Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Webbo]

Just now, toddybad said:

This government has increased debt by £700billion. What have you seen for that? Would it not be better to spend on things that make your life better and increase growth?

 

Out of interest, HS2 will cost £80bil. Trident will cost £250billion. Do you support the tories borrowing to invest?

I don't think anyone's claiming Trident is an investment although a lot of that money will be spent in this country so perhaps you should be in favour?

 

I'm not anti HS2 but I'm a bit worried about the cost. £80 billion (tbh it'll probably be £100 billion plus before it's finished) spread over the 20 years it'll take to build isn't the same as £50 billion a year for the next 5 years.

 

Who's going to build all these projects when we have near to full employment. If they did spend £50 billion and found worthwhile projects to do I doubt they could deliver.

[Carl the Llama]

37 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

I don't think Matts family member is a anomaly. I have done volunteering in Inner city schools and 75% of the parents are glue to their Facebook screen instead of listening to the course which helps them to learn to cook cheap meals and hold meaningful conversations with a child. Are they imaginary parents? no there are many parents who do not look after their children, why is that I do not know, many of them really should not have had children.

 

Left wingers over react to every story like the world is going to end tomorrow and all the poor are going to die. Actually you go outside and most people and things are fine, the NHS is still there, Schools are open, bins are collected far from the hell that Corbyn supporters have us believe.  People really fall for this far left class war shit started by Momentum and Corbyn. He is a nasty divisive idiot.

 

 

So all of these people who don't care for their kids and don't properly nourish them nor even seem willing to learn how to do so exist and you have met them... but you're against the idea of the state providing nourishment to these children who you know ceteris paribus won't be properly fed at home? 

 

Frankly I don't think the state should have to feed people's children either.  If a person can afford to feed their child then of course they should be doing so and I certainly don't think the state should interfere with people's private lives or tell them how to live but every rule has its exceptions and you've just described the kind of exceptional circumstance where it would be perfectly appropriate for the government to help these kids as far as I'm concerned.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Webbo said:

I don't think anyone's claiming Trident is an investment although a lot of that money will be spent in this country so perhaps you should be in favour?

 

I'm not anti HS2 but I'm a bit worried about the cost. £80 billion (tbh it'll probably be £100 billion plus before it's finished) spread over the 20 years it'll take to build isn't the same as £50 billion a year for the next 5 years.

 

Who's going to build all these projects when we have near to full employment. If they did spend £50 billion and found worthwhile projects to do I doubt they could deliver.

Let's worry about what we spend the money on later. First we need to agree the principal, is borrowing okay if you see a return on the investment? The Tories are borrowing every day as it is...

 

Both HS2 and Trident will put many, many people to work and are financial investments in the short term. I do have doubts about both projects but that's for later when we discuss what would bring the best returns if we can agree the initial principal.

[Webbo]

7 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Let's worry about what we spend the money on later. First we need to agree the principal, is borrowing okay if you see a return on the investment? The Tories are borrowing every day as it is...

 

Both HS2 and Trident will put many, many people to work and are financial investments in the short term. I do have doubts about both projects but that's for later when we discuss what would bring the best returns if we can agree the initial principal.

I see HS2 as a way of spreading the wealth from the South East up towards the North and everywhere in between.It's addressing a need. It's not necessarily about creating more wealth. 

 

In my opinion, land alongside the tracks will be redesignated from green belt to development land. That's where the money will be made. That's just my theory though, I can't supply any sources.

[Strokes]

2 hours ago, Rogstanley said:

You've never seen a right wing person blame immigrants? Foxin_mad was blaming them for the fact wages are plummeting a couple of pages ago, among probably hundreds of examples in this thread alone.

 

Immigrants as a cohort are generally defenceless when they come here, they have fewer rights (not being allowed to vote etc - not saying they should be allowed to, just making the point) and often are only part of a small community who don't have much of a voice. 

 

Argue the toss over exactly what is meant by defenceless and whether every immigrsnt csn be described as such if you like, the point is that the right always go after the easier targets be they immigrants, the disabled, the unemployed and now in this thread, starving children. 

 

In school they call the kids who go after easy targets bullies and cowards. I think the same applies to adults.

Nice deflection.

Where have you heard right wingers use the term defensless and why would you assume they only blame the defenceless immigrants and not others? 

[Rogstanley]

32 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Nice deflection.

Where have you heard right wingers use the term defensless and why would you assume they only blame the defenceless immigrants and not others? 

Not a deflection at all, I was directly reiterating my point.

 

You're not going to get a Tory admitting they target defenceless groups are you, cowards don't admit they're cowards.

 

Immigrants are one group of people Tories blame and I've described immigrants as defenceless and explained the basis of that description. I've also said you target other defenceless groups like the disabled, people on benefits and in this thread, hungry children.

 

Easy targets is a better description than defenceless, but arguing about the phraseology is itself a deflection.

 

[Rogstanley]

41 minutes ago, Webbo said:

I see HS2 as a way of spreading the wealth from the South East up towards the North and everywhere in between.It's addressing a need. It's not necessarily about creating more wealth. 

 

If it's not about creating wealth then the way you've described it is that it's about wealth redistribution and I can't see how you could be in favour of that.

 

In reality it should be about wealth creation; about improving productivity and bringing new, good skilled jobs to the country.

[Strokes]

6 minutes ago, Rogstanley said:

Not a deflection at all, I was directly reiterating my point.

 

You're not going to get a Tory admitting they target defenceless groups are you, cowards don't admit they're cowards.

 

Immigrants are one group of people Tories blame and I've described immigrants as defenceless and explained the basis of that description. I've also said you target other defenceless groups like the disabled, people on benefits and in this thread, hungry children.

 

Easy targets is a better description than defenceless, but arguing about the phraseology is itself a deflection.

 

Sure rog, you choose to brand an ethnic group of people weak. If a Tory did the same thing, I’m sure you would let it slide. You are pathetic and ridiculous, as usual.

[Rogstanley]

1 minute ago, Strokes said:

Sure rog, you choose to brand an ethnic group of people weak. If a Tory did the same thing, I’m sure you would let it slide. You are pathetic and ridiculous, as usual.

Where did I say absolutely anything about an "ethnic group" and where did I say this group was "weak"?

 

You're just blatantly making things up now. 

 

You've got no comeback on the accusation that you and your ilk deliberately pick on easy targets because you're scared of standing up to big business and the rich so you're making things up to try and discredit me and then dishing out personal insults.

 

Not your finest hour mate, go and have a snickers or a lie down.

[Strokes]

2 minutes ago, Rogstanley said:

Where did I say absolutely anything about an "ethnic group" and where did I say this group was "weak"?

 

You're just blatantly making things up now. 

 

You've got no comeback on the accusation that you and your ilk deliberately pick on easy targets because you're scared of standing up to big business and the rich so you're making things up to try and discredit me and then dishing out personal insults.

 

Not your finest hour mate, go and have a snickers or a lie down.

My ilk, I think you are stereotyping rog, is that acceptable? If I’ve got no comeback, does that make me defenceless and that mean you are picking on a defenceless group?

You are pathetic because you know your argument has zero basis, you are ridiculous because you make sweeping statements about tories that are laughable. 

So pull out the parts when all of us tories are picking on the disabled, people on benefits or the hungry children. Let’s see the quotes.

Ive seen people argue what the reasons are and what the solutions should be but I’ve not seen anything terrible in here like what your shitty (and probably racist) statement alludes too.

[Rogstanley]

28 minutes ago, Strokes said:

My ilk, I think you are stereotyping rog, is that acceptable? If I’ve got no comeback, does that make me defenceless and that mean you are picking on a defenceless group?

You are pathetic because you know your argument has zero basis, you are ridiculous because you make sweeping statements about tories that are laughable. 

So pull out the parts when all of us tories are picking on the disabled, people on benefits or the hungry children. Let’s see the quotes.

Ive seen people argue what the reasons are and what the solutions should be but I’ve not seen anything terrible in here like what your shitty (and probably racist) statement alludes too.

Disabled people have been the victim of spending cuts.

 

Benefits have been cut across the board.

 

Immigrants are widely blamed for all sorts of things from wages falling to NHS queues.

 

In this thread Tories have said they’d be happy to see children go to school hungry.

 

Meanwhile the wealthy take an ever greater slice of wealth and the Tories say nothing, defend them in fact; cut their taxes.

 

What’s the difference between the rich/big business and the disabled, people on benefits, kids?

 

The difference is that the latter, as groups, aren’t able to  defend themselves as well, don’t have access to teams of highly paid lawyers and accountants, can’t influence the media, can’t use project fear to scare people into defending their interests, many can’t even vote. They are, relatively speaking, easy targets. Tories go after all the easy targets and shy away from confronting anyone with a bit of backing.

 

Immigrants aren’t an ethnic group. Defenceless doesn’t mean weak. Accusing someone of racism based on words you’ve blatantly made up is disgraceful and for that reason, for the sake of my own sanity I’ll not be commenting on that part of your post after this. If you’ve got any response to my demonstrated theory that the Tories pick on easy targets then I’m all ears but if not then we might as well call an end to this conversation. Football starts soon anyway. 

Edited 13 December 2017 by Rogstanley

[Buce]

 

Government defeated in vote on EU withdrawal bill amendment:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-parliaments-42310031

Edited 13 December 2017 by Buce

[Sharpe's Fox]

IoI looks like the government will be GRIEVEing tonight amirite lads 

[Sharpe's Fox]

someone has inflicted GRIEVEous bodily harm on this government

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

I see HS2 as a way of spreading the wealth from the South East up towards the North and everywhere in between.It's addressing a need. It's not necessarily about creating more wealth. 

 

In my opinion, land alongside the tracks will be redesignated from green belt to development land. That's where the money will be made. That's just my theory though, I can't supply any sources.

That may happen to the land I don't know. I won't press you for sources, don't worry.

 

The only wealth redistribution from hs2 will be workers building the thing. After that it is just a slight reduction in rail times from Birmingham to London, no idea how that's supposed to fix the North's problems. Cross rail for the north is needed much more. 

 

Imo there's not a problem borrowing if you're borrowing to invest in things that give back to the economy. A schools rebuilding programme (without the pfi), significant investment in northern infrastructure, clean energy etc. These are all things that would create thousands of jobs while the building programme is underway.

 

After the war the UK had its biggest ever debt. It was at that moment it created the nhs, the motorways and a raft of other infrastructure. That period saw debt decline against gdp massively. 

 

The bit that you keep missing is that it isn't about the absolute debt figure - it's about how that compares to the economy. That's why economists talk about debt to GDP. We need to make the economy bigger. This is even not important with Brexit and the current need for our country to be more productive. Otherwise the downhill slow we're on will only get steeper.

[Sharpe's Fox]

We need to dig a GRIEVE for Treesa May

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Government defeated in vote on EU withdrawal bill amendment:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-parliaments-42310031

They didn't even need to go through with it. Letwin and WRM both proposed an alternative bit the government wouldn't budge. Nuts.

[Strokes]

17 minutes ago, Rogstanley said:

Disabled people have been the victim of spending cuts.

 

Benefits have been cut across the board.

 

Immigrants are widely blamed for all sorts of things from wages falling to NHS queues.

 

In this thread Tories have said they’d be happy to see children go to school hungry.

 

Meanwhile the wealthy take an ever greater slice of wealth and the Tories say nothing, defend them in fact; cut their taxes.

 

What’s the difference between the rich/big business and the disabled, people on benefits, kids?

 

The difference is that the latter, as groups, aren’t able to defend themselves as well, don’t have access to teams of highly paid lawyers and accountants, can’t use project fear to scare people into defending their interests, many can’t even vote. They are, relatively speaking, easy targets. Tories go after all the easy targets and shy away from confronting anyone with a bit of backing.

 

Immigrants aren’t an ethnic group. Defenceless doesn’t mean weak. Accusing someone of racism based on words you’ve blatantly made up is disgraceful and for that reason, for the sake of my own sanity I’ll not be commenting on that part of your post after this. If you’ve got any response to my demonstrated theory that the Tories pick on easy targets then I’m all ears but if not then we might as well call an end to this conversation. Football starts soon anyway. 

Oh I see, because benefits have been reduced and people coerced into work that equates to hating them? Do we still hate them if they are in work, just for clarity, I need to know what I should be thinking.

 

For once I agree with you, this conversation is going nowhere, but I like how you put the onus on me to disprove your ridiculous accusations that you can’t prove.

 

 

Oh and wrong again

defenceless

dɪˈfɛnsləs/

adjective

adjective: defenceless; adjective: defenseless

1. without defence or protection; totally vulnerable.

   "attacks on defenceless civilians"

   synonyms:

   vulnerable, helpless, powerless, impotent, weak, frail; More susceptible, easily hurt/wounded/damaged; rareimpuissant, resistless

Edited 13 December 2017 by Strokes

[Rogstanley]

2 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Oh I see, because benefits have been reduced and people coerced into work that equates to hating them? Do we still hate them if they are in work, just for clarity, I need to know what I should be thinking.

 

For once I agree with you, this conversation is going nowhere, but I like how you put the onus on me to disprove your ridiculous accusations that you can’t prove.

Now you're using the word "hate" which again is a word I didn't use. If you keep attributing things to me I haven't said I won't respond to you at all.

Edited 13 December 2017 by Rogstanley

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Oh I see, because benefits have been reduced and people coerced into work that equates to hating them? Do we still hate them if they are in work, just for clarity, I need to know what I should be thinking.

 

For once I agree with you, this conversation is going nowhere, but I like how you put the onus on me to disprove your ridiculous accusations that you can’t prove.

The vast majority of people on benefits are in work. Out of work benefits account for 1.3% of welfare expenditure.

 

Wages are falling, the majority of work created in the last 4 years has been less than full time and benefits have been reduced. This is why all independent analysis shows clearly that the poor have been hit hardest by tory cuts.

[Webbo]

8 minutes ago, toddybad said:

That may happen to the land I don't know. I won't press you for sources, don't worry.

 

The only wealth redistribution from hs2 will be workers building the thing. After that it is just a slight reduction in rail times from Birmingham to London, no idea how that's supposed to fix the North's problems. Cross rail for the north is needed much more. 

 

Imo there's not a problem borrowing if you're borrowing to invest in things that give back to the economy. A schools rebuilding programme (without the pfi), significant investment in northern infrastructure, clean energy etc. These are all things that would create thousands of jobs while the building programme is underway.

 

After the war the UK had its biggest ever debt. It was at that moment it created the nhs, the motorways and a raft of other infrastructure. That period saw debt decline against gdp massively. 

 

The bit that you keep missing is that it isn't about the absolute debt figure - it's about how that compares to the economy. That's why economists talk about debt to GDP. We need to make the economy bigger. This is even not important with Brexit and the current need for our country to be more productive. Otherwise the downhill slow we're on will only get steeper.

So what your saying is spending a huge amount of money on HS2 won't give us a return on investment?

[Webbo]

1 hour ago, Rogstanley said:

 

If it's not about creating wealth then the way you've described it is that it's about wealth redistribution and I can't see how you could be in favour of that.

 

In reality it should be about wealth creation; about improving productivity and bringing new, good skilled jobs to the country.

The jobs are already there we're just moving them north, taking some of the over crowding out of the south east might slow down house prices in London. All about being a One Nation Tory.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Webbo said:

So what your saying is spending a huge amount of money on HS2 won't give us a return on investment?

I don't know is the answer. Clearly the government believes it will or it wouldn't be building it. An awful lot of commentators don't believe it's the best use of that money though. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Webbo said:

The jobs are already there we're just moving them north, taking some of the over crowding out of the south east might slow down house prices in London. All about being a One Nation Tory.

The jobs building hs2 over decades don't exist

[DJ Barry Hammond]

59 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Government defeated in vote on EU withdrawal bill amendment:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-parliaments-42310031

 

Given I’m currently studying Journalism, Grieve has featured a fair bit on my course given he wasn’t former attorney general and was involved in prosecuting a fair few important landmark contempt cases - so I was aware of how highly intellectual and principled he is.

 

Yet it seems astonishing that the government itself didn’t understand this of their own colleague and that in order to avoid an embrassing defeat they needed to take his concerns about clause 9 seriously. 

 

And it was quite something to see his ferocious disgust in his final remarks shortly before the decision, following Raab’s final attempt at a half hearted government concession, when he quite rightly castigated it as “too little, too late.”

 

So what effect does this half on Brexit - probably very little, apart from give May a slightly bloodied nose, but I don’t see how anyone on either side of this long drawn out debate could reasonably disagree with the merits of Amendment 7 put forward by Grieve without a more forthcoming explanation as to exactly why the government needed clause 9 as it was. 

Edited 13 December 2017 by DJ Barry Hammond