Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Bellend Sebastian]

11 minutes ago, Claridge said:

No, it's the lying through his teeth about the money he would spend. Especially to the polly students who can't get a job with their Mickey Mouse degrees

I spent a fortune on trying to bring in people with Mickey Mouse degrees and failed miserably to do so, which is how I lost my job as Head of Recruitment at Disneyland Paris

[Strokes]

9 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

I spent a fortune on trying to bring in people with Mickey Mouse degrees and failed miserably to do so, which is how I lost my job as Head of Recruitment at Disneyland Paris

Your future is Donald ducked with one of those degrees.

[Bellend Sebastian]

6 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Your future is Donald ducked with one of those degrees.

It's got to be at least as useful as my actual degree

[Buce]

47 minutes ago, Claridge said:

No, it's the lying through his teeth about the money he would spend. Especially to the polly students who can't get a job with their Mickey Mouse degrees

 

Oh, dear.

 

Wouldn't they let you in, Claridge?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Claridge said:

No, it's the lying through his teeth about the money he would spend. Especially to the polly students who can't get a job with their Mickey Mouse degrees

I'm not sure how you lot think this works.

The government is the largest spender in the economy. 

You need money in the economy.

The rest isn't rocket science.

You have to speculate to accumulate and all that.

[Claridge]

47 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Oh, dear.

 

Wouldn't they let you in, Claridge?

No, two Bs and a C in my A-levels. No chance of a polly with them grades. Never went uni, wish I had though, only joking about Pollyannas  , everyone knows there as good as real universities??

[Claridge]

19 minutes ago, toddybad said:

I'm not sure how you lot think this works.

The government is the largest spender in the economy. 

You need money in the economy.

The rest isn't rocket science.

You have to speculate to accumulate and all that.

We have speculated 1.5000000,000000,0000000 so far.when does the accumalating start?

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, Claridge said:

We have speculated 1.5000000,000000,0000000 so far.when does the accumalating start?

You mean 1, 500,000,000,000.

 

You need to get the economy moving, that brings growth (proper growth, not the deal grief we currently have) which allows us to reduce the deficit properly, without destroying all of our public services. 

 

Every year the US house votes on their budget and every single year they vote to increase their debt ceiling by about a billion. Nobody over there obsesses over this as we suddenly do after falling for Osborne's bs. 

 

When sides the accumulating start? Well we don't have a national bank account to compare the debt with. What we have are schools, hospitals and all the other things a nation needs to run successfully. 

 

The wealth of nation shows in what it is able to provide for its citizens. The right wingers on here bang on about paying £30-50 billion a year in debt interest but are happy to suck tens of billions out of our public services. That debt interest isn't just a load of money we lose out on every year - it is a small payments towards the borrowed money that has been spent on making our lives better.

 

There a reason countries don't run surpluses for any length of time - it takes money OUT of the economy. 

 

I really think there needs to be some national education on national debt. It has ALWAYS been accepted economics that you borrow for capital expenditure when debt is cheap. 

[The Doctor]

1 hour ago, Claridge said:

We have speculated 1.5000000,000000,0000000 so far.when does the accumalating start?

Speculated 1 quid fifty? Tight arses. Don't know why you felt the need to specify to the quintillionth of a penny mind.

[Izzy]

I listened to PMQ's on the radio in the car today - what a load of old bollux.

 

Corbyn quotes a load of stats to May from one source, and then she quotes a different load back from another source.

 

A bit like on this thread really 

 

Had to laugh when the speaker interrupted Corbyn while he was in full flow on his closing statement. He was reaching fill crescendo when the speaker bollocked someone for acting like a twat.

 

Thought May did O.K. actually. Still think I'm the only person in the country who reckons she'll ride this current storm and come out the other end still intact as PM 

 

However robotic she might be, I'd still have her as PM over Corbyn any day of the week. 

[Strokes]

17 minutes ago, toddybad said:

You mean 1, 500,000,000,000.

 

You need to get the economy moving, that brings growth (proper growth, not the deal grief we currently have) which allows us to reduce the deficit properly, without destroying all of our public services. 

 

Every year the US house votes on their budget and every single year they vote to increase their debt ceiling by about a billion. Nobody over there obsesses over this as we suddenly do after falling for Osborne's bs. 

 

When sides the accumulating start? Well we don't have a national bank account to compare the debt with. What we have are schools, hospitals and all the other things a nation needs to run successfully. 

 

The wealth of nation shows in what it is able to provide for its citizens. The right wingers on here bang on about paying £30-50 billion a year in debt interest but are happy to suck tens of billions out of our public services. That debt interest isn't just a load of money we lose out on every year - it is a small payments towards the borrowed money that has been spent on making our lives better.

 

There a reason countries don't run surpluses for any length of time - it takes money OUT of the economy. 

 

I really think there needs to be some national education on national debt. It has ALWAYS been accepted economics that you borrow for capital expenditure when debt is cheap. 

The Germans have ran a surplus for the last three years, they seem to be doing ok.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Strokes said:

The Germans have ran a surplus for the last three years, they seem to be doing ok.

The German economy is in a hell of a better place than ours is.

[Strokes]

14 minutes ago, toddybad said:

The German economy is in a hell of a better place than ours is.

Correct but they don’t run huge deficits in the good times and they weren’t running one at the time of the ‘’global’’ crash. That’s a good reason why they’ve been resistant to the crash and have continued to keep steady progress.

You make out like reducing the HUGE deficit is a bad thing but running it in the first place is why we are here. You might wish to pass off Labours mistakes and pretend they are all Tory ones but we were all there, we all saw it. Spend spend spend, oh shit we’ve run out. I’d rather get back to manageable deficit and slowly invest, to avoid boom and bust, if possible. We aren’t bust, we aren’t broken, it’s barely a hiccup right now and you are doing your usual over exaggerating.

This New Labour, Old Labour shit is all the proof you need of how disastrous their terms end, they have to totally reinvent every time because all credibility has been shot.

Edited 15 November 2017 by Strokes

[Kopfkino]

1 hour ago, Strokes said:

The Germans have ran a surplus for the last three years, they seem to be doing ok.

 

Funny that the one country that absolutely should be spending, isn't

[Rogstanley]

1 hour ago, Strokes said:

Correct but they don’t run huge deficits in the good times and they weren’t running one at the time of the ‘’global’’ crash. That’s a good reason why they’ve been resistant to the crash and have continued to keep steady progress.

You make out like reducing the HUGE deficit is a bad thing but running it in the first place is why we are here. You might wish to pass off Labours mistakes and pretend they are all Tory ones but we were all there, we all saw it. Spend spend spend, oh shit we’ve run out. I’d rather get back to manageable deficit and slowly invest, to avoid boom and bust, if possible. We aren’t bust, we aren’t broken, it’s barely a hiccup right now and you are doing your usual over exaggerating.

This New Labour, Old Labour shit is all the proof you need of how disastrous their terms end, they have to totally reinvent every time because all credibility has been shot.

If you wanted to be like Germany you should have adopted the Euro. Your lot didn’t do that, the pound stayed strong, and we all enjoyed being able to buy cheap shit and go on foreign holidays.

 

Maybe now you lot have accidentally destroyed the pound we’ll get a trade surplus. But probably not, supply chains are global now, we’d just be swimming against the tide. 

 

Still not sure what you think you would personally achieve by the government operating with a surplus. You use words like “we” and “us” as if that money would belong to you. It wouldn’t, it would belong to the government. With the government running a deficit, you have much more of an opportunity to make that money your own, like holding government bonds for example, like most people do in their pensions.

 

I’m quite happy to lend the government a bit of money and for them to keep paying me a bit of interest. Why would I have a problem with that? Actually wanting the government to take your money and keep it for themselves for no reason is right up there with being happy to accept a decade of pay cuts as long as businesses are making profits in terms of full-on humiliating cuckoldry.

Edited 16 November 2017 by Rogstanley

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Strokes said:

Correct but they don’t run huge deficits in the good times and they weren’t running one at the time of the ‘’global’’ crash. That’s a good reason why they’ve been resistant to the crash and have continued to keep steady progress.

You make out like reducing the HUGE deficit is a bad thing but running it in the first place is why we are here. You might wish to pass off Labours mistakes and pretend they are all Tory ones but we were all there, we all saw it. Spend spend spend, oh shit we’ve run out. I’d rather get back to manageable deficit and slowly invest, to avoid boom and bust, if possible. We aren’t bust, we aren’t broken, it’s barely a hiccup right now and you are doing your usual over exaggerating.

This New Labour, Old Labour shit is all the proof you need of how disastrous their terms end, they have to totally reinvent every time because all credibility has been shot.

The deficit needed to be reduced after the financial crisis, that's absolutely true. There are different ways of doing that. George Osborne has commented on gordon Brown having made good decisions astound that time and Britain was growing at 3.1% at the pint the Tories took over. 3.1% of our economy is around £45billion so the deficit could have been reduced without austerity.

 

Running a deficit isn't an issue. Having a deficit had nothing to do with the crisis or the aftermath. The only thing the deficit did was give the Tories and attack line. It wasn't boom or bust, it was personal debt (in the us as osborne admitted recently also) not national debt that caused the crisis. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Strokes said:

Correct but they don’t run huge deficits in the good times and they weren’t running one at the time of the ‘’global’’ crash. That’s a good reason why they’ve been resistant to the crash and have continued to keep steady progress.

You make out like reducing the HUGE deficit is a bad thing but running it in the first place is why we are here. You might wish to pass off Labours mistakes and pretend they are all Tory ones but we were all there, we all saw it. Spend spend spend, oh shit we’ve run out. I’d rather get back to manageable deficit and slowly invest, to avoid boom and bust, if possible. We aren’t bust, we aren’t broken, it’s barely a hiccup right now and you are doing your usual over exaggerating.

This New Labour, Old Labour shit is all the proof you need of how disastrous their terms end, they have to totally reinvent every time because all credibility has been shot.

Oh and to point out, the Tories get kicked out every time because they decimate public services.

 

 

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Claridge said:

We have speculated 1.5000000,000000,0000000 so far.when does the accumalating start?

 

8 hours ago, Strokes said:

The Germans have ran a surplus for the last three years, they seem to be doing ok.

Anyway, in the post war era (or taken from any point afterwards) labour have had more years in surplus than the Tories (despite having less years in power) and the Tories have borrowed more annually on average both in cash terms and real terms.

[Webbo]

10 minutes ago, toddybad said:

 

Anyway, in the post war era (or taken from any point afterwards) labour have had more years in surplus than the Tories (despite having less years in power) and the Tories have borrowed more annually on average both in cash terms and real terms.

That's the way it works in this country. The Tories get elected to sort out Labour's mess. They spend years putting the economy right ,making the hard choices,and as soon as we're doing well again people think they can afford to vote Labour again.

 

In short the Tories always inherit a shit economy, Labour always inherit a healthy one.

[Strokes]

6 hours ago, toddybad said:

The deficit needed to be reduced after the financial crisis, that's absolutely true. There are different ways of doing that. George Osborne has commented on gordon Brown having made good decisions astound that time and Britain was growing at 3.1% at the pint the Tories took over. 3.1% of our economy is around £45billion so the deficit could have been reduced without austerity.

 

Running a deficit isn't an issue. Having a deficit had nothing to do with the crisis or the aftermath. The only thing the deficit did was give the Tories and attack line. It wasn't boom or bust, it was personal debt (in the us as osborne admitted recently also) not national debt that caused the crisis. 

Of course Gordon Brown will say that, he has a totally different ideology from Osbourne. I’m not saying that this method is perfect, just arguing that it not a worldwide failed model like you seem to claim.

 

18 minutes ago, toddybad said:

 

Anyway, in the post war era (or taken from any point afterwards) labour have had more years in surplus than the Tories (despite having less years in power) and the Tories have borrowed more annually on average both in cash terms and real terms.

Yeah look where the biggest chunk of that borrowing has come from, the last seven years. A period you have called for even more borrowing in and more spending. Laughable.

[Buce]

44 minutes ago, Webbo said:

That's the way it works in this country. The Tories get elected to sort out Labour's mess. They spend years putting the economy right ,making the hard choices,and as soon as we're doing well again people think they can afford to vote Labour again.

 

In short the Tories always inherit a shit economy, Labour always inherit a healthy one.

 

Which Labour then has to spend reversing all the Tory cuts to essential services. 

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Of course Gordon Brown will say that, he has a totally different ideology from Osbourne. I’m not saying that this method is perfect, just arguing that it not a worldwide failed model like you seem to claim.

 

Yeah look where the biggest chunk of that borrowing has come from, the last seven years. A period you have called for even more borrowing in and more spending. Laughable.

No, osborne said that gordon Brown had handled a global financial crash well in a recent interview. Funny how his tune changed when he wasn't trying to win votes!

 

And in the last 7 years we have decimated public services by reducing expenditure. Government expenditure helps bring about growth - if it builds a school you get builders, architects, plumbers, electricians, teachers all getting jobs. It has economic BENEFIT to the country.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

That's the way it works in this country. The Tories get elected to sort out Labour's mess. They spend years putting the economy right ,making the hard choices,and as soon as we're doing well again people think they can afford to vote Labour again.

 

In short the Tories always inherit a shit economy, Labour always inherit a healthy one.

This is demonstrably untrue. There one year of surplus around 1989 then the Tories ran the economy aground due leading to a much larger deficit than anything seen in the 1970s. The next surpluses were under Blair. Until the financial crisis of 2008 the labour deficit was less than the tory deficit had been years earlier, despite the intervening inflation.

 

 

[Alf Bentley]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

That's the way it works in this country. The Tories get elected to sort out Labour's mess. They spend years putting the economy right ,making the hard choices,and as soon as we're doing well again people think they can afford to vote Labour again.

 

In short the Tories always inherit a shit economy, Labour always inherit a healthy one.

 

Can we somehow bookmark this post so as to re-examine it at the next election?

 

It's just as true to say that Labour always inherits a shit society, the Tories always inherit a healthy (or healthier) one.

As usual with the Tories, we now see public services falling apart, the most expensive childcare in Europe, rising crime, rising homelessness, reduced expectations for young people...but that's alright because we have low unemployment...even if real pay is falling and jobs are insecure. 

 

Quite apart from examples that clearly disprove your claim (1974), there's also the little matter of what happens while the different parties are in power, as opposed to the situation at the handover.

Labour might have inherited a benign economic environment in 1997 (social decay & long-term unemployment notwithstanding). But the Tories had presided over 2 major recessions (at least partly self-inflicted), unemployment of 3-4m, the creation of deindustralised areas of social exclusion, a swathe of house repossessions and a currency devaluation....just the Tories "making the hard choices", eh? Just as they're now making the hard choices to preside over a housing crisis, falling real pay, the collapse of the NHS and social care for the elderly, growing numbers sleeping rough or using food banks - not to mention Brexit potentially destroying the trading relationships that contribute so much to our prosperity and the political relationships that contribute so much to our security, and reducing living standards and social cohesion for decades. Meanwhile, there were long periods of economic/social improvement and comparative prosperity under Labour in the late 40s, 60s & 97-07 - and no govt succeeded in the chaos of the 70s.

 

I think we both know that we're never going to convince one another. But I do think this false reputation of Tory economic competence risks being utterly trashed over the next couple of years. Ironically, the best hope of the Tories maintaining that false reputation is if the govt collapses in the coming months so that they can hand the poisoned chalice of economic/social decline and Brexit over to Labour! 

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, toddybad said:

 

 

And in the last 7 years we have decimated public services by reducing expenditure. Government expenditure helps bring about growth - if it builds a school you get builders, architects, plumbers, electricians, teachers all getting jobs. It has economic BENEFIT to the country.

Because they over spent during the boom, it’s not a coincidence in my view, that countries like Australia and Germany suffered the least damage from the global crash and they had their books well balanced before it. They were able to tackle from a position of strength. Labour saddled us with huge PFI contracts lasting decades for infrastructure (which isnt included in the national debt figures conveniently) and a huge budget deficit. It’s great they spent all that money, it’s doing us wonders now and you want them to be given an open cheque book again? 

Eventually you have to pay the money back. 

Youve mentioned on here that personal debt is reaching crisis and that people are borrowing to live etc etc, do you really think that it’s an appropriate time to piss away public finances when we might have yet another banking crisis?