UK Election June 08

[Laphroaig]

SNP will get a whitewash in Scotland. Ican't see any bigger party getting more seats.

Look up the meaning of whitewash...

The SNP will probably end up with the majority of seats in Scotland again, but it's unlikely they will reach the heights of the 2015 election. There's a lot of Scot's unhappy with the way the SNP is running Scotland and even more who will be very unhappy if they (as they almost certainly will) focus their campaign on an "Indy 2" referendum. I fully expect a significant backlash and drop in votes for the SNP in this election. How that will translate into seats remains to be seen though. The Scottish Labour Party is in almost as much disaray up here as their parent party and the leader, Kezia Dugdale, appears to lack direction. labour needs a sizable vote and huge swing in seats in Scotland to stand any chance in this election, but for example, my own parents, lifelong Labour supporters who've never voted any other way, are for the first time ever uncertain of how to vote. Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, is actually gaining a lot of respect as the only credible opposition to the SNP up here at the moment, but again, whether this will translate into Tory gains is yet to be seen. Cliched maybe, but the only predictable thing about this upcoming election is that it will be unpredictable...

[Stavros]

Recent posts above beg the question: is this General Election all about Brexit?
It is clear that for some people the primary issues are the state of the economy and public services, rather than the EU, just as people in the EU referendum voted to Leave just to vote against the Tory government and not specifically on the issue of the EU.

On one level, this benefits Labour, even if most of the time this party just keeps repeating its tired old formulas about the NHS, schools and housing without ever telling anyone where the money is going to come from, or reviving failed policies of the past like 'privatising the railways'. Corbyn definitely has a credibility problem, but in places like London, Manchester and Liverpool I doubt the party will lose a lot of seats (and if it does then the condition of the party is even worse than we thought), whereas in the older industrial areas of the north-west I think it will struggle. Scotland, as Laphroaig suggests, appears now to be a lost cause, in part because the SNP stole its clothes, and in part because the party ruled parts of Scotland as if it were the USSR.

The problem I see for May is that even without knowing the detailed terms of the negotiations on Article 50, there appears to be a widening gap between what May thinks is both possible and desirable, and what the EU thinks is essential for its own survival. It has been suggested that the British seem to be ignorant of how the EU actually works, and that the two are so far apart there may be no agreement at all. The two-year transition thus appears to be in question.

[peejaye]

Seems things aren't going very well for Mr's May & her Brexit talks, even the BBC struggling to find any positives!
How much money would a Labour Government take in revenues when the railways & energy companies are taken back into public ownership?
Coupled together with the £161m per week we wouldn't be sending to that millionaires club in Brussels & a hefty tax increase for the super rich I suspect there could be a bit of spare cash around?

[Laphroaig]

Recent posts above beg the question: is this General Election all about Brexit?
It is clear that for some people the primary issues are the state of the economy and public services, rather than the EU, just as people in the EU referendum voted to Leave just to vote against the Tory government and not specifically on the issue of the EU.

There's no question that Brexit will dominate this election, although in Scotland, the SNP will push for "Indy referendum 2" to share the centre stage. Across the country though, candidates will continue to focus on whatever local issues are most important to them, whether it's schools, housing, jobs or just potholes.

Seems things aren't going very well for Mr's May & her Brexit talks, even the BBC struggling to find any positives!
How much money would a Labour Government take in revenues when the railways & energy companies are taken back into public ownership?
Coupled together with the £161m per week we wouldn't be sending to that millionaires club in Brussels & a hefty tax increase for the super rich I suspect there could be a bit of spare cash around?

We always knew that the Brexit negotiations were never going to be straightforward and whatever Mrs May says, I don't believe that she's 100% convinced that it's the right thing to do, though I do believe that she'll fight hard for (what she see's as) the best deal possible. She will lose some negotiations though and be forced to compromise on others, which will have a negative affect on both her individual and the Tories overall approval rating. I actually wonder if this early election has been called for precisely those reasons, to secure the Tory government before the innevitable negotiation "failures" happen.

[Stavros]

How much money would a Labour Government take in revenues when the railways & energy companies are taken back into public ownership?
Coupled together with the £161m per week we wouldn't be sending to that millionaires club in Brussels & a hefty tax increase for the super rich I suspect there could be a bit of spare cash around?

I am not sure. The railway infrastructure has been brought back into public ownership through Network Rail since 2002, but the train operating companies remain in private hands, and most of them are part owned by state owned companies in France, the Netherlands and Germany. Bringing those companies into a re-unified nationalised railway network would cost billions in compensation to the companies concerned, at a time when the exit from the EU would damage trade in terms of UK revenues.

But would a nationalised railway network be able to deal with chronic problems of overcrowding on commuter trains, not just the notorious Southern Rail, but the commuter services into Birmingham and Manchester? Is it a problem of ancient track? Longer trains pulling into stations with longer platforms? What will happen to high speed projects? How soon can we have the inevitable -driverless trains? Will Labour stand by manned trains and stations it cannot afford putting modernization off for how long?

Just as Dianne Abbott made a complete mess of the issue of extra policing there is no coherence in Labour's railway plans, not on costs, not on modernization and crucially, perhaps, not on what the consumers want. Labour must have some sort of death wish, or it could just be incompetence, but an incompetence that is unforgivable for a party that has been in opposition for seven years.

[filghy2]

Recent posts above beg the question: is this General Election all about Brexit?
It is clear that for some people the primary issues are the state of the economy and public services, rather than the EU, just as people in the EU referendum voted to Leave just to vote against the Tory government and not specifically on the issue of the EU.

If that was there motivation wouldn't it have made more sense to express it in the 2015 elections (when there was actually a swing to the Conservatives)?

[Stavros]

If that was there motivation wouldn't it have made more sense to express it in the 2015 elections (when there was actually a swing to the Conservatives)?

In a word, no. In 2015 Cameron was still unsure that he would be able to govern alone- it looked like another coalition was inevitable, and because the previous year UKIP had won most of the seats in the EU Parliamentary election and by election time in 2015 two Tory MPs had defected to UKIP, he promised an in/out EU Referendum in order to steal UKIP's thunder. The polls in 2015 did not predict a Tory majority large enough to govern alone, but also did not predict the collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote, and the collapse of Labour in Scotland with an historic vote for the SNP. There was also no surge for UKIP strong enough to elect more than one MP to the Commons, so Cameron was actually in a strong position. He could have used this to decide not to hold a referendum at all, or to delay it for a year, two years -the argument that a Manifesto Pledge is just that is nonsense, parties can put anything they like in an election manifesto, it has no legal value at all.

In other words, Cameron gambled the future of the UK on the toss of a coin, and we lost.

[peejaye]

If this election is about Br-exit, how on Gods green earth can May be elected to take us out of the EU when she was a staunch remain-er?
Your knowledge of the "state" of todays railways Stavros is, yet again, spot on. However, these people who are running the trains were given the franchises at a very low cost, are you aware that some companies are actually paid to run the non-profitable ones? They would have to be, of course!
It wouldn't cost that much to take them back because they didn't pay much in the first place! As for shareholders, they would have to find another way of making easy money!

[Stavros]

If this election is about Br-exit, how on Gods green earth can May be elected to take us out of the EU when she was a staunch remain-er?
Your knowledge of the "state" of todays railways Stavros is, yet again, spot on. However, these people who are running the trains were given the franchises at a very low cost, are you aware that some companies are actually paid to run the non-profitable ones? They would have to be, of course!
It wouldn't cost that much to take them back because they didn't pay much in the first place! As for shareholders, they would have to find another way of making easy money!

I think May's position is that as leader of the party and Prime Minister she has no option but to administer the results of the referendum, although only Parliament can vote to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act, and May has shown tendencies to by-pass Parliament on the grounds the referendum decision cannot be reversed. In addition, she has attempted to find a 'pain-free' path through the negotiations on the basis she thinks the EU may be swayed on some issues to give the UK privileges that states like Norway and Switzerland do not have, but on this it appears Jean-Claude Juncker thinks she is 'deluded'.

On the railways -the compensation package would normally be around £250 million per company (roughly 3% of their annual profit) times the number of years left on their contract -most expire in 2020 but some run longer, for example East Coast runs to 2023 and Essex Thameside 2029. An alternative would be to wait for the contracts to expire and then take them back into public ownership, but to do this the law would have to be changed, as currently the Railways Act 1993 prevents the public sector from bidding for rail operating franchises. It would also be against EU competition policy, and we will not be able to act independently of the EU until we have actually left it, so I don't see how even a Labour government can do anything but plan for a public ownership around 2020-2025.

None of this deals with the issues that matter most to consumers -the quality and cost of the service, and what the long term vision for transport by rail could be. That a publicly-owned system would also be subsidized by the tax-payer and that the Unions will resist substantial cuts to staffing puts the whole scheme into an area somewhere between 'Desirable-Difficult-Undesirable-Impossible' on the spectrum of policy making.

A return of the British Rail sandwich is also something that should concern consumers...

http://news.sky.com/story/is-there-a...lways-10550346

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31621300

[holzz]

If this election is about Br-exit, how on Gods green earth can May be elected to take us out of the EU when she was a staunch remain-er?
Your knowledge of the "state" of todays railways Stavros is, yet again, spot on. However, these people who are running the trains were given the franchises at a very low cost, are you aware that some companies are actually paid to run the non-profitable ones? They would have to be, of course!
It wouldn't cost that much to take them back because they didn't pay much in the first place! As for shareholders, they would have to find another way of making easy money!

Because there was a referendum and we're a democracy.