Theresa May for New Election on June 8 2017

[Arefin007]

i really want labour to win but tories are leading they will increase their lead even more now they seem to have picked just the right moment for calling a snap

 

[Vergennes]

Conservative manifesto summary: Key points at-a-glance


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39960311

Opinion ? @Arefin007 @Abingdonboy @Blue Marlin @Kaptaan @Pakistani Exile @Providence @Jungibaaz @Jaanbaz

 

[Jungibaaz]

Conservative manifesto summary: Key points at-a-glance


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39960311

Opinion ? @Arefin007 @Abingdonboy @Blue Marlin @Kaptaan @Pakistani Exile @Providence @Jungibaaz @Jaanbaz

Void of a lot of policy, big on platitudes in policy sections. The few policies they have got are soft and visionless at best, actively destructive at worst. What worries me isn't what they've said in this manifesto, it's what they've not said but intend to do, the kind of stuff that if they put it in their manifesto now, it would hurt their chances of being elected.

And the rest of it is the usual unremarkable rhetoric about providing 'strong and stable' leadership and negotiating Brexit. Neither of which these buffoons are capable of doing.

 

[The Diplomat]

Vote Labour! I want Jeremy Corbyn to win!
Bring University fees back down!

 

[Pakistani E]

Conservative manifesto summary: Key points at-a-glance


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39960311

Opinion ? @Arefin007 @Abingdonboy @Blue Marlin @Kaptaan @Pakistani Exile @Providence @Jungibaaz @Jaanbaz

Let's have a look:

A death tax, scrapping school lunches, targeting foreign staff for NHS, creating more useless bureaucracy in police which they already did with the commissioners and now want more of their pals in. Spreading discord amongst communities by forcing companies to release pay figures relating to race etc, no mention of zero hour contracts though.

Talks of cutting corporate tax are ludicrous, where already major companies such as Google, Amazon etc are not paying their share of taxes.

The Tories have always been the party of the rich, thanks to Labour infighting and inefficiency and the Murdoch media empire, they have managed to convince the working/middle class that the Conservatives are the only ones fighting for them.

@Jungibaaz I just read the Conservative manifesto, I agree with you on the whole. There seems to be a lot of vague and incalculable statements and promises. Some of them I honestly could not understand what exactly they were trying to put across. One gem of an example: "The independent Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that the national debt is finally about to start falling." Is it just me or this statement is really amusing? The national debt has been steadily increasing since they came to power, this is just a strange choice of words...

Vote Labour! I want Jeremy Corbyn to win!
Bring University fees back down!

Greens will also scrap tuition fees as well, not that it matters to me personally, but I still believe that education is a right and not a privilege. Do you remember what the Tories did to EMA? I had a friend in college who used to get the £30, but if he did not receive that, there would have been no way for him to travel to college and study as his family did not make enough. Thankfully we finished college way before the Tories came in to power, I shudder to think how many thousands of others like him are now put off college after what they did to EMA.

Also, on topic, the Greens also want to scrap tuition fees, you ever thought about voting for them? I am seriously in two minds here, I want to vote Greens but I know that they will never get enough to stop the Tories, but Labour on the other hand...

 

[Abingdonboy]

Greens will also scrap tuition fees as well, not that it matters to me personally, but I still believe that education is a right and not a privilege. Do you remember what the Tories did to EMA? I had a friend in college who used to get the £30, but if he did not receive that, there would have been no way for him to travel to college and study as his family did not make enough. Thankfully we finished college way before the Tories came in to power, I shudder to think how many thousands of others like him are now put off college after what they did to EMA.

If you are put off going to college/uni because you aren't literally paid to do so (EMA) then you really aren't deserving of the right to higher education, ultimately it should be your own drive and desire that fuels you, not a state hand out.

Vote Labour! I want Jeremy Corbyn to win!
Bring University fees back down!

At a time when the UK has enourmous debt the promise to extend subsidies/dole outs is morally reprehensible and it is the future generations that will have to pay for it. The omnipresent promise from the Left that they can fund XYZ social welfare schemes simply by taxing the "rich" is as equally morally dubious but in practical terms will never be enforced, we all know these schemes will be funded by increased debt- just as Labour had done in the past.


I'm not willing to pay my taxes to subsidise/pay for lazy people to go to university to persue degrees that will ultimately be unproductive for the economy.

 

[Jungibaaz]

At a time when the UK has enourmous debt the promise to extend subsidies/dole outs is morally reprehensible and it is the future generations that will have to pay for it. The omnipresent promise from the Left that they can fund XYZ social welfare schemes simply by taxing the "rich" is as equally morally dubious but in practical terms will never be enforced, we all know these schemes will be funded by increased debt- just as Labour had done in the past.

I'm not willing to pay my taxes to subsidise/pay for lazy people to go to university to persue degrees that will ultimately be unproductive for the economy.

Problem with this thinking is that it doesn't make sense in terms of the British economy, especially now. Do you know who the last Chancellor of the Exchequer was to actually cut the National debt, not just the deficit, the last Chancellor to run a surplus? It was Gordon Brown under Labour. They did so at a time of expanding the welfare net, introducing a national minimum wage, repairing damage done to the NHS in the Thatcher and Major years.

The only massive increase in successive deficits and the debt overall has been as a result of the financial crisis of 07-08 and the aftermath, it is NOT the result of too much entitlement, too much welfare, and too many poor people with too much money or by students without adequate amounts of soul crushing debt. You and many other members of the public have been effectively convinced to blame the poor and previous labour governments for larger issues, and the lack of effectiveness in the visionless conservative leadership in dealing with macroeconomic issues.

Since 2010, real wage growth has been negative most years running until recently, however, with CPI bouncing back due to a weak pound, wage growth will be negative again soon. Unemployment figures are propped up by misuse of the claimant count, zero hours contracts and low wage jobs. Growth has been largely stagnant despite the Bank of England desperately keeping interest rates at rock bottom near zero, and despite all the quantitative easing, growth has been weak.

It was in this period that the Tories and Osborne foolishly talked about running a surplus, which is the height of economic illiteracy. He tried some actual austerity in 2011, and he managed to sink the economy into a double dip recession where it was growing the year before. With inequality being high, real wages being shrinking, the job market not looking great, now is not the time for more Conservative ideology on the economy, it's madness that has failed so far and bred political monsters of the far right, typical of deflationary periods. Consumption is a massive chunk of our economy, it's something close to 65-70%, meaning any damage to consumers or weak consumer confidence will lead to negative effects on growth. In the UK, with falling wages, and reductions in public debt by reducing spending, people are instead increasing their household debt, private debt, credit card debt to fund debt fuelled consumption that is unsustainable. And this is typical of the modern era, public and private debt can often rise and fall inversely. People still have to live and maintain as best they can some standard of living, if it's not public debt funding it, it may well be private debt.

Also, the Conservatives have been reducing taxes on the very richest, at a time where they're telling us there's no money for free school meals for the poorest children (a policy to put 3rd world countries to shame), no money for the NHS, not enough to pay nurses so that they won't need foodbanks support to be able to eat. And their tax cuts are quite unproductive. In terms of Keynesian economics, not all forms of fiscal spending is worth the same to an economy. Tax cuts have the same effect as spending increases on the deficit and the debt. Yet tax cuts to the top rates of tax have been shown to have a multiplier of less than 1 at times, meaning for each pound given away, less than that is useful to the economy. Whereas infrastructure spending and welfare have multipliers above 1, even 2 or 3 in some cases, meaning every pound spent creates more than a pound's worth of value and increases real GDP. This would be especially true of Britian today, which has experienced prolonged stagnation since 08, and is operating well within its potential. An increase in spending, and redistributing income to the poor will have a very big stimulative effect on the economy, it will boost aggregate demand at a time where is very weak and all the desperation by the BoE has failed to do anything about it. Why not try some actual economics for a change rather than all this rhetoric?

Also, degrees are fast becoming a new standard level of education, if not now, in the future you will have to subsidise them in order to keep your labour force competitive. It seems absurd now, but trust me, funding primary school education free for all children was once an absurd notion. Then when the economy of developed industrialised nations changed, funding high school level education seemed absurd but became necessary, and so on to education up till the age of 18. It will naturally progress if not to degree level, then to another advanced level in order to prepare the labour force with the skills necessary for the economy of tomorrow.

I'll be voting Corbyn, if you really think about what he's suggesting rather than dismissing it out of hand as you have done here, maybe you'll see the sense in it too.

 

[Abingdonboy]

.

I'll be voting Corbyn, if you really think about what he's suggesting rather than dismissing it out of hand as you have done here, maybe you'll see the sense in it too.

The socalist utopia he and his ilk imagines is not only unattainable but also outright reprehensible, where the least productive in the economy are propped up by the most succesful. There is no a single example of the kind of economic model Corbyn would like to implement being succesful anywhere in the world or throughout history.

I have heard the arguments you have made countless times and whilst there is merit in much of the facts outlined above, there is no denying that the Conservatives' vision is far more pragmatic and in line with the nature of real world economics.

You are talking about stagnation then proposing re-distrubtion of wealth that will never create economic growth and force the value-adders in the economy to flee or become unproductive.

Ideologically I oppose Corbyn as do the vast majority of the population, his colour of politics is tired and patronising and I hope he does the decent thing and retires from politics the moment the results of the election are confirmed when it is clear Labour have been decimated. Although I am all but certain he will cling to power and limp on, he has been unwilling and unable to see the reality of his flaws as a leader thus far.

 

[Jungibaaz]

The socalist utopia he and his ilk imagines is not only unattainable but also outright reprehensible, where the least productive in the economy are propped up by the most succesful. There is no a single example of the kind of economic model Corbyn would like to implement being succesful anywhere in the world or throughout history.

I have heard the arguments you have made countless times and whilst there is merit in much of the facts outlined above, there is no denying that the Conservatives' vision is far more pragmatic and in line with the nature of real world economics.

Again you're making baseless assertions and repeating the usual rhetoric against Corbyn. I gave you plenty of reasoning as to why Corbyn's policies are not only sensible, but also badly needed, I spared giving you too many graphs and figures to look at because I assume you're familiar with how to google most of what I was talking about.
As for the part in bold, your assertion I reject, I am denying it, cutting incomes are a time of recession and desperate expansionary monetary policy with interest rates at 0%, that's not pragmatism, it's madness and economic illiteracy.

Also, the economic model he is talking about isn't too far fetched, we've had it in the UK since the end of the second world war, where our national debt was huge, over 200% of GDP. It's also normal for any social democracy to insure its citizens against poverty and destitution, and to bolster growth and prosperity, that is the contract the public have with any government. I will outlined this in more detail after I finish replying to these points.

You are talking about stagnation then proposing re-distrubtion of wealth that will never create economic growth and force the value-adders in the economy to flee or become unproductive.

Ideologically I oppose Corbyn as do the vast majority of the population, his colour of politics is tired and patronising and I hope he does the decent thing and retires from politics the moment the results of the election are confirmed when it is clear Labour have been decimated. Although I am all but certain he will cling to power and limp on, he has been unwilling and unable to see the reality of his flaws as a leader thus far.

I'll outline again how simple his model is since you did not address or are unable to address the bulk of the content of my post which you've replied to. As for Corbyn's politics, he is incredibly popular within his own party and has a mandate from the members, he was twice elected with huge chunk of the vote, and the second time, despite the odds, despite the media onslaught against him and the parliamentary party undermining him, he won the second leadership contest and increased his majority. And right now, if polls are accurate, Labour are now polling around the
percentage they've gotten in the recent elections.

Now back to the point I was making, Corbyn is an interventionist, he's for nationalisation, higher taxation for the rich and business, he's big on redistributing income and government investment, he also claims that in the long run such initiatives can cover the cost of themselves. And I'll tell you why he has a point here. It's exactly the same as the economy operated between the 1950s to the 1970s. In the late 40s the Debt-to-GDP was something like 230% of GDP, far larger than it is today even after the financial crisis. You should know that the debt reduction was NOT the result of reduced spending which is typical of the kind of nonsense many of conservatives. In fact, if you look at the Thatcher period the Debt-to-GDP ratio only fell in the late 80s for a bit, and the Tories hailed it as some supply side miracle, it turned out to be just short termism and visionless thinking which led to a worse recession in 92'. In the end, from when Thatcher got power till the time John Major left power, the debt to GDP ratio stayed where it was, if not rose a little bit.

However, in the 1950s and 60s, government taxation was very high, much higher than it is today. The top marginal rate of income tax was 90% in the 1950s and 60s, and was reduced to 75% in the early 70s - read that again, 'reduced to 75%'. In the 60s, capital gains tax was also introduced to make it so that not only income was taxed but also capital. I'm not advocating raising it to this level again. Throughout this time, government spending rose. And although budget deficits were low, the real game changer was low unemployment, strong growth and good inflation. Each of these factors eroded the debt to GDP ratio considerably during this period, despite increases in spending, meanwhile Europe tried the opposite, the conventional wisdom of conservatives which you've assumed is superior, their attempts to cut deficits by cutting incomes proved to be a much less effective way of managing their liabilities, while also compromising growth. As unemployment was kept low, you have a productive work force, that does need as much state assistance, usually in times of high unemployment the deficit rises are more people switch to state assistance and unemployment benefits. Inflation caused along with steady growth also eroded the value of the outstanding debt, while not doing the same to Real GDP, which grew considerably and out paced debt, thus further reducing the ratio. Corbyn's ideas are fit for the challenges in the economy today, I'll spare having to repeat myself.

 

[Pakistani E]

If you are put off going to college/uni because you aren't literally paid to do so (EMA) then you really aren't deserving of the right to higher education, ultimately it should be your own drive and desire that fuels you, not a state hand out.

Have I spotted a shy Tory here? It's hilarious that you managed to impress your pre-conceived mindset on to an individual you know nothing about. The person wasn't going to college for money, he literally couldn't afford to come to college without buying the bus pass with the help of EMA. His dad worked two jobs, working class white family struggling to put food on their table. And here we have the typical Tory, blaming the poor, calling for more cuts to public services, without having even an inkling of social responsibility.

I guess you are also cheering the abolishment of universal infant school lunches, while spending on the baloney "free" school scheme.

Well done, mate. You fit the caricature of the typical Tory very well. You have made it in the aspiring middle-class.

 

[Jaanbaz]

I used to vote for Labour but will be voting for The Green party for the first time. Labour is too divided and conservatives are nothing but rich old people who hate the NHS. I can just say that locally we have felt the effect of government cutting down on health sector specially mental health, one specialist mental hospital closed down, our Emergency department will soon be closing down and moved to another town. Maternity ward has all ready moved. Screw the conservatives they are trying to destroy NHS and privatise everything so they can then give the contracts to their bum chums in private sector.

PS One Indian guy still butthurt at the fact that a Pakistani is the mayor of London.

 

[The Diplomat]

Greens will also scrap tuition fees as well, not that it matters to me personally, but I still believe that education is a right and not a privilege. Do you remember what the Tories did to EMA? I had a friend in college who used to get the £30, but if he did not receive that, there would have been no way for him to travel to college and study as his family did not make enough. Thankfully we finished college way before the Tories came in to power, I shudder to think how many thousands of others like him are now put off college after what they did to EMA.

Also, on topic, the Greens also want to scrap tuition fees, you ever thought about voting for them? I am seriously in two minds here, I want to vote Greens but I know that they will never get enough to stop the Tories, but Labour on the other hand...

Never really thought about voting for the Greens as I think that some of their policies are a joke. Personally I think that the Green Party are a bunch of hippies and the fact that the boss has a RR as a car makes me think are they really serious about their policies?
I'm a college student my self doing A-Levels and from this September I will be applying for universities (and maybe PMA ). Personally I think the Tories took a wrong approach to the recession in 2008/2009. Austerity should never have been the answer to our economic problem; like the United States we should have spent our way out of recession; if we did the NHS would not be as bad as it is today, Royal Mail might have not been privatised, etc.

I don't understand why people are really voting Tories for the 3rd time.... Give some one else a chance (it's turning to a NS government xD), on a serious note I mean the Tories lost my vote ages ago (back when they tippled university fees randomly in 1 day.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and if I got anything wrong then please do educate me.

I'm not willing to pay my taxes to subsidise/pay for lazy people to go to university to persue degrees that will ultimately be unproductive for the economy.

So your alright to pay your taxes towards benefits for people who stay at home and are a economic burden on us but your are not willing to support some one who want's' to make something of their lives?
I understand where your coming from but there are already way too many people taking advantage of the gov; having several kids just so they can get more benefits or a bigger council house, it's a joke. I rather that the money be spent on people who wan't to do something of their life and not those lazy a**es that want to stay at home and bring life into earth so they can get £50 more or what ever amount they get.

 

[Abingdonboy]

So your alright to pay your taxes towards benefits for people who stay at home and are a economic burden on us but your are not willing to support some one who want's' to make something of their lives?
I understand where your coming from but there are already way too many people taking advantage of the gov; having several kids just so they can get more benefits or a bigger council house, it's a joke. I rather that the money be spent on people who wan't to do something of their life and not those lazy a**es that want to stay at home and bring life into earth so they can get £50 more or what ever amount they get.

What a false dichotomy, I never said I was fine with those handouts either, morally I reject all such doles- especially job seeker's and child benefit for families with more than 2 children.

And I've been to uni, I've seen how the most "needy" (ie those getting the largest bursaries/grants) abuse their benefits whilst also studying some of the most pointless degrees out there. I would be more inclined to vote for a system where a merit based benefit system was introduced or at least one that promoted the STEM fields, not drama/theatre studies and the like.

I rejected totally the notion that higher education is a right.

 

[The Diplomat]

What a false dichotomy, I never said I was fine with those handouts either, morally I reject all such doles- especially job seeker's and child benefit for families with more than 2 children.

And I've been to uni, I've seen how the most "needy" (ie those getting the largest bursaries/grants) abuse their benefits whilst also studying some of the most pointless degrees out there. I would be more inclined to vote for a system where a merit based benefit system was introduced or at least one that promoted the STEM fields, not drama/theatre studies and the like.

I rejected totally the notion that higher education is a right.

I disagree with the point highlighted in red. I've always gave my best at school, college and education overall, why? Because I value my education and it's a fact that education acts as a positive externality on society, the social benefit from education is much greater than the private cost. So why am I being penalised on wanting a better future for my self and let me remind you that the services that I will provide after gaining my education will have a positive effect for the country it self.
Why do I have to choose between giving £9250 per year or a non-professional job?

As for your point about "useless degree" I can't agree more. I also think why would you waste £9250 a year on such degrees but it's totally their choice, good on them for wanting a degree.

 

[Abingdonboy]

I disagree with the point highlighted in red. I've always gave my best at school, college and education overall, why? Because I value my education and it's a fact that education acts as a positive externality on society, the social benefit from education is much greater than the private cost. So why am I being penalised on wanting a better future for my self and let me remind you that the services that I will provide after gaining my education will have a positive effect for the country it self.
Why do I have to choose between giving £9250 per year or a non-professional job?

As for your point about "useless degree" I can't agree more. I also think why would you waste £9250 a year on such degrees but it's totally their choice, good on them for wanting a degree.

The last paragraph of your post is exactly my point and undermines your argument above it. The positive social contribution you think will make is undone by those who are leaching off the system to pursue socially unproductive passions.