UK Election June 08

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Here ends the fairy tale, my apologies if it went on far too long.

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And like all good fairy tales, everybody lives happily ever after. :shrug

I aint smart like some people, I let my gut decide the right and wrong of things for the most part.
And what I get from the manifesto is hope (something I've waited a long time for).
Not for a better future, but for a future.
All we need is the will to make it happen.

Or there's the alternative.
And i can already see the turkeys lining up getting ready to vote for Christmas!



http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017

If I can reply to Peejaye and Jericho simultaneously, I too like a lot of the policies, there is a lot to like. I like the idea of a tax system that is fair and re-distributes wealth and reduces the gap between rich and poor -but wage caps don't work, and the volume of revenues the party thinks it will get from higher rate tax earners, corporation tax and if successful, revenues previously lost to evasion and fraud just doesn't fill the gap, and that is before we take into consideration the potential for interest rates to rise with inflation. Moreover, taxes at some point will rise across the board, we have been living in a low-tax environment for too long, and in-work benefits are a nonsense that must be scrapped.

I was always opposed to tuition fees and the elimination of maintenance grants, not least because I went to university and did not pay a penny, in fact in those days during the summer vacation I was able to claim housing and unemployment benefit so instead of working I spent the summers in the Robbins library, and I don't see why these benefits should not be extended to everyone else.

I can see the benefits of re-nationalising the water industry, though it could remain in private hands as long as the companies agree to re-invest a higher percentage of their profits in the UK. I think the Royal Mail is facing, like the railways, a difficult future though lack of demand in one, and technological change in the other, but as I can get from Bardland to London for less than £10 with my railcard I see no reason to take the rail operating companies back into public ownership, just because Southern Rail offers a crap service. As for the money needed to overhaul the track, the trains and the timetables, I think Labour has woefully underestimated the cost -
And all of this is based on the assumption that the economy will carry on ticking, as if leaving the EU were not going to have a negative effect.
Lastly, the performance of Labour's front bench team in the last month has been disgraceful, from Emily Thornberry mouthing the word 'bollocks' on a Sunday morning TV programme in which she failed to tackle Defence Secretary Michael Falllon over arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Dianne Abbott's complete mess of the figures on costing the recruitment of 10,000 new policemen, to John McDonnell unable to tell the BBC interviewer yesterday morning what the deficit is, and was either googling it on his phone while waffling, or getting a slip of paper from an aid and then getting it wrong anyway. The fact that Corbyn is not a team player, has no flexibility in his judgement, and is prepared to sacrifice principle for 'realism' on war, ie the renewal of useless Trident, underlines his lack of credibility.

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Originally Posted by Jericho

Or there's the alternative.
And i can already see the turkeys lining up getting ready to vote for Christmas!

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Jericho; You are smarter than what you think!

.....& Stavros; You know the BBC is a Party Political broadcast for the Conservative Party 24/7, there No.1 Political correspondent (Keunssberg) is a member of the party & married to a banker!

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Originally Posted by peejaye

.....& Stavros; You know the BBC is a Party Political broadcast for the Conservative Party 24/7, there No.1 Political correspondent (Keunssberg) is a member of the party & married to a banker!

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Peejaye, yes, and her predecessor in the role, Nick Robinson who interrogated John McDonnell on the radio yesterday, has been a lifelong Tory ever since creating Macclesfield Young Conservatives. I would probably say the BBC is an 'establishment' rather than a specifically Tory outfit, it isn't that simple. But it should be simple as 1-2-3 for anyone on the Labour front bench to know their brief and not fail to answer questions because they arrived in the studio without the facts at their fingertips -in Dianne Abbott's case she was interviewed on LBC by the 'take no prisoners' Nick Ferrari.

Dianne Abbott had completed 6 previous interviews "on the bounce" that morning. That was the seventh! For the BBC to make it their "lead story" on their flagship 6pm news programme is totally outrageous!

It would appear Diane (how do i get out of here?) Abbot isn't the only one having trouble with her figures.

Chancellor Philip Hammond had a bit of nightmare, himself.
He only messed up *his own* costings on HS2 by 20bn (Yeah, 20 Billion)
Wonder how much we'll hear about that in the media?

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Originally Posted by Jericho

It would appear Diane (how do i get out of here?) Abbot isn't the only one having trouble with her figures.
Chancellor Philip Hammond had a bit of nightmare, himself.
He only messed up *his own* costings on HS2 by 20bn (Yeah, 20 Billion)
Wonder how much we'll hear about that in the media?

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Maybe that's why Mrs May declined to endorse the long-term future of Philip Hammond as Chancellor of the Exchequer...and then she claimed the EU referendum result had nothing to do with the fall in the value of sterling...!
Two more reasons to vote Green?

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Originally Posted by peejaye

Dianne Abbott had completed 6 previous interviews "on the bounce" that morning. That was the seventh! For the BBC to make it their "lead story" on their flagship 6pm news programme is totally outrageous!

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Come on, Peejaye, if she had managed six interviews before the meltdown how come she didn't know the figures off by heart? I heard she had been up until 2 in the morning before those interviews dealing with some demands from John McDonnell who had already pressured Comrade Jeremy to prevent her from appearing on the BBC's Question Time after Hammond's autumn statement. They can't stand each other, probably because John has (Marxian) intellectual rigour where Dianne has intellectual rigor mortis. She sounds increasingly like someone who wishes she had a villa in Spain she could escape to, as in, right now, and forever.
I wonder what the people of Hackney think? Upset on the cards?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Maybe that's why Mrs May declined to endorse the long-term future of Philip Hammond as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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That and his tax arrangements!

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Two more reasons to vote Green?

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Yes, but no!

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Originally Posted by Jericho

It would appear Diane (how do i get out of here?) Abbot isn't the only one having trouble with her figures.

Chancellor Philip Hammond had a bit of nightmare, himself.
He only messed up *his own* costings on HS2 by 20bn (Yeah, 20 Billion)
Wonder how much we'll hear about that in the media?

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Sssssssssssssssssssh Jericho....you're not supposed to see things like that! Maybe ch.4 let it slip!
I've just seen a "car-crash" interview with that charming & popular character "Jeremy Hunt" talking about the Conservative manifesto!
I bet you won't see that again headlining the popular news bulletins! I'm still non the wiser??