The Politics Thread

[bobo the clown]

^^ Mischief doesn't seek logic.

[Prufrock]

It f*cking love it if all that^ led to a surge for Corbyn meaning half the nutter ones currently backing Burnham thought JC actually had a chance so voted for him (coz none of them actually like Burnham) splitting the left vote and meaning good old Liz surged through on her way to handing it to the Tories in 2020.

I'd love it, love it.

[CrazyHorse]

It f*cking love it if all that^ led to a surge for Corbyn meaning half the nutter ones currently backing Burnham thought JC actually had a chance so voted for him (coz none of them actually like Burnham) splitting the left vote and meaning good old Liz surged through on her way to handing it to the Tories in 2020.

I'd love it, love it.

Never in the field of human writing have so many words said so little

[Worthy4England]

Of course. How silly of me.

[bobo the clown]

It f*cking love it if all that^ led to a surge for Corbyn meaning half the nutter ones currently backing Burnham thought JC actually had a chance so voted for him (coz none of them actually like Burnham) splitting the left vote and meaning good old Liz surged through on her way to handing it to the Tories in 2020.

I'd love it, love it.

Never in the field of human writing have so many words said so little

That has all the hallmarks of Auf Wiedersehen Pet's Yellow Paint item.

See if the one no-one wants can sneak in while no-one's looking.

[Prufrock]

The Tories for Corbyn thing is pathetic.

A Labour party incapable of properly scrutinising the Tories is in no-one interests apart from partisan Team Tories.

[bobo the clown]

The Tories for Corbyn thing is pathetic.

A Labour party incapable of properly scrutinising the Tories is in no-one interests apart from partisan Team Tories.

... are you drinking so early ? Or is is the coke speaking ?

[Bijou Bob]

The Tories for Corbyn thing is pathetic.

A Labour party incapable of properly scrutinising the Tories is in no-one interests apart from partisan Team Tories.

They've been shown to be incapable of doing that for the past 5 years. What makes you think they're going to start anytime soon?

I predict a Burnham victory, following which, the PLP will descend into factionalised battle for the next 4 years and 10 months. Throw in at least one leadership challenge, some underhand press briefings and the odd scandal and the party will effectively self destruct again. With or without Corbyn.

[Bruce Rioja]

... the PLP will descend into factionalised battle for the next 4 years and 10 months. Throw in at least one leadership challenge, some underhand press briefings and the odd scandal and the party will effectively self destruct again.

To be fair, I reckon that that'd have happened anyway had Milliband won the GE.

[freeindeed]

I have become a labour supporter to vote for Corbyn.

His Facebook page has 30,000 members dwarfing all the other candidates. He may not win but his level of support will surprise most people. He definitely won't come last on the ballot.

Austerity does not work. Unregulated free market capitalism has proven itself to be deeply unstable as the banks have strong incentives to influence deregulation over time.

Wealth inequality is rapidly widening - the richest 80 people now own equal to the poorest 3.5 billion or 50% of the world's population.

The majority of peoples earnings now evaporate into the bank accounts of private landlords. Unemployment is an enormous problem as recent figures don't account for the quality of jobs held ie zero hours/part time.

Meanwhile multi-nationals pay no corporation tax and grow more powerful than nation states. We waste billions on a nuclear "deterrent" that if used would spell the end of the world. We wage illegal wars in oil rich nations at Americas beckoning.

The Tories solution is to villify those living in poverty - immigrants and "benefit scroungers". To justify cutting their incomes while the real money remains untaxed.

"Socialising debt and privatising profit" is doomed to failure.

We need to broaden the political debate, not Tories vs Tory-lite.

[Hoboh]

Where's Merkel?

Given the fierce resistance in eastern Europe to the idea of being forced by Brussels to take in refugees, the sharing is likely to be on a voluntary basis.
Far from opening borders, Europe is closing down. In the past 10 days France and Austria have closed borders with Italy and turned hundreds back. The anti-immigrant rightwing Danish People’s party soared into second place as the real victor of last week’s general election in Denmark and is demanding the re-erection of border controls as the price for propping up a minority centre-right government. The anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant Freedom party in Austria has just chalked up significant regional electoral gains.

Hungary has told Brussels to mind its own business and started building a four-metre-high wire curtain along its border with Serbia this week to keep migrants out.

Free movement, not up for negotiation!

In an article for the Guardian on Tuesday, Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, accuses the EU of betraying its basic values and decency in the handling of the crisis.

“It’s Europe that needs to demonstrate the values it believes in and stands for. Europe isn’t a bundle of economic ties, it’s a community of people, a shared destiny, and ideals.

Keep it coming, meat and drink for the 'out' campaign.

[Bijou Bob]

Dream on Hoboh, dream on.

[Hoboh]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... t-54455073" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No wonder this bloke is not any longer in PR, he really thinks he can walk on water the prick!

The cheques in the post

I won't ... .. .... ....., honest!

[Hoboh]

Found someone who spins them better than Dave

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015 ... dy-council" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Bijou Bob]

Andy Burnham is treading a dangerous middle ground on Question Time at the moment. Can't be doing his credibility much good.

[Prufrock]

Every right wing paper that calls him second-rate does him an untold favour. Utterly useless. Stupid and spineless is a bad combo. Tories wasting their £3 on Corbyn should be shoring up Burnham instead.

[Prufrock]

I only recently found out what that "pension triple lock" the Tories kept banging on about was: the most blatant, unjustifiable electoral bribe I've ever seen! How they got away with it I'll never know?!

We've no money, everything is knackered, but for those of you in the demographic that vote the most...your pension will rise in line with the highest of:

1) Inflation - OK fair enough. It's important that if the price of food or fuel shoots up pensioners can still afford it.

2) Average earnings - Hmm, less convincing, this isn't "earnt money" but there is at least an argument that if the whole of society suddenly enjoys a huge increase in wealth (which inexplicably doesn't bring with it the inflation in 1)) that pensions should go up too.

3) Failing that, 2.5%. Sorry, what?!

[Hoboh]

The Eurogroup document said experts from the troika of creditors – the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank – would be on the ground in Athens to monitor the proposed bailout programme. The trio would also have a say in all relevant Greek draft legislation before it is presented to parliament. Furthermore, the Greeks will have to amend all legislation already passed by the Syriza government this year that had not been agreed with the creditors.

So it appears we have a German led, backed by insignificant former Soviet block countries coup in Greece!
EU, the destroyer of democracy.
Roll on the referendum.

[Bijou Bob]

If we vote to stay in, which I reckon is a nailed on certainty, will you be dropping the incessant rantings about it??

[Prufrock]

What are the economic arguments against laws saying that no-one in an organisation can be paid more than a set proportion of the average wage of the organisation (say 20x average wage - a figure plucked from the top of my head for the sake of argument) and no-one can be paid less than another proportion (say 1/2 of average wage)? The theory being to keep plenty variation to give incentives for people to work their way to the top, but you combat the gaping inequality between the executive end and the rest while also giving the bosses a stake in raising everyone's pay.

The only two I can think of off the top of my head are:

-a theoretical brain drain abroad;
-that certain sectors (say manufacturing) would lose out on the best management/ executives because they wouldn't be able to compete with others (law/finance) because their "average" is going to be skewed towards lots of lowly paid manual workers vs better paid "professionals".

Any more?