Don't vote Tory

[DeanoL]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

- which only confirms Labour as on the wrong track for where the electoral support is, as much as i said.

Perhaps. What I'm getting at is there's a huge group of 20-40 year olds that are fed up with being the generation that got shat upon, missed out on all the good stuff, got saddled with all the crap. Many of them are leaning towards Labour now because of the promise of a fairer system, but have no doubt, it's because they want a fairer system for themselves, not for their children. They already feel like they've done more than their fair share. And no that's not true socialism at all. It's just younger people wising up and voting in their own self interests.

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

So should Corbyn be socialist or not? I'm not sure how you can criticise him for have policies that you think are too socialist to make him electable, and then when he stops doing that for a second and makes gains in the polls, criticise him for not being socialist enough.

A leader who is serious about getting elected needs to tailor their offering to get the support they need to get elected - so it's not really about 'socialist/not-socialist', it's about offering a whole credible and supportable package. There is no single answer to what that right package is.

As for Corbyn, he's just saying everything and anything that he thinks will appeal to people - but with stupidity, to the point where almost no one believes very much of it at all. It always reverts back to about the only thing Corbyn *really* has going for him (tho only with particular types, not with the extras needed) that he's not a tory.

[DeanoL]

7 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

A leader who is serious about getting elected needs to tailor their offering to get the support they need to get elected - so it's not really about 'socialist/not-socialist', it's about offering a whole credible and supportable package. There is no single answer to what that right package is.

As for Corbyn, he's just saying everything and anything that he thinks will appeal to people - but with stupidity, to the point where almost no one believes very much of it at all. It always reverts back to about the only thing Corbyn *really* has going for him (tho only with particular types, not with the extras needed) that he's not a tory.

I can't disagree with that, but would say it's not dissimilar to the Trump/Leave campaigns in that respect.

[eFestivals]

7 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Do you genuinely think May is realistically managing expectations on Brexit? Honest question. Maybe have a nose around some of the Brexiteer Facebook groups before you answer...

May is at least trying to. She's made clear that it might be a great deal or it might be no deal, and while she's unsurprisingly a little shy of saying explicitly "brexit will hit the economy hard" you'd have to want to be deaf to it to not pick up on the inference that there's at least a chance of that happening.

 

7 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

So effectively only the incumbent is ever actually held to their promises?

No, that's nothing of what i was getting at. What I meant was...

May is promising nothing specific. She's trying to be vague and noncommittal, so that if/when she has to do something nasty no one can say "but you said you wouldn't be nasty" - as happened at the budget, for example.

Whereas Jezza has promised the moon on a stick, and probably won't even deliver the stick.

Only one set of voters is going to feel as fucked over and betrayed as LibDem voters did in 2010, where they voted for particular things but didn't get them.
(It'll probably even be the same voters. ;))

 

7 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I'm less sure of that. Ditching free movement but with quotas high enough that realistically we might as well still have it is likely viable.

quotas bigger than the need of quotas isn't much of a quota.

There's currently no country with customs union rights without the free movement obligation.

There's countries with limited free trade agreements and no free movement that get access to the single market - but lesser access.

7 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

But Labour we also going to tax more. Every tax cut that May and Cameron made could easily have been not made, and that money reduced the deficit instead.

yep, tho it's not 100% equal (at the point of reversal) cos of the extra economic activity from the money not being taken in taxes.

And growing the economy is its own debt-burden deduction, remember, and that's something which needs to be managed just as the deficit does.

 

7 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Realistically I'd imagine Labour would have taxed more and spent more and ended up in pretty much the same position. Although had Labour won in 2010 I do wonder if they would have been so concscious about clearing the deficit (knowing full-well what the general opinion of their competency on the economy was perceived as) they would have actually strived harder to achieve it. (Worth noting the Tories initially promised to be running a surplus by 2010, then it became 2013, then 2015... Osborne's last budget had it at 2019 and May is now saying 2025. Likewise the Labour 2010 manifesto also had it at 2015.) 

The tories spent pretty much to the Darling plan in the end - tho without the investment that would have been the Darling plan. What we don't know is whether Darling would have stuck to the Darling plan. It would be interesting to compare, but we can't.

But ... that was an economy in clear recession, which isn't the case now. As even the best-credentials left-wing economists will tell you, no one knows how to sustainably grow a non-slump economy (if they did Greece would now be the richest country in Europe, and not the poorest).

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I can't disagree with that, but would say it's not dissimilar to the Trump/Leave campaigns in that respect.

The difference is that Trump was playing to the widely-held socially-conservative views of the electorate, while Corbyn is not.

[phillyfaddle]

5 hours ago, eFestivals said:

But instead of pointing that out, a MUCH bigger and more-useful thing to point out is the outrage of inheritance. The defence against the dementia tax is turnout to be a defence of inheritance - one of the worst things in society, one of the biggest causes of inequality, the whole thing which sustains the unfairness which exists.

Don't defend inheritance, attack it. Getting the tories to back down over their proposals will enshrine it, not end it.

Erm, I think I opened my post by pointing out the "outrage of inheritance" by using an example (albeit extreme) of a person who recently dodged paying £4 BILLION of IHT....

But I think it IS important to point out that this "Dementia Tax" policy is yet again about profit for the high finance vested interests who fund the Tory party, rather than about trying to come up with a fair and practical solution to the rising costs of social care.

Just because I attack the DT policy, doesn't mean I can't simultaneously attack the policy on inheritance, which is flagrantly abused by the wealthiest in our society. They simply don't pay up. John McDonnell on Sunday was suggesting that this question is of such importance that it should be addressed by a cross-party committee. The solution would be funded through taxation (a pooled risk), which would keep the costs down, rather than open us up even more to blatant rip offs by private insurance companies, as seen in the USA.

 

[Nobody Interesting]

Sorry to disturb the ongoing conversation but.......

 

""Teresa May, Strong and Stable
Stole the food 
From the children's table
Took away their daily bread
Then stole grans house
When she was dead
To pay for care when she got ill
When fighting a war
Should've paid the bill
Set out to kill the remaining old
By taking cash when it gets cold
Then cut the pensions of those left
A nasty, evil, hateful theft
And she wants us to tick her boxes
When she wants to bring back killing foxes
No police, no fire or ambulance crews
If you're robbed, or trapped or hurt, you're screwed
With tax breaks for her corporate chums
And "rape tests" for multiple mums
Is this a place you want to live?
Where you get less back
Than what you give?
So I'll tell you this, I'll tell you straight
The choice is yours on June the 8th
A vote for May will give you this
Where the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich 
Your choice could end the pain and sorrow
And give us all a new tomorrow""

[eFestivals]

31 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Perhaps. What I'm getting at is there's a huge group of 20-40 year olds that are fed up with being the generation that got shat upon, missed out on all the good stuff, got saddled with all the crap. Many of them are leaning towards Labour now because of the promise of a fairer system, but have no doubt, it's because they want a fairer system for themselves, not for their children. They already feel like they've done more than their fair share. And no that's not true socialism at all. It's just younger people wising up and voting in their own self interests.

there's few people who disagree with the idea that the young are now those with the shitty end of the stick. Even May holds that view, which is precisely why she's targeting the growing resources of the oldest as part of her solution (cos otherwise she has to tax those youngers more than now). The differences are about how things are put more in their favour.

Maybe I'm wrong, but my take on things is that the 20-40 age group are the group who would hate Corbynism the most, cos i'm not sure they've grasped that socialism is about lesser free choice.

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, phillyfaddle said:

But I think it IS important to point out that this "Dementia Tax" policy is yet again about profit for the high finance vested interests who fund the Tory party, rather than about trying to come up with a fair and practical solution to the rising costs of social care.

It's a practical solution - and a solution where no one is alive to complain (important to a politician!) about what they've paid.

As for 'fair', that's an entirely subjective idea. Fair means fuck all, it's just an attempt to claim the higher moral ground.

 

3 minutes ago, phillyfaddle said:

Just because I attack the DT policy, doesn't mean I can't simultaneously attack the policy on inheritance, which is flagrantly abused by the wealthiest in our society. They simply don't pay up.

Ralph Miliband and Tony Benn included!

 

3 minutes ago, phillyfaddle said:

John McDonnell on Sunday was suggesting that this question is of such importance that it should be addressed by a cross-party committee. The solution would be funded through taxation (a pooled risk), which would keep the costs down, rather than open us up even more to blatant rip offs by private insurance companies, as seen in the USA.

You talked about 'fair' above. One question might be is to ask how it's fair to ask *all* young people to pay more in taxes so that *just-some* old people with hoarded wealth can keep that wealth so that *just-some* middle aged people might inherit. There's more than one angle on fair. 

My frustration with Labour here is their response has been to defend inheritance as much as they've done any other thing, when for the first time i can think of in my lifetime there was the chance of an in to a sensible discussion about it.

And by their defence they've reinforced the idea that essentially inheritance is a sacrosanct human right, a place that cannot be taxed by the state. Opening up the idea that it can be would have been a much better way to go IMO.

 

 

[p.pete]

19 minutes ago, Nobody Interesting said:

Sorry to disturb the ongoing conversation but.......

 

""Teresa May, Strong and Stable
Stole the food 
From the children's table
Took away their daily bread
Then stole grans house
When she was dead
To pay for care when she got ill
When fighting a war
Should've paid the bill
Set out to kill the remaining old
By taking cash when it gets cold
Then cut the pensions of those left
A nasty, evil, hateful theft
And she wants us to tick her boxes
When she wants to bring back killing foxes
No police, no fire or ambulance crews
If you're robbed, or trapped or hurt, you're screwed
With tax breaks for her corporate chums
And "rape tests" for multiple mums
Is this a place you want to live?
Where you get less back
Than what you give?
So I'll tell you this, I'll tell you straight
The choice is yours on June the 8th
A vote for May will give you this
Where the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich 
Your choice could end the pain and sorrow
And give us all a new tomorrow""

Disturbing Neil's flow!

[Jennings74]

https://twitter.com/Corbyn_Power/status/866046676238295040/video/1

thats a future festival headliner booking!!!

 

[thatcrazypenguin]

May getting absolutely destroyed at sky news press conference today....she looks so fucked off esp when the reporter calls her `wobbly` (lol)  I tell you what the tories floundering and labour rising in the polls? 2-3 weeks left?.......Im confident if not a win then at least a big reduction in majority limiting the damage they can do is in the works. I think the tories have vastly underestimated labours resolve and corbyns popularity, maybe they believed their own propaganda to much? They seem to have thought they could bring out unpopular policies like attacks on the elderly and pro fox hunting etc and it wouldnt impact their vote........not working out that way.

Her scowl in this video as she knows shes being royally taken to the cleaners question wise brings me great joy



 

 

Edited May 22, 2017 by thatcrazypenguin

[Jennings74]

I wonder if a 'holiday' to Dignitas would stop the government taking your house if you start feeling unwell  as you get old???? 

[oneeye]

[eFestivals]

10 minutes ago, thatcrazypenguin said:

May getting absolutely destroyed at sky news press conference today....she looks so fucked off esp when the reporter calls her `wobbly` (lol)  I tell you what the tories floundering and labour rising in the polls? 2-3 weeks left?.......Im confident if not a win then at least a big reduction in majority limiting the damage they can do is in the works. I think the tories have vastly underestimated labours resolve and corbyns popularity, maybe they believed their own propaganda to much? They seem to have thought they could bring out unpopular policies like attacks on the elderly and pro fox hunting etc and it wouldnt impact their vote........not working out that way.

Her scowl in this video as she knows shes being royally taken to the cleaners question wise brings me great joy
 

would have preferred to see the real vid and not a propaganda version, but you can't have everything I guess. (Also wondering if taxing the rich would get called 'attacks' too.)

But that Crick question at the end reminds me of the last election, where Cameron wouldn't say where the cuts to the welfare bill would hit, and it didn't do him much harm.

[thatcrazypenguin]

27 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

would have preferred to see the real vid and not a propaganda version, but you can't have everything I guess. (Also wondering if taxing the rich would get called 'attacks' too.)

But that Crick question at the end reminds me of the last election, where Cameron wouldn't say where the cuts to the welfare bill would hit, and it didn't do him much harm.

here you go again ever attacking the left. not even going to bother this time around mate,  there is one enemy in this country and it aint corbyn, if your not against them your beyond help.

[eFestivals]

9 minutes ago, thatcrazypenguin said:

here you go again ever attacking the left. not even going to bother this time around mate,  there is one enemy in this country and it aint corbyn, if your not against them your beyond help.

Sorry? Where's the attack on the left in what I said there?

And people wonder what I'm attacking.

[thatcrazypenguin]

7 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Sorry? Where's the attack on the left in what I said there?

And people wonder what I'm attacking.

Oh come off it you always play devils advocate on here whenever anyone in a politics thread expresses support for left wing ideas, corbyn or labour, you were exactly the same as I recall during the labour leadership battle, anything to up page views by keeping topics hot eh? I admire your skills but it wont work on me this time  Ive never ever seen you attack the tory party on here like you do corbyn and co put it that way and I know damn well your not a tory supporter so it must be because attacking them wouldnt be `controversial enough` and generate enough replies. Nothing like angering/frustrating people to keep them coming back.

End of the day, you look at the tories manifesto, and you look at labours. if your speaking out against labours yet not the former then theres something wrong with you.

Edited May 22, 2017 by thatcrazypenguin

[Mr.Tease]

Must say the labour party machinery has really upped it's game since the election was called, and their media policy is night and day to what it was. Polls showing they've swung back in Wales and in the UK they're on the same percentage as what Blair was in the 2005 election win. Problem is the complete collapse of the UKIP and Lib Dems.

[babyblade41]

interesting reading.

 

I am a tory voter, not all policies sit with me and as I said before a weak opposition is not ideal.

 

I couldn't vote for Corbyn's Labour and not just because he does not present himself as a leader but his coziness towards IRA is something I could never condone...maybe some of you aren't old enough to remember that dreadful time , and that is no way meant in a patronising way.

His manifesto has promised so much to so many and still it will be the same as previous  era's, borrow and borrow some more, it didn't work before and it won't work again.

Lots more to debate and very interesting to read others point of view, however I still find it a little childish that if my view is in total opposition to others I will be chastised.

Good debate is excellent and as I respect your point of views I hope you will respect mine.  I' m not hiding behind  a not telling anyone vote, I am proud to be given the chance to be part of this process and proud to have the democratic right to mark my X , it may be different to lots of others but it's wonderful we can get the chance to do it and debate...others are not so lucky 

[EasyUserName]

15 minutes ago, thatcrazypenguin said:

 ... Ive never ever seen you attack the tory party on here like you do corbyn and co put it that way and I know damn well your not a tory supporter so it must be because attacking them wouldnt be `controversial enough` and generate enough replies. Nothing like angering/frustrating people to keep them coming back. ...

I'd hazard a guess that it is more down to their being very few pro-Tory supporters who would post on this forum. It's probably not a "natural" place to post that sort of thing. 

 

Indeed, there was one mildy-pro-Tory post some pages back (posted with some thought to their comments), who was basically told that their reasons for voting Tory didn't matter as it was simply bad to vote Tory, and pretty much told to clear off.  They don't appear to have posted again. 

[EasyUserName]

3 minutes ago, babyblade41 said:

 ... I am a tory voter,  ...

Well, that is ironic!  Just after I posted saying there don't appear to be any Tory voters posting on this thread too!

[babyblade41]

Just now, EasyUserName said:

Well, that is ironic!  Just after I posted saying there don't appear to be any Tory voters posting on this thread too!

Ha yes I own up to that title... I think there are quite a few lurking but don't want to appear to be so.

 

I hope my views on politics doesn't make me less of a contributor on other matters...debate is healthy although like religion I won't push my view onto anyone.   It's why when canvassers knock on my door I don't answer it, I prefer to do my own fact finding 

[mikegday]

I'll be voting conservative (I think). I didn't last time. Next time a different party might appeal to me more. I don't think it's particularly healthy to vote for a party because you have always voted that way previously. I'm also aware that I live in a very Labour safe seat, Liverpool Riverside. My family and boyfriend will be voting Labour. If you're happy with your own personal choice, that's all that matters. The fact that you've bothered to go vote I think means you have a genuine interest in bettering our country/world, irrespective of who you vote for - over someone who couldn't be arsed to turn out.

[thatcrazypenguin]

Latest #yougov poll in wales shows 16 POINT swing to labour....labour 10 points ahead!......this can be done! https://t.co/IGTwNCNHu7

 

Also definite national trend in rising support for labour http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39856354?ocid=socialflow_twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=twitter

 

A hope? A chance!