce the gap between rich and poor?

[Carl the Llama]

3 hours ago, MattP said:

Always socialism until it goes wrong isnt it? As for the Brexit vote, the government didn't plan for a leave vote, which was irresponsibile. 

And yet you're complaining about the shadow cabinet considering worst case scenario hypotheses of how businesses might react to a Labour government winning an election.

 

3 hours ago, MattP said:

You know why the last few chancellors of the nation didn't have to war game for a run on the pound? because they ensured they had policy in place that wouldn't mean we had a run on the pound [...] I hae no interest in exaggerating how bad the Corbyn government would be as it would be making the same mistake as the "remain" campaign did in the EU referendum

Do you know for a fact that they didn't consider negative scenarios (which would be highly irresponsible) and was it really just the remain campaign exaggerating or even outright lying?  I don't think it was.

 

40 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

His incomes, his investments for expansion, for maintaining and improving machinery are all based on the money he now makes. How a 7% rise can be seen as small is absurd. And it's not even just that that would make it difficult, the talks of banning zhc (some of our workers are on them, by their own choice), increasing paternity leave, messing with apprentice wages, income tax increases like you said, we have some engineers on over 80k, they would be unhappy having a reduction in wages. Then there's talks of bereavement leave on top. 

 

How much of it would happen I don't know, but they're all things I've heard mumbled somewhere or another. It all just stinks of anti big business. By all means, do what you can to raise up the little guys, but doing it at the expense of established and successful big companies is truly baffling. 

Nobody likes having their income reduced but I don't think every single person on over £80k would begrudge paying a bit more tax for the benefit of the country, unless you've asked them all personally how they feel about being in the top 20% and asked to pay more tax because of it then I don't think you have the right to speak for them.

[Innovindil]

3 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

And yet you're complaining about the shadow cabinet considering worst case scenario hypotheses of how businesses might react to a Labour government winning an election.

 

Do you know for a fact that they didn't consider negative scenarios (which would be highly irresponsible) and was it really just the remain campaign exaggerating or even outright lying?  I don't think it was.

 

Nobody likes having their income reduced but I don't think every single person on over £80k would begrudge paying a bit more tax for the benefit of the country, unless you've asked them all personally how they feel about being in the top 20% and asked to pay more tax because of it then I don't think you have the right to speak for them.

I'm speaking for the engineers in my workplace, not everyone on more than 80k. And I have spoke to them, naturally. 

[Guest MattP]

Just now, Fox Ulike said:

To go back a step: My thinking was around harmonising corporation tax rates across the EU. Is it a good thing or a bad thing if the objective is to reduce the gap between rich and poor?

If you want to drive every business out of the poorer EU countries then do it, it's more tried and failed politics but that doesn't seem to matter anymore.

 

Just now, Carl the Llama said:

And yet you're complaining about the shadow cabinet considering worst case scenario hypotheses of how businesses might react to a Labour government winning an election.

 

Do you know for a fact that they didn't consider negative scenarios (which would be highly irresponsible) and was it really just the remain campaign exaggerating or even outright lying?  I don't think it was.

I made numerous complaints about Cameron and Osborne not planning for a leave vote, even more so given at the time Dave was saying a vote to leave meant he still stayed on as Prime Minister, of course they were lying, we now know they were, we had no immediate job losses of 300,000, no Calais Jungle camps in Kent by the end of 2016, no immediate recession, no emergency budget.

 

They just made a load of shit up and hoped people would fall for it, vote to remain and then no one would have ever have seen all the lies come to be that. So glad they didn't get away with it.

[Fox Ulike]

17 minutes ago, Footballwipe said:

I've only seen one clip on the news from the other day with the "oh Jeremy Corbyn" but I can imagine what it's like right now. What's going to happen to this party when he's finished? Will he ever finish? He's what, 68 now? He'll be there until he drops and if that's into his 90's then it'd be no surprise.

 

I might be considered Liberal or on the left but this cult of personality sickens me. Every day must be like a wet dream for Corbyn, the result of the election was a wet dream for Corbyn. No power, more kudos and a bigger platform to spread his cult-like influence on the Labour Party to turn them into what they want it to be, an unattainable utopia. 

 

Ardent Corbyn supporters are no better than ardent Trump supporters.

 

Yes they probably are in some respects. Although I would like to point out that ardent Corbyn supporters are passionately opposed to billionaires and tax evaders; whilst ardent Trump supports are passionately opposed to Mexicans and NFL players. There's a big difference.

 

[Carl the Llama]

2 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

I'm speaking for the engineers in my workplace, not everyone on more than 80k. And I have spoke to them, naturally. 

I'll have to take your word for it but colour me sceptical.  The best analogy I've heard for it (from a high earner no less) is that it's like being asked by the missus to take the bins out: He'll huff about doing it but he'll go along with it anyway.  

 

Just now, MattP said:

If you want to drive every business out of the poorer EU countries then do it, it's more tried and failed politics but that doesn't seem to matter anymore.

 

I made numerous complaints about Cameron and Osborne not planning for a leave vote, even more so given at the time Dave was saying a vote to leave meant he still stayed on as Prime Minister, of course they were lying, we now know they were, we had no immediate job losses of 300,000, no Calais Jungle camps in Kent by the end of 2016, no immediate recession, no emergency budget.

 

They just made a load of shit up and hoped people would fall for it, vote to remain and then no one would have ever have seen all the lies come to be that. So glad they didn't get away with it.

No they just voted to leave and saw all the leave lies come to fruition instead 

[Guest MattP]

Just now, Fox Ulike said:

 

Yes they probably are in some respects. Although I would like to point out that ardent Corbyn supporters are passionately opposed to billionaires and tax evaders; whilst ardent Trump supports are passionately opposed to Mexicans and NFL players. There's a big difference.

If you watched any of the Trump rallies you would have seen numerous chanting against groups like Goldman Sachs and Wall Street etc - not remember the drain the swamp stuff? Everytime I watch a Labour rally you see how similar it is to his ones - it's all ideological nonsense and rhetoric that has failed before. The protectionism Corbyn speaks out is right out of the Trump playbook.

 

It was the plan all along - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-copy-donald-trump-labour-leader-new-strategy-aggressive-populist-poll-ratings-a7517351.html