UK Politics

Look at it like the alleged improvements in Bradford City centre Steve. Grandiose claims from overpaid idiots like Hinchcliffe and Ross Shaw when in reality it's putting lipstick on a pig. The le NHS as has stood for years now is a noose around the neck of any government, it hemorrhages money like a Thanes Water pipe system leaks water, an example my wife can't even get an NHS dentist despite paying thousands in to the system for over 30 years. Big reform is needed to even start trying to repair the mess this country is in, not just for the last 14 years but for decades. Be prepared, for this change to happen the only ones who are gonna pay for it is the ones in the middle, the same sorry people who get squeezed every year.

 

This is the sort of idiot that infests UK politics. Anyone who doesn't fit McDonells agenda is far right. It's like a buzzword when ever these loony lefties feel threatened, people in Europe had enough of how countries are being run, let's just leave everyone far right. Yeah that'll show em.

 

Some of that I agree with but I think the issue is the multi national nature of industries nowadays. How do we compete with these labour heavy industries when the Chinese can do them at a fraction of the cost?

The future of growth in the West is surely technology and services but how do you attract these companies when they have a multitude of options and grow your own? You have to offer low tax (in the case of start ups often subsidies) simplicity in planning and expert level employees. We have the last one (and can develop more) but there's no willingness seemingly to encourage companies to come here using the first two - if anything the current flow of direction is in the opposite way.

So we're stuck in between the two. We can't be competitive on big industry and we choose not to be competitive on tech and innovation. That's where we seemingly are but none of the parties actually do anything about it.

 

I'd be interested to know if he thinks his far left views are 'decency'. Labour were a joke under Corbyn and him. It's time left wingers like him realise the average Joe doesn't want a strong international socialist regime in charge. Millions of children in poverty and good luck getting an operation on the NHS, but tw@ts like this think the average person is bothered what is happening across the world in places like Palestine because of thousands protesting in a country of tens of millions, so less than 1%. The EU and various governments will be to blame if the far right do start to get in, funny enough people don't like it when they feel less valued than people coming from elsewhere. But they will use another buzz phrase of the year 'culture war' or 'Zionist' to try stifle any discussion, and the left wing electorate eat it up.

 

Yes it does change. It often changes for the worst if bad decisions are made. Ideological Tory cuts to local authority budgets have forced them to outsource good quality care services to private providers. Result:
Big decline in quality of care
Big decline in staff wages
Big increase in foreign labour coming here to fill the care jobs that Brits won’t do for poverty wages
Big increase in money lining the pockets of the already rich, as money previously spent on care provision and staff wages goes into profits and dividends instead.

 

Again I completely agree with you. Apple a good example where they advertise on their item boxes the item is designed in California. Don't advertise the fact it's made in China, doesn't look good but then there is no way they could make that item in the US as you simply can't compete with the worlds biggest labour force. We concede that China is the world's manufacturing base now, it would futile to even begin to fight against it. And hence why there is need for proper immigration rules to stop mass immigration into the UK, a country that has no reason to expand in the manufacturing world. You could argue we need cheap labour for keeping public services going like hospitals but then reform of the benefits system would soon see those kinds of jobs taken by folk who would be made to work rather than milk the system
The whole system needs reform otherwise we're just gonna keep on borrowing from Peter to pay an already wealthy Paul.

 

Reform the benefits system, get those lazy Brits off their fat processed food laden arses by cutting their gravy train. Make it less desirable for free loaders to come here from abroad for an easy living. Encourage people who want to graft for a living by giving them tax incentives. I've no problem with migration for good honest hard working folk.

 

Of course it’s possible to delay repaying debt. You obviously have to keep paying the interest on your debt, but how quickly you repay the capital is basically up to you. We held colossal amounts of government debt for decades after WW2 because governments of both stripes correctly judged that it was more important to spend tax revenues on rebuilding the postwar economy than repaying debt capital. The same applies now.

 

That may be true of a mortgage buy is it true of the government gilts? I genuinely have no idea.

How much would we save by deferring the capital and what would it cost in the long run by extending the amount if interest payable?

The post war loans were set up as being long term in the very beginning weren't they buy equally the market was probably a bit more receptive to taking the longer term risk at that point.

And some of what you say I agree with in terms of perfect ideals but we can't disregard the massive cost of some of them if we want to discuss them properly.

 

The City of Bradford has been in constant decline for as long as I have been alive, regardless of which political party has been in charge. If you are seriously trying to suggest it is only due to the Tories austerity cuts (IMO cuts that were a necessity due to Labour's out of control spending) then you are having yourself on. Strange isn't it, how certain other towns and cities have absolutely thrived during the same period under a Tory government during the same time period, despite facing those same services cuts as you list above?

Out of interest, the council leadership was taken over by Labour at the same time the Tories got the national gig in 2010. Make of that what you will....

 

More 'Fake' news from 'The Mail' I suppose ... ?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13513223/Pro-Palestine-protesters-target-Barclays-UK-Activists-smash-windows-throw-red-paint-bank-branches-London-Bristol-Manchester.html

 

I’ve no great political affiliation before anybody jumps on me but I’ve just watched a Tory party political broadcast and there wasn’t 1 of their policies mentioned.
Just 5 minutes of rubbishing the £2094 Labour tax issues that have been front and centre for days.

It just seems to be the only way that the main party’s can function these days.

Nothing about what they will do.
All about what the others won’t/cant do.

 

Basically they had a minor cut through on the £2k but this was before it was debunked as garbage and it's the only success they have to push such is how bad their campaign is.

National service was blurted out and now seems to be forgotten, they are claiming they will crack down on crime this morning however they are letting people out of prison early as they are full.

They are so finished, the right are going to reform and the centre are going to Labour. It's Germany 1944-5 when they were fighting two fronts and look likely to lose both.

 

Yeah I saw it, I loved this meme someone made.

 

Sorry, but this is just wrong on several levels.

Firstly, Labour did not have ‘out of control spending’ in government. This was a Tory myth that Cameron and Osborne very successfully spread and which Labour pitifully failed to counter in opposition. The national finances were fine until the bankers crashed the world economy. Note the operative word ‘world’. The crash was nothing to do with Labour, but it caused massive financial problems for them, just as it did to most other countries around the world, particularly in the west. The last Labour government actually repaid huge levels of government debt racked up by previous Tory governments.

Secondly, social care is in crisis all around the country, including in many wealthy true blue areas. Many Tory local authorities are also on the verge of bankruptcy or in some cases have already declared bankruptcy. Forcing Local Authorities to outsource their care services has raised the cost of those services, massively diminished the quality and quantity of care (I know this first hand because I worked in social services for 32 years) and created massive labour shortages which are one of the biggest drivers of legal immigration. This was pure Tory dogma and it’s been a disaster.

Thirdly, some spending cuts were necessary in the short term because of the financial hole caused by the global banking crash. But the Tories used it as an excuse to pursue their Thatcherite ideological obsession with ‘small government’. After a couple of years in government they should have been taking advantage of near zero interest rates to borrow money and pump prime the economy to get it moving again. This was what most other western governments did, which is why their economies came out of recession much quicker than ours. The IMF and the World Bank told our government that they should be doing this. But they didn’t. They kept on cutting and cutting for years, relentlessly reducing local authority budgets until the services they provide were on their knees. This is why nothing in this country works any more. And the truly shocking thing is that poor places like Bradford, with high poverty and higher needs, were cut the hardest while more affluent (coincidentally mostly Tory) areas received far lower cuts.