2024, hoodwink and bamboozle the public

[BWFC_Insane]

^^I rest my case!

Unlike you,

I don't do sly digs, comrade.

You don’t seem to inhabit the same planet as anyone else.

[Worthy4England]

Reading through the comments, I seriously doubt many are that far away from a general consensus as to the wrongs that need righting.

Seriously though, does anyone think that any of the donkeys old parties will be prepared for the graft and probable upset this would entail to achieve the above?
Society is getting so divided that unless we have some sort of hard-core, no nonsense government with the drive to take on, and out, all the obstacles in the way. No matter how you paint it, decline will continue.

Personally I'm sick to the back teeth of the way politics has sunk to depths of the deepest oceans and it's just getting worse when some stoop only to represent fractions of their electorate.

Do you really have faith in any of them?

I trust populists who shout about how everything is broken yet have no answers less than I trust any other politicians.

It’s easy to stir hatred and after the last 14 years of failure to stand there and say ‘well I’ve got all the answers’ without offering any alongside a slurry of offensive dog whistles.

The people who forced the shit sandwich of Brexit down everyone’s throats are the last, very very last people we should ever take any notice of.

Feckin hell put your bloody kleenex away for once.
Tell me, how great is your nannies EU these days when slowly they are moving from Merkels everybody welcome and some of their economics is bordering on collapse.
Oh, I get it, you have to accept a little more trouble going on holiday, oh dear!
You haven't got any answers either so stop trying to be smart little Trotsky, I guess you'd fall in with that stupid Grandma of the 12yo knife killer telling us all how he was so sweet and innocent and misunderstood.
Let's look who goes out damaging property, causing disruption to peoples lives and hounding people on social media, yeah it's your leftie pals mate, exactly the ones we should at best ignore.

Conversely to the EU, we've done a stellar job if not accepting everybody as evidenced by the record levels of immigration

Oh we've had more than our fair share, I totally agree hence being peed off with those who supposedly represent us.
It's really amusing labour's answer seems to be setting up a border force to deal with traffickers who in the main are overseas.
Some people seem to think sending 'kids' through education, sometimes into their mid twenties is the answer to a brilliantly educated workforce without realising AI will put the kibosh on that in the next decade or so. Would I employ a team of uni educated youth to program things when AI will do it 24/7 without breaks or a need for a safespace? No.
A small glimpse of the 'green' sustainable future might be when the bin waggons turn up, record your address, weigh your bin then charge you accordingly.
Won't happen? We'll see.
Not naming names but some middle-class champagne socialists will be the first to moan when they realise they are the targets because all the wealthy have done one as happen last time labour targeted them.
The point I am making that the comrades dislike is it is time for a completely new approach, not one dictated by the unions.

I agree on the last bit. But it's not a political problem, really, it's an economic/financial one that can be solved only through states and politics...What I don't see from the two main parties or anyone else, is anything radically looking to change that. So they're left with tinkering around some edges. To keep getting away with it, they blame the EU, Green Agenda, Wokeism, Small Boats, it's young 'uns, Right wingers, left wingers, old people - in fact just about any group they can get away blaming so we don't ask "Are you sure this capitalist economic system is working well for everyone?" Apparently the only alternative is to go back to bartering...

QE has much to answer for, Hobes - Good programme on it here. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013xcf

[BWFC_Insane]

^^In fairness Worthy I agree with a lot of what you are saying. But there is one thing. You are correct in articulating all the ways capitalism has failed us……but you haven’t (that I’ve noticed) proposed an alternative.


Because honestly I’ve spent a couple of years railing against it but I don’t think I have a logical answer. We are in a global economy. I don’t see an alternative economic system. And the protectionism of China or US costs a lot of money that we don’t have. I guess it’s a shame we are on our own and not part of a bigger trading and economic bloc because then we might be able to….

[Worthy4England]

Im not suggesting replacing capitalism with a different system. I don't really want to grow my own beetroot and have to work out with Hobes what the exchange rate is for one of his dead ducks.

It needs coordinated action but we have somewhat of a problem, our current systems both produce the same results. Putin probably has significant personal wealth as does Biden. That's before we get to Captains of industry...when we're looking for where all our hard earned is going, for the largest chunk we need look no further. Our own PM, our likely next PM all have significant wealth and in many cases it's intergenerational (and often avoids any sort of tax). But they make the rules under which the tax loopholes perpetuate and create other demons. Labour for years wanted to tax easy targets. "People earning over £x, we're going to get 'em" wow. That's income, not wealth.

Let's get CGT off anyone who has trusted their assets...

We need to go after the really rich and tax efficient corporations.

[BWFC_Insane]

Im not suggesting replacing capitalism with a different system. I don't really want to grow my own beetroot and have to work out with Hobes what the exchange rate is for one of his dead ducks.

It needs coordinated action but we have somewhat of a problem, our current systems both produce the same results. Putin probably has significant personal wealth as does Biden. That's before we get to Captains of industry...when we're looking for where all our hard earned is going, for the largest chunk we need look no further. Our own PM, our likely next PM all have significant wealth and in many cases it's intergenerational (and often avoids any sort of tax). But they make the rules under which the tax loopholes perpetuate and create other demons. Labour for years wanted to tax easy targets. "People earning over £x, we're going to get 'em" wow. That's income, not wealth.

Let's get CGT off anyone who has trusted their assets...

We need to go after the really rich and tax efficient corporations.

Yeah I agree with wealth tax - I think that needs international cooperation. Which is where I start to think it’s pretty hard.

[Prufrock]

Yeah exactly that. It makes sense but you can't do it on your own.

[Worthy4England]

How topical on the day the Tesla board award old Elon £44bn salary.

He says he's philanthropic...supporting people who need it needs to be back with governments. This has already.moved away from capitalism. It's nearer feudalism.

[boltonboris]

The world is full of “I don’t need it, but I don’t want anybody else to have it because it’s mine” and it pisses me off. The idea of sharing that kind of wealth with his staff who help make that money for him, horrifies him.

Hes just one of thousands of absolute wankers the world doesn’t need. Tax him til his pips squeak

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

The world is full of “I don’t need it, but I don’t want anybody else to have it because it’s mine” and it pisses me off. The idea of sharing that kind of wealth with his staff who help make that money for him, horrifies him.

Hes just one of thousands of absolute wankers the world doesn’t need. Tax him til his pips squeak

His level of wankerism probably warrants making illegal. He can rot in jail for me.

[Hoboh]

^^I rest my case!

Unlike you,

I don't do sly digs, comrade.

You don’t seem to inhabit the same planet as anyone else.

Now why on earth did I expect that? I wonder

The world I live on is where NHS appointments for Urology are currently touching 9 months for a 77yo. A world where a neighbour 76, gets chest pains, phones the GP surgery and told he can have an appointment a week next Thursday, ends up for 4hrs in A&E to be told he has bad Angina.
A world where my father has umpteen and one appointments cancelled and gets not one, but sometimes three or four letters telling him the same thing, a world in which GP's tell him they will send him a link to view when his appointment is instead of yelling him on the phone.
Welcome to our world beating NHS.
Son in law is a teacher, want to know why there are staff shortages? He tells me colleagues are leaving in their droves because the kids and their indignant about anything parents are actually running the place, not the staff who dare not say boo to a goose.

[Worthy4England]

^^ But you wanna buy tanks! And continue with us subsidising Oil n Gas? While we rush for the sunlit uplands of Brexit with all that extra NHS investment...

[BWFC_Insane]

^^I rest my case!

Unlike you,

I don't do sly digs, comrade.

You don’t seem to inhabit the same planet as anyone else.

Now why on earth did I expect that? I wonder

The world I live on is where NHS appointments for Urology are currently touching 9 months for a 77yo. A world where a neighbour 76, gets chest pains, phones the GP surgery and told he can have an appointment a week next Thursday, ends up for 4hrs in A&E to be told he has bad Angina.
A world where my father has umpteen and one appointments cancelled and gets not one, but sometimes three or four letters telling him the same thing, a world in which GP's tell him they will send him a link to view when his appointment is instead of yelling him on the phone.
Welcome to our world beating NHS.
Son in law is a teacher, want to know why there are staff shortages? He tells me colleagues are leaving in their droves because the kids and their indignant about anything parents are actually running the place, not the staff who dare not say boo to a goose.

I don’t doubt any of that - nor is it any different to my experiences to be honest.

However, calling people ‘trots’ is the sort of nonsense that gets nobody anywhere. Unless they actually are ‘trots’ which of course I don’t think any you label, including me, a Blairite, are….

It’s simply a fact that Brexit has been a disaster. We can’t change it but the country has accepted it for what it was. And it’s also true that all the problems you identify are correct but none are fixed by populist rhetoric.

Farage’s answer to chronic NHS underfunding is ‘change the funding model’ which of course is complete bollocks and he knows it. He cites France who pay more per capita for their healthcare than we do. You can tax that or pay for it by insurance it doesn’t change the underlying economics of healthcare. Or fix the workforce crisis. Which by the way is entirely reliant on immigration and will be no matter what for years, likely decades to come.

There are no easy answers to this, and the people who offered the easy answer in 2016 are the exact people now who we should be avoiding listening to. The growth of populism is not a British thing and we seem to now be following Europe. But as history shows it ends in disaster every time.

Worthy has the answers far more than Farage - who let’s face it is part of the rich elite that are milking us dry.

[BWFC_Insane]

Been casting my eye over the depressing and stark field of the manifestos as I always do at election time and always wish I hadn’t bothered,

My view…which is worth nothing at all….caveat - we don’t yet have a full reform manifesto simply their ‘contract’ document but it acts in the same way.

So it’s pretty easy to read and instantly discard the crank manifestos. Namely the Greens and Reforms. Abject nonsense. A list of identity politic wish lists. Lack of developed ideas and complete detachment from reality. Improving public services, installing French style NHS funding model with less money - but somehow a magically improved NHS, build more houses whilst penalising building companies for their carbon emissions and protecting nimbyism…

So they are just off the wall bonkers and useless.

In all honesty the Tory party manifesto isn’t far behind. Absolute abject rubbish. Half of it isn’t even true and swathes of it are rebadging existing promises and even deliveries as ‘new’. Putting us in an even larger fiscal black hole to cut takes but provide no impetus for the economy. Normally the Tory manifesto makes a good case for small government, unfettered free market economics and fiscal restraint. I don’t agree with it usually but it makes the case. This makes no case. It’s a shambolic mess. It’s hard to believe this is the Tory party putting this out.

Politically over the last decade I’ve pretty much aligned with the Lib Dem’s. And again I find myself mainly supporting their intentions in their manifesto. Their overall ideas and plans align with where I think the action is needed. But none of it is remotely deliverable. And it’s abundantly clear even on first contact. There is an attractive tax regime but one that instantly screams costs being passed on but also the most egregious fiscal black holes of any of the main parties.

Finally labours and it’s hard to know where to even start with it, huge massive transformational ambitions with the tiniest of first steps. The broad context makes sense and is clearly targeted at the sort of industrial and tech transformation that they are going through in other countries. We are sorely lacking joined up industrial strategy and investment plans. Allied to a serious approach to skills. All this is something that is fundamental. But there is no money for it. What they can raise for an industrial strategy is chicken feed compared to the £30Bn you need to make any difference. On the other hand, whilst this is a very very low bar it’s the most realistic of all the manifestos out there. Though still has a fiscal hole.


So in short we are facing intractable problems that you can’t answer with policy. And no doubt many will look to cheap and easy populist answers without any plan or realistic history of achievement.

It’s a depressing time when you have to decide between something that sounds ‘about right’ but not ever going to happen or something that sounds ‘less flawed than everything else’ but ‘lacking fiscal impetus’.

Welcome to 2024!

[Worthy4England]

We used to work on the principle that HoL couldn't vote against a manifesto pledge. I'm struggling with this round because they're pretty amorphous. Last time out when I did the "which policy suits you?" Thing is, it was split almost equally. I quite like Reform's policy on unwinding QE, for example, rest of it, probably not.

I still think the party that limits population growth, is in a decent position. We're done with it. The economy needs to grow on a different basis or we nned to shrink some. That's already being discussed.

There is, and never has been a party who gives me exactly what I want. Most elections are about 35% in favour, but no bugger wanted PR.

I'll pick my tallest dwarf at some point. Whether I'll vote for them, who knows. Corbyn's 1960's target tax take, all made sure they protected assets. They're the wrong target.

[Hoboh]

Been casting my eye over the depressing and stark field of the manifestos as I always do at election time and always wish I hadn’t bothered,

My view…which is worth nothing at all….caveat - we don’t yet have a full reform manifesto simply their ‘contract’ document but it acts in the same way.

So it’s pretty easy to read and instantly discard the crank manifestos. Namely the Greens and Reforms. Abject nonsense. A list of identity politic wish lists. Lack of developed ideas and complete detachment from reality. Improving public services, installing French style NHS funding model with less money - but somehow a magically improved NHS, build more houses whilst penalising building companies for their carbon emissions and protecting nimbyism…

So they are just off the wall bonkers and useless.

In all honesty the Tory party manifesto isn’t far behind. Absolute abject rubbish. Half of it isn’t even true and swathes of it are rebadging existing promises and even deliveries as ‘new’. Putting us in an even larger fiscal black hole to cut takes but provide no impetus for the economy. Normally the Tory manifesto makes a good case for small government, unfettered free market economics and fiscal restraint. I don’t agree with it usually but it makes the case. This makes no case. It’s a shambolic mess. It’s hard to believe this is the Tory party putting this out.

Politically over the last decade I’ve pretty much aligned with the Lib Dem’s. And again I find myself mainly supporting their intentions in their manifesto. Their overall ideas and plans align with where I think the action is needed. But none of it is remotely deliverable. And it’s abundantly clear even on first contact. There is an attractive tax regime but one that instantly screams costs being passed on but also the most egregious fiscal black holes of any of the main parties.

Finally labours and it’s hard to know where to even start with it, huge massive transformational ambitions with the tiniest of first steps. The broad context makes sense and is clearly targeted at the sort of industrial and tech transformation that they are going through in other countries. We are sorely lacking joined up industrial strategy and investment plans. Allied to a serious approach to skills. All this is something that is fundamental. But there is no money for it. What they can raise for an industrial strategy is chicken feed compared to the £30Bn you need to make any difference. On the other hand, whilst this is a very very low bar it’s the most realistic of all the manifestos out there. Though still has a fiscal hole.


So in short we are facing intractable problems that you can’t answer with policy. And no doubt many will look to cheap and easy populist answers without any plan or realistic history of achievement.

It’s a depressing time when you have to decide between something that sounds ‘about right’ but not ever going to happen or something that sounds ‘less flawed than everything else’ but ‘lacking fiscal impetus’.

Welcome to 2024!

So, in short, you are much aligned to my post saying none of them are very good and real change is needed.
I apologise for referring to you as a 'Trot' but you got my back up keep making me out to be a 'far right winger'. I think the targets we want are more or less similar, we just have a different approach of how to get there.
Worthy4England is more or less spot on when he says the current financial and fiscal status is clearly balanced towards the few but it seems no one has the guts to take it on, only excuses of why they cannot. Reform has to start somewhere.

[BWFC_Insane]

Been casting my eye over the depressing and stark field of the manifestos as I always do at election time and always wish I hadn’t bothered,

My view…which is worth nothing at all….caveat - we don’t yet have a full reform manifesto simply their ‘contract’ document but it acts in the same way.

So it’s pretty easy to read and instantly discard the crank manifestos. Namely the Greens and Reforms. Abject nonsense. A list of identity politic wish lists. Lack of developed ideas and complete detachment from reality. Improving public services, installing French style NHS funding model with less money - but somehow a magically improved NHS, build more houses whilst penalising building companies for their carbon emissions and protecting nimbyism…

So they are just off the wall bonkers and useless.

In all honesty the Tory party manifesto isn’t far behind. Absolute abject rubbish. Half of it isn’t even true and swathes of it are rebadging existing promises and even deliveries as ‘new’. Putting us in an even larger fiscal black hole to cut takes but provide no impetus for the economy. Normally the Tory manifesto makes a good case for small government, unfettered free market economics and fiscal restraint. I don’t agree with it usually but it makes the case. This makes no case. It’s a shambolic mess. It’s hard to believe this is the Tory party putting this out.

Politically over the last decade I’ve pretty much aligned with the Lib Dem’s. And again I find myself mainly supporting their intentions in their manifesto. Their overall ideas and plans align with where I think the action is needed. But none of it is remotely deliverable. And it’s abundantly clear even on first contact. There is an attractive tax regime but one that instantly screams costs being passed on but also the most egregious fiscal black holes of any of the main parties.

Finally labours and it’s hard to know where to even start with it, huge massive transformational ambitions with the tiniest of first steps. The broad context makes sense and is clearly targeted at the sort of industrial and tech transformation that they are going through in other countries. We are sorely lacking joined up industrial strategy and investment plans. Allied to a serious approach to skills. All this is something that is fundamental. But there is no money for it. What they can raise for an industrial strategy is chicken feed compared to the £30Bn you need to make any difference. On the other hand, whilst this is a very very low bar it’s the most realistic of all the manifestos out there. Though still has a fiscal hole.


So in short we are facing intractable problems that you can’t answer with policy. And no doubt many will look to cheap and easy populist answers without any plan or realistic history of achievement.

It’s a depressing time when you have to decide between something that sounds ‘about right’ but not ever going to happen or something that sounds ‘less flawed than everything else’ but ‘lacking fiscal impetus’.

Welcome to 2024!

So, in short, you are much aligned to my post saying none of them are very good and real change is needed.
I apologise for referring to you as a 'Trot' but you got my back up keep making me out to be a 'far right winger'. I think the targets we want are more or less similar, we just have a different approach of how to get there.
Worthy4England is more or less spot on when he says the current financial and fiscal status is clearly balanced towards the few but it seems no one has the guts to take it on, only excuses of why they cannot. Reform has to start somewhere.

We face intractable problems that are in a lot of cases,maybe all cases, self inflicted.

There are only two realistic and deliverable ways to run the U.K. economy in 2024.

1) Be part of a large trading block with free worker movement across to drive trade growth and plug productivity gaps in an ageing population.
2) A huge strategic investment approach to kick start British industry’s and a protectionist approach. No dismilar broadly to the US under Biden or for that matter China.

It’s 1 or 2. We’ve opted out of 1 with disastrous consequences and 2 needs huge injections of investment that we haven’t seen since opting out of 1 because business haven’t felt we are a stable option. It also needs more state intervention and strategic steer and public investment on a scale we’ve never seen before. And when people are told you will have to pay tax accordingly they cry.

So ultimately there isn’t another magic solution.

Of the parties - Reform have no solution because they fail to accept the position we are in and like the Tory party are trying to live in the past that doesn’t exist anymore. Thats before we get into their bonkers conspiracy theory stuff.

Greens would drag us back to straw huts and bartering.

Tories like reform can’t accept where we are and the damage they’ve done. The last 14 years are the most devastating set of economic harms we’ve done to this country, inflicted by a drift to populist right wing politics that can’t accept the global economic realities. Thatchernomics that the Tories and reform are unable to move past have failed entirely and won’t ever work again.

LDs have the best vision for what the country could and should be. And lay out a path via re-entry into the single market. But there is no timescale and no real sense it could be achieved. In reality we aren’t going back in the next five years no matter who is in charge and by then it’s too late.

Labour are putting their eggs in basket 2 and it’s probably the only way. They have the right ideas. And I believe them when they say they have assurance of significant private investment which is needed. But they have no way to raise the money to invest in the industrial strategy. So either they find a way, get lucky that their planning blitz pays greater economic dividends than people think it will or it’s a limp along plan till the economy picks up.

Thats the reality. I don’t think there is an answer out there. Because I think it’s broadly intractable. The old economics and euro scepticism that the Tories and reform represent though are the worst possible answers, more of the same is not what we need. And that’s all they offer.

[Hoboh]

Quite an interesting read

https://fullfact.org/economy/labour-and ... onal-debt/

[Worthy4England]

Quite an interesting read

https://fullfact.org/economy/labour-and ... onal-debt/

Hoodwinked. Only goes up to 2017. Give it a rest.

We'll include that global financial crisis for Labour but not the global pandemic for the Tories. Fcuk off!

[BWFC_Insane]

Quite an interesting read

https://fullfact.org/economy/labour-and ... onal-debt/

Why don’t you look at debt to GDP and what it was in 2010 and what it is now. Even what it was in 2019 pre pandemic? It might be illuminating.

[BWFC_Insane]

Reform want to run the country. They say they can save billions from public sector reforms. They’ve just said they paid a firm £144K to vet their candidates who didn’t do it and know want to sue them.

Yeah let’s let them run the country….absolute grifters. Farage described Truss’ disaster budget at the time as ‘the best budget since 1986’.

These people. Are. A. Disgrace.