Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 8:38 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

I never the financial state that the Tories inherited from Labour was caused by Labour - just the Tories inherited it and something needed to be done. That involved controlling the one thing they could - public spending - do you think they took great pleasure in that a definite vote loser?

4 million children in poverty - what do you determine as poverty - poverty is what you see in Africa. These kids come from low income families where benefits top up their income to agreed levels. When you read about nurses earning £30k+ using food banks it does make you question?

Climate change can only be tackled on a global basis - yes we can do our bit - perhaps if we didn't buy Chinese products until they have cleaned up their act then it might make a difference. Fracking has reduced carbon output in the US yet we don't want to endorse it here.

The idea that the Labour party cares about the working class is simply not born out by their actions - Labour is now a north London elitist party controlled by Momentum and its cheerleaders like Owen Jones and Ash Sakar. It is now a party that lacks any kind of substance or gravitas.

Boris has simply learned from the mistakes made by May last time and his opponents this time - all he is trying to do is not screw up - Corbyn would do the same if he were in power and protecting his position. I doubt he will ever be interviewed by Neil again.

Corbyn is an agitator and always has been - he has a nasty temper on him when challenged - a defender of extreme organisation with whom he appears to have significant empathy.

Starting salary for a nurse is £23k, healthcare assistants earn around £18k.

The average rent is £926pm (£11k pa) in England and £1,665 (£20k pa) in London.

But sure, poverty only exists in Africa

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 10:20 am  

Sir Kevin Sinfield wrote:

Starting salary for a nurse is £23k, healthcare assistants earn around £18k.

The average rent is £926pm (£11k pa) in England and £1,665 (£20k pa) in London.

But sure, poverty only exists in Africa

And how many of these nurses earning £23k live in accommodation that costs £926p/m - its the same as how many people will actually gain the whole £6,700 Labour is promising?

So what constitutes poverty?

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 10:27 am  

Scarlet Pimpernell wrote:

If you can find a pub that is still open after 9 years of Conservative rule.

Hundreds in Leeds - the city is full of bars and pubs, its like you can go 50 yards with seeing one - that is despite beer being £6 a pint.

Pubs fail because of a few key factors - smoking ban, cheap off sale alcohol, dinking/driving etc nothing to do with the Conservatives.

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 10:30 am  

The Ghost of '99 wrote:

Fortunately your rather extreme views on most issues are a long way from the mainstream in British society.

So why are the Tories so far ahead in the polls? Perhaps its you that is way off knowing what real people think - perhaps rather than signing of their payroll you need to go out and speak to some of them - but then you would have to stop looking down on them from your lofty perch.

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 10:47 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

So why are the Tories so far ahead in the polls? Perhaps its you that is way off knowing what real people think - perhaps rather than signing of their payroll you need to go out and speak to some of them - but then you would have to stop looking down on them from your lofty perch.

They have a lead in the polls due to their clear "Brexit" policy and the love in from the majority of the media for Boris, coupled with fear of a Corbyn government- propagated by the vast majority of the media.
The truth is that Labour have utterly failed to capitalise on a split ruling party and if we're honest, this does fall on Corbyn's shoulders.

However, the Tories should not be forgiven for their austerity program, which has squeezed the life from some of those at the bottom of the pile and their policies continue to massively affect the very poorest people in the country, something that they and their supporters should be ashamed of.
Unfortunately, the Tory ethos of putting personal interest above collective success continues unabated.

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 12:05 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

They have a lead in the polls due to their clear "Brexit" policy and the love in from the majority of the media for Boris, coupled with fear of a Corbyn government- propagated by the vast majority of the media.
The truth is that Labour have utterly failed to capitalise on a split ruling party and if we're honest, this does fall on Corbyn's shoulders.

However, the Tories should not be forgiven for their austerity program, which has squeezed the life from some of those at the bottom of the pile and their policies continue to massively affect the very poorest people in the country, something that they and their supporters should be ashamed of.
Unfortunately, the Tory ethos of putting personal interest above collective success continues unabated.

Haven't the Tories shown a significant increase in the national minimum wage £2/hr - a 33% increase. Combine that with increases in personal allowances of £6k - surely these policies positively impact the poorly paid.

So given the financial situation the Tories inherited what do you think they should have done?

The idea that Corbyn is negatively impacted by the press needs to be offset by the strength of Labour with social media - who actually buys a newspaper these days? Far more people read/use Twitter so its just a spurious excuse because we don't want the state to own all our businesses and Labour's message simply doesn't stack up to scrutiny.

McDonald showed the angry side of Labour on Marr today - lost his cool and the argument.

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 12:38 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote: Haven't the Tories shown a significant increase in the national minimum wage £2/hr - a 33% increase. Combine that with increases in personal allowances of £6k - surely these policies positively impact the poorly paid. So given the financial situation the Tories inherited what do you think they should have done? The idea that Corbyn is negatively impacted by the press needs to be offset by the strength of Labour with social media - who actually buys a newspaper these days? Far more people read/use Twitter so its just a spurious excuse because we don't want the state to own all our businesses and Labour's message simply doesn't stack up to scrutiny. McDonald showed the angry side of Labour on Marr today - lost his cool and the argument. I agree with the first 2 points that you make, which are offset by the younger workers and the dreaded zero hours contracts - £2 and hour more, if you lose 3 or 4 hours of work may still be a reduction ?? and of course you dont mention those who, for a multitude of reasons, cant work and should we gloss over child poverty, crime and massive increase in foodbanks, all as a direct result of austerity cuts And, just to show the utter contempt that the Tories have for the poorest people in the country, their candidate for Broxstowe, tells people, rather than use foodbanks, they should take out payday loans https://universalcreditsuffer.com/2019/ ... yday-loan/ As long as his conscience is clear Is this who we should vote in on Thursday ??

Sal Paradise wrote: Haven't the Tories shown a significant increase in the national minimum wage £2/hr - a 33% increase. Combine that with increases in personal allowances of £6k - surely these policies positively impact the poorly paid. So given the financial situation the Tories inherited what do you think they should have done? The idea that Corbyn is negatively impacted by the press needs to be offset by the strength of Labour with social media - who actually buys a newspaper these days? Far more people read/use Twitter so its just a spurious excuse because we don't want the state to own all our businesses and Labour's message simply doesn't stack up to scrutiny. McDonald showed the angry side of Labour on Marr today - lost his cool and the argument. I agree with the first 2 points that you make, which are offset by the younger workers and the dreaded zero hours contracts - £2 and hour more, if you lose 3 or 4 hours of work may still be a reduction ?? and of course you dont mention those who, for a multitude of reasons, cant work and should we gloss over child poverty, crime and massive increase in foodbanks, all as a direct result of austerity cuts And, just to show the utter contempt that the Tories have for the poorest people in the country, their candidate for Broxstowe, tells people, rather than use foodbanks, they should take out payday loans https://universalcreditsuffer.com/2019/ ... yday-loan/ As long as his conscience is clear Is this who we should vote in on Thursday ??

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 1:05 pm  

On the issue of austerity and public finances: In 2006/07 the budget deficit was 2.6 per cent of GDP. In the 2007 Tory conference, George Osborne committed the Conservatives to matching Labour's spending plans and said it was a myth that the Conservatives would not invest as much in public services as Labour. The financial crisis hit in 2008 and tax receipts crumbled and the budget deficit jumped up to 9.9 per cent of GDP. At this point the Tories saw electoral advantage in making the deficit their key campaigning point and so they started to say Labour had been spending too much for years and that's why the public finances were such a mess. It would have been more credible if in 2007, they had made a big deal about the 2.6 per cent deficit and said we need this to be zero so we would reduce spending, but when you campaign on 'we will match Labour's spending' and then subsequently claim Labour's spending was too high, you can see this was based on political opportunism not economics. As for how to reduce a budget deficit: you're looking at government spending minus tax receipts, where tax receipts are a function of tax levels and economic growth. When spending cuts limit negatively on economic growth you're going to reduce your tax intake, especially when you slash investment spending like Osborne did in the early years before belatedly reversing some of that in Spending Review 2015. Osborne inherited a budget deficit of 9.9 per cent and left a deficit of 3.8. That's a 6.1 percentage point reduction over 6 years. In comparison, there was a budget deficit of 6.6 per cent in 1994 (this was after 15 years of Conservative government some of which coincided with the time we had the windfall from the oil receipts, strangely we didn't hear so much about this government being careless with the public finances...) Ken Clarke introduced a few tax rises that caused a bit of a stir in the Daily Telegraph but didn't drive hordes of wealth creators out of the UK. The budget deficit was 3.0 at the point the Tories left office in 1997, and was 0 per cent in 1998, which can be credited still to Clarke's plans given that Gordon Brown committed to using Clarke's spending plans for the first three years of Labour's term. That was a deficit reduction programme which took out 6.6 percentage points in four years - more effective than Osborne's and without anything like the scale of cuts. I haven't gone into anything about the inequality aspects of Osborne's austerity, just the basic public finances. The idea that 'there was no alternative' is false. Osborne actually chose a less effective path. Source: OBR data

On the issue of austerity and public finances: In 2006/07 the budget deficit was 2.6 per cent of GDP. In the 2007 Tory conference, George Osborne committed the Conservatives to matching Labour's spending plans and said it was a myth that the Conservatives would not invest as much in public services as Labour. The financial crisis hit in 2008 and tax receipts crumbled and the budget deficit jumped up to 9.9 per cent of GDP. At this point the Tories saw electoral advantage in making the deficit their key campaigning point and so they started to say Labour had been spending too much for years and that's why the public finances were such a mess. It would have been more credible if in 2007, they had made a big deal about the 2.6 per cent deficit and said we need this to be zero so we would reduce spending, but when you campaign on 'we will match Labour's spending' and then subsequently claim Labour's spending was too high, you can see this was based on political opportunism not economics. As for how to reduce a budget deficit: you're looking at government spending minus tax receipts, where tax receipts are a function of tax levels and economic growth. When spending cuts limit negatively on economic growth you're going to reduce your tax intake, especially when you slash investment spending like Osborne did in the early years before belatedly reversing some of that in Spending Review 2015. Osborne inherited a budget deficit of 9.9 per cent and left a deficit of 3.8. That's a 6.1 percentage point reduction over 6 years. In comparison, there was a budget deficit of 6.6 per cent in 1994 (this was after 15 years of Conservative government some of which coincided with the time we had the windfall from the oil receipts, strangely we didn't hear so much about this government being careless with the public finances...) Ken Clarke introduced a few tax rises that caused a bit of a stir in the Daily Telegraph but didn't drive hordes of wealth creators out of the UK. The budget deficit was 3.0 at the point the Tories left office in 1997, and was 0 per cent in 1998, which can be credited still to Clarke's plans given that Gordon Brown committed to using Clarke's spending plans for the first three years of Labour's term. That was a deficit reduction programme which took out 6.6 percentage points in four years - more effective than Osborne's and without anything like the scale of cuts. I haven't gone into anything about the inequality aspects of Osborne's austerity, just the basic public finances. The idea that 'there was no alternative' is false. Osborne actually chose a less effective path. Source: OBR data

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 1:35 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

And how many of these nurses earning £23k live in accommodation that costs £926p/m - its the same as how many people will actually gain the whole £6,700 Labour is promising?

So what constitutes poverty?

Well nearly all nurses starting out will be renting as they are very unlikely to own property so the vast majority will be paying somewhere close to the national average rent.

Re: Boris Johnson - spinless leader ? : Sun Dec 08, 2019 3:11 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

So why are the Tories so far ahead in the polls? Perhaps its you that is way off knowing what real people think - perhaps rather than signing of their payroll you need to go out and speak to some of them - but then you would have to stop looking down on them from your lofty perch.

Well for starters I was referring to your views not those of the Conservative party. Well not very many of your views have made it into their manifesto - what they'll actually do is open to question of course as I imagine many of them actually harbour opinions that are rather closer to the ones you express.