Snap General Election Called

[Gbye grey sky]

On 09/05/2017 at 10:06 PM, amibovered said:

Why wouldn't you be optimistic, or at least open minded?

The vast majority of people thought that the Great War (1914-18) would all be over by Xmas 1914.  Hundreds of thousands of young men enthusiastically signed up on that basis.  Few survived the war.

Pragmatism trumps optimism almost every time.....and certainly the case in politics.  But by all means trust the government propoganda.  After all, when has it ever been wrong?

[amibovered]

4 hours ago, Gbye grey sky said:

The vast majority of people thought that the Great War (1914-18) would all be over by Xmas 1914.  Hundreds of thousands of young men enthusiastically signed up on that basis.  Few survived the war.

Pragmatism trumps optimism almost every time.....and certainly the case in politics.  But by all means trust the government propoganda.  After all, when has it ever been wrong?

I don't trust the EU propaganda.

[Gbye grey sky]

32 minutes ago, amibovered said:

I don't trust the EU propaganda.

But you trust Tory propaganda.  Horses for courses I guess.

[BacktoDemocracy]

4 hours ago, amibovered said:

I don't trust the EU propaganda.

But you trust a PM that consistently said 'no election will be held' until  she did the maths and read the polls, come off it, which galaxy are you in?

[amibovered]

9 hours ago, Gbye grey sky said:

But you trust Tory propaganda.  Horses for courses I guess.

There you go again, telling people what they believe based on your own prejudice, there's none so blind as those who will not see. 

[amibovered]

Calamity Corby has had a nightmare today

[BacktoDemocracy]

11 hours ago, Gbye grey sky said:

But you trust Tory propaganda.  Horses for courses I guess.

Well the Tory nag came with a banner slowing it to a trot,  declaring, what was it,  £357m extra funding for the NHS, the horse, the banner, and its 5 or 6 riders, Johnson, Gove, IDS, et al, haven't  been out exercising their one horse stable much and Johnson has put on a few pounds with all the free lunches since he lost in the two horse race last year, their owner has not had much confidence in them since and hasn't  even allowed them out to have a canter round the paddock in this election meeting in case they have an accident, can't have the voters reminded of last years promises.

 Meanwhile Barnier and Juncker have been out every morning with their string of stallions on the gallops at Longchamps getting them prepared for the biggest continental meeting of the season, owner Frau Merkei has put all of her resources at their disposal in this vital 9, oh, sorry, now 12 month training window.

But there maybe a strategy from owner May, it seems that she might be putting a lot of her stable up for sale as a job lot at the pet food factory and using the proceeds to just bet on the best of the continental runners rather than risk losing more of her stable.

[Gbye grey sky]

18 hours ago, amibovered said:

There you go again, telling people what they believe based on your own prejudice, there's none so blind as those who will not see. 

No, based on their own past statements.

[Collie]

On 5/11/2017 at 10:28 PM, amibovered said:

There you go again, telling people what they believe based on your own prejudice, there's none so blind as those who will not see. 

Are you projecting? 

[Collie]

Interesting article on the election
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/chris-johns-theresa-may-s-manifesto-is-strong-on-economic-illiteracy-1.3089102

Chris Johns: Theresa May’s manifesto is strong on economic illiteracy

Need to ensure growth and tackle monopolies absent from Conservative plan

about an hour ago

Chris Johns

0

Theresa May: “She only really gets animated these days in order to deny that there is actually anything called Mayism.” Photograph: PA Wire

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There is widespread acceptance that the election of Donald Trump, the vote for Brexit and the rise of populism everywhere else have roots in large swathes of people being somehow “left behind”. Two, probably related, categories of the disenchanted are those who simply have not being doing as well, economically speaking, as they had expected and those who feel ignored by so-called political elites. While it is striking just how monolithic is the consensus about what the problem is, there is nothing to suggest that anyone in power has the faintest idea what to do about it. And yet it would be so easy to deal with all of this.

The Tories think they can achieve a “fairer” Britain by reducing immigration

The launch of general election manifestos in the UK is a case in point: the Labour party has an arithmetically challenged set of proposals to spend a lot, raise taxes a bit and renationalise the railways. The Tories think they can achieve a “fairer” Britain by reducing immigration.

Party political manifestos are justifiably famous for being unread. This week’s launch of the UK’s Conservative party’s set of election promises attracted more attention than usual. Sadly, those of us looking for some justification for reading the overly long document were disappointed. There was little by way of additional Brexit details, nor was there much by way of concrete policy proposals in other, almost as important, areas.

Perhaps the most peculiar feature of Theresa May’s manifesto is its economic illiteracy. Her inner circle of policy advisers have been accused of this many times and have, apparently, reacted angrily. But they have yet to demonstrate any sense at all that they know what they are doing.The aspiration to make Britain fairer and to use the power of the state to achieve some semblance of an ill-defined meritocracy is something that both Ed Miliband and Tony Blair would, ironically, applaud; but there is nothing in Mayism that tells us how any of this is to be achieved. Indeed, she only really gets animated these days in order to deny that there is anything called Mayism.

No talk to growth

The only thing that can really make any country better off is an increase in productivity. Without this you can only make sections of society better off by taking money from somebody else: redistribution. Faster growth and less inequality are worthy goals of economic policy. The really peculiar thing in so many countries, especially the UK, is that all of the mainstream political parties seem to have forgotten to talk about economic growth let alone display any semblance of awareness of how to generate any. In fact, it is even worse than this.

Theresa May’s Brexit policies in general – and immigration polices in particular – will reduce economic growth. They are already doing so. But what is really weird is that the government and its advisers don’t seem to care. I think it might have something to do with that inability to appreciate simple arithmetic: when we talk about economic growth being reduced by, say, 0.25 per cent or even 0.5 per cent a year, it doesn’t look like too big a deal, at least to the economically illiterate. It cannot be said loudly enough: these are huge numbers with massive consequences, not least for that group of people whom everyone seems to be worried about: the left behind. The funding pressures on the NHS need only be run through some very simple spreadsheets for the conclusions to be fiscally terrifying

Lower growth has massive implications for the public finances. Thanks to the sterling work of independent think tanks and the Office for Budget Responsibility, the long-term consequences of a rapidly ageing population are becoming all too apparent. The current funding pressures on the NHS, caused in part by the rising costs of social care, need only be run through some very simple spreadsheets for the conclusions to be fiscally terrifying.

One of the things about economic literacy is that it spells out very clearly how everything is joined up – sometimes in not very intuitive ways. Everything in the economy typically depends on everything else. If you don’t understand this, you will never appreciate how cutting immigration in the face of an ageing population will reduce the amount of cash available to care for the old and the sick. That’s because, as Martin Wolf has so astutely observed, Britain exports pensioners and imports young, tax-paying workers.

Fairer societies

Everything about the Tory manifesto suggests that Theresa May is very comfortable with the idea that the UK economy is destined for slower growth. But there is no understanding of what this means – or, indeed, that it doesn’t have to be this way. So many of the problems identified by the Tories would simply go away if the British economy were to grow, for a few years at least, quickly. Not least, wages would finally rise as a result of a super hot labour market. Indeed, faster growth would achieve fairer societies in many other countries via this boost to wages.

As policymakers have forgotten how to generate economic growth they have also ignored the rise of monopolies

But there is one aspect of wage rates that even growth cannot cure. The rise of monopoly power across many industries and sectors is a global phenomenon. Karl Marx forecast a crisis of capitalism as a result of falling profits: shareholders can relax as the exact opposite has been happening. As policymakers have forgotten how to generate economic growth they have also ignored the rise of monopolies, particularly (but not exclusively) in tech companies. Those monopolies hold down wages and boost share prices.

The only entity displaying any semblance of interest in the ancient art of punishing monopolies is the EU. It’s the European Commission that now and again shows some teeth when dealing with the likes of Microsoft and Google, which, all things considered, is spectacularly ironic for the left-behind in the UK.

Sorting out the political and economic mess facing many countries requires much faster growth and tackling monopoly power: no other set of polices will cure the problem. Everything but these policies is being tried.

[Parley]

When did these policies become manifestos ?

[BacktoDemocracy]

3 hours ago, Parley said:

When did these policies become manifestos ?

Because that is what a manifesto is, it's a statement of objectives which are the outcome of policies to be pursued, you can't have one without the other can you?

Some manifesto objectives have been stated by the Tories without any real policies of how to achieve them, in particular how they will be funded.

[newjez]

How can we vote for someone who is such a scaredy cat?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/28/amber-rudd-to-stand-in-for-theresa-may-in-televised-leaders-debate

[Parley]

Are you a Guardian reader newjez ?

[amibovered]

24 minutes ago, Parley said:

Are you a Guardian reader newjez ?

That and the Independent I'd say .

[Parley]

http://bbc.in/2s9Xee7

[newjez]

21 hours ago, amibovered said:

That and the Independent I'd say .

Rarely read the independent. I'll only read the independent if it comes up on a search.

Mostly I read the telegraph, sometimes the guardian for context.

[newjez]

6 hours ago, Parley said:

http://bbc.in/2s9Xee7

The woman is an idiot and it's a great shame we no longer have the likes of mo mowlam with us.

But you can't get away from the fact that labour brought a form of peace to NI. They may bring us a peace with Isis. Is that such a bad thing?

[Parley]

Don't be ridiculous.

You never negotiate with terrorists.

and Corbyn has no ability to say to ISIS they can take over lots of countries into their own caliphate.

You sound very naive and out of step.

No government in the world is going to pander to ISIS.

[newjez]

13 minutes ago, Parley said:

Don't be ridiculous.

You never negotiate with terrorists.

and Corbyn has no ability to say to ISIS they can take over lots of countries into their own caliphate.

You sound very naive and out of step.

No government in the world is going to pander to ISIS.

You would prefer it if the IRA were still conducting their bombing campaign then I assume, as long as you can feel morally superior then guess that is all ok.

You can't defeat Isis. The best you can do is negotiate with them, that's assuming that they have a leadership to negotiate with.

Watched the hyper normalisation yesterday. Real eye opener. Never realised Syria was that important.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b183c

[Parley]

I must have missed it when Britain said the IRA could unify NI into Ireland like they demanded all those years they were bombing us.

[newjez]

14 minutes ago, Parley said:

I must have missed it when Britain said the IRA could unify NI into Ireland like they demanded all those years they were bombing us.

You would prefer it if the IRA were still conducting their bombing campaign then I assume, as long as you can feel morally superior then guess that is all ok?

[Collie]

21 minutes ago, Parley said:

I must have missed it when Britain said the IRA could unify NI into Ireland like they demanded all those years they were bombing us.

You are obviously not familar with the Good Friday agreement.  Governments often negotiate with terrorists, the UK & ROI governments did with with the IRA, UVF etc  South Africa did with the ANC and Mandela,  the Israelis and US are constantly negotiating with the Palestinians and HAMAS.

The irony is that Brexit may hasten a United Ireland.  The people in NI have the option (if the people in the ROI agree) to rejoin the ROI and automatically the EU (as East Germany did).  This has been agreed by the EU member states.

If Brexit goes badly, it won't take much of a swing in the North for a majority to vote that way.  The people down south maytake more convincing though (me included).

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

I remember listening to Robert Fisk a few years ago and he said that eventually the West will need to talk to Daesh (he doesn't use the word ISIS and I agree as it is not representative of the 1.3b members of Islam).  It will be extremely difficult to do so.

[Parley]

Even Hillary Clinton said you can't contain ISIS you will have to destroy it.

[Parley]

I seriously think Corbyn must be a bit deranged.

I just read he attended a wreath laying ceremony for a Palestinian terrorist who was involved in the Munich Olympics massacre.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/28/jeremy-corbyn-criticised-labour-election-candidates-wreath-laying/

 

He must have a death wish I think.