General Election June 8th

[Gelsons Dad]

The Tories have taken the national debt from £700bn (after the crash) to £1500bn.

And under the Blair Government, Labour eradicated the budget deficit and remains the only Government to have ever do so in the past quarter of a century. The Brown Government ran a deficit at 1% of GDP, compared with the Tories who are running it between 2-6% of GDP and dropping. This idea of "Labour = bad for economy" is peddled by simpletons who can't read line graphs.

And finally, for the very last time, an economy isn't a shopping bill with a spend/gain. You spend money specifically to INCREASE future tax income, public spending is investment. Austerity is an economic failure

It's funny that when you ask Tories if we should invest in other countries, they say Yes because it will stimulate their economy and give us a strong trading partner in the future but if you ask them if we should invest in our country they say no and we should save money instead. Could it be because their cuts are ideological rather than economical?

Think of it this way. Things need to be paid for. Either public debt grows or private debt like credit cards and loans grows. You pick one.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

Deflection? We have a labour leader wanting to eradicate child poverty, reduce the need to have so many food banks, invest the required amounts into the nhs, pay nurses something like a decent wage and use dialogue before bombs but you and the rest of the blinkered right wing tossers want to discuss something from 30 years ago becauae it was daily mail headlines!!
Deflection? Even allowing for your usual level of arrogance and stupidity thats a belter.
Strong and stable.

Just on the first point.
You cannot eradicate poverty. By it's very definition relative poverty will always exist. This is where many people misunderstand statistics. If you are talking about absolute poverty then there really isn't anyone in the UK in absolute poverty.

 

[blue cigar]

not my quote - but a good read.

''I don't think Corbyn's the best leader ever. I appreciate that he's not the best at appealing to a lot of demographics. he's crap with soundbites; not good at speaking straight to camera. Better in real situations with real people. I appreciate that he's not got a great deal of, what would you call it, zing. I don't agree with him on everything by any means.

Still, you know something I know? If Labour lose the election, Jeremy Corbyn will probably go back to being a local MP. He'll carry on holding speakers up for people at meetings, and helping people with their chairs, and thanking people for making the sandwiches. He'll carry on having talks and doing constituency surgeries and attending debates and asking questions and campaigning on various issues and staying behind to carry on talking about stuff with ordinary people after the event's finished. If he weren't the leader now, he'd be campaigning on behalf of the party. He'd be standing at the back helping.

He's not going to swan off to a career of after-dinner speaking and corporate events and non-executive directorships and consultancies. He's not going to edit the Evening Standard. It's not his personal ambition that's brought him here.

he wasn't ever that keen on being a leader. The only reason he stood when he did was that, to paraphrase another Labour front-bencher, every other remaining left-wing MP in the party had already stood as the token socialist candidate in a previous leadership election, and it was basically his turn.

And here's the thing: his apparent lack of charisma notwithstanding (and what is this charisma that apparently Tim Farron and Theresa May possess? It's like nothing I've ever seen described using that term before), he's the exact opposite of what everyone seems to agree they're sick of in politicians. The meaningless soundbites and stock phrases and glib dog-whistle oversimplifications don't sit naturally with him. He's better at sitting down calmly and talking about things like a grown-up. He's visibly irritated when interviewers push him to answer stupid, meaningless or leading questions, and, to me, that irritation seems remarkably restrained considering that I'd probably be unable to put up with such bollocks without flying into an expletive-laden rant. He reminds me of a Scandinavian politician, and that's nothing but a compliment. Politicians aren't supposed to be evangelists or salespeople; they're supposed to be people of substance, not just a mass of superficially appealing tics, right? Right?

In short, he's a real human person, like you get in real life, not whatever kind of thing most politicians are where you just cannot imagine them existing in any normal situation alongside real people without getting punched in the face. I've seen people like him, working in various capacities, usually doing something socially responsible, sometimes voluntary. They help. They support. They sympathise. They don't usually get to the top of organisations because they're not naturally competitive. And here he is, in a position he probably never expected to be in, and his expression is, for me, the right one: he's grim; a touch uncertain; perhaps somewhat daunted. Quite right too. Anyone who's not daunted by the prospect of being Prime Minister shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the job. I want whoever leads the country to feel the responsibility as keenly as possible. The Prime Minister is the servant of millions of masters, not the master of millions of servants, as Theresa May seems to think she is. It's a horrible job, but if nobody else is going to do it, he'll have to. Because someone's got to. You can't just stand there and do nothing. You have to try to help; to do what you can. That's what he's like. And if the election's lost as the last two were, he'll go back to helping in whatever other ways are available. And if he loses his seat (which he won't), he'll go and try to help somewhere else.

The fact that this man is considered unelectable when the alternatives are as they are is itself an indictment of our society. ''

Best post on the thread, take a bow...

 

[blue cigar]

Just on the first point.
You cannot eradicate poverty. By it's very definition relative poverty will always exist. This is where many people misunderstand statistics. If you are talking about absolute poverty then there really isn't anyone in the UK in absolute poverty.

The point is that corbyn genuinely wants to help and that makes him unique amongst the eton drones and sound bite merchants. I dont know about absolute poverty but child poverty and food banks are rising and that concerns me more than the stock market or how many foreign holidays i can afford. The people who say corbyn will overspend, corbyn will raise income tax and break the country...its already broke once we focus on who a man spoke to 30 years ago instead if wanting to help the most vulnerable.

 

[SWP's back]

Deflection? We have a labour leader wanting to eradicate child poverty, reduce the need to have so many food banks, invest the required amounts into the nhs, pay nurses something like a decent wage and use dialogue before bombs but you and the rest of the blinkered right wing tossers want to discuss something from 30 years ago becauae it was daily mail headlines!!
Deflection? Even allowing for your usual level of arrogance and stupidity thats a belter.
Strong and stable.

Yeah. All of that is deflection to the point you were making regarding Corbyn and the IRA as you knew you had nowhere else to go on it.

Enjoy yet another defeat.

 

[SWP's back]

Just on the first point.
You cannot eradicate poverty. By it's very definition relative poverty will always exist. This is where many people misunderstand statistics. If you are talking about absolute poverty then there really isn't anyone in the UK in absolute poverty.

I've already asked him before if he understands the difference between the two. He doesn't. Another mouth breather that would vote Labour if they pinned a red rosette on a donkey.

 

[hilts]

The point is that corbyn genuinely wants to help and that makes him unique amongst the eton drones and sound bite merchants. I dont know about absolute poverty but child poverty and food banks are rising and that concerns me more than the stock market or how many foreign holidays i can afford. The people who say corbyn will overspend, corbyn will raise income tax and break the country...its already broke once we focus on who a man spoke to 30 years ago instead if wanting to help the most vulnerable.

Lord Percy Percy: I've done it, my Lord! I've discovered how to turn things into gold! Pure gold!

Blackadder: You have? Show me!

Lord Percy Percy: [takes lid off melting pot, and Baldrick, Percy and Blackadder are bathed in a green glow] Behold!

Blackadder: Percy... it's green.

Lord Percy Percy: Yes, my Lord!

Blackadder: Now, look, Percy, I don't mean to be pedantic or anything, but the color of gold... is gold. That's why it's called gold. What YOU have discovered, if it has a name, is some... Green.

Lord Percy Percy: [removes lump of Green from pot] Oh, Edmund... can it be true? That I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest Green?

Lord Percy Percy: Yes indeed, Percy, except that it's not really a nugget but more of a splat.

Blackadder: Yes, my Lord. A splat today, but tomorrow, who knows, or dares to dream...

 

[Damocles]

The Tories have increased the debt because the deficit they inherited was so high and the conditions were terrible for trying to decrease it (you'd normally run up a deficit in a recession and then a surplus through good years).

Labour essentially put a brick on the accelerator and now moan at the Tories that the car is going faster and faster and bleat austerity when they try to apply the brake.

And yes, I'd love to see more public investment, but not at the risk of the size of the resulting debt mountain we'll end up with (and have to pass on to the next generation). The debt's already enormous and had that 2006 - 09 trend continued in the graph above, the debt now would be absolutely colossal.

I think that there's a real lack of personal responsibility at the moment and it's only growing. Everyone has to have the latest thing with no regard to the cost. For many, that's a good alternative to private debt - don't buy shit you can't afford and don't need. @Mëtal Bikër has spoken about it before; there's no concept of luxury any more, just people thinking that because someone they know has the latest phone, car long haul holiday, that they deserve or need the same.

So what you're telling me is that Labour had a great surplus, then similar levels of investment.

Until they bought a fucking bank to stop the country going bankrupt.

Oh gee wow, yeah they're completely untrustworthy on the economy and totally different to the Tories.

 

[SWP's back]

but child poverty and food banks are rising and that concerns me more than the stock market

And yet the markets are the weathervane of the economy. They go down when it's about to fall apart.

When the economy falls apart, there's a recession. When there's a recession then the poorest are hit hardest.

 

[SWP's back]

So what you're telling me is that Labour had a great surplus, then similar levels of investment.

Until they bought a fucking bank to stop the country going bankrupt.

Oh gee wow, yeah they're completely untrustworthy on the economy and totally different to the Tories.

No. Because they didn't "buy a bank" in two thousand and fucking two.

The surplus was from following the Tories spending when they first gained power as the enjoyed the fruits of the economy bestowed upon them.

As opposed to what the Tories inherited in 2010 "there's no money".