Current Affairs The Labour Party

[Bruce Wayne]

lollollollollollollollol

Labour talk about Green credentials then have a shot of a man looking longingly at a Coal Mine.

We won’t engage in casino style financial gambling, we’ll invest in small companies (who definitely never go belly up and would represent higher risk)

We’d create jobs. (Somehow, they’d just exist and pay well, okay?)

We’d revitalise the high street (completely ignoring the fact that the high streets dying because of a shift in how consumers buy)

We’d renationalise so many things (don’t ask where the moneys coming from)

We’d build a million homes (again not sure where the moneys coming or how you’d enforce that on the private home builders market, unless companies are going to be commissioned to build affordable housing, which is good)

We’d spend so much cash you’d wonder where it’s all coming from and if our little utopia is a pipe dream.

Labour - It’s coming home!

Do you ever get the impression that Corbyn liked playing Sim City in cheat mode so he could have loadsa money?

 

[davek]

Only over for them if there is an election in the near future. Can't see them calling one as we have a set term so we are stuck with them.

New leader (which will happen) and who knows after Brexit happens they may gain popularity again. Hope not but depends who becomes their new leader.

A second uneleceted Tory leader in a row...and lasting unrtil 2022?

Cloud cuckoo land.

 

[zzr45]

Do you ever get the impression that Corbyn liked playing Sim City in cheat mode so he could have loadsa money?

Rich neighbourhoods have disasters imposed on them daily.

 

[orly]

lollollollollollollollol

Labour talk about Green credentials then have a shot of a man looking longingly at a Coal Mine.

We won’t engage in casino style financial gambling, we’ll invest in small companies (who definitely never go belly up and would represent higher risk)

We’d create jobs. (Somehow, they’d just exist and pay well, okay?)

We’d revitalise the high street (completely ignoring the fact that the high streets dying because of a shift in how consumers buy)

We’d renationalise so many things (don’t ask where the moneys coming from)

We’d build a million homes (again not sure where the moneys coming or how you’d enforce that on the private home builders market, unless companies are going to be commissioned to build affordable housing, which is good)

We’d spend so much cash you’d wonder where it’s all coming from and if our little utopia is a pipe dream.

Labour - It’s coming home!

To be fair, you could revitalise a High Street without just putting more chain stores / betting shops on it.

 

[Number_25]

lollollollollollollollol

Labour talk about Green credentials then have a shot of a man looking longingly at a Coal Mine.

I'm from a former coal mining industry, and when I see the pits I don't see coal coming out with black smog everywhere. I see a place that gave birth to British democracy, and the emergence of a new type of politics which rejected conservative ideas - rejection of eugenics and tax without representation.

We won’t engage in casino style financial gambling, we’ll invest in small companies (who definitely never go belly up and would represent higher risk)

Didn't the entire global banking sector go bust 10 years ago?

We’d create jobs. (Somehow, they’d just exist and pay well, okay?)

A Labour government would create jobs through a genuine reindustrialisation strategy, that will see 400,000 new jobs in green energy and high technology created.

We’d revitalise the high street (completely ignoring the fact that the high streets dying because of a shift in how consumers buy)

You could quite easily revitalise the high street by ensuring that global monopolies like Amazon pay a fair amount of tax, instead of being able to pay less and undercut small retailers.

We’d renationalise so many things (don’t ask where the moneys coming from)

Most of the renationalisation will be "cost-free" due to the fact that we'd just take them back into public ownership once the terms of the franchise agreements are over.

We’d build a million homes (again not sure where the moneys coming or how you’d enforce that on the private home builders market, unless companies are going to be commissioned to build affordable housing, which is good)

Didn't the Labour led post-war government build 1,000,000 new homes in 6 years?

Labour - It’s coming home!

It certainly is.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

To be fair, you could revitalise a High Street without just putting more chain stores / betting shops on it.

Not easy though is it? My (Labour run) borough in London is Southwark, and there is a huge regeneration project underway in Elephant & Castle, with leisure centres, new flats, cinemas, music venues etc. which in many ways is great. There are accusations however of gentrification on a huge scale, with the Latino community here concerned that they haven't been consulted and are going to be priced out. The area has traditionally been very working class, but there is a clear sense that it's been hipsterfied, and that balance between making somewhere 'nice' without gentrifying it is a challenge that few have managed. It makes platitudes about doing this that and the other with the high street a bit shallow imo.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

A Labour government would create jobs through a genuine reindustrialisation strategy, that will see 400,000 new jobs in green energy and high technology created.

Just on this, it's one of those things that sounds great, but the devil is in the detail, no? I mean the tech sector have been complaining of a skills shortage, be it in programming, data science or AI, for years and years, and governments of all stripes have pledged to invest in STEM and all that. It's attracted a huge amount of attention, and not really done anything. It's common in politics and policy making circles to make an announcement and think that's job done, when of course the job is only done when your announcement comes to fruition and delivers what you want.

We've spoken a few times previously about the historic difficulties involved in helping people (and regions) reinvent themselves. It's not impossible of course, but no government has really managed it in an age (if ever). So you'll have to forgive me if I treat Corbyn's claim of magically creating 400,000 trained people out of thin air (the unemployed population?) with a large dose of salt.

 

[zzr45]

I'm from a former coal mining industry, and when I see the pits I don't see coal coming out with black smog everywhere. I see a place that gave birth to British democracy, and the emergence of a new type of politics which rejected conservative ideas - rejection of eugenics and tax without representation.

It didn’t happen in the towns and cities then due to the industrial revolution? It wasn’t thanks to Liberals and middle class politicians of the day. I live in a ex salt mining community, like most people in the town I look at them and remember we’ve moved on with no romantic notions at all. They represent the past.

Didn't the entire global banking sector go bust 10 years ago?

Not entirely, but I get your point. What caused that crash? People being lent money who could not afford to pay it back. With anything between 50-80% if companies failing in their first five years (depending on the source) there are definite parallels to draw.

A Labour government would create jobs through a genuine reindustrialisation strategy, that will see 400,000 new jobs in green energy and high technology created.

Bruce has already touched on this, it’s slightly dubious at best, nor does it account for the jobs that would be lost as part of renationalising. If Thames Water is nationalised, does that count as having created a job, even though it’s there? Are private companies that are servicing the current suppliers going to stay in the UK - see the prior discussion about Siemens for example.

You could quite easily revitalise the high street by ensuring that global monopolies like Amazon pay a fair amount of tax, instead of being able to pay less and undercut small retailers.

I don’t disagree that Amazon should pay more tax, in fact I’m amazed that no party has picked up cheap wins here in the taxation of the net - e.g FB advertising people in the U.K. isn’t charged with VAT which seems utterly wrong. If a U.K. consumer is targeted they should have to pay VAT.
Again, using the conservative estimate that 50% of businesses fail there is a reason- most do not supply a product or service that people want.

Most of the renationalisation will be "cost-free" due to the fact that we'd just take them back into public ownership once the terms of the franchise agreements are over.

Except all the privately owned companies that aren’t run by franchise. £170 billion to do that.

Didn't the Labour led post-war government build 1,000,000 new homes in 6 years?.

Wasn’t the country half flattened and have a huge workforce ready to go? Bit different this time.

 

[peteblue]

Once again from Labour, we have no end of good ideas of how to spend money, and who doesn’t like spending money and getting things for free. But also, once again, they have absolutely no ideas on wealth generation or incentivising wealth generation, just some ‘green’ ideas of plonking thousands upon thousands of windmills over the countryside....

 

[peteblue]

Second home tax. Another great idea in principle. However, to make sure it's watertight. What's to stop couples from having the title to each home in different names, or held in trust for a child, and raft of other nefarious ways some hide monies.

https://www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2018-09-24/labour-plans-to-double-council-tax-holiday-homes

There is nothing to stop anyone doing so. But why just stop at a second home, what about a second car, and who really needs two pairs of shoes anyway......

 

[Moomin]

Once again from Labour, we have no end of good ideas of how to spend money, and who doesn’t like spending money and getting things for free. But also, once again, they have absolutely no ideas on wealth generation or incentivising wealth generation, just some ‘green’ ideas of plonking thousands upon thousands of windmills over the countryside....

Think it would not just be wind turbines in the countryside and sea.

Green energy is a growth market, invest in R&D working in partnership with Universities and manufacturers. Create the UK to be at the forefront of this sector. Tidal turbine, wave turbines, battery storage etc etc plenty of opportunities to create the UK as a leading country to come and work with regarding this sector.

 

[neil999]

There is nothing to stop anyone doing so. But why just stop at a second home, what about a second car, and who really needs two pairs of shoes anyway......

I knew you were posh

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Think it would not just be wind turbines in the countryside and sea.

Green energy is a growth market, invest in R&D working in partnership with Universities and manufacturers. Create the UK to be at the forefront of this sector. Tidal turbine, wave turbines, battery storage etc etc plenty of opportunities to create the UK as a leading country to come and work with regarding this sector.

Not to poo poo the idea, but commercialising university IP is not a new thing, and the likes of InnovateUK have been helping to do that for sometime. You can argue as to how effective they've been, but even this hopeless government have identified a number of key sectors to support as they develop high skilled jobs.

The challenge is not announcing you'll do that, as any idiot could do that, but to actually make it work.

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

There is nothing to stop anyone doing so. But why just stop at a second home, what about a second car, and who really needs two pairs of shoes anyway......

One house is a necessity two or more is a luxury. And i don't believe owning two pairs of shoes has the same social impact as owning multiple houses but I'm sure it has materialistic impact if that's your thing.

 

[sbbefc]

Do you ever get the impression that Corbyn liked playing Sim City in cheat mode so he could have loadsa money?

We have enough money for brexit and nuclear weapons.