Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[leicsmac]

4 hours ago, Webbo said:

Have you ever seen the news coverage of the NUT conference, or ever seen their spokesmen on the news? Have you actually been to school in this country.

Oh, I don't deny that a lot of teachers are Labour voters and of course the NUT will back them. My point is that you can't guarantee everything they say is politically motivated in the same way that you probably can with an MP. Apologies for the pedantry but I think it's an important distinction.

 

 

4 hours ago, Strokes said:

Just because they have more reason to be, does not mean that it doesn’t or isn’t happening.

Absolutely agree, and it's possible that it is happening here.

However, given the above the idea of an MP flat-out dismissing a concern of his constituents as politically motivated...just seems more politically motivated.

[Sharpe's Fox]

Quote

 

City fears Trojan horse if Labour wins power

Jeremy Corbyn has been prime minister for barely a couple of hours. He has returned from Buckingham Palace, where the Queen invited him to form a government, and has given his first triumphant speech in front of No 10, promising that he will bring change and govern for the many not the few. The pound has not collapsed but it is certainly trembling. And as investors attempt to absorb the news, John McDonnell slips out of Downing Street and makes the short walk to the Treasury. Only now is the fate of the economy to be determined.

The new chancellor will be applauded into the building by the waiting staff and shown up to his new office by the permanent secretary, Sir Tom Scholar. There they will sit down for a cup of tea — Sir Tom, the chancellor, his special advisers and principal private secretary — and the most crucial conversation of the new political era will begin.

After the small talk about the weather and lack of sleep, Sir Tom will explain that the Treasury has examined Labour’s manifesto and already has a number of implementation plans up its sleeve. In the meantime, he will add, there are a few more pressing matters.

When does the chancellor want his first budget: should there be an emergency one in a month’s time, or can he wait until the autumn? Second, are there any immediate priorities? The Treasury has noted he intends to set up the National Investment Bank, his vehicle for investment spending, on day one; it already has the necessary paperwork in place. Third, are there any policies he has in mind beyond what was in the manifesto?

Most urgently of all, might Mr McDonnell consider making a public statement? Investors around the world are watching. They too read the manifesto and many of them sold the pound as the polls turned Labour’s way. Might this be the opportunity, Sir Tom will gently suggest, for Mr McDonnell to assure markets that he stands by the independent Bank of England, and is committed to financial stability?

There are well-worn Whitehall protocols surrounding the passage of power from one administration to another. But in the case of a prospective Corbyn government, these first few conversations become especially consequential. Senior Treasury officials have already started to game them out.

Clearly, much would depend on the nature of the election victory: on whether Mr Corbyn won an overall majority or was reliant on the Scottish National Party to pass votes in parliament. For reasons we’ll get on to, whether Brexit had already happened would be key and most important of all would be what the incoming Labour government’s manifesto looked like.

As they do during every election, Treasury officials will work on the basis that the party will implement everything it promises during the campaign. This summer, as the polls moved in Mr Corbyn’s direction, mandarins at 1 Horse Guards Road hurriedly did the sums on the 2017 manifesto and found that most of the plans could be implemented relatively straightforwardly. For all the scare stories about a revolution in economic policy — the threat of capital levies on the wealthy, people’s quantitative easing with billions of printed pounds spent on investment — the document was actually rather conservative.

The economic model it sketched out, with higher top rate income and corporation taxes, state-funded universities and government-owned utilities, is par for the course on the other side of the Channel. The tax burden would rise but remain lower than in the early 1980s; ditto public spending levels. Granted, this would represent a major shift in UK economic policy but were it all to go ahead as laid out in the manifesto, Britain would end up looking more like Sweden than Venezuela.

This is not to say there weren’t quibbles. Officials calculated that rise in the corporation tax was unlikely to generate as much revenue as Labour predicted; nor would the higher rate income tax increases. The shortfall might have had to be made up by increasing another tax, such as VAT. The nationalisations were far less imprudent than the more hysterical commentators were suggesting but paying for the companies by swapping gilts for shares looked “economically inefficient”. Why not simply borrow the money instead, which amounted to more or less the same thing, at a lower cost?

There were inconsistencies too. For instance, abolishing tuition fees would represent a major giveaway for the middle classes. But officials reasoned that if Mr McDonnell pressed them to implement, they could “long-grass” the issue: show the new chancellor the distributional analysis revealing the move would funnel billions of pounds from the poor to the rich and suggest a few alterations, including means-tested grants and a graduate tax. Quite how the millions of students voting for precisely this policy would take it is another question.

Indeed, for the civil service, the manifesto was something of a relief. Not only was it far less dangerous than billed, it was more thoroughly costed and transparent than its Conservative counterpart. Surprising as this might sound, many Treasury officials privately wondered why the Labour Party didn’t go further. For some, given the scale of economic and social challenges facing the UK, it wasn’t altogether clear that Labour’s recipe was radical enough. The big problem with 21st-century capitalism isn’t so much inequality of income but inequality of wealth, so why wasn’t Labour considering a wealth tax? Given the government can borrow at an interest rate of 1.5 per cent for 50 years, why was Labour still sticking to fiscal rules adapted from Ed Balls?

If this scene of John McDonnell outside No 11 with the chancellor’s red box became a reality there are fears that sterling might plunge and investors could take flight from socialist Britain If this scene of John McDonnell outside No 11 with the chancellor’s red box became a reality there are fears that sterling might plunge and investors could take flight from socialist Britain For that matter, if Labour really wanted to reverse austerity, why leave the Conservative working-age benefits freeze in place? Why keep spending on the police and NHS so far below 2008 levels? Most oddly, why did Labour effectively disown its boldest, most interesting policy — a land value tax — shortly after publication, saying it would only apply to commercial properties?

The public mood has been moving slowly leftwards since the financial crisis, to the extent that many wealthy investors have now reconciled themselves to the notion that they may have to pay more in taxes in future years. Some in the City even accept with gritted teeth the wisdom of wealth taxes. Better, they reason, to be part of the solution than to have something more unpleasant imposed upon them.

What matters in the end, they say, is not so much whether they will be taxed more but whether those taxes will be structured destructively. Many countries around the world, including France, Norway and Switzerland, have extensive wealth taxes; it is not hard to conceive of a British version. Each year you might fill in a self-assessment form, including all your assets, to be audited at random by HMRC. A tiny fraction of those assets would raise a considerable sum of money.

What keeps business people awake at night is less this flavour of socialism than another, much more radical version. In this alternative vision, Mr McDonnell tells Sir Tom that he does have one proposal that wasn’t in the manifesto. He would like to freeze all bank accounts. There will be a one-off 20 per cent windfall tax on all savings and investments above £200,000: a capital levy, as it is sometimes called. The proceeds will help pay for a major investment splurge on the NHS and schools.

The first of these visions would be painful for wealthy investors. The second would represent an almost unprecedented assault on property rights.

Neither version appeared in the last manifesto — but then nor did Gordon Brown’s 1997 plan to grant the Bank of England independence. Which brings us to the most intriguing, nerve-racking issue for the square mile: Labour’s Jekyll and Hyde complex. Mr Corbyn leads two Labour parties: the 2017 manifesto version, which wears a suit and tie and wants to turn Britain Scandinavian, and the persona that wants to tear down the establishment and foment class war.

Those who fear Labour’s Mr Hyde fixate on the comments uttered by Mr Corbyn after the Grenfell Tower disaster, that mansions in Kensington should be requisitioned for those who lost their homes in the fire. They suspect Mr McDonnell still believes, as he did before becoming shadow chancellor, that interest rates should be set by politicians rather than the Bank of England. They fret about the way Mr Corbyn lashed out when Morgan Stanley warned that Labour posed a bigger risk to the economy than Brexit: with a video accusing the bank of crashing the economy and adding “when they say we’re a threat, they’re right”.

Some wealthy investors say they fear a “Trojan horse” approach: that Labour will ride into power on a moderate manifesto that belies its radical aims. They point out that as prudent as the party’s fiscal rules look, they are open to manipulation. Under their strictures Mr McDonnell can borrow as much as he wants provided the cash goes towards investment, but what if he decided to classify all education spending, teachers’ salaries and all, as investment? What if he declared that money spent on a nurse represented investment in the country’s future health?

Or what about the way Labour implements its nationalisations? While many in the City acknowledge that PFI has hardly been a roaring success and have little problem with its abolition, the big question is how those private infrastructure projects are brought back on to the public balance sheet. At the moment the EU provides a safeguard. Should Mr McDonnell attempt to pay private investors below the market rate when bringing PFI projects back in house, the investors can currently appeal to EU institutions under state aid rules. Once the UK leaves the EU, those powers return to parliament, giving a future prime minister far freer rein. “The Tories are wafting away the single biggest constraint on Corbyn,” one banker says of the European Court of Justice.

The real fear for some is that once in office the Labour leadership would show scant regard for property rights. “The City, the economy for that matter, was built on centuries of stability in the rule of law,” says a hedge fund manager. “Sure, no one’s going to mourn a few bankers leaving the country. But what about a generation of people scared to invest in the country? Once the genie’s out of the bottle . . .”

The head of one housebuilding firm has been reminding colleagues of Mr Corbyn’s frequent attacks on builders for harbouring sizeable land banks and pointing out that the Attlee government effectively banned private sector housebuilding between 1945 and 1951. This is a slight exaggeration: under Nye Bevan private housebuilders still got some business, though the bulk of building was indeed done by local government. But this underlines the degree of paranoia in corporate Britain.

In recent months, directors of many of Britain’s major housebuilders have sold shares at the fastest rate anyone can remember. Steve Morgan, founder of Redrow, sold £153 million worth, about 7 per cent of the entire company. That followed similar, albeit significantly smaller, executive sell-offs at Berkeley Group, Barratt and Taylor Wimpey.

Putting this all down to Mr Corbyn is preposterous. But his political resilience and the sudden plausibility of his premiership is focusing minds. Some wealthy investors say they have plans in place to move substantial sums offshore the minute an election is called. In Mayfair, home to many of London’s hedge funds, one strategy growing in popularity is what some call the “Corbyn trade”: betting on spectacular increases in interest rates and a huge plunge in the pound as a prospective Labour government splurges cash, forcing the Bank of England to respond.

In a private meeting with bankers, one senior BoE figure recently added his voice to those saying a Labour government is now the biggest risk to the UK economy. And that was before the party announced its plans earlier this week to move key bank functions from Threadneedle Street to Birmingham.

However, some party officials say that, bolstered by their surprise success in June’s election, the leadership still has little sincere interest in appealing beyond the party faithful. They believe that having garnered that many votes with a moderate manifesto last time around, they will do even better with a bolder revamp in the next election. And with Momentum now in full control of the party machinery, there is little stopping them from doing so.

So while the 2017 manifesto remains official party policy, insiders say there are plans to add more radical elements next year. Mr McDonnell intends to launch a new inquiry into the role of the Bank of England. He is minded to change the Monetary Policy Committee’s remit, so it targets employment as well as inflation. In one sense, this is hardly a massive departure: many other central banks, including the Federal Reserves, have similar mandates. But meddling with monetary policy is one of those red flags for the City — the kind of thing likely to cause a real plunge in sterling were the polls to go Mr Corbyn’s way.

It brings us back to the Trojan horse theory. Do Labour’s leadership suppress their radical instincts until they get into office? Would doing so win or lose votes? Might an adverse market reaction actually redouble their anti-establishment credentials? In Labour HQ they have concluded that in the end there is only one thing that really stands in the way of a truly radical Labour government. “That’s what the civil service is for,” says one party official.

That first conversation with Sir Tom promises to be very interesting indeed.

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/city-fears-trojan-horse-if-labour-wins-power-8xtbw6t2w

 

McDonnell woah McDonnell woah

He came from Labours left

To stop the bankers theft

 

who needs to pay for content right lads?

 

Edited 16 December 2017 by Sharpe's Fox

[Guest]

Today's reminder that tories hate the poor.

 

Social care postcode gap widens for older people

Council funding cuts have reduced help for the old in deprived areas, study shows

 

The data showed 42% of women over 65 in deprived areas have at least one unmet daily need, compared to 22% in richer communities. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Michael Savage

Published:15:41 GMT+00:00 Sat 16 December 2017

 Follow Michael Savage

 

Older people in England’s most deprived areas are twice as likely to lack the help they need for basic acts, like using the toilet or taking medicine, compared with those in the richest neighbourhoods, according to figures that expose gross inequalities in access to social care.

The official analysis is another sign that years of cuts have damaged the ability of councils in poor areas to meet the growing demand for care, potentially putting significant pressure on the NHS. It comes on the back of the crisis over social care that is still unresolved. There have been a series of warnings about a multibillion-pound funding black hole and increasingly severe consequences for the health service.

A third of men aged 65 and over in the most deprived areas (33%) have an unmet need for at least one so-called “activity of daily living”, such as washing their face and hands or getting out of bed. In the least deprived areas the figure falls to 15%. Meanwhile, 42% of women over 65 in the most deprived areas have an unmet need for at least one such activity, compared with 22% of their counterparts in the richest areas.

Britons ready to pay more council tax to fund social care

The inequalities were exposed in the latest data from the official Health Survey for England. It used information on income, employment, education, health, crime, housing and living environment to find the most and least deprived neighbourhoods. Local authorities with the highest proportion of deprived neighbourhoods are in Middlesbrough, Knowsley, Hull, Liverpool and Manchester.

AdvertisementHide

 

A series of factors have led to poor areas finding themselves at the sharp end of the care crisis. Demand for help is higher in more deprived areas, while the councils catering for them have suffered the most from central government cuts and are the least able to raise extra funds.

The knock-on effects for the NHS see elderly patients end up in hospital unnecessarily after accidents at home, , while they cannot be discharged unless they have adequate community care in place. Among men, 30% in the poorest third of households needed help with an activity of daily living (ADL), compared with 14% in the highest income group. Among women, the need for such help was 30% among the poorest third and 20% in the highest third.

There is a growing army of unpaid helpers, such as family and friends, propping up the system. Around two-thirds of adults aged 65 and over, who had received help for daily activities in the past month, had only received this from unpaid helpers, the figures revealed.

Izzi Seccombe, the chair of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, predicts a £2.3bn funding gap for care by 2020. Photograph: None

Spending on adult social care by local authorities fell from £18.4bn in 2009-10 to just under £17bn in 2015-16, according to the respected King’s Fund. It represents a real-terms cut of 8%. It estimates there will be an estimated social care funding gap of £2.1bn by 2019-20.

While an extra £2bn was provided for social care over two years, a huge gap remains after the latest budget failed to address the issue. Theresa May was forced to abandon plans to ask the elderly to help pay for social care through the value of their homes, after it was blamed for contributing to her disastrous election result. The government has promised to bring forward some new proposals by the summer, but many Tory MPs and Conservative-run councils are desperate for faster action.

Ministers have dropped plans to put a cap on care costs by 2020 – a measure proposed by Sir Andrew Dilnot’s review of social care and backed by David Cameron when he was prime minister.

Izzi Seccombe, the Tory chair of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board, said: “Social care need is greater in more deprived areas and this, in turn, places those councils under significant financial pressures. Allowing councils to increase council tax to pay for social care, while helpful in some areas, is of limited use in poorer areas because their weaker tax base means they are less able to raise funds.

“In more deprived areas there is also likely to be a higher number of people who rely on councils to pay for their care. This, in turn, puts even more pressure on the local authority.

“If we are to bridge the inequality gap in social care, we need long-term sustainable funding for the sector. It was hugely disappointing that the chancellor found money for the NHS but nothing for adult social care in the autumn budget. We estimate adult social care faces an annual funding gap of £2.3bn by 2020.”

Simon Bottery, from the King’s Fund, said: “We know that need will be higher in the most deprived areas – people get ill earlier and have higher levels of disability, and carry that through into social care need.

“We also know that the councils that have the greater need to spend are, on average, raising less money through the precept [earmarked for funding social care].”

[Guest]

What's that coming over the hill......second referendum...second referendum...

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-second-referendum-latest-poll-remain-ten-points-leave-bmg-a8114406.html

 

 

[Guest]

Call off Brexit bullies or face defeat, Tory peers tell Theresa May

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/16/call-off-brexit-bullies-or-face-defeat-tory-peers-tell-theresa-may?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

 

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, toddybad said:

Call off Brexit bullies or face defeat, Tory peers tell Theresa May

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/16/call-off-brexit-bullies-or-face-defeat-tory-peers-tell-theresa-may?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

 

Why do they keep calling the defeats or potential defeats humiliating? It’s a minority government propped up by a supply and confidence deal. Of course they are going to suffer a few defeats, that’s to be expected. That’s democracy is it not?

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Why do they keep calling the defeats or potential defeats humiliating? It’s a minority government propped up by a supply and confidence deal. Of course they are going to suffer a few defeats, that’s to be expected. That’s democracy is it not?

I couldn't care less about the votes.

I'm just looking forward to fox and webbo after we vote remain in the second referendum but lose all of our special dispensations like the rebate because of their stupidity.

 

Edited 17 December 2017 by Guest

[Strokes]

5 minutes ago, toddybad said:

I couldn't care less about the votes.

I'm just looking forward to fox and webbo after we vote remain in the second referendum but lose all of our special dispensations like the rebate because of their stupidity.

 

Won’t happen.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Won’t happen.

 

 

[DJ Barry Hammond]

26 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Why do they keep calling the defeats or potential defeats humiliating? It’s a minority government propped up by a supply and confidence deal. Of course they are going to suffer a few defeats, that’s to be expected. That’s democracy is it not?

 

Because even under a minority government, you should still be able to put forward legislation you’re confident about winning a vote on. To lose a vote with all the mechanisms a governing party has at it’s disposal shows a lack of foresight - or worse still, a lack of confidence in the leadership and decision making process (even more so when it’s your own MP’s going against you).

 

 

[DJ Barry Hammond]

17 minutes ago, toddybad said:

I couldn't care less about the votes.

I'm just looking forward to fox and webbo after we vote remain in the second referendum but lose all of our special dispensations like the rebate because of their stupidity.

 

This view assums the EU would take us back / once we’re out, there’s appetite among the pubic to go back in.

 

i don’t see it personally, at least not over the next decade if we do formally leave. For the UK to remain, i’d Suggest it’d need a change of heart by the middle of next year, otherwise each side will have vested far too much effort to turn back the other way (one could argue we’re already passed that point).

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, DJ Barry Hammond said:

 

This view assums the EU would take us back / once we’re out, there’s appetite among the pubic to go back in.

 

i don’t see it personally, at least not over the next decade if we do formally leave. For the UK to remain, i’d Suggest it’d need a change of heart by the middle of next year, otherwise each side will have vested far too much effort to turn back the other way (one could argue we’re already passed that point).

That's what I'm saying might happen*

 

 

 

 

 

*mainly to be a wum tbh

[Innovindil]

3 hours ago, toddybad said:

What's that coming over the hill......second referendum...second referendum...

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-second-referendum-latest-poll-remain-ten-points-leave-bmg-a8114406.html

 

 

Not surprised at all tbf, between this shit show of a weak brexit and remain I'd probably vote remain too. 

[Rogstanley]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/16/getting-job-brexit-will-not-derailed/

 

After being told by the EU that they are now willing to begin negotiations after she had succumbed to their demands and totally relinquished the initiative in our brexit to the EU, in a statement that has the scale if not quite the quality of a Frank Abagnale-esque confidence trick, May has taken it upon herself this morning to release a victory speech of sorts in which she describes herself as having “proven the doubters wrong” . 

 

Also genuinely laughed out loud at her claim that they are building an economy of well paid jobs. Wages have fallen at their fastest rate and for longer under this shower of a government than at any time in recorded history. 

Edited 17 December 2017 by Rogstanley

[Spudulike]

Just listened to the Dianne Abbott interview on the Andrew Marr show.

 

This woman is the Shadow Home Secretary. I would question if she's actually a poltician.

 

Fraud.

[bovril]

Sometimes you have to admire the creativity of tabloid journalists...

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5156079/brits-post-brexit-overtime-boom-eu-limits/

[Rogstanley]

13 minutes ago, bovril said:

Sometimes you have to admire the creativity of tabloid journalists...

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5156079/brits-post-brexit-overtime-boom-eu-limits/

 

Can’t wait.

 

You just knew the first (and probably only) Eu law the bastard Tories would change would be the one that stops employees being treated like slaves.

 

Well done brexit turkeys, Christmas has come and now we all have to get stuffed.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

4 hours ago, Spudulike said:

Just listened to the Dianne Abbott interview on the Andrew Marr show.

 

This woman is the Shadow Home Secretary. I would question if she's actually a poltician.

 

Fraud.

 

Are we sure it wasn’t this guy?

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/fury-as-bookmakers-praise-darts-fan-who-blackedup-as-diane-abbott-as-impressive-fancy-dress-a3721401.html

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, Rogstanley said:

 

Can’t wait.

 

You just knew the first (and probably only) Eu law the bastard Tories would change would be the one that stops employees being treated like slaves.

 

Well done brexit turkeys, Christmas has come and now we all have to get stuffed.

I’ve worked more than 48 hours a week, for as long as I can remember.

[Rogstanley]

8 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I’ve worked more than 48 hours a week, for as long as I can remember.

Are you on a salary that doesn't pay overtime? 

[Strokes]

1 minute ago, Rogstanley said:

Are you on a salary that doesn't pay overtime? 

No, I get paid overtime.

[Rogstanley]

4 minutes ago, Strokes said:

No, I get paid overtime.

You'll be ok then provided you're happy to do the extra hours. The main losers will be those on salary forced to do no end of hours for no extra pay, aka most people. 

[Strokes]

12 minutes ago, Rogstanley said:

You'll be ok then provided you're happy to do the extra hours. The main losers will be those on salary forced to do no end of hours for no extra pay, aka most people. 

Sound 

[bovril]

1 hour ago, DJ Barry Hammond said:

 

Are we sure it wasn’t this guy?

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/fury-as-bookmakers-praise-darts-fan-who-blackedup-as-diane-abbott-as-impressive-fancy-dress-a3721401.html

Blacking up is still a thing?

[DJ Barry Hammond]

2 hours ago, bovril said:

Sometimes you have to admire the creativity of tabloid journalists...

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5156079/brits-post-brexit-overtime-boom-eu-limits/

 

I wonder how many Sun readers twig... I don’t want to work more hours, I want to be paid more for the my current hours?