General Election 2017 | Cabinet reshuffle: Hunt re-appointed Health Secretary for record third time

How do you intend to vote in the 2017 General Election if eligible?

  • Conservatives

    Votes: 80 14.5%

  • Labour

    Votes: 322 58.4%

  • Lib Dems

    Votes: 57 10.3%

  • Green

    Votes: 20 3.6%

  • SNP

    Votes: 13 2.4%

  • UKIP

    Votes: 29 5.3%

  • Independent

    Votes: 3 0.5%

  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 2 0.4%

  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 11 2.0%

  • Other (UUP, DUP, BNP, and anyone else I have forgotten)

    Votes: 14 2.5%
  • Total voters
    551
  • Poll closed .
berbatrick said:
Nuclear bomb R&D as a Saudi client. After all the odds of them using it are minuscule, so no one gets hurt, Britain will get lots of money, and diplomatic ties with a valuable ally will be strengthened. Use that to pay for a corp tax reduction.
Click to expand...

Come on, we have @Dobba for sarcastic comments.

Do you think Corbyn's economic plan will make the UK attractive to investors after Brexit, if yes then why?

This is a crucial issue for the UK.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
I have already been through this with zupzup.

Corbyn's position would be meaningless in real terms to the people of Yemen. Moral positions are simplistic against complex geopolitical situations.

Should Corbyn not use the diplomatic leverage that the UK has through trade relations to try to influence SA into being better global citizens, or at least try as a first measure?

Sounds like he and his followers are primarily concerned with maintaining their own perceived sense of moral purity. See his vote on the 1999 military intervention in Kosovo for an example.
Click to expand...

The people of Yemen wouldn't be blown up by British munitions, it's good enough for me.

If the Saudis didn't have any weapons with which to surpress their people they may treat them better. We Brits should set the example to follow
 
Classical Mechanic said:
One that had policies that were realistic in the face of Brexit. Brexit being an unprecedented economic upheaval which makes Corbyn's proposed levels of public spending seem fantastical.

One that doesn't look like it is trying to tickle the balls of every liberal pressure group and demographic in the UK.
Click to expand...

Surely in the face of a massive Brexit induced downturn a public spending splurge will be required?
 
IFS being quite stark about it (via Guardian)

It’s certainly transformative what the Labour Party is suggesting here, and I think it’s important to be clear that this is not just about tax and spending; this is about the state getting deeply involved in much more of the private sector than it has been, certainly since the 1970s, and perhaps since the 1940s, with respect to, say, telling banks which branches they can’t close; setting minimum wages for a quarter of private sector workers and about 60% of young people, and dramatically improving labour regulation. All of those things are utterly different from anything we’ve experienced in many, many decades.

If you take what’s here at face value, then much of it I think is unprecedented even in the 1970s. This is a level of state intervention that probably goes back more decades than that.
...
We clearly know from today’s leaked Labour manifesto that they’re looking at spending a very, very large amount more than the Conservatives will. We’re looking about an additional £25bn a year on infrastructure spending; an additional £10bn a year or so to cover the impact of getting rid of university tuition fees; we’ve already heard that they’re looking at spending another £7bn or £8bn on other aspects of education. And then, I’m afraid I haven’t got through the rest of the manifesto, but there’s obviously an awful lot other promises in there. How much that adds up to, I don’t know.

On the tax side Labour have suggested a very big increase in corporation tax – increasing it by about 40%, about one percentage point of national income, which we were quite amused to see they’d described in their manifesto as asking companies to pay a little more. And they’ve said that they will increase tax on those earning over £80,000 a year but we have no details of that yet.

That is, in terms of taxes and spending, a dramatically different picture.
Click to expand...
 
I can understand the arguments surrounding rail and energy but renationalising Royal mail seems like a pointless exercise.
 
berbatrick said:
Nuclear bomb R&D as a Saudi client. After all the odds of them using it are minuscule, so no one gets hurt, Britain will get lots of money, and diplomatic ties with a valuable ally will be strengthened. Use that to pay for a corp tax reduction.
Click to expand...
How did you get hold of the Tory manifesto?


This is the best Labour manifesto in absolute yonks, it's driving these feckers mad.
 
Mozza said:
Surely in the face of a massive Brexit induced downturn a public spending splurge will be required?
Click to expand...

Increased public spending would be required along with making Britain an attractive place for investors. Balls to the wall public spending and an unattractive marketplace as per the Labour manifesto threatens to create a new mountain of debt and longer term and very significant economic problems.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Increased public spending would be required along with making Britain an attractive place for investors. Balls to the wall public spending and an unattractive marketplace as per the Labour manifesto threatens to create a new mountain of debt and longer term and very significant economic problems.
Click to expand...

You are just spouting right wing economic theory. Your only answer to is to cut business rates and workers rights. Thats what we've done for the past 7 years and growth is mediocre.
 
I've only just found out about Theresa May saying she's in favour of fox hunting (don't how I missed that). feck me and she'll get a landslide apparently all the same.

Disgusting bitch.
 
Mozza said:
You are just spouting right wing economic theory. Your only answer to is to cut business rates and workers rights. Thats what we've done for the past 7 years and growth is mediocre.
Click to expand...

You are just spouting left wing economic theory?

The UK has been the best or among the very best performing economies in the G7 for the past 4 or 5 years in terms of growth. You can argue that the Tories have issued morally reprehensible cuts on the most vulnerable in society but the bottom line is that, relatively speaking, their economic policy has worked.

I never said that we should cut employee rights either. Corbyn wants to introduce a whole raft of measures that will significantly harm the UK attractiveness as a place to do business. Increasing employee rights to the level that he wants to is just one of those.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
You are just spouting left wing economic theory?

The UK has been the best or among the very best performing economies in the G7 for the past 4 or 5 years in terms of growth. You can argue that the Tories have issued morally reprehensible cuts on the most vulnerable in society but the bottom line is that, relatively speaking, their economic policy has worked.

I never said that we should cut employee rights either. Corbyn wants to introduce a whole raft of measures that will significantly harm the UK attractiveness as a place to do business. Increasing employee rights to the level that he wants to is just one of those.
Click to expand...

France and Italy are particularly suffering from global businesses withdrawing, or not investing due to employment rights, and the associated cost of doing business.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
The UK has been the best or among the very best performing economies in the G7 for the past 4 or 5 years in terms of growth. You can argue that the Tories have issued morally reprehensible cuts on the most vulnerable in society but the bottom line is that, relatively speaking, their economic policy has worked.
Click to expand...
The most Tory use of the word 'but' I've ever seen. Bravo for that alone.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
You are just spouting left wing economic theory?

The UK has been the best or among the very best performing economies in the G7 for the past 4 or 5 years in terms of growth. You can argue that the Tories have issued morally reprehensible cuts on the most vulnerable in society but the bottom line is that, relatively speaking, their economic policy has worked.

I never said that we should cut employee rights either. Corbyn wants to introduce a whole raft of measures that will significantly harm the UK attractiveness as a place to do business. Increasing employee rights to the level that he wants to is just one of those.
Click to expand...

The best type of economic theory

When is the average person going to see some of the benefits of that growth? We've had marginally better growth, nothing significant, and the price we've paid for that? Crumbling public services and a work force in ever more precarious jobs
 
Chorley1974 said:
France and Italy are particularly suffering from global businesses withdrawing, or not investing due to employment rights, and the associated cost of doing business.
Click to expand...

You always mention those two nations but never Germany or the Northern European nations. It's like they don't fit your narrative
 
Classical Mechanic said:
You are just spouting left wing economic theory?

The UK has been the best or among the very best performing economies in the G7 for the past 4 or 5 years in terms of growth. You can argue that the Tories have issued morally reprehensible cuts on the most vulnerable in society but the bottom line is that, relatively speaking, their economic policy has worked.

I never said that we should cut employee rights either. Corbyn wants to introduce a whole raft of measures that will significantly harm the UK attractiveness as a place to do business. Increasing employee rights to the level that he wants to is just one of those.
Click to expand...

Well, yes, but the whole crux of any Labour argument has to be that the economic recovery has not been felt by the ordinary person. That seems...basic, to me. Like, it should probably be the central point to just about any Labour manifesto at the moment, irrespective of whether it's Tony Blair or Jeremy Corbyn putting it forward. Even if Labour's plans are too extreme, which is a fair enough opinion, I'm not sure what the point of Labour would be if they were planning to largely agree with the Tories economic agenda.
 
Mozza said:
The best type of economic theory

When is the average person going to see some of the benefits of that growth? We've had marginally better growth, nothing significant, and the price we've paid for that? Crumbling public services and a work force in ever more precarious jobs
Click to expand...

You are the one who said that growth had been 'mediocre', relatively speaking, it has not.

I also said that after Brexit we should increase public spending but also that we need to remain attractive as a place to do business in.

Real economy has to pay for borrowing somewhere along the line. Where is that going to come from under Corbyn's economic plan?
 
''the reasons for having to make morally reprehensible cuts are complex''

Pienaar on BBC news has just decribed the idea of re-nationalising the railways as 'eccentric' - maybe we should hold a referendum on it
 
UKIP seem to be not standing in a lot of Labour 1st, UKIP 2nd seats.
 
Corporation tax hike + £10 minimum wage + ban on zero hours contracts + ban on unpaid internships = mass unemployment.
 
hobbers said:
Corporation tax hike + £10 minimum wage + ban on zero hours contracts + ban on unpaid internships = mass unemployment.
Click to expand...

Or.... it reinvigorates the economy because the money is not being hoarded by the 0.1%, instead the working classes have a disposable income once more and can actually afford to spend on something other than bills.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
You are the one who said that growth had been 'mediocre', relatively speaking, it has not.

I also said that after Brexit we should increase public spending but also that we need to remain attractive as a place to do business in.

Real economy has to pay for borrowing somewhere along the line. Where is that going to come from under Corbyn's economic plan?
Click to expand...

Even in relative terms it's been mediocre

Growth will pay the debts
 
Pexbo said:
Or.... it reinvigorates the economy because the money is not being hoarded by the 0.1%, instead the working classes have a disposable income once more and can actually afford to spend on something other than bills.
Click to expand...

Have to have a job first.

Lot of minimum wage Labour voters going to be voting for their own redundancy.
 
hobbers said:
Have to have a job first.

Lot of minimum wage Labour voters going to be voting for their own redundancy.
Click to expand...

And onwards and upwards to a job which will pay them a living wage... in the long run, I'd say they'll be better off.
 
montpelier said:
''the reasons for having to make morally reprehensible cuts are complex''

Pienaar on BBC news has just decribed the idea of re-nationalising the railways as 'eccentric' - maybe we should hold a referendum on it
Click to expand...

If there should be state involvement the priority ought to be those areas where the private sector has abandoned or increasingly overlooked communities. As it stands this is a clumsy, ideologically driven policy, and one that will do nothing for such residents.

Similarly with energy, the renationalisation veers away from the practical. Why not invest all of those billions in renewables and urban regeneration? Give power to the people (in more ways than one) by devolving it to them.
 
There's going to have to be a lot more tax rises than just corporation tax to pay for everything in the manifesto. Maybe a lot got trimmed out today (doubt it judging from reports), but there's massive amounts of extra spending there at the moment that doesn't seem covered by the raises already known about.
 
hobbers said:
Have to have a job first.

Lot of minimum wage Labour voters going to be voting for their own redundancy.
Click to expand...

This "minimum wage leads to unemployment" is one of the more annoying punchlines perpetrated around. When has that every happened? It's not like you don't have literally hundreds of real world minimum wage implementations or raises to study its effects and make a solid case for it if it were true. But no, no one ever does it.

Looks like a myth to me.
 
Arruda said:
This "minimum wage leads to unemployment" is one of the more annoying punchlines perpetrated around. When has that every happened? It's not like you don't have literally hundreds of real world minimum wage implementations or raises to study it's effects and make a solid case for it if it were true. But no, no one ever does it.

Looks like a myth to me.
Click to expand...

Like I said, it's not any one thing that will lead to unemployment. It's the inevitable result of putting pressure on companies from several different directions at once.

If you want an example, supermarkets are all looking at different ways of scaling back on the number of workers already, in part due to the recent and planned minimum wage increases. Labours policies will simply push them all to following the Aldi model. Which is great if you dont mind every employee being a physically fit young guy.
 
"I'm sorry - I'm not playing a Cliff Richard song for your auntie's birthday."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.