Re: Winston Churchill and crossing the house degenerating to crossing your legs

[srb7677]

I am tempted to say that you are wearing rose coloured specs. You cannot compare what has been spent in the last couple of years with covid with those relatively easy days of the last election. I remember Corbyn himself stating that scrapping fees for Uni was an aspiration and at that point he lost many of those students who hung on every word believing him. Of course he only admitted it after the election when put into a corner. Because he looked rather like a grandpa the gullible were taken in. His whole manifesto was based on buying support by promising that life under his Labour would cost us all less in living expenses. Anyone living in the real world realised just how false this was.

The constant demand that the rich pay misses one important factor and that is that they simply leave the country. Not only that, those who are capable of creating wealth which benefits us all leave too so you have a brain and rich drain. I remember someone many years ago trying to limit what money was taken out of the country. Nothing works to hold the rich or clever down. They will fly whatever those of us less able or lucky think about it. Rather than alienate them and waste hate on them we need to value those who are capable of lifting everyone. I personally don't envy or begrudge them perks along the way. I suspect any of the moaners would be more than happy to be in their position. This country is full of organisations, buildings, scholarships and charity organisations made possible by those same successful people that Labour so despises.

Yet if you cannot see how ever more wealth is being accumulated by an elite few at the expense of most of the rest of us who, once soaring livings costs - especially housing - are taken into account, are getting steadily poorer, then you are deluding yourself as do many of your ilk. How much poorer do the masses have to get and how much wealthier do the elites have to get at their expense before you recognise there is a problem?

On the issue of tuition fees, Labour in 2017 promised to abolish them going forwards. This promise never included the writing off of all existing debt, though Corbyn promised to address this issue in some way. Eliminating this entirely was an aspiration but abolishing tuition fees for existing and future students was a manifesto pledge. Scotland managed to do it, so why couldn't we?

And I - and hardly anyone on the left today - advocate 70s levels of taxation on income. Instead we want a serious crackdown on evasion and avoidance re tax rates, perhaps a modest increase in the top rate, and instead to go for tax rises on immovable assets like property. Wealthy elites can sod off abroad but they cannot take their mansions, land, or property portfolios with them. I am in favour of a land value tax to raise revenue for such things as social housing construction. I also pointed out earlier - citing examples - how some of those 2017 policies would not have actually cost money but saved it.

And you must be living in some isolated ivory tower if you have not noticed what the rest of us have been noticing as the decades have gone by. Even though as a proportion of GDP tax take now is reputedly higher than at any time since the 50s, very few people now can afford to do what most people could decades ago, ie live reasonably well and raise a family with one wage earner. You have to be on a very good salary to be able to do that today. Many more people today are only just about managing, even with two household incomes and few if any kids. Even working people are having to rely on foodbanks depressingly often, which didn't exist because there was no need for them in earlier decades. When you marry outgoings with incomes, most of us are getting steadily poorer. We are not fools. We can see it and feel it happening. So where is all the money going?

The answer is that ever more of it is being locked up in bricks and mortar, greatly inflating housing costs, which is sucking ever more wealth out of the pockets of productive workers and into the accounts of unproductive property investors and speculators. The property rich are benefitting massively from this whilst the property poor are having to pay ever more, making them ever poorer in real terms. The housing crisis is the off balance sheet means by which massive wealth redistribution from the masses to the already wealthy elites is taking place. And Westminster is going to do feck all about it because 90 Tory MPs and 18 Labour ones are themselves landlords. And most of the rest tend to include social circles full of those who are beneficiaries of this, including other landlords. The MPs themselves therefore have skin in the game re the massive redistribution of wealth from the masses to the wealthy elites and no interest in doing much about it. Our entire politoco-economic system is thus systemically corrupt, effectively robbing the masses to enrich the wealthy.

[papasmurf]

I am sure there are plenty at all levels fiddling sadly but just recently I read of a group of about 100 super rich requesting that Governments actually tax them a fair amount. There are many who use their wealth wisely with an eye on future generations. There are many who regard themselves as simply the custodians while they live. There is not enough credit given to those who are capable of generating wealth or encouragement to enable them to pass it down.  It's not a them and us situation from where many of them are only those with green eyes.

The problem is the dishonest/criminal mega evaders are evading many £millions every year. That needs addressing and it is not being addressed.

[T00ts]

Not condoning that but at least the that money still circulates in the economy. The many £billions evaded and "mickey mouse" avoided is offshored out of the economy and damages the economy as a result.

I am sure there are plenty at all levels fiddling sadly but just recently I read of a group of about 100 super rich requesting that Governments actually tax them a fair amount. There are many who use their wealth wisely with an eye on future generations. There are many who regard themselves as simply the custodians while they live. There is not enough credit given to those who are capable of generating wealth or encouragement to enable them to pass it down.  It's not a them and us situation from where many of them are only those with green eyes.

[papasmurf]

This is true of many in the black economy too at the other end of the economic scale.

Not condoning that but at least the that money still circulates in the economy. The many £billions evaded and "mickey mouse" avoided is offshored out of the economy and damages the economy as a result.

[T00ts]

Far to many pay no tax at all so they would not be missed.

This is true of many in the black economy too at the other end of the economic scale. 

[papasmurf]

The constant demand that the rich pay misses one important factor and that is that they simply leave the country.

Far to many pay no tax at all so they would not be missed.

[T00ts]

I am tempted to say that you are wearing rose coloured specs. You cannot compare what has been spent in the last couple of years with covid with those relatively easy days of the last election. I remember Corbyn himself stating that scrapping fees for Uni was an aspiration and at that point he lost many of those students who hung on every word believing him. Of course he only admitted it after the election when put into a corner. Because he looked rather like a grandpa the gullible were taken in. His whole manifesto was based on buying support by promising that life under his Labour would cost us all less in living expenses. Anyone living in the real world realised just how false this was. 

The constant demand that the rich pay misses one important factor and that is that they simply leave the country. Not only that, those who are capable of creating wealth which benefits us all leave too so you have a brain and rich drain. I remember someone many years ago trying to limit what money was taken out of the country. Nothing works to hold the rich or clever down. They will fly whatever those of us less able or lucky think about it. Rather than alienate them and waste hate on them we need to value those who are capable of lifting everyone. I personally don't envy or begrudge them perks along the way. I suspect any of the moaners would be more than happy to be in their position. This country is full of organisations, buildings, scholarships and charity organisations made possible by those same successful people that Labour so despises. 

[srb7677]

At the time , almost everyone in scotland was laughing at them when you consider labours lamentable record in thirteen years in power regarding housing in general , where margaret thatcher build more housing than labour did over thirteen years.

That is true. But you are being wilfully disingenuous and surely know it. Because when I was in the party we had vastly different aims to those of the Blair years. Many of us were as critical of them as party opponents were. You are assuming that the party of Corbyn was the same party as the party of Blair and that we could not be trusted on housing because of New Labour's dismal record, which is a convenient assumption but a silly one.

Now of course the party has been taken back by the Blairites, most of us who joined it in pursuit of real change, not least re housing, have left again, and it is once more the party of New Labour. Now I would not trust it on housing any more than you would, but for a brief while the party was run by people who unlike New Labour really stood for change and meant what we said.

[srb7677]

Apparently there is a book out ( i havent read it) that includes  information from jeremy corbyns former right hand man and adviser seamus milne , that he and his fellow policy advisers were worried that labours "so called fully costed plans" in the 2017 election manifesto were full of holes and didnt add up , but they were overruled by macdonnell.

Now we know what we already suspected: Labour's 'fully costed' plans were full of holes

A new book on the 2017 election reveals Labour's leaders were 'worried' their figures didn't add up and could be torn to shreds by Conservatives and the media

One of Labour's triumphs in the 2017 election was the popularity of its "fully costed" manifesto. But a new book reveals that Jeremy Corbyn's top aides, including Seumas Milne, his director of strategy, feared the party's spending plans would unravel during the campaign, but were overruled by John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor.

A book to be published tomorrow reveals the existence of an internal email before the launch of Labour's manifesto that "highlighted some of the problems with Labour's cost estimates, including the lack of detail on capital spending, as well as some individual costings that were implausible or entirely absent".

Privately, however, their staff had told them their figures didn't add up. The email identified problems with "almost every area of the manifesto, including welfare, health, education, the economy, transport, policing and prisons", according to Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh, authors of The British General Election of 2017, the latest in the respected series of academic election books. The email estimated, "even conservatively", that the manifesto implied "billions of unaccounted spending".

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-labour-2017-election-campaign-nhs-spending-plans-a8555621.html

It was explicitly stated that spending on infrastructure would be financed by public borrowing, which is no different to what Bozo promised in 2019. As for the other costings in the 2017 manifesto, it remains the case that the Tory one had no costings at all at the time. And yet, even if Labour's sums did not fully add up, the extra spending involved was a fraction of what Sunak has subsequently done, much of it wastefully, like the £25 billion thrown away on the utterly useless track and trace fiasco. Not to mention the billions thrown away into the pockets if various shysters with the right political connections - curruption on an epic scale. If the money was there for this it could easily have been there for Labour's plans.

An essential component of their plan would have recalibrated the economy by reducing housing costs, capping rents, gradually increasing the supply of social housing and cracking down on housing as an investment by the wealthy elites, as well as stimulating affordable housing to buy construction. At the moment vast sums of wealth are being unproductively locked up in bricks and mortar, the cost of which is sucking an ever greater percentage of earnings out of peoples' pockets and acting as a break on consumer spending for the benefit of a relative few. Labour's plan to change all this at the time would have reduced the welfare bill and boosted economic activity by reducing housing costs and thereby leaving more money in peoples' pockets. The current economic set up re housing is economic madness but nothing ever gets done to fix it because the minority who benefit from it includes most Tory and Labour MPs and their mates and relatives. We need to break the two party system to get any kind of meaningful change now, south of the border anyway. You guys up there have the option of changing things for yourselves by getting the hell out.

[Thomas]

Oh well I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else.

Apparently there is a book out ( i havent read it) that includes  information from jeremy corbyns former right hand man and adviser seamus milne , that he and his fellow policy advisers were worried that labours "so called fully costed plans" in the 2017 election manifesto were full of holes and didnt add up , but they were overruled by macdonnell.

Now we know what we already suspected: Labour's 'fully costed' plans were full of holes

A new book on the 2017 election reveals Labour's leaders were 'worried' their figures didn't add up and could be torn to shreds by Conservatives and the media

One of Labour's triumphs in the 2017 election was the popularity of its "fully costed" manifesto. But a new book reveals that Jeremy Corbyn's top aides, including Seumas Milne, his director of strategy, feared the party's spending plans would unravel during the campaign, but were overruled by John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor.

A book to be published tomorrow reveals the existence of an internal email before the launch of Labour's manifesto that "highlighted some of the problems with Labour's cost estimates, including the lack of detail on capital spending, as well as some individual costings that were implausible or entirely absent".

Privately, however, their staff had told them their figures didn't add up. The email identified problems with "almost every area of the manifesto, including welfare, health, education, the economy, transport, policing and prisons", according to Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh, authors of The British General Election of 2017, the latest in the respected series of academic election books. The email estimated, "even conservatively", that the manifesto implied "billions of unaccounted spending".

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-labour-2017-election-campaign-nhs-spending-plans-a8555621.html

[Thomas]

Oh well I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else.

costing by labour , and what is generally accepted by every one else as we know toots is normally two different things.

Another thing i remember from corybns manifesto was his pledge on social housing , which was to cost ten billion ? per annum.

Now while i dont think anyone will dispute the need for social housing and more housing in general ( we can dispute how its paid for of course) yet again the labour parties history came back to haunt them.

At the time , almost everyone in scotland was laughing at them when you consider labours lamentable record in thirteen years in power regarding housing in general , where margaret thatcher build more housing than labour did over thirteen years.

Steves get out clause was that was new labour , not corbyns labour , but as we saw with corbyns labour in 2019 how easily it was for the blairites within the party to gain control over policy direction with starmers generalship over corbyns brexit policy , i have my doubts wether labour would have come any where near implementing their housing proposals had corbyn won in 2017.

We will never know.

As we all know , you cannot trust the labour party on policy.

[Thomas]

That is cobblers frankly. Unlike the Tory manifesto of 2017, Labour's was actually costed.

I have to say steve i agree largely with toots. You and i have discussed labours 2017 manifesto a number of times , and a large part of the problem labour had was the manifesto was seen as pie in the sky left wing fantasy.

We agreed previously some policies were good , some we disagreed on , some had been copied from the snp at the time. In some ways it was similar to labours 1983 manifesto under michael foot , which was described as the longest suicide note in history , while many on the left described it as one of the greatest left wing manifestos of the twentieth century.

Foots problem was he was facing a formidable adversary in Thatcher , while corbyn in my opinion was facing arguably the worst prime minister , certainly tory prime minister  , of modern history. Still corbyn couldnt win.

Labour claimed in 2017 its manifesto commitments would cost something like 50 billion per annum each year for five years .The institute for fiscal studies for example immediately rubbished it , and pointed out many of the "costings" would prove to be more expensive than anticipated.

Other groups like the CBI , as well as the national grid itself , disputed labours costings on renationalisation.

So while you tell toots labours manifesto was "costed" , you fail to point out many groups , political parties  , think tanks and of course business disputed labours claims.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the manifesto tht year , it all boils back to the fact labour , both red tory and old guard , are not trusted on the economy , and im sure you will admit , as history shows , with good reason.

[Thomas]

But it took the English to make it better by putting a hole in the seat...

The hole in the seat as you put it was invented by the denizens of the plymouth sink estates as somewhere to put their hash bongs while listening to cypress hill.

[T00ts]

That is cobblers frankly. Unlike the Tory manifesto of 2017, Labour's was actually costed. And many of the most popular policies would not have cost anything but saved money. Eg capping rents at reasonable levels and thereby reducing housing welfare costs. Better minimum wages which would have boosted the tax take and reduced the welfare bill. Security of tenure for tenants would have cost nothing. As for the promised spending increases, they amounted to little more than your lot promised in 2019 and far less than Sunak has already spent. But would have been far better directed. The entire Labour manifesto of that year amounted to  little more than moderate social democratic policies. Even David Owen said it was less left wing than his SDP.

Oh well I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else. 

[srb7677]

After the election when Corbyn failed so spectacularly to make any impact didn't he admit that many of his policies were only aims rather than promises? My impression of his campaign was that he simply searched out any policy that promised lots to more or less everyone without once saying where the cash was really coming from. His campaign was based on dreams, or nightmares, depending on your political position, aimed at those who were gullible enough to sing 'Hey Jeremy Corbyn' ad nausem. He lapped it up of course because the one thing he did possess was the ability to whip up a crowd. His technique was always the same and very honed.

That is cobblers frankly. Unlike the Tory manifesto of 2017, Labour's was actually costed. And many of the most popular policies would not have cost anything but saved money. Eg capping rents at reasonable levels and thereby reducing housing welfare costs. Better minimum wages which would have boosted the tax take and reduced the welfare bill. Security of tenure for tenants would have cost nothing. As for the promised spending increases, they amounted to little more than your lot promised in 2019 and far less than Sunak has already spent. But would have been far better directed. The entire Labour manifesto of that year amounted to  little more than moderate social democratic policies. Even David Owen said it was less left wing than his SDP.