Post Match Thread: Election 2017

[malg]

Tim Farrons just resigned

Is David Moyes on the shortlist?

 

[Len Rum]

Tim Farrons just resigned

At least he had the bottle and principles to do it.
Unlike Mavis who is happy to be a puppet PM with no power or authority, happy to remain in "power" for the sake of the Tory party.

 

[Ban-jani]

At least he had the bottle and principles to do it.
Unlike Mavis who is happy to be a puppet PM with no power or authority, happy to remain in "power" for the sake of the Tory party.

Maybe he had something to do with him losing drastically and May winning?

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

At least he had the bottle and principles to do it.
Unlike Mavis who is happy to be a puppet PM with no power or authority, happy to remain in "power" for the sake of the Tory party.

the bottle to lie through a campaign about his beliefs and then come out and admit he was conning anyone who voted for him?

Classy. Remainers did well by voting for him, all 7.4% of them.

 

[nmc]

Strange decision from Fallon - clearly unable to reconcile leadership of the Party with his faith. I think he came over as a bit awkward during the campaign and clearly historic comments on homosexuality haunted him. It does feel in the short term that we will return to a two party system in England and the Lib Dems and UKIP will disappear.

 

[Gabriel]

Will the DUP appear in the leaders' debate before the next election?

 

[The perfect fumble]

Will the DUP appear in the leaders' debate before the next election?

If they do they'll have no problem squaring their religion with their politics.

 

[CitizenTID]

(Apologies, long post!)

I'm glad you've decided to take this sort of tone, rather than throwing expletives around. I can see where you're coming from and I am some sympathy for what you are saying.

However, my beef is that the government has a really piss poor track record at running *anything*. We can debate all day long why this is the case, and perhaps we should as another strand, or another thread altogether. But whereas the aspirations of having our government invest in things, own them and run them to all our benefit, is a noble one - the reality is that everything they touch turns to shite. Capitalism, and in particular, proper competition, brings an imperative to do things better, cheaper, quicker, more efficiently and to offer excellent customer service. Perhaps not all of those things at once, but certainly as many of them as possible. Because if you do not, customers vote with their feet. Nationalised businesses, or indeed monopolies - which is effectively what the train companies are... for the term of their franchise at least - do not have these drivers.

Look at the situation with British Airways whilst it was nationalised. When I started flying to various European cities on business, a return from Heathrow to Charles de Gaul was about £500. In real money, I guess that's about £1,000 maybe more today. A return to Vienna cost £900. Today, you can get these sorts of flights for a fraction of that. No-one would have thought it possible back then to fly to Paris on EasyJet for £20. But with ever increased competition and the pure ingenuity of businesses to find ways to do things cheaper more effectively, this is the end result.

This would NEVER have happened if the airlines remained state-owned. They'd continue to charge £500 or more, AND, staggeringly, continue to make a loss every year. So no benefit to the taxpayer and certainly no benefit to the public. Just a bunch of fat bureaucrats sitting fat dumb and happy, drawing their inflated wages for doing fuck all and not giving a shit about the customer.

Incidentally, did you know that until the 90's, in Russian there was no such term as "customer service"? They had no concept of it. People who bought goods and services were "purchasers", and the idea that you actually needed to give them some quality of service, was completely alien. Why should you bother - they have to buy off you anyway.

I digress. The rail privatisations have been a complete balls up, because they did it wrong. Instead of making businesses bid for individual routes and times (like airport time slots) they thought it a good idea to award 10 year contracts for whole lines, effectively giving the company a monopoly and allowing them to do what on earth they liked. So +2%, 3%, 4% per annum increases might seem very reasonable to a naive regulator, but the fact is the businesses have been ripping us off, because they can. 1st class fare are not even regulated at all, FFS.

Imagine the alternative scenario where you'd be thinking of a trip to London and you'd think, hmmmm, should i get the 07:40 Virgin train, because that's only £20 return or I could get the EasyJet 07:55, and that's £55 but got the flat bed seats and table-side service. How marvellous would that be. This would NEVER be realised if the government runs it. NEVER.

Privatisation isn't the be all and end all. Private businesses seek to rip people off wherever and however possible, so long as it doesn't lose them customers and damage their revenues. John Lewis's Never Knowingly Undersold, means "Charging as much as possible, but no more than our competitors". You don't need an army of people to check competitors prices if you want to set your lowest price: you just do it. The army of checkers is to make sure your prices are not lower than they need be!

So if you have privatisation, you need to do it right. Either (ideally) with proper competition and service level agreements. Or with a regulator with actual teeth. "No mr GWR, you are reducing your prices by 8% this year. None of this +3% increase bullshit again.)

Some of the privatizations have been a shambles. When the government runs it, it's ALWAYS a shambles.

Great post.

I know I must come across as a life long Labour sometimes on this thread but I actually weigh them up objectively every time there is a new look Tory or Labour etc. It's just objectively, I see the people in these recent Tory Govts. for what they are. But back on point -

I agree with all the things you say, but we need to learn from these past examples and find the best of both worlds. There is just a distinct lack of intelligent thinking when it comes to public services and it's so frustrating. If they can't do that, have the balls to do something about it where they can - e.g. legalise medicinal marijuana and up tax revenues what, a billion or just under if medicinal only?

The country is just crying out for a comprehensive look at the whole economy, scrutinising every part of it and making it effective - then building from there. Like you say, attitudes are appalling. We need forward thinking people in Government but they're all "do a jobs."

 

[Bozo]

Don't really care for Farron but appreciate he's brought just a bit of credibility back to Lib Dems, after what that toilet Clegg did to them.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Great post.

I know I must come across as a life long Labour sometimes on this thread but I actually weigh them up objectively every time there is a new look Tory or Labour etc. It's just objectively, I see the people in these recent Tory Govts. for what they are. But back on point -

I agree with all the things you say, but we need to learn from these past examples and find the best of both worlds. There is just a distinct lack of intelligent thinking when it comes to public services and it's so frustrating. If they can't do that, have the balls to do something about it where they can - e.g. legalise medicinal marijuana and up tax revenues what, a billion or just under if medicinal only?

The country is just crying out for a comprehensive look at the whole economy, scrutinising every part of it and making it effective - then building from there. Like you say, attitudes are appalling. We need forward thinking people in Government but they're all "do a jobs."

You get some incredibly hard-working people in both the public and the private sector, so generalisations are dangerous. That said, in certain jobs, there is still a divide between what one group vs another group considers *hard work*. My next door neighbour is back in the NHS after a brief stint in the private sector. I don't know what she does exactly; it's not a care provider - it's some back office or community liason role or something like that. But just anecdotally, she was in total shock when she joined the private sector. She could not believe how hard she had to work. She was mortified she *only* got 5 weeks holiday a year. (How much bloody holiday does she expect FFS?) She packed it in after a year and went straight back.

Of course you cannot extrapolate from this one case, but there's something about having a job for life (does the NHS actually sack anyone, other than for medical negligence, and even then???) and little or no consequence if you are shit or not. In the private sector, you turn up, do your job and do it properly or you get sacked.

I worked with British Steel soon after they were privatised, and the old habits remained. (They still did 20 year later). Dead easy to get people into a meeting for half a day, anywhere in the country (or abroad for that matter), discussing bollocks and doing bugger all. But getting any of them to actually DO anything? No chance. Pontification and delay and fannying about and more fannying about. Appear to be busy at all times, but deliver nothing. That was the mantra. That way you can while away the years until retirement and your nice juicy index linked, final salary pension scheme. It was like an old boys club, not a steel-making business.

Anyway, by for now. I'm rambling as usual ;-)