The Post General Election Thread

[EalingBlue2]

For someone to get ahead, someone else has to fall behind. That is what your great capitalism is based on. Still, as long as it's the lovely Scots getting shafted then who cares.

The fuck are you on with your bleeding heart?

So at the minute it's the English being shafted and that's fine eh?

The scots want financial autonomy. Cameron looks set to give it them. They will be able to set and raise their own taxes as they wanted.

Everyone's a winner.

Including you, as it will give you something else to handwring and moan about no doubt.

*sigh*

I don't see 'English' or 'Scot' or any of that shite, just people.

You play your game I'll play mine.

Spot on! Anyone who thinks someone's interests are determined purely by their race or nationality misses the point of humanity. the idea that any economic policy is in all the interests of England or Scotland is utterly farcical. As with everything any policy will be in the interests of some north and south of the border and not in others.

Also the talk of English and scots is made even more farcical when you actually think how many people in both countries are not English or scots or indeed are scots in England or English in Scotland.

Keep seeing people for who they are.......

 

[blueish swede]

And this, everyone, is why the Tories won. They managed to convince economically illiterate people that the finances of a country are in any way similar to the finances of a household (even though the main reason to stay out of the Euro is to control their own money supply, i.e. print their own money when needed for their own economy!)

And how convenient that the solution to this problem just happens to be what the Tories like to do whenever they get in government anyway, which is to cut public services to fund tax cuts for the rich and corporations, and sell off public assets to their rich friends. Except that they were proven so wrong in the first few years of their government, when the economy flatlined, that even they had to concede defeat and put down the knife to help the economic recovery.

I expect a similar thing (this) time. Loads of "necessary" cuts in the first few years, followed by enough government investment to create an upturn in the economy just before the next election, confirming that the cuts were indeed necessary and we're now seeing the fruits of their tough decisions.

It was utter bullshit this time, and it'll be utter bullshit next time. Oh shit, we really need to reduce the debt in this time of historically low interest rates. The government are like someone who sells their house to pay of a debt to the Student Loan Company rather than just waiting until they earn enough money.

I'm with I'm with Stupid!

This is the time to be refinancing the country by floating more long term debt, retiring older more expensive debt, and fixing basic infrastructure on the cheap (cheap money, cheap labor, and cheap and easy politics!). In a global environment, this will not have the usual negative effect of driving inflation, as DEflation is the more pressing global concern.

Two great posts.

I've not yet heard a good explanation of how taking money out of the economy is going to stimulate growth and create a surplus. It didn't work in 2010-2012, as Britain found out. It killed growth in the economy and caused the doule dip. The risk is that this will happen again, especially with the added uncertainty of the EU referendum. Inward investment is going to dry up over the next two years. There is surplus capacity in almost all of Europe and there are Governments who are prepared to invest in infrastructure to support business. These destinations will look more and more attractive to external (to the EU) businesses.

A former Social Democrat leader in Sweden (Juholt) asked an interesting question: How could the economies in the 1900-20s afford to build such large scale public infrastructure but we can't today when the ecomomy was so much smaller then and so much poorer.

Economics has undergone a huge reformation over recent years. It has become a genuine science, able to use mega data analysis and huge computing power to see what has actually happened in economies, rahter relying on the postulations from "gurus" that have no base in fact. Economics has changed from alchemy to chemistry, from astrology to anstronomy, and the message is clear - economic equality with small differences in the wealth gap promote and protect growth, inequality and increasing wealth differences stifle growth and cause collapse. This is why the Tories have only ever been able to offer boom-and-bust.

"Austerity", and the non-sensical comparisons to running a small business or household economics, are simply an excuse for cuts in the public sector and increase the flow of money via the trickle-up effect.

 

[TangerineSteve17]

The fuck are you on with your bleeding heart?

So at the minute it's the English being shafted and that's fine eh?

The scots want financial autonomy. Cameron looks set to give it them. They will be able to set and raise their own taxes as they wanted.

Everyone's a winner.

Including you, as it will give you something else to handwring and moan about no doubt.

*sigh*

I don't see 'English' or 'Scot' or any of that shite, just people.

You play your game I'll play mine.

Sign indeed. You really don't get it do you.

Whether you can see scots or English or French or Lithuanian or 'just people' (there's a sickly useless platitude) matters not. There are geopolitical boundaries and for people running the place, they are kind of important. Scotland wants to turn itself into a socialist utopia with huge rates of tax for high earners and high public spending. Giving them financial autonomy would enable them to attempt to put that into action. How is that a bad thing? It's called self determinism. It would also save the English a bob or two.

Your game is simply handwringing whilst not thinking any notion through, so long as you appear right on brother.

That's all great and stuff.. I wasn't complaining about democracy/self-determinism. I rather like those things. I might fuck off to Scotland :)

Of course you see my game as 'handwringing' and that suits me just fine.

 

[Lucky13]

It's time for people to accept that we are a conservative Country, Call me Dave played the Election to perfection when he hammered home the traditional core Conservative beliefs , work , pay your own way, low taxation and help for those in genuine need.

Those core beliefs are what this Country is based on.

I don't think that is what this election or indeed all elections since the 70's show. What it shows is Britain is a moderate country and whoever wins the centre, wins the election and that is inevitably the candidate who best represents moderate people in the country. Cameron is by far the least conservative leader on many issues social and economic the Tories have had for a long time and because of that he won the centre, the same as Blair did and even Thatcher did when labour lurched left under Foot. Labour got up when Blair moved to the centre and won the centre. When brown and even more so milliband moved to the left they lost.

The right wing won't like the analysis they will think that going more to the right would mean a bigger win, the real left won't like it as they will think labour lost because they aren't left enough.

Overall for every election in my lifetime the candidate who best represented the centre won. It is a big lesson to the republicans in the U.S. As they fight in the primaries to appeal to the tea party and be as right wing as possible.

Britain is and nearly always has been a moderate country and clearly the feeling of the electorate was that Cameron was more centerist than Red Ed - I don't know enough to say if that perception is correct.

I deliberately used conservative with a small c .

 

[EalingBlue2]

It's time for people to accept that we are a conservative Country, Call me Dave played the Election to perfection when he hammered home the traditional core Conservative beliefs , work , pay your own way, low taxation and help for those in genuine need.

Those core beliefs are what this Country is based on.

I don't think that is what this election or indeed all elections since the 70's show. What it shows is Britain is a moderate country and whoever wins the centre, wins the election and that is inevitably the candidate who best represents moderate people in the country. Cameron is by far the least conservative leader on many issues social and economic the Tories have had for a long time and because of that he won the centre, the same as Blair did and even Thatcher did when labour lurched left under Foot. Labour got up when Blair moved to the centre and won the centre. When brown and even more so milliband moved to the left they lost.

The right wing won't like the analysis they will think that going more to the right would mean a bigger win, the real left won't like it as they will think labour lost because they aren't left enough.

Overall for every election in my lifetime the candidate who best represented the centre won. It is a big lesson to the republicans in the U.S. As they fight in the primaries to appeal to the tea party and be as right wing as possible.

Britain is and nearly always has been a moderate country and clearly the feeling of the electorate was that Cameron was more centerist than Red Ed - I don't know enough to say if that perception is correct.

I deliberately used conservative with a small c .

Fair enough that's true, I think the lesson is clear with its next leader that labour needs to find someone who like Blair appeals to the centre. Love him or loathe him electorally he was one of the most electorally successful prime ministers of the last century. As for Cameron if he governs from the centre he will likely do ok but he probably not be too pleased to not have the lib dems to counteract the more extreme members on his parties right.

 

[EalingBlue2]

And this, everyone, is why the Tories won. They managed to convince economically illiterate people that the finances of a country are in any way similar to the finances of a household (even though the main reason to stay out of the Euro is to control their own money supply, i.e. print their own money when needed for their own economy!)

And how convenient that the solution to this problem just happens to be what the Tories like to do whenever they get in government anyway, which is to cut public services to fund tax cuts for the rich and corporations, and sell off public assets to their rich friends. Except that they were proven so wrong in the first few years of their government, when the economy flatlined, that even they had to concede defeat and put down the knife to help the economic recovery.

I expect a similar thing (this) time. Loads of "necessary" cuts in the first few years, followed by enough government investment to create an upturn in the economy just before the next election, confirming that the cuts were indeed necessary and we're now seeing the fruits of their tough decisions.

It was utter bullshit this time, and it'll be utter bullshit next time. Oh shit, we really need to reduce the debt in this time of historically low interest rates. The government are like someone who sells their house to pay of a debt to the Student Loan Company rather than just waiting until they earn enough money.

I'm with I'm with Stupid!

This is the time to be refinancing the country by floating more long term debt, retiring older more expensive debt, and fixing basic infrastructure on the cheap (cheap money, cheap labor, and cheap and easy politics!). In a global environment, this will not have the usual negative effect of driving inflation, as DEflation is the more pressing global concern.

Two great posts.

I've not yet heard a good explanation of how taking money out of the economy is going to stimulate growth and create a surplus. It didn't work in 2010-2012, as Britain found out. It killed growth in the economy and caused the doule dip. The risk is that this will happen again, especially with the added uncertainty of the EU referendum. Inward investment is going to dry up over the next two years. There is surplus capacity in almost all of Europe and there are Governments who are prepared to invest in infrastructure to support business. These destinations will look more and more attractive to external (to the EU) businesses.

A former Social Democrat leader in Sweden (Juholt) asked an interesting question: How could the economies in the 1900-20s afford to build such large scale public infrastructure but we can't today when the ecomomy was so much smaller then and so much poorer.

Economics has undergone a huge reformation over recent years. It has become a genuine science, able to use mega data analysis and huge computing power to see what has actually happened in economies, rahter relying on the postulations from "gurus" that have no base in fact. Economics has changed from alchemy to chemistry, from astrology to anstronomy, and the message is clear - economic equality with small differences in the wealth gap promote and protect growth, inequality and increasing wealth differences stifle growth and cause collapse. This is why the Tories have only ever been able to offer boom-and-bust.

"Austerity", and the non-sensical comparisons to running a small business or household economics, are simply an excuse for cuts in the public sector and increase the flow of money via the trickle-up effect.[/quot

Many serious economists are starting to come to the same conclusion but...... It didn't appear any of the main four "British" parties really offered an alternative view or attempted to sell an alternative view. It is also relative they don't argue you spend wildly just that too much austerity is counter productive.

I don't think the Tories have been that austere I think they have talked it up a lot more than actually doing it for the last 3 years , that said despite supposedly being "red" labour didn't offer much of an alternative.

 

[malg]

So what do people think won it for the Tories?

To me, I think it was fear of the SNP having any say in how England was governed, like it or loath it Labour released a nationalist demon when they gave the Scottish devolution, now the genie is out of the bottle, to be fair thought the Tories played a blinder with it as well and milked it for all it was worth.

On the economics front, of course we are in a period of economic growth (albeit starting from a low point) but neither parties figures actually added up, and the Tories never really answered where the 12 billion was going to come from, I am not sure it would have played well on the doorstep if they had been honest, or one can hope that it is something they will try and forgot and try and make up the shortfall with increased tax revenues from growth, we can hope because the prospect is worrying

This, all day long. Blair had absolutely no fucking idea what he was doing. I have lived in England all my adult life (born in Govan) but also done 25 years in the Army. During that time I served 8 years with a Jock regiment. The minute I heard he was granting devolution I said it would end with Scotland voting SNP. Everyone in my extended family vote Left, and in my 8 years with 4RTR I never met a single jock who would vote Conservative - it was a swear word with the them. They're a beligerant lot, and I think the vast majority are born with a socialist political stance (I have never voted Labour, but I agree strongly with the social justice side of their platform, I just don't agree with them on a lot of other stuff). My mum to this day still blames Thatcher, and says it is down to her that Scotland voted SNP (bringing the Poll Tax in a year earlier, taking all the industry away from Scotland) - she genuinely believes it and won't shift on it - and she's quite moderate where politics are concerned!

With a majority government Dave needs to stand strong and say fuck off to more power. I'm not sure they will then turn to Labour at the next election, but Dave's strategists might think differently. It's hard to see where Labour will find a lot of seats to govern again if they can't win in Scotland, but they'll have to shift to the centre to get more votes in England, and the SNP will just paint them as another Conservative party.

Blair done this, and he needs a good scheme booting for it as well...!

 

[whp.blue]

For someone to get ahead, someone else has to fall behind. That is what your great capitalism is based on. Still, as long as it's the lovely Scots getting shafted then who cares.

The fuck are you on with your bleeding heart?

So at the minute it's the English being shafted and that's fine eh?

The scots want financial autonomy. Cameron looks set to give it them. They will be able to set and raise their own taxes as they wanted.

Everyone's a winner.

Including you, as it will give you something else to handwring and moan about no doubt.

*sigh*

I don't see 'English' or 'Scot' or any of that shite, just people.

You play your game I'll play mine.

That only works in lala world with no borders. In the real world with lines on maps where rules laws and taxation is different on either side semantics don't matter people are different and are treated differently

 

[worsleyweb]

This talk of savage public sector cuts is dramatic at best. Of the 12 billion - 40 percent will come from tax evasion, significant amounts from housing benefit reform. How many under 25s do you know are able to buy a house? And yet the single mum from Rochdale can have 3 kids by 23 and get a 3 bedroom council house. That option in life has to be eradicated. It is unfair on working people for that type of thing to be happening. Working people have to make choices like living with parents until mid twenties, renting, house sharing, delaying having children and paying there way. We have to still somehow provide the safety net for genuine cases but the safety net is too full. Even if you do not like it - a lot of this is due to uncontrolled immigration and millions of people especially in London getting a ridiculous amount of"free money" I will happily debate this with Damocles, ducado, pb or anyone in a civil manner. I maintain my stance in my post the other day (where ducado called me idiotic) that the Labour Party now largely represent public sector workers, those on benefits, immigrants and people like my dad who is a dinosaur Union man. The plasterer, bricklayer, white collar man is best off voting Tory. In work yesterday the vast majority of professionals had voted Tory and we're of exactly the same opinion. In fact someone said these people on the extreme left who want doctors to earn the same as shelf stackers should be shot! ( I am not going that far!!!) My mrs in the public sector said very much the opposite and that the mood was down. This supports my opinion. There were literally thousanfs of people in the public sector who contributed nothing for years and years. Quite rightly they have been streamlined. At the peak of the recession they had the audacity to talk about strikes when they got offered a one percent pay rise. Meanwhile the bricklayer has seen his pay halfed in that time and that is even if he was in work.

This utter nonsense about stripping the public sector a la thatcher and having to spend more to rebuild it is quite simply that.

Harsh decisions have to be made to make people realise if you want to get on in this country you have to work hard. Cameron says it repeatedly and it seems fair to me.

Ps my kids came home last night and the ten year old had been told by her teacher that it was a sad day as cameron had got in and was going to close down the nhs!!!!

Looking forward to parents evening.

 

[True_Blue69]

This talk of savage public sector cuts is dramatic at best. Of the 12 billion - 40 percent will come from tax evasion, significant amounts from housing benefit reform. How many under 25s do you know are able to buy a house? And yet the single mum from Rochdale can have 3 kids by 23 and get a 3 bedroom council house. That option in life has to be eradicated. It is unfair on working people for that type of thing to be happening. Working people have to make choices like living with parents until mid twenties, renting, house sharing, delaying having children and paying there way. We have to still somehow provide the safety net for genuine cases but the safety net is too full. Even if you do not like it - a lot of this is due to uncontrolled immigration and millions of people especially in London getting a ridiculous amount of"free money" I will happily debate this with Damocles, ducado, pb or anyone in a civil manner. I maintain my stance in my post the other day (where ducado called me idiotic) that the Labour Party now largely represent public sector workers, those on benefits, immigrants and people like my dad who is a dinosaur Union man. The plasterer, bricklayer, white collar man is best off voting Tory. In work yesterday the vast majority of professionals had voted Tory and we're of exactly the same opinion. In fact someone said these people on the extreme left who want doctors to earn the same as shelf stackers should be shot! ( I am not going that far!!!) My mrs in the public sector said very much the opposite and that the mood was down. This supports my opinion. There were literally thousanfs of people in the public sector who contributed nothing for years and years. Quite rightly they have been streamlined. At the peak of the recession they had the audacity to talk about strikes when they got offered a one percent pay rise. Meanwhile the bricklayer has seen his pay halfed in that time and that is even if he was in work.

This utter nonsense about stripping the public sector a la thatcher and having to spend more to rebuild it is quite simply that.

Harsh decisions have to be made to make people realise if you want to get on in this country you have to work hard. Cameron says it repeatedly and it seems fair to me.

Ps my kids came home last night and the ten year old had been told by her teacher that it was a sad day as cameron had got in and was going to close down the nhs!!!!

Looking forward to parents evening.

I agree with this, but one thing I can't get my head around is what can be done about that 3 child single mother living in a free house on handouts? It's all good saying it, but how can that family's benefits be cut without forcing them onto the street?