British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
Tory leadership contest is quickly turning into farce. Trump has backed Boris, which should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain to exclude him.
Of the other candidates Rory Stewart looks the best of the outsiders. Surprised to see Cleverly and Javid not further up the betting, but not sure the Tory membership are ready for a brown PM.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri...
Regarding the LD leadership contest, Jo Swinson is miles ahead of any other candidate (and indeed any of the Tory lot). Should be a shoe in.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day in Labour - the more serious the anti-Semitism claims get, the more Corbyn's cronies write their own obituary by blaming it on outlandish conspiracy theories - this week, it's apparently the Jewish Embassy's fault...
Any views on the PIP overhaul?
There are two issues here as I see it. First, physically disabled people people who are unable to work should not be made poorer.
Second, the vast majority of people (particularly young people) receiving PIP for mental health conditions should not be getting it.
Modern educational practice, with its safe-space mentality, does not equip young people to deal with life, and modern life is extremely difficult to deal with if you're not a hit-the-ground-running self-starting go-getter (the preferred personality type of successive governments for a very long time, meaning basically psychopaths like the kind of people who become politicians -- because who else would want that kind of job stress and job insecurity?), so with all that plus the near impossibility of ever affording your own housing, no wonder large numbers of young people are just failing to launch and falling into a bewildered state. No, they're not sick, but society is, and it's not clear what you do about that.
Society is certainly very sick, especially the workplace which has seen hours, workloads and stress increase many times over since I started working in the 80s. As you say, if there's little chance of the average young person ever owning their own home until their parents die then there's little incentive for them to join the rat race enthusiastically and every reason to feel somewhat worthless and feel like giving up.
40 years of Thatcherite policies and a seemingly never ending austerity program has done this.
Society is certainly very sick, especially the workplace which has seen hours, workloads and stress increase many times over since I started working in the 80s. As you say, if there's little chance of the average young person ever owning their own home until their parents die then there's little incentive for them to join the rat race enthusiastically and every reason to feel somewhat worthless and feel like giving up.
Except housing is out of reach the same on very different countries so maybe you should look at something else to discuss and address the problem?
Try to look at something that happened in all those countries
FoS as usual.
By 1997 Right To Buy had led to 1.7 million council houses moving into private hands, many of them buy to let landlords.
"the lowest in the developed world at £220 per week."
Very obvious lie and the rest is him blaming the public service for his mistakes and them being diligent.
Except housing is out of reach the same on very different countries so maybe you should look at something else to discuss and address the problem?
Try to look at something that happened in all those countries
Neoliberalism in other countries as well
ye because the Netherlands is 20000x more neoliberal than Finland sure.
even if Finland corporate tax rate is 20%.
and Japan is even lower than the above countries with regards to housing problems, being possible the most accessible country for housing in the first world (with Italy).
what exactly is in your mind the Netherlands or UK doing that is "neoliberal" and causes housing prices to be unaffordable for normal people that isn't happening in Tokyo or in 90% of Italy?
FoS as usual.
By 1997 Right To Buy had led to 1.7 million council houses moving into private hands, many of them buy to let landlords.
more than 1.7m immigrant households came in since 1997, so at 0 immigration since 1997 houses would be cheaper than if the public had kept the totality of the public housing and never sold anything since 1997, BUT for some reason that doesn't even go through your mind in passing.
I wonder why.
do you realize every time you allow anyone in you are raising housing pricing for every British resident already there yes? immigration in a country unwilling (or unable) to build more houses in very desirable areas is a direct tax on everyone who doesn't own a house yet and on every new household that is going to be formed.
every time you allow some Pakistani or Ukrainian or philipino in you are explicitly and directly making it harder to actual young citizens to rent or buy a house in a good area (where no more houses are going to be built).
they will have to pay more to commute more and live in more shitty area.
and that's objective, supply and demand.
YET, the thought of that being obviously the single more relevant reason for housing prices being a problem in desirable areas, and the reason why Japan Italy and Finland having much lower immigration have lower housing price problems, doesn't even pass through your mind
As I keep trying to explain to dullards like you, the problem isn’t immigration because that’s a net plus for the treasury over the course of each adult immigrants lifetime.
The problem lies elsewhere, firstly with lack of investment of those tax revenues into new housing, health and social services etc and secondly with the continuing austerity programme. Immigration causes no financial stress if the infrastructure is improved.
Immigrants provide subhuman bootlicking psychopathic fascists like you the opportunity to blame ordinary people for the failings of the political classes.
I reminder about who the ****s are
Have to wonder if this heathrow fire is putin showing his theats aren't idle
Liz Kendall has always been terrible
She is but let's not forget that the stupid attacks from people on the left who should have known better on the even worse liz truss that so raised the status of the OBR, markets, bankers etc
Suuporting the nonsense that very conservative bankers should determine what we can do was the stupidity that reeves and starmer used to impose fiscal rules with barely a squeak of opposition. Austerity is what these bankers want and austerity is what we're getting. Even Reeves is now squirming to try to escape the full extent of her own nonsense.
Guardian on much the same theme.
‘Does it score?’ How the OBR became the key arbiter of the Treasury’s sums
Chancellor has very little headroom within her fiscal rules but is keen to keep Office for Budget Responsibility on side
When Rachel Reeves made her speech as shadow chancellor to Labour’s annual party conference two years ago it was one of the more niche announcements that drew a cheer from the audience.
Strengthening the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility might have sounded like a dry measure to unveil to the party faithful. But, after the Liz Truss debacle, handing the Treasury watchdog more powers went down a storm in Liverpool.
Next week will be a different story. On Wednesday Reeves, now as chancellor, will present her spring statement to the Commons in response to OBR forecasts that are widely expected to show her self-imposed fiscal rules would be broken without action, providing the momentum behind the government’s benefit cuts and plans to choke off other spending.
Driving the chancellor is a rise in government borrowing costs, weak economic growth and stubborn inflation which are expected to have wiped out all of the £9.9bn headroom she left in October against her main fiscal rule – requiring day-to-day spending to be matched by spending receipts within five years’ time.
Things could have been different. This week the former Bank of England deputy governor Charlie Bean warned the chancellor against making kneejerk cuts. A “more adult way of proceeding”, he said, would be to allow the rules to be breached with a small miss and acknowledge that forecasts can be volatile. That ought to be no big deal, he said. Even if there were concerns, Reeves could take corrective action in less than three months’ time at the spending review, or at the autumn budget.
“That said, simply saying that probably won’t cut the ice at the current juncture – and in particular given her credibility personally has probably been somewhat weakened,” said Bean, who is also a former member of the OBR’s budget responsibility committee.
Part of the issue is that Reeves has clung tightly to her “non-negotiable” fiscal rules, and promised not to repeat anything on the scale of last October’s tax-raising budget, leaving spending cuts as the path of least political resistance. The chancellor has set significant credence in keeping the OBR on side in particular.
But the mood is turning in Labour circles, much of it stemming from the tight involvement of the OBR in policymaking. “People are feeling pretty gloomy right now. And there is no sign of anything getting better either,” said one source close to the party. “We have a loop where you get two forecasts [a year] and one budget. It’s a nightmare for political management.”
The quality of state services ladies and gentlemen
Wow I see a certain thread about a certain orange demagogue in this forum has been locked.
RIP
It's back now.
cool, was wondering if owners scared or sommat
Cant have too many threads about friends of starmer
Could have an Ed Thread, I suppose, as Ed Miliband is the friend who got Starmer into politics, though I think No.10 is belatedly starting to regard Ed as a problem, partly because the public associate him with a notorious Labour defeat and partly because he's stanning for China as a supplier of solar panels made by slave labour and is chivvying House votes against Lord Alton's anti-slavery amendment to the Great British Energy Bill.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...
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Will read some stuff but suspect spin machine whiring into action cos Ed doens't want to go along with breaking the green pledges along with everything else.
annoying parents make a nuisance
school responds by trying to have them imprisoned. succeeds
