Ridiculous court ruling re:debates
UK General Election - 12th December 2019 | Con 365, Lab 203, LD 11, SNP 48, Other 23 - Tory Majority of 80
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That's what you get when you go all middle-classPersonally, I think the CT rate should have stuck at 20%. It was/is reasonable and I believe most business owners would agree and be satisfied with it. Now that is has been reduced, then going back to 20% becomes a problem, simply because, they said they were going to reduce it and now they are increasing it.
It's utterly depressing
Why is that, what have I ever done to you? I assure you there are infinitely worse people than me you live close to, I'm (almost) completely harmless.
tbh, some of the of things you have made up about me, lead me to believe that you aren't someone who I would want to hang around with anyway. You appear to be full of irrational prejudices which have no basis in fact, and that's not the sort person who I would want to be associated with.
I wasn't being serious, it was clearly sarcasm
What things have I made up about you?
US GDP growth rate over time, past 10 years
What are the right wing values you hold and see as virtuous and should be taught to children?
Meh there's much worse people out there than @Sassy Colin . In fact I wouldn't even put him in any "bad" category, as he seems like a nice bloke.
I mean, he's clearly a total cnut but you could say the same for about 100% of the population except me and Emilia Clarke. And possibly @Olly Gunnar Solskjær but I think he has been killed by that ghost that was in his back garden.
The original point was, "low" unemployment figures are heavily massaged due to people being on zero hour contracts who are just scraping by, living in poverty.
Live and let die?
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I liked the film.
@Jippy I gave a pretty short/angry reponse earlier to the response to Labour's broadband plans. This is the detailed one, I did check a few things to make sure of my facts but it's mostly from memory, summarising stuff I knew and interviews/podcasts I heard last week.
@Sweet Square i've been working on this off-and-on for a few days, so thanks for totally making this irrelevant first with that link about generations and then with the Clegg quote, where the Tories say out loud what I tried to put together from my very incomplete knowledge.
Margaret Thatcher - 'Economics are the method: the object is to change the soul'.
This is one of her great insights. Private home ownership changes class relations away from the Marxist proletariat-capitalist understanding. After years of government investment, there was existing housing stock with existing tenants, and people had moved out of pre-war slums. However, their new status was dependent on state spending, which was often lacking or misdirected, and kept them beholden to the welfare state. After Thatcher allowed and encouraged the buying up of this govt built housing, they now had a private asset, it could be an inheritance to pass on, or a revenue-generating asset (capital). The relationship between the workers and state changed from dependence to antagonism, and the relations between generations of workers and between property-owning and leasing workers changed too. Whatever class solidarity might have existed was broken. A very similar process happened in the US, where massive govt-subsidised housing grants and loans, and even bigger govt spending on highways, led to the development of car-based suburbs affordable to workers from a city, this broke interactions among workers, converted them into asset-owners, and changed class relations away from solidarity.
Her insights also can be seen in her long-term planning with the miners' strike. Her government had decided to shut down the mines a while ago, but in secret. The only power of organised labour is that if it is unified, it can stop revenue going to its bosses. But if all revenue is going to stop anyway, this "enemy within" will be vanquished. Coal miners are tight communities of highly exploited workers, this will always generate strong solidarity and unions (from India to UK to otherwise conservative parts of the US, coal mining has had deadly accidents, militant unions, organised crime, and brutal repression). So breaking the coal miners' union in the UK would cut off the head of the snake of organised labour.
I believe she (or her successors) also broke the types of pensions that existed earlier, increasing the contact of ordinary workers with the stock market, further reducing soldarity, acheiving tighter binding of the working and owning class, and eventually blurring and overcoming that distinction.
Why the 70s?
For the west, there was a sustained post-war boom. High profits resulted from a need to rebuild from the war, lack of industrial competition from outside, technologies spawned by massive government investment during the war, protectionism, and a public with capacity to consume. Due to the work of unions and labour-linked parties in the previous decades, very high tax rates on individual incomes and corporate profits were used for redistribution of wealth into public services, infrastructure, and housing (which was about to become a private asset), all of which allowed domestic consumer demand to further drive corporate profits.
For various reasons (the oil crisis, increased industrial competition from the rest of the world, less protectionism, and in the US, war expenses), the corporatist/class-compromise/social-democracy bubble burst in the 70s.* Workers who had got used to a high standard of living protested. Capitalism resolved this crisis in the 80s by what is called neoliberalism. Barriers to trade were lowered. Taxes and public services were cut. But this was not a uncontested process. As wages and benefits fell and unemployment loomed, the strong unions rebelled throughout the 70s, using all their strength, basically trying to stop the world from its eternal rotation. Unlike before, the business class was now united and clear in favour of stamping them out. And it had committed politicians and intellectual support.
In subsequent decades for western countries, GDP growth increased (though not to the level fo the 50s/60s), corporate profits increased, income inequality increased, consumer goods price sharply fell, and land (housing), healthcare, and education costs sped through the roof. Due to the lack of protectionist and other barriers and the opening up of China, employment in manufacturing fell, and less permanent positions with little or no benefits became common. Economic activity was concentrated in financial or tech centres in urban areas. The western workforce had been disciplined through the 80s and still kept their capital (homeownership), making for smooth labour relations. The end of the USSR marked not only the defeat of a central planning but the implied victory of markets, challenging the efficiency of the market in solving any problem was now idiotic.
The response of the parties of labour (formally, like in the UK or informally like in the US) has been to moderate their demands for govt investment and social spending, and instead present themselves as more competent managers of neoliberalism, attempting to take its harshest edges away. It can be summed up in another great Thatcher quote:
[my greatest acheivement is] Tony Blair and New Labour.
Have things changed after 2008?
Despite the stagnation of real wages from the 70s in the US and the exploding value of houses (especially in the job-filled urban centres) and other necessities (health, education), homeownership was central to domestic growth and, especially in the US, and was encouraged through credit. The house of cards collapsed in 2008, and due to the global/financialised nature o the economy, the collapse quickly spread.
Median wages have stagnated since 2008, while UK house prices continue to rise. Subsequently, for many younger people, Thatcher's contract of private capital ownership has been broken. The decimation of unions, the end of protectionist super-profits, the reduced social spending and the increased cost of inelastic goods - all intended or unintended consequences of Thatcher's revolution, have also undermined the greatest cause of support for her politics - private ownership of homes. The quote from Nick Clegg shows how conscious the Tories were about the class war aspect of housing. They are committed to maintaining the soul of the always-competing atomised indivudal, even as the economics that created him have eroded.
So, from this some things can be understood - a suspicion of increased spending, strong generational Tory support, and strong Tory support from the non-aristocrats or capitalists. I think the soul Thatcher created still exists in multitudes. This statement is 100% correct:
*It is interesting that a slowdown and reversal of growth after decades of postwar increase is seen in the Communist bloc at the same time, slightly delayed as compared to the west (mid/late 70s, through the 80s); unlike capitalism the command economy could not respond with neoliberalism and rotted away by the late 80s. This simultaneous fall makes me think the single underlying factor is the oil crisis, but this is pure speculation.
Sources -
The Grace Blakeley interview here, focusing on Thatcher: http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S191107
Suburbs in the US: https://player.fm/series/the-antifa...he-rise-and-fall-of-suburbia-w-matt-christman
@Sweet Square i've been working on this off-and-on for a few days, so thanks for totally making this irrelevant first with that link about generations and then with the Clegg quote, where the Tories say out loud what I tried to put together from my very incomplete knowledge.
Margaret Thatcher - 'Economics are the method: the object is to change the soul'.
This is one of her great insights. Private home ownership changes class relations away from the Marxist proletariat-capitalist understanding. After years of government investment, there was existing housing stock with existing tenants, and people had moved out of pre-war slums. However, their new status was dependent on state spending, which was often lacking or misdirected, and kept them beholden to the welfare state. After Thatcher allowed and encouraged the buying up of this govt built housing, they now had a private asset, it could be an inheritance to pass on, or a revenue-generating asset (capital). The relationship between the workers and state changed from dependence to antagonism, and the relations between generations of workers and between property-owning and leasing workers changed too. Whatever class solidarity might have existed was broken. A very similar process happened in the US, where massive govt-subsidised housing grants and loans, and even bigger govt spending on highways, led to the development of car-based suburbs affordable to workers from a city, this broke interactions among workers, converted them into asset-owners, and changed class relations away from solidarity.
Her insights also can be seen in her long-term planning with the miners' strike. Her government had decided to shut down the mines a while ago, but in secret. The only power of organised labour is that if it is unified, it can stop revenue going to its bosses. But if all revenue is going to stop anyway, this "enemy within" will be vanquished. Coal miners are tight communities of highly exploited workers, this will always generate strong solidarity and unions (from India to UK to otherwise conservative parts of the US, coal mining has had deadly accidents, militant unions, organised crime, and brutal repression). So breaking the coal miners' union in the UK would cut off the head of the snake of organised labour.
I believe she (or her successors) also broke the types of pensions that existed earlier, increasing the contact of ordinary workers with the stock market, further reducing soldarity, acheiving tighter binding of the working and owning class, and eventually blurring and overcoming that distinction.
Why the 70s?
For the west, there was a sustained post-war boom. High profits resulted from a need to rebuild from the war, lack of industrial competition from outside, technologies spawned by massive government investment during the war, protectionism, and a public with capacity to consume. Due to the work of unions and labour-linked parties in the previous decades, very high tax rates on individual incomes and corporate profits were used for redistribution of wealth into public services, infrastructure, and housing (which was about to become a private asset), all of which allowed domestic consumer demand to further drive corporate profits.
For various reasons (the oil crisis, increased industrial competition from the rest of the world, less protectionism, and in the US, war expenses), the corporatist/class-compromise/social-democracy bubble burst in the 70s.* Workers who had got used to a high standard of living protested. Capitalism resolved this crisis in the 80s by what is called neoliberalism. Barriers to trade were lowered. Taxes and public services were cut. But this was not a uncontested process. As wages and benefits fell and unemployment loomed, the strong unions rebelled throughout the 70s, using all their strength, basically trying to stop the world from its eternal rotation. Unlike before, the business class was now united and clear in favour of stamping them out. And it had committed politicians and intellectual support.
In subsequent decades for western countries, GDP growth increased (though not to the level fo the 50s/60s), corporate profits increased, income inequality increased, consumer goods price sharply fell, and land (housing), healthcare, and education costs sped through the roof. Due to the lack of protectionist and other barriers and the opening up of China, employment in manufacturing fell, and less permanent positions with little or no benefits became common. Economic activity was concentrated in financial or tech centres in urban areas. The western workforce had been disciplined through the 80s and still kept their capital (homeownership), making for smooth labour relations. The end of the USSR marked not only the defeat of a central planning but the implied victory of markets, challenging the efficiency of the market in solving any problem was now idiotic.
The response of the parties of labour (formally, like in the UK or informally like in the US) has been to moderate their demands for govt investment and social spending, and instead present themselves as more competent managers of neoliberalism, attempting to take its harshest edges away. It can be summed up in another great Thatcher quote:
[my greatest acheivement is] Tony Blair and New Labour.
Have things changed after 2008?
Despite the stagnation of real wages from the 70s in the US and the exploding value of houses (especially in the job-filled urban centres) and other necessities (health, education), homeownership was central to domestic growth and, especially in the US, and was encouraged through credit. The house of cards collapsed in 2008, and due to the global/financialised nature o the economy, the collapse quickly spread.
Median wages have stagnated since 2008, while UK house prices continue to rise. Subsequently, for many younger people, Thatcher's contract of private capital ownership has been broken. The decimation of unions, the end of protectionist super-profits, the reduced social spending and the increased cost of inelastic goods - all intended or unintended consequences of Thatcher's revolution, have also undermined the greatest cause of support for her politics - private ownership of homes. The quote from Nick Clegg shows how conscious the Tories were about the class war aspect of housing. They are committed to maintaining the soul of the always-competing atomised indivudal, even as the economics that created him have eroded.
So, from this some things can be understood - a suspicion of increased spending, strong generational Tory support, and strong Tory support from the non-aristocrats or capitalists. I think the soul Thatcher created still exists in multitudes. This statement is 100% correct:
It is impossible to even imagine that kind of govt capture of private enterprise now, the piecemeal rail and broadband proposals don't come close.Tweet
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*It is interesting that a slowdown and reversal of growth after decades of postwar increase is seen in the Communist bloc at the same time, slightly delayed as compared to the west (mid/late 70s, through the 80s); unlike capitalism the command economy could not respond with neoliberalism and rotted away by the late 80s. This simultaneous fall makes me think the single underlying factor is the oil crisis, but this is pure speculation.
Sources -
The Grace Blakeley interview here, focusing on Thatcher: http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S191107
Suburbs in the US: https://player.fm/series/the-antifa...he-rise-and-fall-of-suburbia-w-matt-christman
Last edited:
Posted earlier today.
Thanks Piggy, the fiver's in the post
These cnut statistics look like they were made by the Lib Dems
Olly is a good'un though
The party for fiscal responsibility.
@Sassy Colin still waiting.
Also what 'irrational prejudices' am I full of?
Ironically, your post was full of prejudices against me, which weren't based in fact - while accusing me of the very same thing.
Going back to what I was saying earlier. The itv comments section that is usually 3/4s filled with anti corbyn sentiment, appears to be now 3/4s in his favour based on the letter that BOJO has just sent Jeremy and the subsequent reaction to it.
That's a great idea, and we don't need to imagine, since the US' federals tructure gives states the authority to do just this.
Of course, a particular state might get things wrong, or there might have been local factors there. Happily we have more data available.
How much has been invested in hs2? The netherlands failed to invest during the crisis and now there are no homes to buy, good news for me but shit for many. The uk had the chance to devalue their pound, stupidly they didn't do it, no eurozone ncountry countries had that option. Austerity and German enforced austerity worked for noone and led to the rise of populism, are you happy with that?
Peter Oborne: "I have talked to senior BBC executives, and they tell me they personally think it’s wrong to expose lies told by a British prime minister because it undermines trust in British politics."
Please tell me this is a joke
BBC
Not the one I used to know obviously.
Not the one I used to know obviously.
No, mate, it's from today's Oborne column in the Guardian.Roland said:
*Wafts serviette in the waiter's face* don't bother us with your concerns, peasant
I think the debate will be his May moment when people start to realise that he's full of shit.
...and Peter Oborne is a Tory too. No-one prominent in the media is challenging this properly at all.
The Birmingham example still doesn't work though - if one area of the country slashes its taxes by your logic, then other areas will follow suit, meaning you're still going to end up having areas that lose out. Thatcher's tax cuts in the 80s may have benefited London, for example, but other areas were left in tatters because they weren't necessarily economically attractive.
It also looks at this through a prism whereby any form of growth or investment is an automatic good, with no potentially negative side consequences. One particular business may be willing to invest, for example, but is it environmentally friendly? If not, this is a net benefit for an area, and leaves problems a government will have to tackle through expenditure further down the line because private business has no incentive to really fight climate change compared to nations who have to respond to the needs of their electorate. And there are other issues too: is this business known for, say, discriminating on the basis of race or sexuality? If so this could be potentially problematic to minority groups. And in such cases you may see protests - even if a government wants a business to invest they may need to respond to the concerns of voters who can vote them out of office.
And it ignores the longer term problem that if business is willing to invest and move elsewhere to the UK then it'll do the exact same thing by this logic when a better offer comes along. And you can guarantee that, at some point, a better offer probably will come along - if a less developed country with shoddy workers rights, for example, comes along and makes said business an offer, they may take it up and in such terms we may be unable to compete.
And if businesses then leave Britain on such terms, potentially leaving huge numbers unemployed, in hypothetical cases, then the state ends up having to pick up the burden insofar as paying unemployment benefits is concerned. This is to an extent what happened during Thatcher's time in office - despite the privatisation drive at times the state was barely shrinking because her cuts left lots of people out of work, and thus dependent on the state. Insecurity at some point becomes inevitable, because you're leaving the economy entirely in the hands of people who have no incentive to make sure it works for that country/area beyond making a profit for themselves. And again, governments find themselves further hampered here when it comes to addressing problems created by potential unemployment by the fact their tax receipts are being reduced and they're potentially having to bail out businesses/companies who've been allowed to run riot with no checks.
I’m going to miss it as I have a commentary to do at the same time, do you know if it will go straight on to the itv hub? I can watch it on the way home.
I hope so. I want to be able to play it on repeat for days
How does everybody think the televised debate will go tonight?
I think it will be pretty poor
Neither side has a manifesto yet so it won't have much substance
Mostly name calling and jibes I expect
Both sides respective supporters will probably think their side wins
Probably most neutral people will find it off putting
Gut feel Boris will waffle better and use some big words
Corbyn will deliver a few pre prepared lines well but won't come over that well in general
I suspect the do you personally support leave or remain question will be the one that hurts Corbyn and your a liar question will be the one that Johnson struggles with
I expect Boris to show himself to be a total cnut just like any tory would
I expect Boris sound bites and bluster being widely hailed as charming eccentricities by the media. Who will also no doubt try to claim Corbyns position on brexit is unclear. When in fact it is very clear, a confirmatory vote on remain or a Labour deal to exit.
On another note, how can the Lib Dems go from campaigning for a peoples vote to calling Labour a brexit party for wanting one!?
On another note, how can the Lib Dems go from campaigning for a peoples vote to calling Labour a brexit party for wanting one!?
Because Jo Swinson is evidently not a very good leader. Look forward to her losing her seat.
Personally, I don’t understand why Corbyn doesn’t just come out and say I voted leave, but it’s a mess, the public were lied to and we need a second referendum to clear it up.
Everyone knows his personal opinion on the EU and I don’t think he’d be putting off remain voters. The honesty might be a breath of fresh air, instead of him avoiding the question.
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Anyone who knows anything about Johnson knows he's going to do anything possible to spoil the debate. Will be painful viewing.
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