General Election 2019 (UK)

[Euler]

Was browsing archives last night. Con maj touched 1.04 before May bot effect kicked in and had drifted to 1.23 before exit polls. When polls came out it rocketed out.

01-06-2017 22-34-36 - Con maj on the drfit.png

08-06-2017 22-02-37 - Exit polls.png

[jimibt]

cat and pigeons, but sounds pretty good to me : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/ ... age-utopia

[jimibt]

mr-boyle.PNG

[Euler]

His article was a great mirror on the whole campaign. I thought I posted it here? Here it is in full: -

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... parliament

Labour’s idea to run an election campaign on policy in the middle of all this is a little bit like reciting your poetry at an orgy. Jeremy Corbyn, perhaps weighing up whether he could have more influence by simply dying and haunting his successor

[ShaunWhite]

If Labour did win and "trashed the economy"

I'm suprised to see you using tabloid-speak especially as you know better than most what global economic factors were in play the last time Labour were in power. With due respect I don't think you have much to worry about either way given where you are on this chart unlike the remianing 99.9% of the country for whom this all matters much much more. You're in the fortunate position of being able to buy your way out of the most issues that affect most people whatever happens. I'm not saying you haven't earnt that position, but the needs of the many should always outweigh the desires of the few.

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I do think there must be a better way to keep moving forward than swing from one ideology than another.

I 100% agree and I think they'd call that PR, the way the European parliament is run, but people here seem to prefer a horse race.

As people have said above, all borrowing isn't inherrently irresponsible; borrowing to invest is a cornerstone of capitalism and entrepreneurialism, but when Labour suggest it for some reason Tories cry "Marxist". In what way is borrowing to invest, Marxist?

[Naffman]

If Labour actually were for the many then they should have no problem in winning on Thursday then should they

[Atho55]

The Power industry will be hoping Labour gets in, Nationalises it then ends up with the pension/redundancy liabilities they have hanging round their necks..

It will be the same for the other utilities too

[superfrank]

As people have said above, all borrowing isn't inherrently irresponsible; borrowing to invest is a cornerstone of capitalism and entrepreneurialism, but when Labour suggest it for some reason Tories cry "Marxist". In what way is borrowing to invest, Marxist?

Labour simply call their excessive spending "investment" to make it sound nicer.
They proved last time that they are incapable of spending wisely. Most of their public sector "investment" went in wage increases for their voters (public sector workers) and to cover the costs of the population explosion they triggered.
They also lumbered us with dreadful PFI contracts (also classed as "investment") that have cost us an absolute fortune.
Incompetents.

[dragontrades]

Corbyn's plans would bring us in line in terms of spending with the well knows communist republic of ..... Germany.
Who knew that Merkel was a marxist.

https://tradingeconomics.com/country-li ... ing-to-gdp

Free care for the elderly who pay into the tax system their whole life, free university tuition to improve the productivity level, and free fibre BB all easily achievable for an economy the size of the UK.

We have moved so far to the right in the UK that the idea of moving in line with the average levels of public spending in Europe is being ridiculed as a hard left cynical attempt to win votes.
Surprised that most of the people here have swallowed it.

[superfrank]

We have moved so far to the right in the UK that the idea of moving in line with the average levels of public spending in Europe is being ridiculed as a hard left cynical attempt to win votes.
Surprised that most of the people here have swallowed it.

How do you square that with the above chart showing that we haven't run a surplus for nearly 20 years?

Where does the money come from to fund this expansion?

[Euler]

Germany has a booming current account surplus and is reducing national debt which means that yields on government bonds are now negative. The interesting payments on that reducing debt are falling which means any money they raise in tax can be spent more wisely.

If you burden an economy with unsustainable debt, you increase the debt payment as a proportion of your budget leaving you and future generations with less money to pay for essential services. It's just simple economics.

The mittelstand part of the Germany economy has always been something they are very proud of and encourage to invest in and grow. It's not seen as some class battleground by the Germans but an engine for wider prosperity. Having worked for a German company I quite liked their model.

[Euler]

I've often wondered why Governments don't just raise a little tax here and there and be frank about it, to get extra funding or pay down debt. There is a general mistrust that governments will misspend raised funds.

You often feel that if they announced a nex tax on something and gave it a value, people wouldn't begrudge paying it. If they knew where it was going?

I visited a city recently that repurposes old parking meters as a way of ensuring money donate went to certain services. It was a very visible and novel way of raising additional revenue.

[jimibt]

We have moved so far to the right in the UK that the idea of moving in line with the average levels of public spending in Europe is being ridiculed as a hard left cynical attempt to win votes.
Surprised that most of the people here have swallowed it.

How do you square that with the above chart showing that we haven't run a surplus for nearly 20 years?

Where does the money come from to fund this expansion?

thought it might be best to go striaght to the horses mouth and square it via official gov figures. I'll leave the reader to form their own conclusions (both to the numbers and the cherry-picking chart above )

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governme ... ctober2019

[edit] -interesting little snippet on the above official gov page:

In October 2019, there was a cash transfer of £3.4 billion recorded from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund (BEAPFF) to central government. This transfer is public sector borrowing neutral, but it has the effect of reducing central government net borrowing by £3.4 billion and increasing the impact of the Bank of England on net borrowing by an equal and opposite amount. Had this transfer not taken place, central government’s net borrowing in October 2019 would have been £11.0 billion and the Bank of England would have shown a surplus of £0.9 billion.

[Derek27]

and free fibre BB all easily achievable for an economy the size of the UK.

That's going a bit too far, isn't it?

Fibre broadband is now an essential service that everybody must have, but water and gas isn't, we still have to pay for that.

[Emmson]

Sounds like Frank was against introduction of minimum wage and would scrap it if he could.